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...