beliefs or something like it!

Recently many of my beliefs and notions in life have undergone a serious makeover and without me intervening in them much, I have no idea if they are for good or bad, but they are there and I cant deny them. It forces me to think that everyone keeps on trying to firgure our other people their entire life, when we know so little about themselves. Including me in that list now. I have been living in my beliefs created and directed by me and now when i sit n reflect, i somehow cant justify them, and especially when someone says them aloud then it gets more suffocating, in a hurry to understand your own feelings, you try to justify it to yourselves and convince yourself, but all in vain.
I have been wondering about these things regarding religion and caste for a long time. Though i dont call myself a devout religiously person, as I only pray to a certain god whom i really have faith in and that too when i used to fast for him on mondays. I have been doing it for over 2 years now, but i suddenly gave it up, due to many reasons, I have been trying to somehow prove that god is nearer to me when i fast for him. But is it true? Does god ask me to starve and prove my devotion? doesnt he want me to be happy and having a good meal, and then be true to myself and be pure at heart? he doesnt want me to prove it to him, how much i believe in him.
I always had questions which were never answered, is it justified to look for a rationale in everything in life ? cant something be just like what they are? and never be questioned, its the same as in the matters of heart and mind. There always have been questions haunting my mind about stuff to which i could never find answers.
Well one of my close friend whose aunt passes away because of cancer, she did not want to die, she had kids and the day she learnt she had cancer, she cried for help but..my friend was in a miserable shape, she said somethings that day that force me to think and re question myself and my faith. I have certainly blind faith in God..or that superpower that exists somewhere and we all know he does, some of us just dont acknowledge his presence. She has'nt been talking to God and she says that there is no god, maybe there is no superpower, we just believe in ourselves and when we keep on saying the prayers somewhere deep down we are re enforcing the positivity to make the thing we so dearly want a total success, that positive energy fills us with the will to do and achieve anything in the world, as the line in the Alchemist goes, when we really and truly want something, the whole universe conspires to make us achieve that. it is a beautiful line and the more and more i read it the more and more i believe in it. I dont know as yet, whether there is any superpower or not, maybe the belief in ourselves is the name of the god.when we really want something real bad we just keep on repeating it to ourselves again and again and that makes us believe in the strength of our own dreams and desires and hence we exert ourselves and thus we end up achieving what we actually want in life. it works like that. there is no god it is within us the power to create, to destroy, to lose and to achieve. She put it in such simple terms that i was surprised too. is it all that simple, can we explain the existence of god in these simple temrs. Maybe she was right. I so want to believe her but i cant. I still think that there is a superpower somewhere that is looking out for us all. I know atleast in my case it is. it always has been.
Our lives are nothing but just a simple series of fortunate and unfortunate accidents that leads us to our destinies which is already decided by someone or amybe not. And we have to reach that finishing line, and when we really want something too bad, the universe actually does conspire secretly to bring it closer to us so that we can acheive it someday. this all is true. If we can have blind faith in that power or the gaurdian angel then we can somehow learn to trust the people in the world his creations. how else would we ever trust anything or anyone without touching or seeing them. it would be so hard. Religion has no fixed definition, it is even foolish the way people have divided the world into tiny factions and they fight over it too. When no one has ever seen their Gods, a crowd of people having blind faith go on a rampage and killing innocents. It is way easier to explain the presence or the trust in that power than actually explaining this craziness in people, so i wont even try.
We have never seen God, no one has ever seen one, and everyone asks me how can they believe in something that they have never seen, touched or felt. But I think I can feel his presence around me when I am sad, and that is why i want to believe in him. Due to my crazy schedule i could not continue fasting for him, and also because I think that If i love him so much and believe in him then I should be happy and eat properly on his day. He never asked me to stay hungry to prove my devotions towards him. if my heart is pure and if I am true in the core then he will get the vibes wherever he is, or maybe nowhere at all. But this idea of a superpower looking over us and helping us in anything we want as has always happened, is just too fascinating for me and I somehow want to believe in it in all possibilities. I may not fast for him, but i can never let go of my beliefs. It is weird how some people keep on seeking the proof of his presence, how they want a evidence for everything before actually believing in something, when they themselves dont know what they are looking for. I recently paid a visit to Gurudwara in States and I was surprised and happy to see how deeply ingrained the religion was amongst 4 and 10 year old sikh kids. It was a beautiful sight to see them act like any other older sikh follower. they were so disciplined helping with the people organizing 'langar' and serving them. This is what binds them together, the principles that would remain etched somewhere in their hearts when they grow up. Religion is only a way to bring some faith into our hearts, to discipline us to some extents and to give us all an identity. a way to believe in the positive force that drives the world.
But as i said again i will not question anyone's faith here. It is about me and something i want or dont want to believe in and then i choose to keep my blind faith in him as always till the last day, and the rest of the world can keep on questioning thier own beliefs or fight over it just to act foolishly. i don't actually care.

Letting go....

