Tweet Poem #1

You are 80's convertible.

Family is ur engine.

Friends are your wheels.

What u need is The key!
Image © Priyadarshi 2010

She came, she saw, she conquered

I am an idealist. I always want an ideal life. It does not mean that I want to become the richest person. I like to have a perfect family where every member is happy with each other. I want my friends to be loyal with me, they should belief in me and themselves .  When I have girlfriend, I wish my date must be extraordinary. I wish to go out to city centre on Valentine's Day with her. Just imagine talking to her on the pavement enjoying the band playing there, having dinner at Pizza Hut where all eyes on us as we are the best couple, the manager of the restaurant taking care for us with smile as if we are his regular customer, dream to all the singles, envy to all couples staring at us. In the night going for party to night clubs having special pass for couples only. The same bouncer, who stared at me with disapproval when I am single, is welcoming us to the party as we are the star of the night.

Why am I telling you all these dreams? Sometimes you have the same feelings. No, I am not going to continue with my imagination and let you think about my impractical dream. Let me tell you about my date with Piya. You are all inquisitive minds will be thinking how Ankit can, a shy guy who cannot even stare into eyes of a girl even dare to date a girl? On the first place you will be thinking how I could find out this girl?

It was late October last year. We, gang of five buddies were returning from Yamuna Bank in  Delhi Metro after a regular weekend stroll in City Walk Mall. It was late evening, all were tired up. At Rajendranagar, a girl sat on my right side. In these situations your telepathy became strong. You could hear your friend's telling you loud enough "Hey Dude, It's your Lucky day, you have hottie near you." I tried to see her face, hardly saw it. Locks of hair covered her face. I had never trusted my friends' eyes. I could see that she was carrying a black handbag and my favorite book "The Fountainhead". As train moved on she started reading the book, and my friends became drowsy and slept. It was the moment I wanted to trust eyes of my friends and somehow to contact her. I took out my mobile carefully and flashed my own number several times. All in vain; she was engrossed in the book. I was getting impatient, even cursed the book. We reached our destination. I was disappointed. At my room I saw a miss call. I was excited. What made her to call me? Probably she saw me giving a peacock feather to a poor child while coming down the train. It was not important then.

Being a shy guy I had never courage to call her back. SMS after SMS proceeded by chat sessions. Online chatting is boon for a guy like me. I could show that I was smart and intelligent. I tried winning her confidence. I was quite naïve in this whole chatting. Sometimes I expressed my emotions too much. This was my turnoff. That's why I took three months to ask her for a date. She agreed but insisted that it will be short one and she did not felt comfortable in the city. I felt dishearten wanted to go all the places in City Walk as I had thought in my dream. But the flip side was I had a date. She had earlier told me she liked to visit a village fare. I told her about an ongoing village annual fare near our campus. Date and time was fixed.

It was long wait in winter evening. I had put my best dress and had reached the bus stop an hour before the scheduled time. She was dressed in pink salwar suit. It was for the first time that I saw her. She had the face I had imagined. Lock of hair was playing on her cheek; her ears having those pretty earrings adored her. Her dimple and look of the eyes mesmerized me.

"Hi Ankit, seems that you are waiting from long time."

She told me before I could have asked her anything.

What could had I told her? I was engrossed in seeing her lips moving? I gave her a smile in return. I never had courage to talk to any girl. How could I continue our conversation? As we were moving towards the fare venue with sudden rush of blood in vein I asked her.

"Last time you told me that you were about to finish reading the Fountainhead. Have you finished reading it?"

"Yes."

"You took long time to read it."

"I am slow reader." she replied meekly.

"I finished reading it in a week. It is a great novel, my favorite. I liked Howard Roark character. I want to be as ideal as him." I was proud as if reading novel was very easy job for me and I had completed reading a lot of books.

She giggled. We entered the fare. It was small village fare where few stall of pheriwallahs flocked by villagers, few stalls of local entertainment items like shooting, some selling local handicrafts, bangles and had a merry go round. It was a total chaos. Shopkeepers were shouting, mother was beating her crying child, a loudspeaker announcing about the dance program in the evening. I could not look around, I did not want her to feel that I was ignoring her. It will be the last thing. She pointed me to Golgappawallah. Golgappas were spicy. She hardly ate three. I was trying to be cool, ate twelve. It was enough for me. Tears started to roll from my eyes. I bought two cans of soft drink. She insisted that she did not drink soft drink.

