The Most Beautiful Days || Childhood Days

Do you remember the times when your mom’s lap was the most comfortable mattress in the world and you loved sharing your “day events” with her explicating all details? Do you remember your first bicycle ride; recall how many times your body touched the ground but it seemed impossible for your feet to touch the same? Do you remember the times when your favourite teacher drew a smiley on your hand and you refused to wash your hands to make it stay longer? Do you recollect crying when you lost your favourite lunch box, pencil box or for your broken toys/crayons? Do you remember the times when cricket was called bat-ball, and power cuts were an insinuation to play hide-n-seek? Do you remember the days when you dozed off on sofa and magically woke up on bed? Do you think of the times when picking out colours seemed to be a difficult task as 24-shades colour set was not enough, or the times when drawing a scenery meant few brown coloured mountains along with a sun rising between them and a river flowing from between the mountains and a triangle-roofed-hut with a road coming straight from the front door? Do you remember the petty, rhyming fun filled jokes and poems, the times when your goals/Ambitions changed with each uniform in fancy dress competition? Do you retrieve the times when you eagerly waited for the summer vacations, planned to do something new like dancing, sketching and ended up sleeping the whole vacation? Remember the times when you liked colourful kites, colourful ribbons and colourful, glittery stickers? Do you remember flaunting the collections you made of tazos, tattoos, paper planes, dolls or all kind of free gifts you got? Do you commemorate your birthday celebrations, when cutting the cake was less important than opening the presents? Do you remember the days when watching Jerry shoot down Tom, Scooby doo solve a mystery, Uncle Scrooge carry out an adventure, Gummy Bears make new potions, Baloo pilot laughing made your day? Do you recollect the days when bathing in rains, playing in mud and making boats seemed the sole aim of the season? Do you remember when the bell rang after the last class and you fly like a bird freed from cage to get to your bicycle and go home, or the happy times when school was declared off due to a “rainy day” seemed like a dream come true? You remember staying in wet shoes, catching cold and then embracing the mix of bitter medicine along with sweet mother’s love? You remember falling in love with new toys especially the ones which were forbidden and later asking them as your birthday present felt like mission accomplished? Do you recall gloating each new silly tricks, games and pranks you learned? Do you remember your childhood dreams, day dreaming a bright future, a world full of creativity, fun where everyone is equally appreciated? Remember the days when you hated being kissed, or your cheeks being pulled hard or people calling you cute? You remember how a tiny butterfly or a colourful bird made you smile but a mighty cockroach/lizard scared the hell out of you?

And do you remember when you had the most beautiful days of your life and all you wanted was to “grow up” thinking elders enjoy more?

Being grown up isn’t as interesting as growing up is. This New Year make resolutions for growing up once again. Make time for parents, talk to them, love your friends, notice the nature, embrace failures and work harder, make time to set goals/dreams, observe your environment, there’s so much to learn, love yourself, you’re unique just like everyone else is, live in the present!

Revolution 2020 : Book Review

Note: Read the following article only if you have read the novel, else this might spoil your appetite