I have got a lot to say, a lot on my mind,
but the words wont come out
they clog my mind till the heart chokes
tears dont come,
memories do
feel numb with confusion
feel no pain, but keep scourging deeper
dont know which way to go,
what road to tread
to avoid what's been repeated countless times
i keep on asking myself and at times to others but no one understands and no one knows...what its like..is it so easy to give up and give in, should i just go with the flow or take the harder route that my mind keeps on pushing me on to or should i just start living with it and forget the rest...tomorrow and future beyond ..would that help?
i m clueless in dark..fumbling around feeling my way out of this...feels like ..something that i cant put in words..but i think for now i should just listen to my mind and shun my heart...coz i dont know what this would be like, hurting someone mid way or wait till the very end when you can actually see everything to believe it or just read the signs and work on it before it gets worse...lose something based on the signs.what if the signs are wrong..what if the light i see is just fake...what if i am left stranded in the middle of nowhere..al by myself...i dont know..anything...but for now..i should let go...let go...
random thoughts ..maybe i m thinking aloud..just like that..after having a overflow of emotions due to some random emotional flick...whatever it is...i just wrote it...bcoz i felt like it...

Failures...

So finally I have some free time to actually sit down and write something..today I am not too sleepy or tired...and then I have time to actually look out of my window and appreciate the trickling rain drops from the leaves of the trees and the green grass...spring has gone and summer is supposed to have come..but i never had the time to enjoy the spring..life seems to have gone fast forward but then season seemed to have paused so that i could still look at the pretty sights that the nature has to offer. I was working on an experiment and it did not work and i pushed myself out of my bed today on a saturday to go and check out my result and further it...but it didnt work, it dint work but i the back of my mind I was happy as i had gotten my weekend free...to chillax...I am learning very important lessons of my life..and that is to accept failures and then start to look at the glass half full and not half empty..I have always had thi failure phobe..i used to have dreams that I have failed an exam and that would be so tormenting for me but i think once you learn to take failures your life becomes so much easier, you cna learn to laugh them off and just wave them away...i had never thought about this before...but after i joined this lab i realized that there is more to life than being the number one in everything..there is so much more...the society will always lay pressure on you to be the next einstein or even beat eintein but then you dont have to always work according to them...we have to decide and look for our priorities and then understand that winning is not everything..i have met so many people here who talk about their failures wihtout any shame or remorse and then they always rose above that and laughed at it...that makes me feel somehow that how immature I am and maybe my priorities in life were effed. But i think i know why I am the way I am...having grown up in a male dominated society...as everyone else..i somehow always saw the pity in others eyes for bieng a girl...a world where women most often would abort their girl child...it is a sorry state but then it was the truth of my life..and somehow i took the beacon to atleast be the best in what i do so that i can prove something to this sneering world..to make my folks really proud of me one day....and they are..but then i have grown so used to this feeling of making it the best always that i cant let go of this, and that was the reaosn why i couldnt take failure...but now i have started to look beyond and i know that every failure is teacing me something...in some way..and that is good enough for now..all i have to say that at some point in life we always think that if somehow we can get that..then I would be so damn happy and qwould never look beyond that but then it seems that the thing keeps on evading you...you lose all the hope and the anticipation and then one day slowly that thing will come and sit on your shoulder like a butterfly just that the feeling in your heart is gonna be different...and you might not feel the same way as you thought as you would but it is so numb...it is always like that for everyone i guess but then we must for sure realize that nothing in this world is so awesome that you die to get it..because then you are losing on today hoping for tomorrow and if it is meant for you then you would definitely get it...in time..or esle its never meant for you.
i m glad to be learning a few crucial lessons in my life now that i will always remember..thanx to many people and many sticky situations and many failed experiments...recently...

Saying goodbye....

