BRAToSPHERE

Tag: confusion

  • Crossed 26.. on the way to 28!

    I turned 26 years old some time back, and am now on the way to hit 27. What a wonderful journey it has been.

    I recently came across this rant on facebook, on why 26-28 is not a nice age for a man, and thought I should tie it up in eternality on my blog, and not let it die on the transient Facebook.

    The reasons why 26-28 is not a nice age for a man :

    • all your ex-desires are getting married
    • Your career has just started,
    • Elders treat you as unproven theorems,
    • College guys feel that you are too old to have in their group
    • You seem to enjoy both cartoon and news
    • You can no longer eat whatever you wish without putting on weight
    • You look like an ape if you don’t shave daily
    • You are not invited for weekend…… cricket matches .
    • Every Aunty you meet asks “Shaadi kab kar rahe ho beta!!”, while uncles ask “Career ka kya socha hai beta…”When the reality is that you are just riding the wave and going with the flow
    • You have all the confidence in the world but little achievements to show
    • You know that whatever you have been taught about the world in schools has been sheer waste of time.
    • Politics till now was a dirty word but now you feel it everywhere.
    • You know now love is not that blind and that friendship has its terms and conditions
    • You know there is nothing for granted and free lunches are not free
    • Your overconfidence is now making way for a humble conscience
    • You now know it is not exactly what we thought it would be! Reality strikes, and it strikes hard!

    By the time you get well versed with these emotions, you would already be changing diapers!

    p.s.: Source for this article is Facebook wall posts

  • Off to New York?? – Part II

    Till now, in Anaisha’a journey to NY, we have seen her getting prepared to be off. What happens next?

    It is 4 in the morning, and the cab guy has arrived. Karan, Aniasha’s FRIEND, and she get ready to start for the airport now.

    They hug tightly, and after a real long kiss and a smooch which could not get any wilder,  karan took the bags in his hands.

    “Ah! I so wish I could lift her rather”, Karan thinks within himself.

    Peskina, is also there in her cab. Ready to go.

    They dump it all in the rear of the car, and sit comfortably holding each others hand, in the overtly built Qualis. A quails was necessary to hold that entire luggage.

    She takes comforts resting her head on his chest, and they talk again about the long gap of three months. They have been talking only about this single topic all evening and night now.

    They reach the airport at 5, and it seems like it is just 5 minutes back that they had started from their homes. Yes, the airport, which is a good 30 KM from the city, seems near now.

    After getting the entire luggage on the trolley, and a parting hug and a kiss without giving a hoot to PDA, and the curious looking gaping early morning travelers, they part.

    Karan probably thanks that it is time, and he can now rest to sleep finally after the long sleepless night. He gets back into the same cab immediately and is off home.

    Anaisha, trying to hide her moist eyes from Peskina, who by now is standing next to her in the entrance queue, holds her trolley. She gets her entire house( which has been packed in those huge bags) screened at the x-ray counters.

    She proudly hands over her british airways ticket to the ticket counter lady, and gets herself a boarding pass with BRITISH airways prominently written on it, besides her name. She is proud. Those moisty eyes were now confusing – sad, happy or just sleepy?

    She then heads to the immigration counter, proudly still holding the boarding pass, and thinking of the nice days ahead in New York. She then hands over the immigration form to the officer there, along with her American passport.

    Anaisha was born in America, and lived a considerable part of her younger days in the US, thus the American passport. She has a dual citizenship.

    After looking at her passport, the officer there very calmly tells her,

    “Ma’am. You can go to the “some” office today, and come back tomorrow for the flight”, and carries on with his work.

    Anaisha with a confused look, “You are not serious right?”

    “NO, Ma’am. I am very serious”, he replies with a firm tone this time looking straight into her eyes.

    “You should get this passport stamped at “some” office, but you have not got it done, and without it you are not allowed to board ma’am.”

