30 August 2011

31 July 2011

In your opinion what acts can be considered courageous and why?

Every opinion a person makes is not only based on who he is but also who he sees or hears about around himself/herself. So when I talk about courage here its something which I see as an act greater in consequence and thought than the average.

My mother often talks about her grandmother and how she survived in the patriarchal social order asserting herself in her own little way and not turning bitter on anyone or anything. Having eight children and a husband who was distant and living in an extremely rigid society of India, of her time, she had quite some reasons to be bitter and be like the ladies, her companions, who responded by becoming strict and domineering. But she did not. She opened her heart to her daughter in laws (something that not many women her time thought as sensible I believe) her grandchildren and, from the image that I have of her in my mind from all the stories and the tears that well up in my grandmothers and mother’s eyes when they talk about her, to everyone! My mother realls how she used to go running towards her when she came and the incident of them running with heavy luggage trying to catch a train and how she managed to take four five small kids alone in the train in a time when reservations were unheard of and they only managed 1 seat for all of them. Till date I have never heard anything bad about her. I do not say that catching a train is courage but what she did and who she was and the way she did not let the catacomb society to close in on her that is what I feel is real courage. Courage in which she rose up from the smaller insignificant things in a time like that, courage in which she did not let the unbending society to shadow her heart and courage in which she made her own stand when a few ladies would even think of lifting their veil. There are many facets to her personality which cannot be expressed in words, as my mother says, but as I figure her courage was her goodness and mental strength and a resolve not to be tied down and not to tie other down.

Another lady whom I look up to is the CNN hero 2010 winner Anirudha Koirala. She works for one cause which I feel vey strongly about human trafficking and the exploitation of women. Its not only her helping these women and rehabilitating them but it is her strength to in the process go head on against the large mafia and a circle of crime involved in this dirty “business,” which I salute. I know I would be scared to mess around with them and doing what she does she is way beyond the mess around point but she goes and does what she believes in and what she feels for and as her general demeanour says the rest just doesn’t matter. A documentary of the women she has saved from the clutches of the worst horror which I came across left me in tears literally. My words are insufficient for her and her work. I will let this documentary say for itself:

31 July 2011

Came across this on an "ideas for journal" website :p

HOW TENACIOUS YOU ARE WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL? WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE HOW PERSISTENT YOU ARE?

I like to classify my goals as ones which I have to achieve and there are external things associated with them, like study for a test; and ones which I feel that I have to achieve for myself, like trying to read a grammar book full before college!

I feel in the first case I usually am very tenacious, like I would stay awake till late at night studying and just study study study when I believe it’s something that when I achieve everyone will see right there. I put a lot of my heart and soul into it, people could call this shallow but I think it’s mainly because once I reach there everyone will be able to see it! So I think it is this desire to be seen as a winner, an achiever that drives me to put a lot of myself in this. But then like in 10^th class when I had to make a project on the different landforms in geography, I worked for a full half month on that I think! Making borders on each coloured page and making pencil lines on those blank pages and writing so much and then erasing those pencil lines and what not! My project came out to be brilliant and I really felt good about it! Yeah there were better projects in my class but I personally loved it! So I think it’s also if I like what I am doing or not that guides me towards my first kind of goal. I can say this really confidently because in my class 11^th when I took science I completely hated it and I think as a result I did not put my heart in it while studying! I failed miserably there and I spent many a depressing night thinking that I was a failure but the truth is that I was not a failure! I can say that now that I’ve finished school with the best marks that I’ve ever got in my whole school time! I got two 95s! WOW! I’ve never got a 95 before that! And yes I think this has more to do with the fact that I made my own choice when I decided to take up humanities. So, as I write this I feel I can also say that what guides me to a goal the first kind as we are talking about here is that if I have decide to do that or has someone else decided it for me. Yes this could classify me as stubborn and yes this also puts me at a risk of doing some stupid things but then I can say that hey this mistake is mine and I don’t have anyone else to blame for it. So yeah to sum up the first kind of goal the three reasons why I move towards it is because it will be seen, I like it and whether it’s my own choice of path or not.

