Thursday, September 29, 2011

Old Habits

Remember a typical Villain-Hero Movie climax? In this ultimate scene, hero beats villain up bigtime. Villain clearly sees defeat, and begs for mercy. The hero being the hero, forgives the villain, thinks that villain is showing some remorse and he will be a better man now. The moment it appears that the hero takes eyes off this villain guy, he makes one last attempt to finish the hero off, but hero being the hero and villain being the villain, nothing else to be expected than the dynamic response on the hero's part and "Sachchai ki jeet".
Something that is portrayed in a major way here is that "Old Habits never die." And how true is that! One fine day, a 50+ guy in our office comes to play TT. He hasn't played TT in almost ten years. And yet when he starts to play, the smoothness, comfort with the sport and the finesse is clearly visible. This applies to bad habits as well. When someone is telling an interesting story, some other person necessarily has to come up with a better one(at least as per his standards), or else he'll feel that others think of him as a complete idiot. What really makes others think about him as a complete idiot, is a different issue.
Of course, habits become old habits when you get out of them, by choice or by force. After getting out of college, I tried to get out of some habits(good or bad-I won't comment. It completely depends on perspectives.) And with this experience, I can tell you that getting out of your habits is difficult. Curbing your natural instincts and acting differently takes out a lot from you. And it is much more difficult when you are experimenting, "What if I act this way in this situation? I am not sure, let's see." For example, if a gregarious person tries to keep mostly to himself, doesn't lookout for making friends with new people anymore, he/she may literally be holding himself/herself back every second.
As I said, I have been trying to change some habits. There was a time period in Trivandrum when I was staying aloof from most of the things happening around me. Then a time period when I refrained from making any silly comments on anything or anyone around. There was a time period when I stopped taking part in "Extra-curricular" activities as we know them. Nothing really out of depression or anything as such. Just a part of self-analysis. Maybe thought of studying a bit more helped me go through it.
But every time I had to go back to any habbit, it came out very naturally. The best day in my Trivandrum days so far was the day I had volunteered in Trinfy Carnival, an event for Infosys employees and their families. We were given responsibilities of the game stalls, and the joy on kids' and elders' faces after playing the games was beyond description. It didn't matter that I didn't know Malayaalam at all back then when 95% people asking information about the game were doing so in Malayaalam.
Did I regret coming back to my old habits? Yes. I had stopped expecting that I will get "friends" here. But then I came in contact with some people with whom things became pretty natural. Started pulling each other's leg and in the meantime I forgot that eventhough things look to be merry, it is not like back in college. And so I stepped out of the "line", just because of coming back to the old habit. Yes someone got offended, and I feel bad about it, and so this thought in head-"Old Habits never die."
Again, to come back to general sense, I think even you must have had such experiences in life, when you couldn't stop yourself from doing something, and regretted it just moments later, thinking that I probably could do this with someone else, but not now. A good thing about it though, is that, such experiences are food for thought, and always help you to grow, and quite frankly, are necessary.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Where it all started...

Hello people... Writing here after a long time... And just when I start typing, I really understand how long it has been...
Mysore was the next stop in the journey, when I last wrote in the world of blogs... It was not going to be a long journey, I had thought... How foolish I was... As they say, it was just the begining. Of what? Of an enlightening, ever teaching, mind broadening ride... If you are starting to get a feeling that it is another cribbing post about how things have changed... Hell yeah, you are absolutely right...!!!
Ok not really, I was just kidding... Kidding just about the "Cribbng" part though... Yes things have changed, but who said they were going to remain the same anyway? Some say that I have changed, and I feel they are absolutely right. of course, my interpretation and their interpretation of this change may vary(to a large extent in case of some people)... What I really want to say is that some things haven't changed. Some things are just the same as they were in "The Golden Days". The people who made them "Golden". All the shining "FRIENDS"...
As the days have passed since that beautiful time, more and more realisation sinks in... Realisation of what really gave me "kick" to do things... What really made me the person I was(past tense deliberate... Not sure if I still "am" that person...). It was all, due to the jackasses, the idiots, the fools, the breed that is called "Friends". I take this moment here to say that I miss them. Once upon a time, when we all thought that we'll spend lives in the same merry way as we did back then, somewhere deep down was that wisdom that it will be a mirracle if we actually can... But what was the point of speaking out the truth, when it was inevitable and everyone more or less knew that it was inevitable? Why would one have spent time on this truth, when time was a scarcity? Resources like oil, gold are fast depleting, and even with this full understanding, we extract them with ever increasing speed. Was it not the same what we were doing back then?
You tend to get a grip on the undestanding of the importance of things when you go away from them, and so did I... I moved out of my comfort zone the moment I parted from friends... And then I really understood what the world really is... As I write, a memory flashes by... Reading a blog "Sach ka Saamna"... It spoke about how friendships are fake and all. Back then, I ridiculed that kind of thinking. Over these 11 months, I was able to comprehend what made that article come up. I understood what kind of situations that person might have been in, what kind of people that person might have encountered with... I remember a few friends saying back then that they pity that blogger. And now I do... I really do, because I am(present tense here is deliberate as well) lucky enough to have my friends with me... You guys rock...!!!
I apologise for the times when I could not deliver like I promised, and I thank my friends for being... The memories are wonderful, and we'll definitely relive them... Not once, many times... Just  a few moments back I wrote that some things have changed. But some haven't. An occasion like friendship day still makes me write all this "crap", this "bakwaas"... If any reaction after reading this is like "Grow up", I will give out my best wicked smile and say nothing else... The same old thing coincidentally made me start second inning of "Life is interesting", FRIENDSHIP... Where it all began....
Happy friendship day everyone...!!!!!