Godhuli.....The Twilight

It was time again. You had to leave, your constraints were calling you back, your obligations were not letting you to continue any longer. And I, like a beggar outside a temple, was still in hope that you will stay or at least say those few words before leaving for which I have been waiting for so long, making today different from the rest. And then your phone beeped and yet again for the third time in the last ten minutes a message arrived asking you to return back soon. I was once again surrounded by the same old aura of disappointment. I could see in your eyes that you wanted to stay, I could see in those two moist pearls on your face that even you wanted to say something different today than a mere good bye. Just when I could see a ray of hope, the stupid device beeped again for the fourth time and I knew this was it for the day. Just like the last time or the hundreds of times prior to that, you rose your right hand exactly in the same manner to precisely the same height and I, unwillingly and reluctantly, rose mine to shake off good bye for the day. The same old jealousy in my sense of audibility for my sense of touch was creeping in and my inner self was trying to sort out the issue. My inner self again as always was helpless. I had no control over the situation. I saw a smile on your lips but along with that I could see an amassing of disappointment building on your forehead. What was to follow was not new to any of us but neither of us rejoiced it. I saw you turn away from me and slowly walk away into the darkness of the ambiance. I was alone all over again, unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Far far away, your vanishing shadow was still visible. A loud thought cried inside me. I wanted you to turn back and come running towards me. I wanted you to embrace me tight in your arms one more time. But you were gone. I could feel the wet streams on my cheeks.
Suddenly, I was awaken by a voice. It was my mother. It was almost the end of twilight and the night has begun. "Strangely,it was a long day today, isn't it?" she said. I gave her a smile as I knew the answer for her question. I said to her, " I know Maa, I just bid good bye to the SUN". She thought I am still day dreaming. She kept the tea on my table and left. I uttered to myself," Longer the day, shorter are the nights" and began enjoying my tea.

I love this game!!!!

The last day in campus, many things happened for the last time in my life on that day. But most importantly I stepped on the college basketball court for the last time.
It has been more than 3 months since I came to Bangalore. I have embraced the atmosphere of this techy city whole heartedly. I am really getting dissolved in the liquid of professionalism which this city has offered me. But professionalism and work on one side, each of us on this planet have passion for something or the other. I have it too for the game of Basketball.
Last week SPREE'09 ended in the college. Friends back in the college continuously updated me on the happening on court. I was really hating myself for missing the action. I was so proud of our team for playing superb game and also the girls team for winning that single match. But wht the hell????? I havent played for the last 3 months. I was going crazy. Watching this year's Slamdunk contest on youtube (where Nate Robinson jumped over Dwight Howard) further drove me mad. It was really tough for me to resist. And then finally I got the oppurtunity. One day I met few guys who play daily at a court nearby. Guess what!!!!I was there the next day.
The moment I got that first basket in it was like " Yeah Babay, this is awesome!!!!!". Next I was at the defense and a huge guy came running for a lay up and bam!!!! a tap on the ball( the tappu!!!!), the ball is out of the court. My right palm was red, but woooooooo!!!!! the feeling of slapping the ball in mid air is like sitting over a cloud and getting high ;).
By the time the game ended I was all drenched in sweat as a good game of basketball ended. More than tired I was satisfied from within. I love this game. I love watching Shaq o Neal dunk and bend the rings by more than 30 degrees, I go mad when I see Jason Williams giving a blind pass off the back of his hand, I get so animated when I see air-borne Kobe doing the magic tricks in mid air. I simply love this game :) :)


"There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket." ~Abe Lemons

"I haven't been able to slam-dunk the basketball for the past five years. Or, for the thirty-eight years before that, either." ~Dave Barry

Jaisi Bachi Hai Waisi Ki Waisi Bacha Lo Yeh DuniYa

World is a happy place. This is what we believe or at least this is what we want to believe. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west and today hasn't changed much from yesterday. The world is all about superficial universal truths which already exists and which are in the continuous process of evolution. The following lyrics from a song called "duniya" took me deeper. Go through the lyrics slowly and feel each word of the song:

oo ri duniya…
oo ri duniya
aye surmayee aankhon ke pyaalon ki duniya oh duniya
aye surmayee aankhon ke pyaalon ki duniya oh duniya
satrangi rango gulalon ki duniya oh duniya
satrangi rango gulalon ki duniya oh duniya

alsaayi sejo ke phoolon ki duniya oh duniya re
angdaayi tode kabootar ki duniya oh duniya re
aye karwat le soyi haqeeqat ki duniya oh duniya
deewani hoti tabiyat ki duniya oh duniya
khwaahish mein lipti zaroorat ki duniya oh duniya re
ye insaan ke sapno ki niyat ki duniya oh duniya
oh ri duniya oh ri duniya


yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai?
yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai?

