Friends Forever..

From the uncertainty of a new acquaintance
To the awkwardness of starting a conversation,
Through the journey of childhood
To the wackiness of juvenilty,
The togetherness remained,
Memoirs indelible,
I miss those days.

From the training drills at dawn,
Till the cramming for the exams
through the darkness of the night,
Breaching the thin line of
Academia and fun,
The togetherness remained,
Memoirs indelible,
I miss those days.

From family to friends
Home to hostel,
From sharing the room
To making those ambitious plans,
From procrastination,
To opine and whine ad infinitum,
From the cheers of the coffee mugs
To the stroll at 3 in the night,
From the hounding of insanity
Till the trail of insomnia.

From the mad hunger for food,
Till the wild goose chase,
From sharing laughter,
To crying on the shoulders.
From the joy of success,
To audacity on failure,
From the randomness of life,
Till the sorrow of death,
Many came by, few lost out,
We learnt to live,
And we lived to learn.

But yet...
The togetherness remained,
Memoirs indelible,
I miss those days..
I miss my friends..

Ifs and buts remain..

At 24, I am wondering if I could pursue something which had been close to my heart since my childhood - Sport at a professional level.. [It was cricket from the beginning, but I think I am equally competitive at few of the individual sports I have been playing for quite sometime now.]
At this time of the life, I guess I am a little late to do that.. But one of my good friend gave me some inspiration by enlightening me about the fact that Bruce McGain who was supposed to be the main Aussie spinner till injury claimed him for the current tour, was 35 and was making his debut . He was an IT professional and was working full time till he was 32. Then he decided that he was very good in cricket and pursued it full time . So that way I am relatively young! Am I not!?!

Open to comments! :)

The jinxed affair...sigh!

There had been so many incidents which I would have liked to pen down, but guess laziness creeped in more often than not and hence the reason for no posts in a long long time (not that I wrote a lot earlier :P). Nevertheless, I try yet again. Here it is before I digress from what I wanna write..

This is about my experiences with the air travel I have had in the last one year or so. Well, it cannot get more jinxed than this...I have narrated this some zillion times to my near and dear ones.... Well, I think I can write a book on my jinxed affair.. and I wish if this post was like excerpts from that book, but that would mean me writing it for eternity :) Here are some bits and pieces of it..[I mean it!]

So, there could be 'n' possible ways in which one can have a bad experience when it comes to air travel and trust me I have almost been through most of them astonishingly.. One argument could be that it happens with almost everyone, but not every single time you travel..! As I mentioned earlier this post is about my travel fiasco in the last one year, and believe me or not, there had been a goof up every single time I have hit the airport!!!

My flights which would probably on time for most of the time, would get delayed within 5 mins of me stepping inside the airport..I give a window period of 3 hours for my connecting flight, but since I have a constant companion in Mr Murphy, my original flight has to get delayed. Ok fine I am late for my connecting flight, but still enough time to just make it.. Oh no, Murphy says, "Son! you have lost your baggage, you gotta wait!" I am like "Holy smoly!" and the next thing I hear from the Jet Airways executive, "Sorry Sir! The boarding gates are closed!". All I had to say was "Thank you very much!"

Next incident - I have this tendency of dozing off whenever, I am sitting idle even if thats like few minutes.. And it so happened was that I napped 5 mins before the boarding time, and the next thing I heard was [after about 20 mins] "This is the last and final call for passenger Manoj Balaji travelling from IA............"[[Oh, someone flicked my silver bracelet my friend had given while I was napping! :(] and I woke up abruptly and rushed towards the boarding gate..At the gate, the executive says " Where the hell were you? !@#$$ {series of epithets} " and while I got down from the flight, the flight captain sarcastically said "Mr Manoj I hope you had an enjoyable flight, we sure did because of you!". I Bewildered,I gave one embarrassing smile and just ran outta there..

I am an eternal optimist [that kinda fits in here, so my obvious critics please don't question that statement ;) ] and once I booked a 6 AM flight to attend my friends wedding. .My best friend.. Sounds good haan.. may be not enough to wake me up on time for the flight (probably I needed a Sunitha yell..more on it later) I opened my eyes, I am still in bed, the room was pitch dark - I looked at the time - 5.40 AM.. I am like, "F***!" I just got up, took my bag(luckily I had packed!) and rushed to the airport (with whatever I was wearing!!). On my way in the rick, I called up the Indigo guys and in a vain and futile attempt this is what the conversation went like:

Me: Mam, is the 6 AM flight to Bangalore on time?
Executive: Yes Sir, the boarding gates are closed, its about to depart.
Me: [wanted to ask why aint it late today of all days!?!] Eh.. Is there any possibility if you could hold the flight for me, I will be there in few mins ? [too ambitious boy!]
Executive: Sorry sir, you are a "No show" passenger.. We cant, flight is about to leave
Me: Ok whatever that means, could you still hold it? [awkward Joey expression]

She probably wanted to say buzz off, but she did it in a way she was taught in her training days.. And I missed the flight.. Took the next flight [man you are so rich!!] and yeah it was indeed "My Best Friend's wedding!" Sigh..!

