Apples to Oranges

We all have grown up hearing the phrase " Nice guys finish LAST" and laughed when someone we know ends being the NICE guy, makes a mockery of himself, inevitable for a girl. What baffles us the most is how something so obvious could be overlooked, how could someone not learn form the mistakes of others and how could some make the same mistakes time and again.

        I have always considered myself as someone who was smart enough to understand the tricks of the trade when it came to women and realized at a very early stage that being nice wasn't my cup of tea. Call it GODS sarcasm or fate, but no matter who you are, sooner or later, life does came back to bite you on ur arse. 

        The other day, a dear friend of mine brought it to my notice that i had changed, i had transformed form  an APPLE  (sweet and nice) to an ORANGE (tangy and nice). Honestly speaking, i couldn't really understand the metaphor in its entirety until last night. Having had more than a few crisis in the last 2 odd months that have tested me in ways i thought weren't even possible, i had given up on everything. The oddest of surprises was that in giving up and accepting defeat, i somehow found the ARROGANT, COLD HEARTED and the blatantly SADISTIC Chandigarh lad, who i had been trying to get rid off. In trying to make others happy,  i had forgotten the joys of doing things for your own selfish reasons, the absolute delight in not having regrets and most of all , the simple pleasure of SPEAKING YOUR MIND and asking POINTED questions.

           The true triumph is when , after having tasted defeat, staring temptation straight in the eye and saying NOT THIS TIME BOY. Playing with it, fliritng with it, admiring it BUT NOT letting the temptation into ur mind and deepest recesses. The APPLE has infact turned into an ORANGE, just a little badder than before, just a little more meaner than before, just a little bit colder than before BUT a whole lot happier than before. and the timing couldn't have been better. For the first time in Bangalore, i had the company to match the party LONG LIVE THE KINGFISHER BEER FEST  

The GOLDEN Rules

Well, more than a few people (and people whom i hold very dear) have expressed concerns , or should i say, dismay and shock, over my last few posts. While i am touched, with all the concern and love, it also was an eye opener for me. It served as the perfect catalyst that was required to wake me up from this slumber. Having gone through, probably, what must be the toughest and the most freaky few months of my life, the only desire left in my heart now, is to do what everybody has been after me to do, for the longest time i.e. TO SHARE WITH THE WORLD ALL THE TRICKS OF SNARING ANY WOMAN, be it single, smart , dumb, married, committed , beauful or jsut ur next door girl.

1) NEVER EVER get involved with a girl you have to see/ meet everyday.

u may ask but WHY?? here's why. Seeing her everyday, makes it a habit, a set routine and after a while, even if u dont realsie it, u become addicted to the routine, even if u hate it. U start taking it for granted and expectations begin to creep in, and any deviation form them, FUCKS with ur head

2) NEVER EVER LET GO OFF ALL THE POWER in a relationship

u may say, once u find true love, all of this doesnt matter. Well, u may be right, but in my experience (and trust me its pretty exhaustive ;-) ) Being there selflessly for the other person is a given, but expecting the same from the other person is NOT wrong. If u dont like something, dont let it sly else it will become a precident and will irritate u for ever BUT remember to use it at the right time ONLY.

3) TARGET committed girls n date a min of 2 girls at the same time

Firslty, committed girls feel a lot safer than single girls as they dont have chip on their shoulders. Be a friend to them, ALWAYS listen to what they r sayin, even if it bores the life out of u. Remember what they say, n never offer advice unless asked for. Never critize them, n if u have to, do it in such a way, that it apperas an extension of their own idea.

Secondly, since they r committed, make sure they dont break up with their BF's. He is unknwoingly ur best friend. Every mistake he makes, is an advantage for u, so DONT kill the golden goose. n since she is committed, u wont ever get too serious for her.

Finally, since u r dating 2 women, u wont believe the crap u say abt love to them. Plus, lying abt love will become so ingrained in u, that u will start frliting, even when u dont even try.

