A zillion thoughts plus one..

And when this "one" rules them all..

Just another nightout - or was it ? :)

So this one's big - it's huge! Ok you may or may not agree but I am excited about it..no m more than excited about it..people who have been around know if excited is still the right word :P (my friends have been chatting among themselves asking if I am any better or still hyperactive :P ).
It's obvious..it's so obvious!! :)

Allow me to take you into flashback :)

Thursday: May 05 2011y
Morning and afternoon
I ususally do not have a class/office on Thursday but I had an appointment at the international student center at 10, for some paperwork, so had to wake up early. After the appointment I decided to stay back for our team meeting scheduled at 2.

*
Well we, the four of us, Me, pal, durgu and mike - we decided to take part in the facebook hackathon - a university wide competition for building cool applications :) This is what this meeting was for.
*

The meeting didn't go toooooo well (for me).No more details. I was not happy.

Evening:
I worked on the idea. Thought about all that was discussed in the meeting and realized we had a lot of disjoint ideas that when connected well could form an awesome idea. And i wrote an email to my team. We all agreed. We had our idea. I was convinced. So were the other team mates.

Night:
No details. I was not happy.

Friday morning:
I went to my office to work.Worked for some time. I was feeling slightly better than the previous night.I then took off for where the competition was organised.


*
Friday was the hackathon day. It was to start at 5 in the evening.
*

Evening:
What happened beginning Friday evening till Saturday evening was just magical. We had an idea, a good team, awesome plan of execution and an achievable task! I knew I was enjoying every bit of it! The awesome mix of songs being played out loud, geeks around, everyone coding, thinking, unlimited brilliant food, drinks available, hourly raffle (not that i won even a single:( )..i mean if I were to define an ideal atmosphere to live, it's this..what these fb guys gave us at the hackathon!

We won the second prize for our app. As you (yes you reader) must have noticed, this is not a very well organized post as far as details pertaining to specail moments is considered, well that is because i'm too tired/sleepy even right now! But I knew i had to publish this post - this is important! And I need to do this right now because I still have that awesome feeling of victory inside me..it may just go weak when the week starts tomorrow..so even if this is not the most awesome post ever- i don't care.. because I know m writing what m feeling right now!

This hackathon could probably have been just another nightout- staying up all night to do a task -but it turns out this wasn't just another night out. Things changed after that. This reminds me of my very first post on this blog :)

"Khwab hai to mujhko na jaga"
(Don't wake me up if this is a dream)

I'll write a mature version of this post soon :P

The new breed

Like any other kid/human/observer, I always believed (yes! i do NOT anymore) that there are 2 kinds of people, GOOD and BAD. while the fancy stories I read as a kid tried to teach me that BADs would have some sort of horns on their heads ( mostly red) , i realized that it was only fake as i grew up.
And yes the fact holds true for the Good category too. And this is just my belief. I am not saying that Good Bad doesn't exist..No! it does! but certainly not in an absolute fashion..maybe it never did, and all that we read in our kindergartens was mere fake. what does exist, anyways i believe, is this Human class..this new breed with each member of it having their own idiosyncrasies and also some characteristics relatively more common and hence making it more of a "Type of people" thing..it's this new breed i am talking of here. Every individual has his priorities set. Things appear different only for people we know real close simply because we know them real close..because we are acquainted to the way their minds work. There are neither heroes nor villains in this real life. It's just the matter of faith, of trust. you either trust the other person or you don't. and even when you dislike something in a person you really trust , it just doesn't bother you ..it just doesn't matter. If we talk in terms of A and B, yes every A who holds B dear, chooses to ignore somethings or many..and every B knows about it. The fact doesn't change if we consider the situation from B to A. It's all about the choices we make while maintaining that trust and everything is good..'cause where there exists no faith, nothing else could either!
And when they compare the old times with the new, the today with the yesteryears, one thing no one ever forgets to mention is the ease in life deteriorating with time moving on towards a tough world. And i say really?? is it the competition? is it the struggle to survive?? is it all really that huge?? well i think it's Only the tendency to lose this Trust in our fellows, and everything else is sheer aftermath!

And I am back

I clearly, very distinctly remember this one: I was probably working on something, sitting in my room, at my home in India somewhere about one year back. And for some reason, I started reading a senior's blog who was doing his MS in US back then. I had just started getting my applications results and I still didn't know which school I was finally going to enter few months later. Anyways, I was reading his blog and (obviously) started thinking about "I could be writing my next post sitting in US".

I am writing this post sitting in my room and I am in US today. And this is that next post. I think it is important to mention here that this feeling is NOT just about being in "US" or doing "MS". It has a lot more to do with a lot of things other than all this."
Anyone who has ever seen a dream turning into reality would know what I mean.

I am back. Stay tuned!