Oh! I have survived one car accident as well on my way to the airport. I had my friend's car burn outta fuel right at the airport entrance... The list goes on.. Anything related to "Air travel" has some eventful story behind it.. Well, I have started cherishing it now.. Its fun.. Though sometimes its a big hole on your pocket.. :P

Guess many more to come.. till then "Bon Voyage!"

Back to Blogging!

Hello readers (well wonder how many are there.. sure of a couple of them at least).
This is to bring to your kind notice that I am resuming my innings here. Not that I had lots to say the last time around, but this time I promise to be a monthly blogger than the annual one I was last time :)
So watch out for some of my irate ramblings right here!! :)

Lets do somethin...!!!

Lets take the roads for a walk,
Lets lose the keys to the lock,
Lets put some heart in your head,
Lets give some sleep to your bed,
Lets give the sun some rest,
Lets shine and shine the best,
Lets steal the darkness from the night,
Lets teach our swords some fight,
Lets take the moon for a ride,
Lets dip it in the ocean and bring a tide,
Lets rob the honey from the hive,
Lets give it back to the flowers and watch them jive,
Lets teach the lion how to roar,
Lets forget the wounds that are sore,
Lets give fire some heat,
Lets trap the ships to form a fleet,
Lets do things that are never done before,
Lets swallow the universe and ask for more.

“Its About That Something”

There is a part of me,
That feels I am different from everyone else.
At least when I am writing,
Something that I can't quite see,
Something that I can't quite feel,
Something so unreal,
Something that I try to put into words,
Something that I try to make those words rhyme,
But I fail miserably.
Cos that something is not quite what it is,
I wonder and ponder
In that stately mansion of my mind,
If I could ever solve this puzzle,
Yes this very own puzzle of mine
About my “Cognitive Dissonance”.
If ever I do,
I proclaim,
That would be the birth of a writer,
If not good,
A writer with his thoughts,
Entangled in words, crystal clear.

All Day I Dream About Sports!

Well i definitely do.. And thats the very reason i am writing this post as i couldnt think of anything other than sport to write on! Sigh!

As a youngster, i believe most of us who were actively involved any particular sport fantasized to pursue it as a career and dream of being a part of world cup winning team(In case of Cricket), A Grand slam triumph (in case of tennis) etc etc.. But how many of us succeed in our dreams?? Well we all know the answer..This definitely being in the context of Indian sport.. And yes, its a harsh reality.. Most of us go on to become engineers or doctors without being sure whether we like it or not..

Yes we definitely have the system to be blamed.. (It is debatable indeed!) How many sports other than Cricket is encouraged in this country?? Even if they are, definitely not as much as cricket.
We bask in the glory of one Leander Paes or a Mahesh Bhupathi or a PT Usha (who came close to winning a bronze medal at Olympics but never did) , as there have been very few and reason the same -Not enough for such sports.. If you ask me, i know only one Indian footballer from India - Baichung Bhutia.. Thats all.. Isnt that sad? Hockey - India's national game is just fading away and the fact that i am mentioning it so late in this article says it all.. It doesnt come to one's mind first up inspite of being a national sport!! How ironic is that??

I cant think of any Indian doing a “Goran” act.. A feat Goran Ivanisevic achieved after winning the Wimbledon 2001 (which was his only dream after reaching the finals of the All England Championships thrice but not winning it). Only thing I can say to any Indian sportsperson is : “Be Goran”!

Sport, which can bring so much of competitive spirit in a person and which can be reflected in other day to day activities, sadly doesnt find much encouragement in this country.. Unless some major steps are taken in this regard, the casualities(the ones who fail to pursue a career in sport) are only gonna soar up over the time..

So the moral of the story : People wake up.. Instead of sitting in an air conditioned corporate office and developing a paunch over a period of time.. Please wake up and pursue your dream.. Well here its sport all the way ;-). I would like to reiterate for all those sports fanatics – “Be Goran”.