As we approached near to the stall where you have to shoot balloons to win a prize, I stopped. In my childhood, my father had a gun which was used to target birds. I had learnt how to target. The shopkeeper told me I had five trials to shoot and target was the innermost layer of the balloon. Prize was an adorable Doll. It was again the time for me to impress her. I failed in the first three trials. At this moment I realized that the doll was my Olympic Gold medal and I had only two chances to grab it. Pressure was mounting on me. I missed the inner layer by a whisker. Olympic medal was eluding me. This was my last chance. Focus! Oh! No; I missed it again. I felt sympathetic to fellow Indian athletes who never won Olympic medal. She told me we should move out she was not feeling comfortable.

As we moved out the fare I started the conversation again. Basically I was the one who was talking and talking. She was regularly nudging in approval. She was showing keen interest in my rubbish talk. I tried to flatter her with all my achievements. We had moved outskirts in the village. We decided to return. This time we were both quite; feeling the cold of the harsh winter evening. She would seldom tell about her family and the things she wanted to do.

As we approached the fare ground again, she told it was time she should return. I wanted to spare more moment, I loved every second I was with her. I insisted for a ride on merry go around. She approved. As we approached back to the merry go round I glimpsed the doll again and felt the guilt of losing it. I had fear from height but I was excited to be with her. Old memories flashed. I had feared from height when I had climbed a hill in Mahabaleshwar and another time on the edge of Lion's point at Khandala. As the wheel started to move I felt nibble.

"Piya!, I fear from height." I told her.

She touched my hand, pressed softly to soothe me.

"You are an idiot." She started to tell me.

"If you feared from height you should have told me. you are behaving foolishly of late. "
"I know why you eagerly wanted to win that doll? "

"Someone has rightly told you come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. "

"If you try to find out perfect match for yourself in world you have to wait forever. People often fell in love with other. They see in other what they do not have. Opposite poles of the magnet attract each other. "

"I do not want my partner to be a perfect one. I even do not want him to be intelligent and smart. What I want is that he must understand my feelings. Be my pillar of support whenever required. Never leave me lonely when I need the most. "

"Yes, I like you." I could feel the sea of silence beneath me. My feet and hands were feeling the cold.

"I like you not because you are intelligent or smart. I like you as you are the one who believes in me. I have been in relationship with other boys in the past. It is not that they were not smart. They were always showing their strengths and never talked their heart out."

"Sometimes I do not like your emotional talk. But when I think about them later, I feel that you reach out at my heart. You compel me to tell about myself. "

Her eyes were straight into mine. They were telling  "I do not want you to be an ideal one. I love you as you are. " I could feel the warmth of her hand and her breath.

How could I change myself? The whole life I tried to be ideal one- ideal son, ideal brother, ideal friend, ideal student and even ideal boyfriend. This girl in few moments has shattered all my narow minded thinking. It was as if I was living in glass house and someone had thrown stone on it. I was living in a fool's paradise.

At this moment we were at the top of the circle and there was a power cut. The moonlight crescended her beautiful face. The cool breathe coming out was mystifying the whole atmosphere.We were completely lost deep inside each others eyes. All the hands of the clock had momenterally stopped. These feelings were the most beautiful things which could be only felt by the heart.

I did not realize when the power came back and we had come down. I was totally enervate and all my memory cells were dried up.

When my senses returned her bus had already moved far away from me. I did not realize until then that I loved her too.

Deciphering the Sound (Part I)

Last day Nishant (my rommie) told me "You have good taste in music, you can find out which song is good quickly." I blushed at this compliment. Well at this moment let me tell you my true story.