    He takes her boarding pass, which she has been holding so carefully till now, and scribbles there in bold words – OFF LOADED!.

    She just could not bear that sight. More than anything, I guess the fact that her good looking boarding pass getting smeared was troubling her the most. She was nearly into tears, when the Airline ground staff come to her rescue.

    “We are sorry. You can come back tomorrow ma’am”.

    Her colleagues, 6 in number, all bid her bye and get off from her sight with their equally huge hand bags. Anaisha is there at the airport, all there, alone.

    Flashes of the previous night come across her mind.

    “I so wish I don’t need to go!”, she tells Karan hugging him

    “No Baby. This is your chance. You should”

    “NO. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be away from you”, She hugs him tighter.

    Little did she know, or desired, that God was listening to her then, and was in a Dabbang mood to be granting her verbal wish.

    It is 8:30 AM, and she has been at the airport for a good 3 hours now, and there is no jugaad that seems to be possible. No other option, but just to get back home, and see what can be done in that “some” office.

    She calls Karan.

    He does not answer. She tries again, he still does not answer the call. After a couple more tries, to the extent, that the telecom authorities might actually consider levying charges on missed calls, she stops calling.

    “He must be sleeping”, the caring girl in her tells herself.

    She waits for an hour there at the airport, hoping for some divine intervention. Nothing happens. Not even the expected call from Karan.

    She, without an option, takes a cab, and heads back to the city.

    All her dreams and thought of the good times ahead are dead for the near future. All that she is left with is her british Airways boarding pass with huge scribbling on it – OFFLOADED!

  • Off to New York?? – Part I

    This story is about a friend and a rather funny incident that happened to her.

    Anaisha. Just a week back she was full of excitement, confusion and in a complete dilemma. She was shifting jobs, and was confused if she should actually take it up. The previous job in a start up was going good, but too taxing, and here she had an offer from an established consultancy. It seemed like a no brainer, but well there were issues. Not too interesting, and so we leave out the details here.

    Well, the most important part, she was flying down to the US for three months for some training by this established consultancy ( let’s call it EstaCon). She was all excited. Anybody would. She was flying down to the US!!

    She was supposed to be flying on 23rd january sunday, and was getting all prepared for it. I remember meeting her on the Thursday before that, and she had just completed a wild wild shopping spree that evening. She had more than 5 bags in her hand, and Ahen, who unfortunately accompanied her to shopping, was carrying another two. She had bought like everything possible, and I had to continuously remind her that she was flying to new York, and not kazhakasthan, and everything would be available there. For gods sake, I am sure RICE of all things would sure be available there!

    We had dinner together that night. Actually it was less of eating, and more of she telling me about all her shopping, and trust me, it took the entire evening to complete the list. I have no clue how we managed to get all that stuff on my Activa driving back home, dropping her on the way. It helped that both of us are not bestowed upon very generously on the body.

    Anaisha’s flight was scheduled at 8 AM on sunday morning, in british airways. Saturday night, she was at her friends place, all night. One of her colleagues ( lets call her peskina) called her at about 9PM asking her if she would join her on the way to the airport next morning.

    “NO, My boyfriend is coming to drop me”, Anaisha replies back in complete haughtiness and with full on attitude.

    “Oh! But can we three not go together?”, Peskina asks desperately.

    “Damn, the cab would get paid for by the company. Why does she just not take a separate one?”, Anaisha anguishes.

    “Oh! No, We got to spend some time together”, with a i-can’t-get-more-on-the face- look Anaisha replies.

    “OKAY. Can you atleast follow my cab on the way to the airport. I am scared of travelling alone you see!”

    YES I SEE.

    “Sure”, and Anaisha hangs up.

    “She wasted precious three minutes sweet heart”, she hugs her guy Karan.

    All night, karan and Anaisha are awake, talking senti stuff about the long gap that they would have to be separate from each other. Anaisha had just, six months back, shifted base to Bangalore to be with him full time, and here she was off seven seas away for a complete three months.