mamta ki bikhri kahani ki duniya oh duniya
behno ki siski jawani ki duniya oh duniya
aadam ke hawaa se rishte ki duniya oh duniya re
heyyy shayar ke pheeke labzo ki duniya oh duniya

gaalib ke maumin ke khwaabon ki duniya
majazo ke un inqalabo ki duniya
faize firako sahir umakhdum meel ki zoku kitabo ki duniya

yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai?
yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai?

palchin mein baatein chali jaati hai
palchin mein raatein chali jaati hai
reh jaata hai jo savera wo dhoondhe
jalte makaan mein basera wo dhoondhe
jaisi bachi hai waisi ki waisi bacha lo yeh duniya
apna samajh ke apno ki jaisi utha lo yeh duniya
chitput si baaton mein jalne lagegi sambhalo yeh duniya
katpit ke raaton mein palne lagegi sambhalo yeh duniya
oh ri duniya… oh ri duniya… wo kahen hai ki duniya
yeh itni nahi hai sitaaro se aage jahan aur bhi hai
yeh hum hi nahi hai wahan aur bhi hai
hamari har ek baat hoti wahin hai
hamein aitraaz nahi hai kahin bhi
wo aayi zamil pe sahi hai
magar falsafa yeh bigad jaata hai jo
wo kehte hai… aalim yeh kehta wahan ishwar hai
faazil yeh kehta wahan allah hai
kabur yeh kehta wahan isa hai
manzil yeh kehti tab insaan se ki
tumhari hai tum hi sambhalo yeh duniya

yeh ujde hue chand baasi chiragon
tumhare yeh kale iraado ki duniya
oo ri duniya oo ri duniya…
oo ri duniya…

SerendipitY

There was this month long Europe tour in 1994. Raj with all his friends in London decided to attend the tour. Simultaneously, Simran in some other part of the city convinced her father to allow her to attend the same tour. Life ki comedy dekho, both took the same train and both were late to catch it. No body else than Raj observed the lady running desperately to catch the train. He somehow managed to get Simran on board AND the legendary love story begins. Now that is some fortunate accident.

It was one another lazy afternoon and Isaac was taking a nap under the tree. The poor tree was not strong enough to handle the weight of the lucky Apple and he wasnt hungry at that time. That is where the term gravitation was coined. What if he was hungry then????

He used to take the regular 7 o'clock local for his office. He never missed it. But somehow that day he was late and missed the train. Later on, that train burst into debris as a part of the series of Mumbai Local train blasts. That was fortunate!!!!

Bhagat Singh was a fan of Gandhiji in his childhood. But due to some agitation during the the Satyagrah movement, people burnt the police station at Chauri Chaura and Satyagrah was called off by Bapu. A new face of the Indian Freedom Struggle in the form of Bhagat Singh was born. So burning of the police station and subsequently calling off the movement was a fortunate incident for India!!!!

While casting for Sholay, the makers of the movie approached Danny Denzongpa for the role of Gabbar (imagine!!). Since he was busy with a Firoz Khan's movie he refused the offer. Hence the role went to the new guy Amjad Khan and one of the greatest villains of all time was characterised. Intrestingly Sholay won only one filmfare.

Some great man said " No accidents occur without intentions". I dont believe in him. For me no accidents are without some significant conclusion. When the conclusion turns out to be fortunate then we are the victim of Serendipity

Parichay Patra

My name is Avinash Sharma. This is short part of my story of life. This part of my life is called blogging.......I landed on this planet some 22 years ago in a town/city called Ranchi ( the same place where the present captain of Indian Cricket team comes from). I was also not that bad at cricket during my childhood but it had to be him not me who was destined to lead the country and on the contrary I was to study engineering from BITS Pilani Goa Campus and attend PS2 program and hence start blogging, as our one of the seniors, Daniel bhaiya, say, " PS2 is the best time to start writing blogs". I am one of the guys among the crowd trying to win the rat race, trying to raise my head above the rest so that I can be identified, trying to do something with my life to make it worthy enough to live, basically trying to pursue Happyness.