I had a bad taste in music during my school days. In Vidyalaya you had to learn singing or playing tabla. In other words you can tell they were credit courses. I had never sung and had bad memory for learning the songs. I had tried my talent while singing in Prayer hall (which we used to have every morning and evening) and quite often I would find myself out of phase to rest of the band. In one Saraswati Puja (in seventh standard) break when all the talented singers had gone home and we few outsiders had no choice but to stay back, I had shown courage. I had seen my friends playing harmonium and I had remembered how they stroked his fingers on harmonia in playing mantras. I took down the harmonium, and played the mantra. After the prayers was over I found out all my friends were laughing and they told me my hands motion was good but my singing was really out of tune. I was not giving nodes. I had sung the whole mantra in one breath. Silly! Billy!

So I had taken Tabla in my course work. My friends who had some idea playing Tabla earlier on were comfortable. I tried a lot, perhaps never from my heart to learn Tabla and was never able to play it well. My way of playing Tabla was always out of context. In first few months teachers were helpful. But after most of the classes I used to get scoldings and my ears would turn red. Sometimes when we had blind teacher teaching us, some of us tried to cheat also. I used to pass their tests anyhow telling that next year I would try to perform better. I had have to suffer for 3 years and still I was a novice. They used tell me learn then and when you ouldbe grown up, you would try to relax, ease out your tensions, enjoy playing Tabla. Now I feel I was fool and how true they were.

I had distaste of music in my childhood. I agree that in my school days I thought music as the items which killed time.

Now when you are in college, you come across different people having different taste of music. You can search and play your any music on YouTube. You can download all the Bollywood songs and rock bands albums (even the discographies). You can hear music every time, sometime soft and sometime loud, you love it or hate it. Sometimes I play music in room loudly, probably telling my roomies this nice song we should all hear it. :P. I find the world of music quite soothing in this fast college life where you are in race. You will think that you are lagging behind, no one is following you, conspiring against you, all Profs. are disapproving you in all matters, too much tension during exam time, whole world is going against you. It is music which soothes you and rejuvenates you. I have another bad logic to listen logic. If you want to relax why not watch a movie. Again, movies are long and you do not much time. It's like quick soup to quench your sudden rush of adrenaline. Still I do not much understand the rhythm and unable to remember all the songs. Now I love to share music and much passionate to hear fine tunes striking your ear and taking you completely in new world. I often like to hear one particular band at a time. But as time goes by I get bored and switch to other, I find out new one and then I like it too. I often wonder can any song thrill me more this current one, but I find out another song which as melodious as the before .

Let me share with you names my current favorite bands (I love some Bollywood numbers too. But here I am enlisting only foreign bands. This is good for me as after some time I can just see how my taste of music changes. This does not mean that I like all their songs. But it's good you should try to hear all albums at once to have a feel. Based on the no. of songs * no. of times I have played from their album in last 6 months.)

1. Roxette
   
2. Bryan adams
   
3. Pink Floyd
   
4. Coldplay
   
5. The Cranberries
   
6. Madonna , Linkin park
   
7. Nelly Furtado
   
8. Jack Johnson
   
9. The Eagles
   
10. Dido, Michael Jackson
    

    
    

Spending My Time

Well, my this semester is over and since last summer have not expressed my nonchalant life and thinking. This semester was the one I saw the least movies, though I continued watching series. This semester, my plan was to focus on the positive incentives I got from last semester in my studies. I got enough encouragement at IIT Bombay during my summer project. This blog will slowly roll on focusing on from where I had left in my last Blog.

"Please save me from this Jungle, I am celebrity". This was our feeling as we arrived in haringhata. We were missing City Centre, the Multiplexes. At first we used to fled every weekend to Kolkata, to feel that we are not missing any fun. Slowly we realized it was tidious to go to city 2 hours from here changing vehicles 3 to 4 times. We had some unforgetable experiences also. Let me share one, one time while returning from Kolkata, we reached Khachrapada at 11 PM. The last bus had left half an hours ago. We had to wake a thelawala, this thela was motorized. The man was drunk. He was driving it like a hell. As he had moved about 200 mts a truck was coming from the front, he lost the control and struck luckily to heap of sand infront instead hitting the truck. We all fell on road narrowly escapped from being crushed by the truck( you should know how the hell these truck drivers drive on NH). We continued rest of journey on foot walking slowly. Fear loomed large when we reached in area which had full vegetation cover and no lights. It was long and horrifing walk. We nearly walked 5 kms on foot. We were exhausted but relieved as we reached our hostel.