Sometimes you feel such a void when someone has left..the silence is eerie and gets intolerable too after a while..How important it is to have good friends and companionship, i realized that only after I came here...all by myself. unaware of anything that went on here...far away from home, family, friends and the people i loved...it was hard...but I was getting the independence i always wanted..to be on my own to have my own experiences. While going for my roomies here, i did not give any priorities and i wanted to take whatever comes my way, without any prejudice. After 10 months, I am so glad about my decision then, it couldnt have been better. I know I was one of those lucky ones who got such supportive and caring roomies. They were all senior to me, yes i was pampered and loved and also bossed around..at times. which i tried to take in stride. They were like my own sister and they held my hand and taught me the new ways of life, which i was apprehensive but excited to learn about. They taught me new stuff..about the lifestyle, people, cuisines...and life in general. It has been so great all throughout and i never realized that 10 months had gone by.
Whenever I needed someone to tell my days exciting events or about the stupid casanovas they were always around to lend me their ears and their advice too on how to deal with them. When I had to go early for class or lab they were my alarm clock and my morning coffee when i studied early morning for my exams, they made my wake up coffee for me...they were my source of encouragement when I was down or worried about my exams and studies and deadlines. They never let me go to bed empty stomach, being the lazy bum I am (only for cooking) I could never manage my work and life so as to find time for cooking esp and ended up having cereal and bread at night too for dinner, but they were always there with some nice hot veggie food. they took care where I was if i was too late at work or at a party and they got all worried about me, they always came in to ask me wehn i had a 'do not disturb' sign on my door. they were always there for me and then i grew up and started to know the ways of life here in a new place..which started to seem more friendly to me. Being from different countries and speaking a different tongue never brought any kind of barriers between us. we could read each others feelings. we joked and laughed and at times bitched too about some of our common enemies, discussed issues..had our fun time....they have been taking care of me here like their own and they touched me with their kindness and concern. I would have been so lost without them, and today one of them moved out and the other one would be gone soon. I dont know if I would be fine then..or not but one thing that i know about is that I am going to miss them like hell. it is a painful process to see someone wrap up and packup for finally leaving....there is a strange silence in this apartment today...and i already hate it...
I know it is hard to say goodbye and one more thing that i know is that if you find people in your life who could bring tears in your eyes and a shadow on your heart when they leave..and if you feel it is hard to bid goodbye..then you have achieved something..i dont know if they would ever read this post..but D and N I am going to miss you guys...you have touched my heart and my life with all your loving and caring gestures and I would love to hear from you again....hope you dont forget me.... :)
take care...good luck...and remember it is not a good bye after all..

Do I need that?

The other day I was thinking about my buying habits. okay okay...so this wasnt the case entirely. I was actually so damn tempted to buy this thing online and I was trying to hold back. I have been going to get my weekly or maybe fortnightly groceries and then I am so tempted by the stupid things which make no sense in any way at all to be bought and then I go to buy yoghurt and then the check out lady gives me a heart attack by telling me that my sum total is 100 bucks (mind you in dollars) and I just keep on wodering where did i spend all that money..I am aweful at handling my expenses, even before you say it, I eve tried to leave my wallet at home so that i dont buy stuff that i dont need, but that also dint help, reason being, I ask my flatmates to buy the stuff for me so that i can pay them back and the situation remained just as worse and nothing improved, the only thing that actually changed was my checkbook's pages and my atm statements, thats it. so the thing was that nothing improved and the hole in my pocket kept on getting bigger and bigger. So finally i started minimizing my errands to the shopping malls, but then I am a human bing after all and i need to get stuff for my survival. Trust me, half of the time I shop with my flatmate, who is even a worse case than me, I know it is harder to beleive, but yes she is, she keeps on buying stuff and that goes continously being pushed back into the backened of her fridge and the freezer and the only time she is actually reminded of them is when it has gone bad and it starts to stink or maybe develop some microbial growth, by the way while I am on this topic, let me tell you that apart from the dull blue green fungus, there is another species of fungus, of pink and purple color, I dint know tis befire coming here. And when I told my cousin about this thing, he told me that there is another kind of fungus prevalent which is purple in color and it is found in Europe, and he beleives that the fungus is maybe GAY. well, this topic is kinda censored so lets stop this gross discussion. eugh...
anyways..watch what you eat...Indian fungus needs more colors.for sure..
so the thing was that half of the shopping time, I and my flatmate ended up draggin each other form the aisle, where there was all the un needed, useless stuff in the world.
So after all the options I tried, I tried the last option and guess what i tried was finally this...it was no big measure, but just a simple technique and it was a small question, "Do I need this?" and then I thought of all the possible sceanarios where I could or couldnt need the stuff and then i weighed the options ( think how smart I am! :) )and finally I decided whether I should or not buy it. trust me this works big time, as ever since I have stopped myself from buying :
a new apple ipod (when I have an ipod shuffle, a sony discman and a sansa player)
a wireless mouse
a set of speakers, (when I have the stereo bluetooth headphones, bought an year ago)
A new set of cushions for my bed
another lamp (not needed at all, I have one already)
a video cam (my cam already have a brillaint video cam)
a new set of snuggies
a new set of glares
etc etc...
the list is endless...
anyways this works and it has prevented many a tragedies with my wallet and credit card. and it is smiling right now. So you can imagine that everything is going great. so the message is loud and clear, please ask youself this question before youa ctually buy something and this is coming from a very experienced shopaholic (again proves how wise I am ) so this post goes to a higher level I think, concerning the maturity level and a better understanding for my psyche that deals with my shopping needs.
have fun shoppping till the next post.
cheers...

LIFE and DEATH

a very interesting and apt representation of the two most mystical phenomenon known to human kind...and that is Life and Death.

ODE TO 'NICE GUYS'

This is a very interesting RANT..as in an ode to nice guys that I stumbled online..I found it interesting and painstakingly true in more ways than one and I thought that it was a much better idea to share it with everyone, coz I know that there are hundreds of guys in the world who would easily relate to this post...I know it trashes girls in every way but then truth is a truth..no matter what...
Check it out..and If the 'nice guys' out there have something to add, they must go ahead with it
Ode to the Nice Guys
This rant was written for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.