4) TEST the boundaries

every girl is not the same , so its IMPOSSIBLE to say what is a sure shot what to get a girl. u constantly have to keep testing or even bending the boundaries of the relationship, else u will never be able to figure out what the extent to which u can go. It could be anyhting, and not just gettin physical stuff. Even the mental comfort level which u share, makes a lot of difference. Once u get her to share her deepest darkest secret, u know u have her undying trust. After that how u handle it, is upto u.

5) BE everything she DOESNT looks for in a BF

If she is any gud, she would have guys hitting on her all the time, so dont be JUST another one in the crowd. Be her friend, but keep tellin her stories of ur gf's. Create a dual personality in front of her, one of a friend and another of the guy u r with other girls ( non friends). LIE if u have to, make up phantonm stories, create people out of thing air BUT show her u have a bad side. then all the niceties u do, will leave a much sweeter taste in her mind.

6) NEVER take names or tell anybody what u r doing

Never EVER tell the girls name to anybody, if possible. Keep it under wraps as much as possible but share with her ur friends name, this will make her more relaxed, but DONT make them meet her. Meeting the family is simply out of the question, we dont want unnecessary complications, do we ;-) World is a really small place, n ppl r connected some how or the other. So be very carefull what u say to ppl, at times even ur BEST friend can turn out to be a member of the rival gang. lol.

Thats preety much all i can remember right now, but since this is a topic, which i dearly love, constant updates will keep on flowing. Hope , some poor soul finds this useful.

How the MIGHTY have FALLEN

They say, OLD HABBITS DIE HARD. Well, to be perfectly honest, i always thought, that while the statement is true, it is also true that IF U LIE LOUD ENOUGH AND LONG ENOUGH, IT BECOMES THE TRUTH. In my own innocent and true boyish spirit , i imbibed these two phrases into my life, almost eight yrs ago.

I started to LIE abt everything, and apparently after a while i convinced myself so completely, that it became a habit. The truth became so entangled with the lies, that, when i look back at it, even i can’t tell one from the other. A few lucky encounters or chance incidents, gave me a certain position in people's mind, one of a womanizer, one who could get committed girls to fall for him , someone who was devious and conniving and it gave me such a HIGH, made me feel so powerful, that i ran with it. Even when all of it had lost its meaning, even when the burning fire of desire had burnt out, i still ran with for 6 yrs, fuelled by the expectations of people, consumed by my own dark mind, and the urge to shock and awe the world.

The need to turn EVIL n UNPREDICTIBLE and to be HATED became so uncontrollable, that doing the most indespicable things, manipulating the most innocent of hearts, didn't even make me bat an eyelid. CONTROLLING people and their lives seemed so right. Time and again, GOOD tried to rear its ugly head up, but all i had to crush it was, sms 3 women I LOVE U. ;-)

In the last 18 months, the memory of the GLORIOUS past has kept me going on the familiar path of destruction, BUT the events of yesterday (missing a friends cake cutting, thinking abt a friends words during the exam to the extent that it gave a migraine, a wonderful evening another friend and the open hearted conversation with her and the surprising SMS) though seem not very significant, did a lot of damage (or should i say a lot of good). It made me realise that i am back to being what i was , before this MAGICAL AND SURREAL journey of 8 yrs started. Back to being confused, back to not being in control of my own decisions, back to being a spineless weasel unable to take a stand and most significantly, BACK TO BEING THE GUY FOR WHOM WOEMN ARE MYTHICAL CREATURES, MEANT TO BE ADMIRED FROM A DISTANCE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO BEFRIEND.

The saddest part of the fall, is not the feeling of being pathetic or self pity, but the MEMORY of the yrs gone by. If life has to teach lessons, well it should atleast have the decency to erase the memory of the time when u were GREAT. THIS time, the defeat has been so utter and complete, that not ONLY have i LOST the MOJO, but also even the WILL to fight for it.