Days in Haringhata were monotonous, only classes and Laboratories. But all this gave me enough time to complete my first reseach project. I enjoyed lot of time reading journals, which boosted me to plunge in field of research. But some time I feared about the negatives and bad condition of this field in India. I played table tennis, but now I had become a bad player. I did not enjoy it. IPL T20 were not so much exciting this time, main reason it was played in South Africa and we had also lost our appetite in cricket due too much cricket. I learnt Chemistry well and got good grades.

Summers was both learning curve and fun filled. I was selected for the prestigious Symmer Fellowship in The Phosphorous Lab under supervision of Prof. Balakrishna. It was my first exposure to any lab outside my institute. At first everything seemed so much antique. Labs in IISER are new and every apperatus is new one. It was disheartening and first sight. I thought they will help me in my work but everyone was so engrossed in own work. They had hardly time to help you. Their motto was "If you have it in you then you can do it yourself." They were right, but I was late to understand it. But when I understood it I was completely engrossed in my work with their help. My motto was simple : Work on weekdays and on weekend enjoy as much as possible. I did so. Slowly I found that all Research Fellows were good human beings. Pawan Bhaiya was good in writing poems, had won the best Love letter writting composition. Susmita Didi was one who kept the Lab clean. Sowmya and Siddiqui Bhaiya gave me encouragement to what ever I did. I was amazed by the didactic memory of Anant Bhaiya. Bimba did was treated us well. She told about all her stories. I learnt from them about art of Lab work and learnt to use Scifinder and ChemDraw. I participated in their group talk and came how to think about research. Talking with Prof. Balakrishna was quite inspirng. I learnt from them preparing sample for NMR, little bit about how to read NMR. Shiva and me enjoyed evening parties. They were so much sincere to their work was inspiring for us. We also went to Naneghat. It was quite amazing experience. It was for the first time I went for trackking and it was full of fun. Overall it was caring atmosphere. 

The Other Sides

Well for most of us life seems so obvious that we have become too monotonous and we start thinking that "Vanity of vanity, all is vanity there is nothing new under the Sun" but this winter I experienced some very common things and thoughts but when I pondered over them I thought I better share them. These are small incidents or rather small experiences which give me perspective of different kind of people and somewhat changed my thinking.

Well let me start with my experience with last semester as an ordinary student I had always dreamt to be a topper. I tried a lot from my childhood, most of the time I just wanted to go through all the chapters, without much understanding everything. I never succeeded to be at the top. In IISER too I suffered inferiority complex and had the zeal but the will was missing. But here as the Professors gave me confidence and with well planning and intelligence I slowly gained confidence. Now I realized that I should clear all my doubts, think more rationally, be positive and be sincere. Slowly I rose to the occasion. I had realized I have to read to understand and not for marks. This reflected in my CGPA. Good students do not study to get marks but they like to read and love to think about what they learn and that's the beauty of it. They do not have pressure but rather Love to share what they learn. Now I do not want to be at the top, I just want to learn and relish what I am learning.

