What is the first thing of your existence that you remember??? Has this question occurred to you? I have no qualms in boasting the philosophical breakthrough myself but I know there are many cynics in the world. It was one of those dreaded 'free' weekends when I was made to remember a few incidents of my distant and muddled past. I recalled going to my first school and being excited about it. I can’t help but marvel at the excitement pas raison. I was hardly a soul with 'senses'. Guess that does explain the excitement. I remember to have participated in a race in my school which my mum now claims never happened. Was I schizophrenic? I remember Ma leaving me in a photo shop after having a photo done with me. It sounds dramatic, but Ma was in the next shop buying grocery then. In my next school, the only day I recall is a day when I went to school with no books and just a pencil box because someone told me there was an exam on that day. It would have been my first exam. H...

I feel terrible now having realized how wrong I was in introducing this new blog series. Friends (other than the ones I had written about) advised me against it. And, although, these could be entertaining 'pieces', my motivations seem haywire to me. So, without further discussion, I am putting an end to this series. I'll be back to my usual self. Don't know why I started thinking about the readers' entertainment so much?

I realize that my obsession with 'me' should end and I should concentrate more on others on my blog. Not only does it end the excruciating introspection, it also gives me a few days off the hardcore self-criticism and allows to indulge in some carelessness,some foolishness and adventure. For the next days, I will be writing about my friends and those who come close to being friends. These pieces would not necessarily comprise of endearing words. Looking forward to it…

FRIENDS & FOES!!! I need a new name. No....I am not another Gogol in the making (those who have read or seen Namesake would be familiar with the character). I love my name and I love my parents for having dropped 'Dipak' and 'Prasanjit' from the available choices when they were selecting a name for me. This urge to be named again has arisen out of a million reasons. One of the reasons is the absolute inability of people to pronounce my name. The toughest part for me, however, is to see people try...and thus ...distorting any aesthetic meaning my names conveys. Mineral, Meenal, Meernaal, MNL, Mrrrl are the common ones to which I have got so used to, that I may not respond or react if someone actually calls out my name with the correct pronunciation. The newest reason for my renewed desperation to get a 'user friendly' pet name that speakers of languages other than hindi find it very difficult to pronounce the letter 'ण'. SO....Name me please... Sugges...

I often wonder about the source that motivates my aimless wandering. Having arrived at multiple answers where deduction does not hold true, I get compelled to succumb to a million other thoughts which crave for my attention. But during a rare prolonged free time, I do answer my own question, though not in exact terms. Why do I call myself a wanderer? And, what is it of stagnation that apprehends me? A couple of years ago, Dhanbad was my whole world. However, I was always convinced that moving to another city was inevitable. It seems too recent to be nostalgic about that gang of jobless friends, the big house with a rickety look, annoying relatives. I find the idea of living in a small town not inferior but convenient. If I chose to be at Dhanbad, I could have become a lot more than what I am now. The reputation of ancestral goodwill and the profession of law could have sailed me beyond every inch of uncertainty and misery that comprises my life now. Yet for reasons very typical of any ...

The restlessness is seeping in. Chances of my committing acts of flamboyance or adventure have become imminent. But on the crossroads, I still stand aghast by the threat of adverse consequences. However, it is certain that the prevalent eagerness will overwhelm any other emotion soon, given the rate at which it is intensifying. I ask myself - what has changed? And a silence follows. A little while later, I answer, probably in order to justify the silence. It’s my age. I already feel guilty for not exploring a lot of options in my early life. And if I miss out on the 20s, I might end up being more repentant. Am I, by writing this, trying to vent some of the trauma this impatience has caused me? May be, but this will not help me escape the growing urge to insanity. Sometimes, I feel of letting myself loose and as they say, “go with the flow”. But, I can’t resist confronting questions like – What if this actually ends up making me more miserable? Anyway, the unpredictability seems to be ...

"Hi!!! Do you work in Ernst & Young? I think I have seen you in my office premises." I could not believe that I used the same line which has been heard and out rightly rejected a billion times. But I had said this with an innocence that could even melt Genghis Khan’s heart. "I am afraid I don't. I think you are mistaken." She said with an earnest smile. My perception of going spontaneous had obviously backfired. But I actually did remember her face. I had seen her wandering around in our office premises. But there was no use anyway since she had shown me the indifference evidently. "Oh wait a minute" She said. "You must have seen me in the RMZ campus. I work at the Reuters." Now this could well have been an opportunity given to me to rectify the grave sin of uttering the first couple of sentences I spoke to her. "Oh that’s great. I have a lot of friends there." I was desperate and saying things that, given some time to homework...

