The day after tomorrow!

The spirit of New York City! 

Frankenstorm Sandy visited us east coastners last week.... She was a perfect storm that hit the perfect city..causing mass destruction not just in the city but to our neighboring states as well...A category 1 hurricane but a category 3 storm gave us all a reality check, humbled us down, reminding us that we, the humans, might not be as invincible as we think we are; that there is definitely a much higher power over us but most importantly to never mess with a woman, her wrath can definitely destroy you!! =) 

The last couple of days have certainly been difficult..it was not just another storm or a hurricane... this was different never seen in the last 108 years storm. Half of the New York City, everything south of 40th street and especially the lower Manhattan was flooded. The entire subway system was under water.... What was heart breaking was the fact that "the city of lights" was not lit up for straight two days (I've never seen that happening so it was quite shocking for me!)... We were all forced to either take shelter under refuge camps or to stay indoors and stay cautious, some of us were lucky enough to have power for the most part while others had to do without it! 

The last two days were not only stressful but disheartening too! No car-honking and trying to overtake each other.. no cab pulling in the middle of the road or the herd of people trying to make it from one place to the other. NYC is made of fast-walkers-while-talking-on-the-phone-with-a-disrespect-for-traffic-rules kind of people (and we take Pride in being all of those things and this is what makes us NYorkers!) so it should not come as a surprise that I was particularly depressed! But today.....today brought a relief to my fears. Today is not just Halloween but also happens to be the day when businesses resumed and offices open back again...so what if the MTA still hasn't resumed to its full service or if subways are still under water...some of the MTA buses were running and nothing could bring joy and a smile to my lips like seeing those yellow cabs running the way they usually do - never stopping for anyone and driving like they just might kill you if you come in their way!! 

So while the city was recovering and trying to bring itself back to normalcy..I decided I should too, enough with being a lazy bum and eating chips while blaming the hurricane for it... after work I changed into my running gear, plugged my earphones in and decided to go out for a run and what I saw outside was completely breath-taking and awe-spiring (awesome + inspiring!!). Not only did I see those cute little kids dressed up in their costumes but their parents / siblings had joined in them too! I couldn't resist a smile when I saw a really cute 3 year old dressed as a tiger who ran by me and wished me happy Halloween . I smiled back and wished him back and saw his mother dressed, so I wished her and asked her if she usually dresses up with her kids every year and the response she gave me was not what I was expecting. She politely smiled and said that she usually doesn't but this year she decided to, not just to celebrate Halloween but to celebrate life... 

We, living-breathing-conspicuous souls, are creatures of habit. We love our routines and we like to live our lives by certainty. When something like Sandy happens it might shake us to the core but we always stand up, rise back up from the ashes and grow again...we rebuild what we lost and create new from what was destroyed. But most importantly we learn to smile back again. Just a small sight of cars running at full speed and people walking on the sideways was reassuring enough for me to believe that things will go back to normal very soon and that everything will be alright! 

Happy Halloween New York City!! 

Torn between the complexities of human heart vs mind!

Why is that when finally good things come back in your life after a dark cloud they bring along a lot of doubt?? Why is that when you finally start seeing the result for something that you've been working on for as long as you can remember suddenly seems to good to be true?? Why then suddenly you get all anxious and can't sleep through the night thinking and rethinking everything over and over again in your head....trying to find flaws and possibilities that could ruin everything that ever worked for??? Why is that even when you are working on something that means a lot to you.. you are not there anymore... you keep staring at something for so long and yet have no idea what you've been looking at??? Why is that when love finally knocks your door you suddenly are too afraid to open it?? Why is that when at work suddenly all the missing pieces seems to fall into its place, instead of being happy you're mind is filled with doubts and somewhere deep down inside you are waiting for something to go wrong...Why are we so afraid to begin something which is out of regular norms of the society?? Why can't we sometimes just follow what our heart desires and let the chips fall into places after...... and most importantly why do we let ourselves get into self doubt when at one time we were confident that the success will come in time?? Why can't our mind and our heart work together with mutual understanding and agree with each other on the same things! Why do we lose faith in everything we once believed in???