:)

Verbatim Text : Uncovering our True Face

Here's a piece of text I read somewhere, found it worth sharing and hence quoting:

Uncovering our True Face
Many of us know the feeling of being stuck in a particular role within our families, as if we are wearing masks whenever we see the people we love. Maybe we are the good daughters, expected to always please others, or perhaps we are the family clowns, expected to be jovial and make everyone laugh. This same scenario can play out within a work situation or a group of friends. We may be so good at our role that we hardly even notice that we are wearing a mask, and yet, deep down, we know that we are not free to simply be who we really are. This can leave us feeling unseen and uneasy.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wearing a mask or playing a role. It is a natural part of any social dynamic and it can even be creative and fun. It only becomes a problem when you feel that you have no other choice than to wear that mask, and this is especially challenging if you realize you are never without one. Perhaps you have forgotten who you really are—a vast and unrestricted being of light—and have identified yourself completely with a role. You may be the dutiful, caring son who keeps his parents’ dysfunctional marriage intact. You may be the angelic wife who enables your husband to continue on a destructive path. You may be the cheerful daughter to a deeply depressed mother. Whatever the case, knowing the motivation behind your performance—the function of your mask—can help to uncover your true face.

Anytime we find ourselves stuck behind a mask, it is an indication that we are entangled in a dysfunctional dynamic in which our true self cannot be seen. We have been placed in this situation for the purpose of our own healing and, in some cases, the healing of others. From this perspective, life can be seen as a series of situations that call us to remove our masks—gently, and with great compassion for all concerned—to reveal the beauty underneath.

'cause I know it too..

It's been so long i scribbled some bits of text up here. To be honest, i did attempt a couple of times but ended up saving some as drafts. I have been thinking a lot, of late..reasons? Well maybe some time later. You know some of those issues which are intrinsically way too complicated to contemplate over in one go..that's pretty much the generalized reason i can give right now (maybe that's just with me, but ya it is the reason why those drafts are not up here.)

Anyways, I'll talk about something absolutely instant..that just happened..something exciting..i donot know how app an article here since this one's no flash, nevertheless i shall leave that to you to decide.

I went on a drive (calling a 4 km isn't technically incorrect 'cause it was still a drive i mean!)... so yepp.. I went on a drive when my watch was working absolutely fine showing 11:50 and it was the moon's turn to occupy the sky zone in my country. Now i wasn't up driving at this hour because I had a punjabi wedding to attend or something...it was some urgent work instead.

Hmmm...so what? a short night drive? big deal?
Well yes to me and maybe to you too once you read this :)

Night drives excite me like crazy and i know i share this fascination with a HUGE group of people across the globe :). So ya when i got this chance, there was no way i could miss it.
I did not turn the ac on. I preferred the car windows open instead, and played a collection of some of my favorite songs, and ya a lil louder than normal. It was such a pampering to the tired, irritated, all worked up person inside me. The feeling of fresh air breezing through my hair, the view of those yellow beams reflecting on the windshield and making the city streets glow, the respite from the nonsense metropolitan traffic...everything.. just everything was such a bliss..short timed..but a pure bliss. i could literally feel my face gleaming with a constant uncontrollable smile..yess...SMILE - that something which comes on your face when you achieve something you always wanted, that something which fills your heart with pleasure when you hug someone you love, that something which nourishes your soul when you feel that comfort and security being among people you trust completely, blindly. To generalize i was smiling because i was happy. Happy- not like I-Met-Amitabh Bachhan-Happy..but happy like Everything's-Perfect-Happy! :)

And so well I had been cruising for some 15 minutes now. Just then my phone buzzed. It was like fingers snapped to wake me up. I looked at my watch..time was 12:05 AM..I picked up my phone and was pretty instantly reminded of the fourth and fifth gears in the car machinery by mom on the phone.
(I felt like that kid being dragged out of the warm cozy mink blanket to get ready for school on a parky winter morning at 6 in the morning when it's still dark and hazy outside).

The time then was 12:10 or something. Even though i knew why she ordered me to accelerate, I did not want to actually think about it, or about all the WHYs or WHY CAN'Ts about it. I was getting late and it would have been only stupid/ impractical of me to argue. As much as we say we live in a well educated, cultured, developing and advanced society, there's no second thought to the fact that we are not entirely being truthful by saying that. I knew my mom's right. And I was at home when there were still ten minutes to half past twelve!

The wake up call..

With rights come duties. Nature, which turned into an abundant source of resources after the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century, was also mistakenly considered to be inexhaustible and while this myth still exists in some parts of the world, those which are aware do not find themselves capable enough of doing anything much about it . We all demand fuel, water, electricity and all sorts of resources but seldom do we realize how self centered citizens of this planet we are. we are not bothered about the future, busy consuming what we have in hand. and why not, we have earned it , right? but who's responsible for the future? yes of course we have organizations but are they adequate? Are few people powerful enough to make it up to the consequences of fatal actions of billions of people all around the world constantly stepping forward towards nothing less than disaster? i do not deny the fact that people are more aware than they were a few years back. what started as a concern of few is now a global issue and people all across the planet are being made aware. But then, it's not only pollution, it's not just global warming, it's not just population or extinction of breeds which once existed; It's about all this being collectively existing in our present,reminding us of how our past used to be and pretty much threatening as far as the future is concerned.Each one of us is responsible for how our tomorrow would be. We must do our bit to save our home planet before it's too late.If we don't now, it'll not be an exaggeration to say that life would become so difficult that eventually our unique blue planet would come to an end. And then even if it takes millions of years for it, it will take a rebirth; Earth will transmigrate into an empty, a barren, a mere huge oval dry piece of lifeless land and nothing else.We wont be there to see this because we won't exist anymore, none of us, no animals no plants no oceans, no life at all. Earth will be back but not us, you know why, because Earth has all the time in the world, but we don't....