          

           

Desperate to be RELEVANT

I remember when I was in class 6, our teacher of English gave us the following topic for writing an essay, “Our we happier than our forefathers”. Like most things back then, I never tried to understand what it meant, but did it anyways. The reason, why this thought suddenly popped into my head, will be explained later(and let me assure u, it will be worth the wait), but it suddenly dawned on me, that this is the earliest memory I have of the time, when I tried to defy the path normally taken, and actually took a risk of copying it from an essay book and praying that nobody else had the same book.

     It may seem like a very insignificant incident, but for a boy, who was as timid as they come, so shy that he couldn’t speak to a girl even if his life depended on it, who was the ideal picture of your bookworm, who actually took pride in the fact that he had never been scolded by any teacher (This fact remains true, till date ;-) ) and who couldn’t stand in the same room as a guest for more than 2 seconds ,without running out shit scared.

    The metamorphosis of this very boy, into the man I am today ,like most stories, involves a girl. The only catch here is (in true CHANDIGARH SPIRITS, all pun intended), it involves a different girl, at every stage of the metamorphosis. Right from the first girl I ever gave a call to (which was in class 9), to the first girl, I ever had a crush on (which was in class 10) BUT the most significant impact was made by that teacher of English (and not the English teacher, I am sure my principal would be proud that I still remember this) in class 6. And not surprisingly , she(the teacher) was a 25 yrs old female, who forced us to mingle with the opposite sex and gave punishments which involved sitting with a new girl everyday in class and spending all your time with them. This was phase one of the metamorphosis (even though it wasn’t intended and took a long time to show results)

       The next step, was when my first crush, shunned me away when I asked her for her phone no. ( I remember the embarrassment of standing at your farewell party of class 10, and feeling dejected). The only saving grace was the fact that just a few months ago, I was the main player in getting a certain maths prof. chucked out of school (and my parents had no clue about it), else it might as well have been my funeral.

     The 3rd main phase , was when I had a chance encounter with a certain Gaatha Sharma, in class 11. For almost two yrs, I was her knight in shining armour, her one stop solution to all problems and the shoulder she always cried on, albeit it was just over the phone. Her countless friends, who showed interest in me, suddenly showed me my TRUE purpose in life., overpowering all previous failures or for the lack of a better word, a non existent past. 

     After that, life was never the same. For the next 6 to 7 yrs, life was just a burning desire to live life in the fast lane. Each conquest, only made me bolder and brasher. Nothing was impossible. The fact that she was committed, was just a technicality. Committed girls was a drug and I was addicted to it. I was GOD, and the world, mere pawns.

    The final and yet the most significant metamorphosis came when I had to shift base to Bangalore, last June. In the race to seem “NORMAL” to the people around me in my new surroundings, I somehow lost myself. And just as fate would have it, GOD played his cruelest trick right then. He sent NOT ONE BUT TWO women, to do the impossible i.e. FUCK MY HEAD UP, and let’s say they did a mighty fine job. The story of which is a blog for another time.

     In Chandigarh I had a clear mind and knew what I wanted, no matters how confusing the women were and as a result nothing ever went wrong. The BIGGEST irony is, in trying to do the right thing here in Bangalore , I have achieved the greatest of ecstasies and also hit the lowest point of my life. BUT the thing that I have come to realize of late, is that my entire life has been a desperate attempt to seem relevant. All the relationships, flings , affairs have been an attempt to satisfy the ego of a shy boy, that it’s never too late for life to begin. And now in Bangalore, it was a desperate attempt to rectify the past, to right the wrongs, to make life seem relevant and to be more than just a shallow person that it was before.

    Finally, I have managed to decipher the divine truth of life. We all try desperately to seem relevant, it’s just that it differs for person to person. For me, it’s the FIRST GOLDEN TENANT that I had made for myself , which read “ EVERY RELATIONSHIP CANT BE CLEARLY CANT BE DEFINED CLEARLY. SOME ARE BEST ENJOYED IN THE CONFUSION WHICH SURROUNDS THEM”

The UNNAMED Relationship'S

It is a very basic human characteristic to assign some sort of nomenclature to things we associate with, be the place we live in, the world around us or be it the people we care about or are related to. For the ones implied on us by society, we call them by different names like father, mother, sister brother etc and the ones which we choose for ourselves, we call them friends, Bf, Gf etc.