Now, the second kind of goal is a little bit more complicated to talk about. These are the things that I set for myself to achieve like finishing a book or exercising and eating just healthy food in order to lose belly fat et cetera. And I feel that these are the goals where I find myself drifting. A lot. Like I bought this grammar book from the bookshop a few weeks ago thinking that hey now is the time to brush up my grammar since school’s over and there is a bit of time before college i should use this extra time! But till date I've hardly done 30 pages of that book! It disgusts me that I can always come up with an excuse to not do something which I know will be really good for me, like telling myself that hey this is the vacation time and I am never going to get any more of this anytime soon so I should enjoy this! I don’t even want to talk about the very expensive French course that I bought and did regularly for 3 days and just stopped! I think I still need to strengthen myself forcing skills in these yet. I think it is because these are the goals that I set for myself in a bit of free time and the main task before I can do these is getting up!

12 June 2011
I am here in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India right now. Yeah in like the middle of summers, when the temperatures can get well DO get 48 degree C and even the airconditioning refuses to work but hey this is the place I was born and I stayed here till I was 7 so the heat really is not that much of a problem infact I only feel a little discomfort in the afternoon but thats alright. So is it weird that it is here that, for first time in many weeks, that I feel RELAXED? Okay I got over with school and basically have been doing nothing for the past 1 and a half month but still there were always teh results to wait for and then the college decisions and basically just my own created anxiety over stupid things. But here. Nothing. NADA. I am sweating here like like umm... an ice cube?! right now but then I am in my grandmothers house and I am like totally still mentally and physically. Maybe that is exactly what Ruskin Bond's books set in the Mussorie would feel like in real life minus the hill station and the cool weather and add to that a town near the Thar desert. So, abar mein chaloo sa aap ho kale pursu milula (haha.. no you did not forget your language this is just marwari for 'see you later folks' ;)

16 May 2011
Recently I came across this really cool website www.8tracks.com. The website offers you a chance to post you favorite music mix (like an album of your favourite songs) which others can enjoy and LIKE! This particular mix is one of the best I came across .. well there are a hundread more favorite mixes for me there but this one is one of them :) Do check it out!

8 May 2011
Yesterday as I came across this picture where a few school kids from Pakistan were stepping on (the words) India, I was appalled, to say the least, not because I am an Indian but because as a human being, capable of thought and idea, I just couldn’t understand this fanaticism. I was perplexed. As I discussed this with my friend she pointed out that there are many people in India who do the same, in this, she said, we are same. True as it is, it is also true that there is no standing justification for such hate, be it against India, Pakistan, America or whatever country.

How can you say that you hate a country say ABC? Fine, you don’t like its foreign policy or you find that country encroaching on your country’s border, but that is a decision of the country’s government and does not reflect the feeling s of its residents. The idea of hate against a country leading to hate against its people is what I stand against. Surely there are humans on the other side too! People there people here. So what’s the difference? Countries are political regions, demarcation is for governance. We are people who just happen to be residents of a country. So why not do this- everybody who hates ABC should be allowed a free visit to ABC! Will this help? Yes and no – sitting with an American who is his friend a person is not very likely to say that he hates America, not because he feels he is going to hurt his friend but because his friend brings an image of America to him where he sees its people before anything. But, if that same person had a bad experience he is more likely to throw the H word around that country.

I am just a person confused by all this hate. But if Benedict Anderson was here I think he would have said that ‘hey, it seems like my idea of imagined community is really what can explain this situation here, maybe you should try looking through that.’ Maybe that’s it! Maybe not! But unless each on of us understands what we mean when we say the word ‘hate’ and specifically ‘we hate ABC country’ the hatred is here to stay and plague generations. Personally, I like humans! And where they come from doesn’t really matter.