While my father was going to poling station at 4 a.m. ,one police constable asked ". Itni thandi bhor main Chai nahin chalega, Sir."(Will you not order some tea in this cold morning.) When my father ordered tea for them other said "Sir, khali pet sirf chai sahi nahin sir, ektho biscuit bhi to dila dijiye." (Tea is not good for empty stomach; please tell them to serve some snacks too.) On the first week of the vacation I was at home and the Election Commission of India(ECI) had made my father sector officer for the ongoing elections. I came to know about the real people who were behind the elections. They were school teachers, clerks. Their conditions were pityful. Their cheeks were shallow and had shawls and blankets as they had been passed through generations. It seems they hardly get any penny for living. Prior to elections they have to go to ECI offices for training. Before 1 month their preparations would start. Still I wondered how they would be able to conduct biggest dance of democracy. Before 1 day of the election they had to remain in clusters and had to wake up early morning and work tediously up to night. They are even not provided with proper food and water. Police who was provided the same, seemed so novice, lousy. I was wondering how they were going to save my father with some fifty years old, blunt rifle with the terrorist having modern Chinese made Semi automatic and automatic devices. They were moving in vehicles as we see in fevicol advertisement. It was a pitiful site. ECI shows they are spending crores in every election but probably we all know where the money is going.
Seeing the backbenches empty, my fellow said "Akhir Gene to IISER hin ka hai"("Gene belonged to IISERian"). I will come back to this comment. I went to New Delhi to attend a workshop on Nanotechnology (IJWBME2009). Why I am bothering to write about another seminar ? We bunk them at our Institute. Why is this under this title? I am still the listener. Was I delivering any presentation? No, dear I was only participating. This subject was close to my heart. I am interested in Nanochemistry. These series of seminar gave me a glimpse of what recent works are going on sensing and electronics world with Nanotechnology. Japanese delegates told how their country and industry was helping in financing their research. Can you imagine Japanese Govt. and Industry spends about 0.5 million dollar on each research scholar? Most of the public was absent in most of the seminar as usual. and overcrowding during high Tea and Lunch. Most of the participants who had just come to participate (sitting idly in the back benches, chatting) in workshop were from IISER Pune and IISER Kolkata. In starting you will find all these benches filled up but suddenly they were empty. Justifying the nature IISERians...

In the cold winter early morning, we few IISERians and few Japanese delegates were standing infront of fire created by burning branches by the gatekeepers. The girl asked the Japanese "Who are you?" The Japanese was amused. He smiled and took out his Identity Card and showed to girl and wittingly told the girl "Well, I do not think you have attended the workshop. I am the co-chairman for this workshop." Adding to discussion he asked her when she woke up. "4:30 am, Sir.""Well, its quite surprising as Indians are not punctual."He was right at that moment as the bus which was suppose to leave at 5 am for Agra had bot arrived till 7 am. While on the Journey the Japanese delegates were amused to see mud houses, the garbage. They sprang to their feet when they saw snake charmer playing snakes. We reached Agra at 1 pm. We were quite hungry, though the bus driver had stopped the bus a luxurious hotel for breakfast for large commission. Delegates had costly servings. Meanwhile we were supurised to see simple metallic chess board costing Rs. 39000 only. This time felt I we Indians were taking our revenge from foreigners for they had looted during British Raj.
We had quick snacks, headed to see the Grandeur Taj. It was crowdy Sunday. I would say as I viewed Taj mahal, obiviously I had no words to describe the magnificent white marble scaffold being the epitome for Love for centuries. Taj Mahal was the dream every lover had for signifying that his love was no less than the Great Mogul Shah Jahan. We often find portrait of Prime Minister and President of such and such coutry sitting infront of Taj Mahal in front page of newspapers. I had also dreamt the same. This time I got the chance. But as novice I forgot to put the charm in my face thats why my photo does in papers. I bowed for hard work and the effort had been done to make the magnificent beauty in 22 years. I felt little uncomfortable. While my friends were busy in striking poses, I felt uncomfortable. Was I missing someone? I was getting emotional. While on return journey I had headache.
"Yaar, how do you have lost your mobile twice in 6 months.How careless you are?" I had asked one of my friend. Due to my carelessness I lost my mobile while boarding a crowded bus. Earlier I had always felt pity that how can one loose his mobile. Then again I was on other side again feeling the pain as if I had lost my Identity. Now I have got my number using duplicate sim card in new mobile.
Remaining days I enjoyed with my sister who was always complaining that I never had time to come to meet her in Gurgaon. Someone told me "You should pray that in next life you have a plot in Gurgaon."Gurgaon as the name suggest is really a village where there are people apart from leaving in their lousy apartment live. They are really poor. Reports tell about Gurgaon as new planned metropolitan. It has large malls well planned apartments. But everybody in Gurgaon is not rich and famous. Those who work in other homes for their living and the labourers engaged in building skyscraper are really poor and their conditions are pathetic. Unless their conditions were not getting better Gurgaon would remain Gurganwa.
I went to some tourist places in Delhi with my sis. She took some wonderful pictures.