I am elated. This excitement has certainly eluded me for some time. I am going to a temple tomorrow. The last time I found myself kneeling in front of an idol in a temple was on the first day of my 12th board examinations. The excitement does not emerge from any sudden awakened spirituality within me. On the contrary, it reflects my adventurous inclination towards the atheist culture. I have never been ‘spiritual’ as followers of most religions define it. But I have always been compliant to the family customs which warranted reasonable admiration towards faith and religion. Although all of my family members are strong believers of faith and religion, I find myself very neutral in these areas. I don’t recall myself ever praying to god thanking him/her of whatever he/she has given me in life. Till the time I was with family and participated in the festivals, I always prayed for ‘more’, when I was asked to pray. When my family members went abroad for work, they advised me lit incense sti...

And so… I moved for the kill. I was too nervous to be able to perform on the task at hand. Not because I had been out of touch for quite a while but because I thought the task was totally out of my league. I was put to this test because of an idea actually conceived by me which boomeranged into my face. I was with my friends in one of those boring and ‘broke’ weekends. Out of sheer boredom and also to steer away our attention from our misery, I came up with the concept of playing a ‘dare’ game. It was a simple ‘spin the bottle’ game. The only difference was that the person who performed the task could be asked to do one thing in the coming one full week. It could be anything, but something illegal. If the dare is not performed by anyone, they would have to treat all the friends (and their girlfriends) with an amount equalling half of one’s monthly salary. Everyone seems to have readily agreed with the game. I was happy too. I could be at my mischievous best when I had to put someone t...

Having woken up at four in the morning, I am seeking ideas to start the day on a good note, but none comes to the mind. Strangely enough, I am not in a mood to prolong the eight hours sleep I have had already. Very unlike me. But the question remains – What should I do? Watching the T.V is most often the answer. However, I feel I already have over exhausted this idea in the last few days. Besides, there isn’t anything specific that I'd like to watch anyway. And still, I spent the four days long weekend doing nothing but being a couch potato, watching nothing specific almost every time I found myself in front of the idiot box. My solitude is generally driven by feelings like regret and introspection. Starting from school days till the working life now, the feelings haunt me, mock at me, show me how life could have been better, if I did things I didn't do and didn't do things I did. I wonder if studying a bit more, proposing that girl I adored in school, pursuing a career in ...

Appreciation without any obvious motive bothers me. It may be because I believe that motivated admiration of someone can be detected and ignored, but when an individual sees no potent reason of being praised, he starts becoming a prey. I am not a usual prey. This is partly because I have not given enough opportunities to people to praise me for something. I also give some credit to myself for not being unreasonably exposed to flattery. Recently, I had an experience which left me wondering about my abilities to neglect sweet talk. One of my friends whom I have known for three or four years called me. He is still studying and seeks advice on career and other 'significant' aspects of life, which also includes the BIG decision of when he should lose his virginity. Every time he calls me, he seeks suggestions on something or the other. However, he does not act on any of my suggestions. That does not annoy me. In fact, it relieves me off the liability of having to face any problems i...

It will be labelled as selfish to be expecting one’s friends to return one’s favours. But do we actually live in a self less world? Do we not expect our friends to help us especially when they are capable of doing so? Should we really be called self-seeking if we want to believe that our friends will support us in times of distress? ‘I’ll be there for you’. Does that not sound divine? We say we make friends. We choose, from the meaningless crowd, and we see meaning in just one. But do we actually pick friends? Not always. In fact, we do not choose friends in most cases. Circumstances compel our social instincts to act and we rush to find someone whose wavelength matches ours. But I have a feeling that it is not a friend that we find in the process, but a mutual complier. I have many friends. Although I do not assert on it but many of them claim that we are the best of friends. Whenever there is a need, I help them in my modest capacity and they always reciprocate with zest. But these ...

We all wonder sometimes about the current state of our minds. How is it that I am so sad in spite of things going the way they were when I was happy? Are my hormones showing hyperactivity or is it something else? Why am I so ecstatic? I do not take any drug apart from the usual nicotine in the bed tea. Am I in love? It is when we rule out all these possibilities; we cease to think about it any further. Since I am not a worthwhile thinker, I continue with these swings of my grey cells. Mother says, "It’s the food you are consuming". Could be a reason, but, she has a philosophy for everything with which I do not concur almost every time. When I was a teenager, I used to feel the same way. In fact these feelings were stronger then. But I was told that these are traits of the teenager. But, teen age is long gone… stone age. These days I think its one of those good times when I sense happiness for no possible explanation. I think this has a lot to do with how one wants to feel whe...

I have always wanted to start my blog with something very positive and inspiring. However, my creativity, so far, has not shown the promise of producing anything other than random word rhyming and school essays. So, for obvious reasons, I thought of starting it with something original and creative. 'Inspiration' seems to be an apt choice to me. I have been inspired umpteenth times and from so many, that to me, the word inspiration does not sound as charming as it should any more. At least it did not till yesterday. While I was surfing through channels yesterday, my remote got stuck on one channel. Worst case scenario – the channel was BBC World. At least its better than Star Plus or Zee , I thought. I hate these channels. Not that I do not hate channels like BBC or CNN. On of the reasons is the fact that I always want to see India in the news, which does not happen too often. And when it does, they show all unamusing places in India, that you and I do not get to see in India. ...