3 May 2011
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
— Albert Einstein

WOW what an impact these words make on the mind! But, why do I just connect with these words? Well, because I have been in the shoes of that poor fish, yes I HAVE.
There is a dark period in everyone’s life, when you have lost all hope, all dream and well you are practically on the borderline to losing your mind!! For me fish, the time was the 11th grade of my school time. Okay, I know school is over and I should stop about 11th there with these words ,but then it was the toughest, craziest and the most messed up year of my life! And I wasn’t even chosen by me!
Okay, so how did school become so tough? Well, anyone who has studied in India, in the CBSE system knows that the decision to choose our subjects in class 11th is HUGE! So was it for me, and out of the three subject bunch choices given to us I chose SCIENCE, well I chose it as in, yes I filled the form for it, but technically it was a decision which was far from mine ... For whatever reason I gave up humanities my first choice and took these subjects, I knew from the very first day that I hated them! I hated doing the subjects because (a) I wanted to take humanities (since I was in 8th) (b) Someone was forcing me to study science (c) I hated science. At first I thought I could do it, you like ‘I’ll do it, and show you that I am not stupid and then to hell with these subjects.’ But, one thing I know now- it just doesn’t work that way! Sure I was an above average kid till 10th grade but I don’t think that mattered much in 11th.

I remember for the first time feeling so disappointed in myself the first test I gave… I cried that day..for a long time … and for the first time on a test. But, then the whole year was like that! Somewhere in the middle of the year I thought I was really losing my mind, many a times I forgot that what I was holing was a pen or in the middle of an exam I would completely black out and start crying (well I went to the bathroom and cried, in the middle of the exam) … But mostly I found myself repeating these words in pitch darkness many time – ‘ How did you get to this Niv? You WERE a good student’ … I was LOST..everything I wanted to do was falling in front of me, hell I didn’t even know if I was ever going to do anything. But sometimes its not about you its about YOU in the WRONG PLACE.
Finally, after a year of feeling like dirt I fought, fought with whoever was stopping me from taking humanities, from whoever was pushing me (whether knowingly or unknowingly towards the edge) and I reached out and embraced humanities… And right from the first day it felt right. Yes I had a subject where I failed but I knew it was just that and nothing more…I never cried about it or cursed myself. I was happy about studying, I fell in love with Economics :p and NOW I’m hopefully going to college and am going to be an economist after that.

Looking back I say that even if I had taken the subjects myself for whatever reason I would have been miserable, but because it was forced upon me, I was more that miserable. It took me awhile to get out of the whole depressed façade and I did make many mistakes on my way back but I’m glad I chose what I believed in (even if I don’t get awesome marks I know I am happy and totally not depressed!) I know now that THIS FIST IS NOT STUPID.

24 April 2011
My exams, mind you board exams, got over about 10 days back, and it has been 10 days of what I can say unaccustomed stillness in life (ooh..sounds nice! all poetic and stuff) But, it is in this stillness that I realized that, hey, I am free to do all that I really like! So these are the things that I set out doing (most of it I do regularly, especially if it involved sitting, eating or both sitting and eating) :

1.) Exercise; mainly cycling around or playing badminton, I never could do regular exercise, actually for the last two years of school I couldn’t do any exercise! So on the first day of after exams this is what I started with and well the next day I woke up with stiff and hurting shoulder, neck and ..well let’s just say ’body parts’ (that reminds me I need to buy a comfortable seat for my cycle). So the current status of my exercise ummm…..it’s still very sporadic, I mean sometimes I’m watching a movie or I just don’t want to go out or I’m out somewhere else or I can’t find anything decent to wear (I really don’t want to be seen cycling around in my locality in a t-shirt with a cracked head koala! ) So yeah, am still working on it. (well, maybe I will work on it more after I buy myself a more comfortable cycle seat!)

2.) Enjoying the morning; I have always wanted to get up early and sit out and have tea in the pleasant morning, but with the exams I was actually sleeping at 4 in the morning because I always had a problem getting up early! But now I make sure that I get up early everyday (tough task accomplished! With a little help from my alarm and a lot of it from my self control) just for that half an hour of fresh air and the crisp newspapers! And boy, do I feel good about it!