After reading the book “Revolution 2020” by Chetan Bhagat, the first thought that ran across my mind was whether Chetan Bhagat has turned into a Bollywood movies’ scriptwriter from a novelist. With 3-4 of Chetan’s books already turning into reels, one of them being a huge blockbuster who wouldn’t want to enter the most sought after industry namely, Bollywood. The story of this particular novel seems to be inspired from a number of movies, e.g Guru where press(newspapers) seemed to be the most important tool to showcase truth, and many other bolly-flicks where the hero/villain, a small town guy tries to make it big in small time to exert his power over his companion. The book has parts where the reader may hear “Gopal”, the protagonist vaguely saying “aaj mere paas gaadi h, bangla h, tere pass kya h?” to Raghav, who happens to be his cold-rivalry and Raghav seems  to be replying “mere paas “Press –Newspaper Revolution 2020” hai.”(Raghav is a journalist). The filmy touch is very evident. The author is very opportunistic in my opinion; he shrewdly takes up the burning topic of “Corruption” into account which has currently gained a lot of audience already, thanks to Anna Hazare. From the very inception, to the end he showed how easy life is if you know powerful people, how white envelopes under the table works, how “contacts” & “references” helps. Money speaks, big time. He also brings up issues like the “glitches” or let me rephrase it to the “blunders” in our education system. Indirectly he shows the growing competition, and how the ratio of students applying to institutes to the petite number of good institutes is preposterous. Very interestingly, amidst a love triangle Bhagat is able to squeeze in all the above sensational issues. Not only Bhagat did his homework by learning about Varanasi, the city where it all happened but he also inputs some realistic view of Kota, the pre-iit-city, where many dreams are converted to reality and some dreams shattered. Psychologically, after reading the book it seems the whole system in India needs a change let alone corruption. Coming to the characters, Gopal ; a poor fellow, a small town guy yet very ambitious, emotional person, true lover, adventurous , jealous, seems to be one-woman man, until the end twist. Raghav is work-alcoholic, passionate, and faithful and determined who is ready to follow his dreams. Aarti, on one hand is very loving, caring and understanding but on the other hand she seems to be a muddled person who sways between her two best friends. She proves (yet again) that a woman is the reason for initiating a fight between two best friends. The story revolves around Gopal’s struggles to make it big and get his girl back and is balanced between the good and the bad. Reader’s wonderment regarding the title “Revolution 2020” is maintained almost till the mid of the book. Although the end is workable but he could have changed the end; it was a bit abrupt and seemed coerced. It didn’t make sense how Raghav stood for elections as an MLA when he gave up his job in a reputed IT company just to work for his passion, journalism. I was expecting a more interesting end. The affair between Gopal and Aarti is kept a secret and Raghav never even suspects: Doesn’t fit to reality. The book is in similar tones to all Bhagat books, the language is dialed down and non-novel-readers are comfortably able to envisage the events. Overall I would say the book isn’t a must read like his first novel but yes, if you are Chetan Bhagat’s sincere fan you can take a shot, otherwise wait for the movie. ;)

The above is purely my thinking, perspectives may differ.

The Journey

Sometimes a simple dialogue like “Life is a race..  ” stands so true. But in this rat race people often miss the small things that teach us more valuable and important lessons. I’ll share one such anecdote. Recently I went to Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi for some work and I being totally jobless (I left the earphones at home!), started noticing the elements in my journey and to my surprise I learnt so much. First thing I noticed was how Life follows the “Murphy’s Law” at every step. I started late; hence I was rushing and waited for the auto which would take me to the nearest metro station. But as the law states, “the frequency of the availability of Autos at a particular time is inversely proportional to the exigency of your work” so, I had to wait for the auto for more than 20 minutes which otherwise comes at an interval of 3-4 minutes. Finally one auto showed up. But the Murphy ’s Law continued. Certain routes were diverted as some minister was scheduled to come through the same routes and the hoi polloi had to suffer for one man. Even the ambulances were not allowed. How lame.  A person sharing the auto yelled at the auto driver, “Drive faster, I’m already late”; the person sitting next to him starts supporting him, abusing and calling the ministers the “good- for-nothing” people. Within seconds discussions started and extended to the passing of the Jan Lokpal bill. Heights of Digression! The driver replied politely, “sahab, you should have started early, this happens. At least the roads are now cleaned and stitched (with tar coal) just because he’s (the minister) visiting the city “. I learnt how positive and phlegmatic some people are, and how some people are always backing up causes, whether it matters to them or not. Soon after travelling along the circumference (an extra 6-7km) instead of the diametric path, we reached the destination, but the driver charged the same amount as he was otherwise supposed to. The riled up customers now smiled. I learnt how Money Matters! The driver smiled back. I paid and rushed to board the train. The train showed up 5 minutes late due to some technical glitch. As soon as the train arrived and the gates opened, the jostling crowd rushed for a seat pushing and elbowing anyone who came in their way. I too caught in the mob rushed and grabbed a seat. Just when the doors were about to shut I saw a diffident girl drag her torn slipper and get inside the train just seconds before the doors collided. Her sister and mother got in before her. The sisters looked alike, twins probably. The other sister was pulling her leg as she tried her best to fix the slipper. The mother gently scolded the one who was deriding and selflessly gave away her sandals to her daughter and took the torn ones in her hand and stayed bare-foot. Mothers are the real beauty, I learned. The girl was embarrassed but wore her mother’s sandal along with a sheepish smile. All this time, the train moved at snail’s pace, all hail Murphy! Finally, my stop came, I ran towards the escalators, and a thought floated in my head that how our life is similar to the escalators, we are born, we grow up and die just to be born again. Eventually I got late for my work but I was happy I noticed the worth-noticing life. Life is beautifully strange, Carpe diem!!