In my first post I will try to justify the title of my blog which according to me is a very difficult task to do. People might have opinion(s) about the title. To some it might sound a heavy philosophical title and to others it might seem to be just another choice of differentiating one's blog from the rest. To be honest I could not think of a better title than 'In Pursuit of HappYness'. I am a big fan of Will Smith and as I have, most of us must have seen his flick titled 'Pursuit of HappYness'. Its my all time favourite. I have seen it a number of times and I love it. In the beginning of the movie he mentions about Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence". In that speech Mr. Jefferson used the word "pursuit" and "happiness" side by side. Eversince I saw that movie a big question has been bothering my mind. Was he correct? Can we ever achieve happiness? Will there be a day when we can really call ourselves happy? Is happiness a thing which we can only pursue and never have it? Trust me the question is still unanswered for me and to satisfy my innerself for the time being I have started believing Mr. Jefferson and hence I named my blog " In Pursuit of HappYness". The letter 'Y' instead of the correct letter 'I' is just for fun or to put in better words to make my self HAPPY as it is in the movie. In the rest of the post I will describe few incidents which I observed/saw in the recent past and somehow I was forced within to think and relate it to the emotion of happiness.

1) One day on my way back from work I saw a small kid selling tea in front of The Forum( a mall at Bangalore). He asked me if I want some tea. I refused and walked away. While walking I couldnt stop thinking about that kid and kept wondering about happiness for him. Selling tea at Rs. 3 per cup makes him happy ? Say, if he sells 20 cups a day and with those 60 bucks he gets food for his family which makes him happy and may be this is the reason he is doing that job or may be he has no other option and he is not at all happy doing this job. Then I thought from my point of view. Spending Rs. 3 was not a big deal. If i had bought tea from him I would not have thought about it in that much detail and it could have been over at that point of time. This straight away implies, ignoring that kid's offer and saving Rs 3 didn't make me happy.

2) On the same day as I approached home I saw an awesome car in shining black color( one of the many in Bangalore). The person inside that car looked so damn happy. Again a thought striked my mind. Fight for materials and objects. Earn them, the expensive ones, the exotic ones. The more you have them, the happier you are. Is it so????

3) I saw the latest movie of Will Smith, "Seven Pounds" and also I saw "Schindler's List". Both the movies are too good to be described in one post and they appealed to me big time. Here I was confused between selfishness and happiness. In the former, the actor of the movie considers himself to be responsible for the death of seven innocent people during an unfortunate accident and he decides that he will find seven good and needy people around him and help them in whatsoever manner he can. He does every thing he can. In the process he even commits suicide so that he can donate his body part to other people who need them. In the later one, which is from the time of Second World War, the actor is a German businessman and and he has thousands of Jews working under him in his factories. In order to save his employees from the German bloodshed he buys these employees in return of every thing he possessed. In the climax he feels sad and cries in front of his employees that he didnt do enough for his workers and and if he wanted he could have saved 10-20 more workers in return of his car,clothes, rings on his fingers. He wanted all of them to be saved from Germans even though he had to sacrifice each and every thing he possessed. In both the movies, the lead actors helped people around them. This made people around them happy. But if I look into the reasons behind this help, I find a sense of selfishness hidden in both the characters. In "Seven Pounds" the actor wanted to get over is guilt or in hindi the word is 'prayaschit'. In "Schindlers List" the actor had a business to run and for that he needed workforce and may be this was the reason he went to the extreme to help them out or may be he was too emotionally attached with his fellow workers to loose them. Whatever might be the reason, be it the business or emotional attachment or the quest to get over your guilt, the sense of selfishness seems to be one more probe towards happiness.

In all the above three situations described I tried to observe the ways in which we try to achieve happiness but surprisingly never achieve it. Happiness is subjective, it has different meaning to different people and further a single correlation of happiness with rest of the things never satisfies us. We want happiness to be multidimensional.

This blog of mine is a description of my quest in search of happiness in its true sense. I know it's a never ending safari and the deeper I go into the Jungle the darker it becomes. It can only be in my death bed where I would be able to explain the word 'Happiness' in a much much better way than today but for now I am already on with my gears and lets see how far can I run......

"Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi Ke Har Khwahish Pe Dum Nikle!
Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan Lekin Phir Bhi Kam Nikle!!"