3.) Reading; yeah this is something that I lurrrvvvee baby! For the last two years of my school life my mom made sure I could not even lay a finger on any “god damn (sic)” novel ; “no novels, no poetry, no rubbish (sic)” (can’t believe she called Nicholas Sparks' books rubbish! Well maybe it has more to do with my almost failing marks in class 11th but still….YOU JUST DON’T DO THAT!) SO the first thing I did when my exams got over was head (rush! run!) to a bookstore! (yeah I really was running crazy in the mall! Even when my mom gave me an offer of watching a movie first!!) I can’t forget the feeling, oh my god! NIRVANA! The smell of books like the smell of nicotine to a smoker! (Simile, as my English teacher would point out, wait school’s over WOOOHOO!) A mad rush to buy every novel that I touched (yeah well I did pick up a book from the toddlers section but hey in my defense it had a press button!! With 5 different sounds!!) Anyway, so I ended up picking up 12 books (or wait was it 13?!) and buying 5 of them (well we ran out of money there :( )

4.) Cooking; hmm…I don’t really love cooking but considering I’ll be going to college soon (hopefully! God please, god please I need college!) and how delighted mom was to help me out there cooking was the thing of the moment! And well so I started of by making a pasta (yeah, I swear) {Fusily? Fuccily? Fussily? Fusilli? Yes! Finally phew, in arrabbiata (hehehe…this time I saw its jar for the spelling) sauce! } and everyone loved it! My brother asked for a second helping, and he never takes a second helping unless it is ice cream or something! (hurrah! Maybe I should become a chef now!)

5.) MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES! LOTS OF MOVIES!!!!!! (aah..happy days!)

6.) And well finally I started a blog, like a fully functional blog! Like this blog! WOOHOO! Always wanted but never could do it! So after many miserabl fail and abandoned blog here I am writing after all for MY BLOG! (okay..okay you get it right :p)

Ps- there are many more things like I bought a book ‘maths for economics’ to prepare for college level stuff but I really don’t want to sound like a nerd…

The thing about life that I've never understood is its tendency to change. And change dramaticallllllly!! One moment you are out there playing and the other you are stuck inside your house with your maths book! When I see my baby pictures i can hardly believe that its me , when I see my grandpa's picture its just a picture for me now, its so hard to believe that 7-8 years back I could've just called him! But, then hey I'm not a philosopher or anything.

I'm sure all of us wonder what will happen tommorow, where will I be where will she be, will we ever meet, will I be actually doing what I want to do, when will I decide what do I really want to do... and then there is the whole what if part to deal with..I'm sure you relate to this =) Its in my head too, while studying sometimes, I find myself looking at the ceiling, like with a really blank expression on my face and its then that I'm thinking about .... well things, these things.

I'm not old. I've jsut seen 17 years of this world. But, still even till now, in just 17 years, I've seen so many changes...so what about in the next 20 years when I'll be 37, and hopefully still here =P. Uggghhhh...this gets frustrating...

So, yesterday I was well frustrated again..and thats when I remembered this very beautiful quote I had read in the novel The Memory Keeper's Daughter -

"You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down."

and I realized all my thoughts, fears, every stupid thought..is well insignificant..and so I got back to my maths book, with a light feeling in my head.

<3 <3 <3
This too is from an old blog and yes sir I wrote it, yes I did! Now, that I am out of school (oh there I go again) I'm so glad I got rid of that horrible maths book (yeah, yeah, yeah) , this change I love!