    This is the first part of this journey to new York. The second part would be out soon!

  • Heart vs. Mind

    This quintessential fight between the heart and the mind keeps happening all the time. I am sure each on of us regularly face this dilemma, and come to a standstill where we have to select a path. And that, as iterated in the previous post, leads to confusion. Opportunity??

    It’s typical in our society to feel a conflict between what we want to do (our heart) and what we feel is practical (our mind). We end up living  a good part of our lives doing things that we don’t really like or enjoy. We do and say things that we think are cool, and would help us “fit in” into this artificial sphere formed by the society. We try keeping ourselves contended in our mind, and never realize that it is the heart that needs to be contented.

    This does cause heartaches at every point in our lives, but we just get used to it and move one. What would have happened if we had rather listened to the heart in that critical confusing moment? We might have not been this rich, this comfortable, might not be having these luxuries, might be. But then, we would have been much much more happier. And who knows, following your heart, no matter how impractical it might seem, might lead to never foreseen opportunities, and new avenues. A more content life!

    Is my heart at fault? Are my feelings just silly and frivolous? Or maybe it’s my mind that’s to blame. It seems like it’s always coming up with conflicting messages anyway.

    I remember seeing a poster in a book shop in vizag when I was young – “ choose a career in something you enjoy, and you will never ever have to work a single day in your life!”.

    How many of us actually be able to do it? The conformist society comes in place,  and camouflages the entire thought process. The security, risk averseness, secure life, etc all these come into picture leaving the dreams on a standstill and keeping them on hold, most of the times forever.

    What does one do in such a dilemma? Whose side does one take in such situations – Heart or Mind?

    Heart vs. Mind?

    A perfect analogy to this heart mind thing would be this. Imagine yourself as this young 28 something guy, who wants to ( heart calling) get married to this good looking simple girl, and has been pursuing her leaving his flirtatious behaviour behind. Now, in this pursuit, where he starts thinking if he would actually get the simple girl ever, there is this awesomely good looking super hotel seductress( read mind) who shows herself. This simple guy is now getting attracted to the deep cleavages( read benefits in a secure manner) and is drifting towards her, forgetting that his heart still wants to be with the simple girl. The simple girl would be a better deal, but right now the seductress has much more to offer! But.. But.. The true love, the heart, still stays with the simple girl!

    What do you do? Simple girl? or Seductress??

  • Confusion | Opportunity

    In the Midst of Confusion Lies Opportunity

    This is a famous saying, but how true is it? before we get into that, let us delve into the basics – why do we get confused?

    We are majorly confused when we can see two or more probable destinations, and are in a position to take any one of them. This decision making is what leads to confusion.

    Why am I talking about confusion right now? Coz,  I am majorly confused. I have been doing everything till date in a conformist way, most of the times, and this has got sufficient returns, again the conformist way. Now I think is the time, that I should jump out, in the open, do things that I have always wanted to do, and test the untested waters. Well, yes there is this possibility of falling flat, straight on the face, and this particular aspect of life is called risk taking. ( “Risk to spider man bhi leta hai.. mein to sirf ek salesman hun!”) The point is that, will I have this any longer.

    The other option, is to keep doing the conformal things, in the routine manner that I have been following religiously. In other words, follow the herd, and strive for the best and get the conformal returns( which , are not really less by any standards!). Now is this what I want to do?

    This dilemma of the heart or the mind is quintessential, and has probably been there since human existence. I am once again facing this dilemma. Heart or mind?

    While discussing the same with one of my friend, I realized that the Chinese have the same sign for confusion and opportunity.

    Confusion | Opportunity
    Confusion | Opportunity

    Now how much are these two linked? I would say completely. Confusion, as discussed above, arises out of indecisiveness,  among options, and therein lies the  opportunity.

    Whenever you are confused, just treat it like an opportunity, and, as I always suggest, follow the heart, and you would prevail.