The Year That Was

2011 proved to be a big step ahead in my life. A lot changed in this year.

Education status : I finally achieved my long cherished dream of MBA. The last paper of MBA (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.com/2011/03/dreams.html) and convocation date (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.com/2011/03/dreams.html)   easily stand out as my highlights of last year.  It doesn’t matter if I could not do MBA from an IIM , it doesn’t matter if I am not working for Big 4 right now , am an MBA and am extremely happy about it. And yeah the plans of doing an exec-MBA and working for Big 4 are definitely ON for future. J

Employment status :  After the famous of Infosys debacle (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.com/2011/04/those-sunny-days.html), I admit I was damn scared to join an organization again. Luckily, things have worked out well this time around and am enjoying being happily employed. J

Relationship status : From committed -> its complicated -> sad single -> happy single , my goodness I saw it all in one year. But thankfully the chain ended at happy single . J  One of the best thing to happen in 2011 was that finally I got to put the PAST to the place where it belongs “ in Past” .

Change of City:  Sadly for work, I had to leave my Delhi. (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.com/2011/05/its-idli-dosa-time-again.html) It would have been perfect if I was working in Delhi. However, I guess if everything gets perfect then its not life. Living away from family and friends is not easy and there are moments when it hurts a lot. Sometimes it gets too much like on a Friday evening you wish to go out for a dinner but you cant find anyone to go out with. There are moments when I feel lonely but then a good office life offsets it to a limit.

From a Reader to a Blogger :  I must have read over thousand blogs in last 2-3 years . I enjoyed reading blogs a lot and used to think that blogging is something out of my league as all the blogs that I read were written in a very professional way. But then I read one blog with which I felt connected immediately, in some posts I felt as if they had been written by me. It was a very simple blog, no use of fancy English words and had real thoughts  about life of a normal human being. It made me change my perception about blogging and made me write about the Real me. J

Bye bye to some, hello to some:  I think its part of life now. You make new friends and have to part away with some close friends. 2011 was no exception. Due to some issues, had to part away with couple of my closest friends. Luckily made some more new good friends. I do miss them but then the little ego rules me and I can’t help it. J

Overall  thank you 2011 for giving direction to my life. J

Ankahee Kahani

A poem written on July 19th 2011 (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.com/2011/07/phir-teri-kahani-yaad-aayi.html ) luckily gets more lines added by a good friend thus transforming a normal poem to a beautiful poem. :)

Ek dheemi si aahat hui

To tu yaad aayi

Hawa se baate hui

To tu yaad ayi

Jab poocha kisi ne pyaar ke baare mein

To tu yaad aayi

Jab dilaya dilasa kisi ne is dil ko

To tu yaaad ayi

Guzraa jab uss raaste se

To tu yaad aayi

Kadmon ke nishaan dekhe jo kisi ke

To tu yaad ayi

Aankhen ki jab band

To tu yaad aayi

Kisi ko dekhne ka hua jab man

To tu yaad ayi

Jab bhi Khushi hui

To tu yaad aayi

Gamo ne jab dil pe dastak di

To tu yaad ayi

Jab bhi roya main

To tu yaad aayi

Is dil ki har chaahat pe

Maine teri muskurahat judi paayi

Dhadka ye aaj dil

Phir teri kahani yaad aayi

Ek din teri Raahon mein

Dil to hamesha se hi dhadakta tha,

Par dhakdan sunna sikhaya tere ehsaas ne.

Sunta tha hazaron kisse mohabbat ke ,

Par mera kissa banaya tere pyaar ne.

Dekhta tha jaate hue musafir Manzil ki raah mein,

Par unhi anjaan raasto par chalna sikhaya teri talaash mein.

Dekhta tha pehle bhi taare aasman mein,

Par unko raat bhar ginkar jagvaya tere intezaar ne.

Dekhta tha main logon ko doobte pyaar mein,

Par mujhko tairna sikhaya tere vaapas aane ki ek ummed ne.

Padta tha main bahut kavitayein aashiquon ki,

Par mujhko kavi banaya teri bevafayein ne.

-          Rauuullll

Started on 26^th Dec 2008, finished on 26^th Dec 2011

Out of the comfort zone

I was rated as one of the best bowlers in my society when I was 11 years old. I always got an opportunity to play with the senior team in my society and the junior team (the age group I belonged), was doing really well in sports that point of time. However, I was always scared to take the responsibility. If the opposition needed 6 runs in the final over, you could find me slowly moving towards the boundary so that the captain don’t notice me and ask me to bowl. I was happy in my comfort zone and was scared to let the team down in case I don’t bowl well in the last over. Things changed when I got a shake up and was no longer the main bowler for the team, I started taking responsibility to win matches for the team and again became the main bowler. It needed an external factor to get me out of my comfort zone.

I admit, I was damn scared to go to Infosys. Living out of home for the first time in my life. I tried real hard to get a job in Delhi/NCR , got couple of offers but those I was sure were not best for my career. The only reason I gathered courage to go to Mysore was because my best friend was there and secondly everything was perfect in my life and I knew there was no chance things would screw up. Eventually it all turned out to be wrong but then again it needed external factors to get me out of my comfort zone.