My school life would be very different if I had not met the people I met, if I had not made friends that I did. I feel, right now, as we head our different ways and say our goodbyes, there is within all of us a part of each other. He, she, me and they we all have, in lots of ways changed the way we see each other, our selves, the world. I have changed every new friend I made and they have changed me. Often in school things seem as if they have gone drastically wrong, but then you meet people who don't care how much you've messed up last year, there is nothing you want to hide from them, and their friendship reassures you and helps you move on. If today you can look at yourself and say, 'Hey I'm not a bad person, I like the way I am right now,' then I'm sure you can connect with my emotions in this word piece.... which I would probably put as something dedicated to the people who'll still be in school when you graduate...

You meet someone,
someone who'll change your life
will make you better than yourself,
will make you stand up for the right
backs you with an advice
that will take you far and
help you get over your past scars.
They'll make you believe in what you see,
even impossible dreams will seem future reality.
They'll carry you up the hill when you fall down,
they wipe your tears and you rise from the ground.
You'll meet them on your way,
and they'll change your way, for the better,
and believe me, you'll be doing the same.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gah! am literally wailing now (in mind though!) never thought I would miss people from school so much, I am missing even this one teacher who called everyone in class pea brained and banged chairs (she banged dusters when she was in a 'good' mood by the way), hope I don't have a part of her stuck in my brain (which by the way is apparently made of just 1 and a half grey cell as she said! I love her for giving me that half though because there were some with none too and some with just one so hurrah!).

This song "Dhoop Ke Makaan Sa" from the movie "Break Ke Baad" is the song for me right now...its exactly what I'm thinking right now! Its about things turning in life and the uncertanity of it all, but in that the enthusiasm for future, looking ahead and seeing everything good about this change...



And here are the lyrics....


Baarish hai khayalon mein, sab dhul jaayega
Roshan rasta naya ik khul jaayega
Beh jaayega, tinka tinka kal ka silsila
Chalo mil jaayega aur ik haseen kaafila
Chalo dhoop ke makaan sa yeh hai safar
Dhalaan sa yeh mod meherbaan sa hai yeh
(if you believe sun is shining, love is finding your way)
Dhoop ke makaan sa yeh hai safar
Dhalaan sa yeh mod meherbaan sa hai yeh
(if you believe sun is shining, love is finding your way)

Chhat tapakti hai kabhi ehsaas ki
Yaad aati hai puraani pyaas ki
Par naye naye baadal baras kar jhoomte hain
Boondh ki ladiyon se maatha choomte hain
Dekhne ki yeh gadhi hai, ik nayi rut sang khadi hai
Baat chhoti par badi hai
Dhoop ke makaan sa yeh hai safar
Dhalaan sa yeh mod meherbaan sa hai yeh
(if you believe sun is shining, love is finding your way)
Dhoop ke makaan sa yeh hai safar
Dhalaan sa yeh mod meherbaan sa hai yeh
(if you believe sun is shining, love is finding your way)

Kitni unchi shaak pe khushiyon ke pal
Phir bhi kuhshboo todh li humne ucchal
Haan kaanch ka samaan de aur gir gaye hum
Jod kar khud ko banane phir gaye hum
Door dariya ke kinaare, zindagi karti ishaare
Aasman pe hai naye taare

Dhoop ke makaan sa yeh hai safar
Dhalaan sa yeh mod meherbaan sa hai yeh
(if you believe sun is shining, love is finding your way)
Dhoop ke makaan sa yeh hai safar
Dhalaan sa yeh mod meherbaan sa hai yeh
<3 <3 <3

This too is from my now long dead blog! I love this song for the way it speaks to me and for me! Oh, and I will not recommend you listening to this song at night (especially if you are a just out of school kid) else be prepared to wake up with puffy eyes and a good excuse for that (by the way,I didn't really sleep last night or was reading a realllly good book hence ddin't sleep last night or soemthing similar doesn't really work with moms.)

As I stand on the last step of my school life, things seem...Bleak! at least for now...school gave us a chance to start over afresh in many ways every year..but guess that's not what happens in life. We can't just get up and say hey I'm sick of my life, my job...but hey doesn't matter next year will be better,I'll make it better.