Here I am writing at 2:20 AM in the morning when I should be sleeping. I just can't fall asleep. I have a 9:00 AM meeting tomorrow and have to finish up on some deadlines and I've been trying to get my work done for almost 4 hours now. This is something that I would've finished in less than an hour any given day....but today seems to be exceptionally hard. My mind is not with me .... Inside out I'm really anxious and I finally acknowledge the signs ... I start to blabber and talk a lot more than I usually do... I have all these unanswered questions and many more that've been haunting me like spirits for a while now......I don't follow the rules (and yes I could be a rebel if I wan to)....and have most definitely taken risks by which my heart desires. I've gotten myself into a lot of unimaginable troubles for doing so...but never once had a regret. I don't feel the same person I used to be anymore. I judge all my actions and my words now ... I think long before I make any decision - am weighing in the pros and the cons as they say! There's absolutely nothing wrong in doing the right thing the right way and I tend to constantly chose mind over heart and yet I feel I'm not the same person anymore.... incomplete in a very emotional sort of way.... Why is it that I feel the fear of making a mistake by trusting my heart and following what seems right to my it and not to my mind?

And this is one blog which I find extremely hard to conclude....I dislike open endings but maybe it is what it is for this one for better or for worse!

Bringing Life back on Track.....

I haven't written in a really long time, every time the I thought I had something to write or I should write - which most of the time I think I did but never made an effort to pen those thoughts down...and mostly coz I was wayy too lazy. I wouldn't blame myself for that too (self defense is what it is..lol) - work kept me occupied and personal life was literally getting shattered into pieces in front of me and there was nothing I could do about it. I had a choice but decided to go otherwise. So here I am back again, writing or rather making an honest effort to. Lets see how that goes...

Gossip Girl!

So I've to admit that lately I got into the addiction of watching this infamous primetime tv show called "Gossip Girl" which involves a bunch of teenagers who come from elite families living on the upper east side of NY. To give a gist of it, this piece of fiction involves a whole lot of drama which keeps all the characters tangled to each other; and this is where it caught my attention.

Looking back into my life and the lives of others living around me, made me realize that our lives are no better than the fiction which airs on tv every week. Each of our lives are so tangled with other in the most complex way that we could literally compete with the complexity of a DNA structure. In the serial, there are few protogonists which drive the episode and then there are few who make the show entertaining enough to keep it going. Each one of us seeks drama in their lives. Consciously or subconsciously .. we are crave to have the drama going, people have different approaches to involve every bit of drama in their lives. One way or the other its there and we all like it. Many may not agree with me but this how most of our lives work. Some are open about it and some like to hide it under their sheets. 

A section of this drama is about forbidden love - the feelings being confessed mutually and yet it is not meant to be. It is either all or its none, "none" being the important part of it, as it usually ends being none. What flabbergasts me about this drama , and again I could be totally old-fashioned and unrealistic if you must say to such concepts, is how easily people can move on to once confessed love. How easily are people ready to give up on love, hope and most importantly their own feelings (which either they completely misunderstood or that they never believed in it). I see it happening everywhere... people confessing that they like each other and here starts the whole charade of it,for the lack of better words. One enjoys the initial phases if you must say, of the relationship, and enjoys it to a point wherein nothing is expected out of them and espescially as long as it does not require testing times. When the moment arrives of showing how much you really care, love and are committed to what you once said you believed in, people start walking out of it coz a) they are either tooo scared from the level of committment it needs or b) they find it easier to blame it on the other person saying "I was ready to give my 100% but that wouldn't have helped coz he/she wasn't willing to" or c) coz it just might require from their end to really commit to something and that might really show their true colors - fear of commitment, which again is a very common thing observed these days. 

After completely deviating from topic of forbidden love - in the end all I can think of saying is, "sometimes it is never meant to be, and it is better that way" . 

Moments....