Have you seen the Big bang theory? There is a character by name “Rajesh Koothrappali” in it. This guy can talk to girls only when he is drunk. Rest all of the time if a girl is near him, he stays quiet. Believe me , I was like that. I was damn scared to talk to girls. I always dreamt of being with a girl , had thought of couple of girls in school I would love to go out with but never gathered enough courage to talk to them. As always it needed an external factor to help me get out of this mess. It needed a girl like her who would take all the steps towards the guy.

One thing that I learned from all these is that we have the potential/courage/ability to face the situation but we keep on waiting for something external to happen for us to actually take the life forward. We are so happy in our comfort zone that we try to remain in it for as long as possible.

If you are unhappy with your organization , start to think that you are unemployed , then only you will put in the best effort to get another job. If you love someone don’t wait for her to come to you, think she is about to get married in a month and it’s now or never. You are scared to do a kind of job in office , don’t wait for someone to force you to do it, practice it by putting in extra hours in office before that situation comes.

Living in comfort zone is like fooling yourself, get out of it , don’t wait for someone to push you out.

P.S. Merry Christmas J

Someday Someway

I have heard it many times from different people, “ Rauuullll you should not have done that , its not good to be bad to people.” They told me three steps if someone do wrong to you: forgive them, move on and forget what happened. However am not still not convinced about it.

Forgive others :  I agree, forgiveness is a great human deed but for that the other person should atleast apologize. I am not a saint to forgive someone just like that. If there is god and he is watching everything he should know that XYZ has been wrong to me and I cant forgive him and I deserve to see someone doing exactly the same wrong thing with XYZ . Oh yeah only then I can forgive him.

Move on : Aah sounds so simple.  How can I ? What will I answer to the person I see in mirror everyday. Will I say that “ Oh yeah someone played with my life , it still affects me day in and day out but am trying to move on “ . Common , that is not Rauuullll.

Forget what happened : My brain is not a hard drive that I can erase the memories. Add to it its in my genes to remember things with accuracy to the date. I cant help it.

I don’t believe in the philosophy of being good to everyone. I believe be good to good people and then good will happen to you. I have been bad to people in the past , and I want to be bad to a few people in future for sure.  I don’t have any feeling of guilt in saying that am just waiting for a day when their time will be up and my time will start.

Give me a break.Am a normal human being, not a Jesus Christ. So I should behave like a normal human being and that for me means to slap the other person harder in reply to a slap.And am sure the day some normal human being  plays with the life of these so called saints on earth , they will also turn into normal human beings. Till then stay away from me.

World Spins Madly On

“Woke up and wished that I was dead
  With an aching in my head
  I lay motionless in bed
  I thought of you and where you’d gone
 And let the world spin madly on”

There are days in life when you just wake up and your mind is already preoccupied with the thought, “What the hell is going on in life”. A clear sign that its going to be a pathetic day. Most of the times the worst fears turn out to be true. It indeed ends up as a bad day.

You go to sleep with a hope that its not the start of a vicious circle, where you have nightmares about all the bad happenings in the day/week and again wake up next day with the same thought. You talk about it with friends and more often that not get to hear a solution which is as difficult to implement as it sounds simple, “ Forget it , it was just a bad day, don’t think about it”.

Another bad day, another bad sleep full of nightmares, no concentration at work, mind preoccupied, clear signs of things not going right. However, still only one solution, “Forget it, things will eventually get right”.

Sometimes we are left with no other option than to ‘Forget it’. When something is not under control, there is nothing we can do about it , then the only option is to ‘forget it’.

Why I wrote this post? ‘Forget it’.

P.S. Mood : Angry , distraught , frustrated .

Aur main...sirf main

Pighle neelam sa behta ye sama,
neeli neeli si khamoshiyan,
na kahin hai zameen na kahin aasmaan,
sarsaraati hui tehniyaan pattiyaan,
keh raheen hai bas ek tum ho yahan,
bas main hoon,
meri saansein hain aur meri dhadkanein,
aisi gehraiyaan, aisi tanhaiyaan,
aur main… sirf main.
Apne hone par mujhko yakeen aa gaya.

This shayari comes after the trio’s deep-sea dive in Zindagi na Milegi Dobara. The environment around gets better of them and they spend some moments where everyone is quiet and in a deep thought.

These kinds of moments happen when you are at a beautiful place, secluded from the fast, crazy noisy world. I remember it happening when I did a moonlight trek to Skandgiri from Bangalore in 2009. I was freezing sitting there at around 4 am but still the moment got better of me and had an amazing time with myself thinking about life even though there were around 30-40 more people at the top. I felt peaceful.

One thing that is good about Chennai that we Delhites miss in North is the Beaches. There are beaches in the city, though very crowded most of the times. However, if you drive 50 kms out of the city, you will get to see beautiful beaches, clear water, and not much crowd, in short very peaceful.

And believe me if someone like me whose mind is not able to concentrate on one thing for long can find peace sitting at these beaches , then am sure you all will enjoy these kind of places to max.

P.S. I had an amazing birthday in Kolkata with school friends. Thanks a lot for the birthday wishes. Feels blessed to have you all in my life.