Saying "this year I'm going to be the best," I've spent 12 years of my life, that is actually a large part of my life! And now I have one last opportunity to say this, when I step into college..it won't be the same but I'm sure it will be the last chance I'll get. But at this moment even that seems very far offff...Will i even get into college? What if something goes wrong WHAT IF??? I guess right now, its best that I aim to make the best of whatever time I have so that my last lap is the best lap! Till then I'm just going to look back and smile at all the memories that I have of school, of friends, of recess...... and get down to making my future.

I can just come up with these words to explain my present feeling...

Walking ahead, I'm on the sea shore
Hoping to save every footstep,
on the sand floor, turning back again and again
to see it safe, but a wave is never far here
It wets my feet, I'm scared, I look back,
The footsteps lost, just a clean slate of sand
I'm sad, I grieve
then again there comes another one wetting my feet
this time around I feel how good and refreshing it feels,
I sigh smile and move on,
making and losing some more impressions
in the soft sand of the beach
never grieving for a lost mark, like I did
the first time.
Enjoying every particle of sand between my toes,
the soft wave washing through it too,
looking back again just to see a new kid
walking on the same path making and
losing some of her own present and past,
sobbing and smiling.

Ps- this one is from (may it rest in peace) my last blog, and well the feeling shaven't chnaged now that I am a month out of school! It just got worse actually! (hmmph...will have to g go watch TV to get mind of school!)

Well, as I said the idea of a blog is not new to me so after many failed attempts at a serious continuous blog I do have many past blogs I have well completely ignored!!! SO, as my homage to them and well also because they weren't really that bad and I could use some more posts now the next few posts are an assortment of stuff from those blogs :)

Hello or well, HULLO! Welcome to my blog! It is the first time I've ever sat down and made a blog (not counting the earlier blogs as they lie ignored). So,
Why did I name my blog "HULLO"? (Wow, self interviewing is fun! Maybe will try hand at more interviews! Mum, brother, grandpa, Sharukh Khan, Brad Pitt...WOW, will be famous soon! Planning weird plans for life is so much fun!) Anyway,so yeah, if you have a blog I am sure you will remeber the confusion over what to name your blog! So, my attempts at giving an identity to my blog (which just had to be the way I identified myself in a crowd by the way) started with- what about Niv's diary (tough one there, eh?),yeah that was the first one I came out with, but somehow it didn't really strike me (still wondering why, maybe was too cliche), you know as something very, very "me"! So there was Niv's blog, Niv's corner and well, lets just say a whole lot of more 'Nivs'! But none of them seem good enough, so after much thought I came up with Hullo (taa dah!). So, why did I choose Hullo? I mean its not even hello! Actually, I didn't really come up with it Ruskin Bond did! Yeah no kidding,he did! You see in his book 'The Room on the Roof' a wandering, friendless and well a somewhat lost Rusty is greatted by a young sikh boy, Somi, by..you guessed it, Hullo! (Maybe in the book it a way to show the pronunciation of an Indian chap) And thus starts a friendship (though on a very silent lines) which leads a lone Rusty to friends and friendships that spam through the book and in some of the other books later too! So, why shouldn't I name my blog that too! I made my blog to extend a hand of freindship and sharing to all, after all! What better name could be there, infact! So here is a gesture of friendship ( more than a greeting) :) from Niv to all!

Oh and why did I start a blog? I mean with facebook and everything, isn't blogging a bit umm..obsolete? NOT AT ALL! NO WAY! Well, I have thought of starting a blog many times, like too many times! and while I did end up starting some blogs (which have just one post!!) but somehow in the middle of school, studies, last year of school they just got lost or wait ignored. SO now that school is over and I have atleast 3 months until college, I just couldn't think of a better time to start my online journel! So here is, as a product of (questionable ) talent and (immense) desire)....HULLO (maybe I should work as a opening ceremony speech writer, great idea!! Wait, mum just said there is no such specific thing as that!! oh no! Have decided to stick to blogging then). Anyway, WELCOME EVERYONE!