It's one of those teeth-chattering cold nights; just a thought of it gives me a shiver. As cold as it feels, the look outside is breathtakingly beautiful. It's like the entire surrounding is draped under white sheets - of snow. As I gaze outside my window to absorb in the beauty of the nature, I also realize that nothing else could make this a perfect moment - me comfortably ducked in my comforter inside my super warm apartment, enjoying the snowfall and soft romantic number, soothing to my ears; playing on my laptop sitting on my lap and my favorite Ice-cream on the other. A perfect moment for the perfect weather. There's so much more that I want out of life and the desires are endless, but for now ... I think this was perfect to calm me down and ease out all my anxieties ...... even if it were for a moment .. I was in content with myself.

One Fight ... many Stabs.. One Dead... many Deaths....Emotional Turmoil /Outbreak !

Late Lt. Anubhav Rao's family would've never ever in their wildest dreams thought that their son after April 13th, 2008 will never come back home ... ALIVE .... he did came back though... but just the body... the soul was gone ...! And they thought he was out there for his vacation ... supposedly having a good time. I could never possibly imagine what his family must be going through .... I don't even want to think or feel. "Had his life been sacrificed in combat, our suffering would have been much less," his mother said. Nothing in this world can justify or suffice a parent's loss .... He did not deserved to be ...... He did not deserve to die like this ...... No one deserves to be murdered ... He is a soldier .. and he deserves much more respect from the nation, from the people who make this nation. The least we owe him is justice.... justice for an untimely demise of this young pilot. The advocate needs to be punished .... not only to make him realize his mistake but also a lesson to others who think they can get away by committing such crimes, crime of drunken driving .... wrong side parking .... assault ... and stabbing an innocent man to death .. and injuring others as well.

What really hurts the most is the statement given by the defense lawyer Shashi Pandit.... having the audacity of calling Hari Daas Tanwar (the criminal/murderer) an "innocent man" and addressing Tanwar's actions as an act of self defense..... innocent people don't stab others in rage ... innocent people don't drink n drive ..... they don't disobey the laws ..... innocent was anubhav .... who was killed in all this chaos ..... innocent is his family who will live with this pain all through their lives .... innocent is his mother who'll never see his elder son's face again .... innocent is his father who had to put down his son with his own hands ....... innocent is his brother who'll never be able to seek guidance from his elder brother ......innocent are all those people who were attached to anubhav ....loved him for who he was ..... One wrong move ... one action out of anger killed so many innocents ..... A tear shed ......

A Devil faced Angel .... :-)

AAhhmmmmm....welll for the past few weeks lets just say that I wasn't very happy with everything happening around me.. and my surrounding ... I had moved out from the place I called my home for the last 3 years and me was certainly not liking it.... not that I'm not adaptable to the changes but I think 3 years is a long time anyway ...... So here I am in a new place... new faces .... new people.... new apartment ... new environment and a total 180 degree change in the weather.... I guess I was used to living in a sunny weather and now.... heee hee ... well its rarely that sunny ... In everything that's happening new around me .... I stood back and was trying to get a grasp of the new surrounding and being a silent observer ... I like to observe very closely, watching every minute detail... so in this new place I stand back and like a true and a devoted spectator I just observe, watch people interact..... the way they get dress.. (since the usual temperature here is sub-zero)... the busy busy life .... I stand here and look at the very fast pacing lifestyle around me... everything is sooooo fast and swift ... so....energetic .. and in between the entire crowd of unknown faces I am still smiling ... if you may ask .. that's because in this crowd there's a reason for me to smile .. there's this one known face, an almost angelic face which has this gesture of reassurance ... an aura which can so very easily make anyone comfortable around itself ... and in that crowd he's standing there... watching me and is definitely smiling back at me ... it is such a great relief to know that you are not alone .. someone you trust and can rely on is just "half a call away" .... and I know I can always fall back to him and he'll try his level best to help me through.... Something about him just makes me smile .... don't know if its him or the small little things he does to make you feel comfortable and special or the gestures of warmth that just sways your heart away .... Small things like this really makes me feel blessed a lot of times ... blessed to have few people around me who really make a difference in what I really am today ..... Me!!