But what exactly is a relationship?? Is it just a name we choose to assign to something we share with someone or it is a feeling of the heart which we share with someone. Does just saying that he/ she is my bf/gf, give you the satisfaction and the comfort that YES, now I have something substantial or something worth living for. Why are we so hell bent on tagging every relationship? Why can’t we just enjoy that special feeling with that special some? Is the society which forces to define everything clearly or is that we are so blind that we are not willing to challenge our inertia for change?

Every Holy Scripture says that life is a constant struggle between GODD and EVIL, that both of them reside inside of us and that every moment makes us choose one over the other. If so, then how can it be possible to slot every human connection into a standard relationship name?? Why can’t we just say that, like life, this relationship hinges on the GREY area. It’s not something, that can be defined in words. It’s the source of my biggest happiness, even if at times, it drives me crazy.

The irony of life is, for the last 6 to 8 yrs, I have the heard the phrase “ I CANT EXPLAIN WHAT I SHARE WITH U, BUT IT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME” and laughed my ass off on it, and now, today , in the twilight of my educational life, away from home, away from all familiar faces, I find myself in the very same situation, saying the very same things and experiencing the very same emotions (Thankfully not with the very same females atleast ;-) )

It’s surprising how much a person learns once you take him out of his comfort zone. How the things, which were nothing more than mere shallow words at one point of time, take the form of divine truth, and notions by which you used to swear by, seem like nothing but shallow worlds. How at times, even the taste of defeat is far sweeter than the taste of all ur conquests/ victories put together. How the refusal of a girl to ur proposal, make u even closer to her?? How suddenly you message someone in the middle of the night, without a care in the world, just to say that u r scared/ worried, how despite everything that goes on, anytime something goes wrong or u wanna share something personal/important, SHE is the only person that comes to your mind, even though she is NOT ur gf?? How, despite knowing it for a fact, that NOTHING will ever happen between the two of us, you go to any extent for that person?? People may say, IT IS LOVE . Yes perhaps it is, but why make life so simplistic. Why can’t we be comfortable in the GREY’s of a relationship. Why can’t we JUST accept the fact, for some strange, the comfort level, which u share with that specific person, is something out of this world. That despite all the problems, complications, bad history, confusion, so called UNACCEPTABLE relationships in the society or for the lack of a better term, UNSIMPLISTIC relationships, r sometimes the biggest source of your strength.

How, you can magically open up all ur secrets to that person, and that person alone. How despite all your best efforts, she is always on your mind?? How despite all the bad blood, you look at the relationship and realize that, the NAME is not important, the feeling in the relationship is far more important. How every time you look at her, you can’t help but cherish how lucky u r to share with her whatever it is you share with her.

I may be the last person on this earth to understand the concept of LOVE, but yeah, when it comes to relationships in the GREY area, I have come to cherish them very dearly. So much so, I have come to realize that , for a soul like me, life in the grey is far more happier and enriching that living it in the rigid colours of the society.

Not confused any more

Why is MBA a MUST!!!!!

On June 24th, when i reached Mumbai and took my first steps in this journey called MBA, i used to laugh at everyone, who said that MBA is NOT all abt makin money(or acquiring skills to make the same), but is a life changing experience. ;-) i am sure, i wasnt the only one who shared this perception.

     But now, after almost 16 months into it, i have been forced to change my perception. The ride so far has been an INTERESTING one to say the least. For better or for worse, it has changed the person i am now.

I have experienced every human emotion in this journey so far: from the joy of meeting unexpectedly like minded people, an unforgettable bus ride from mumbai to bangalore, the first CRAZY n WILD week in bangalore, the first crush on a senior, the mid-night escapades with a special someone, the um teen adventures with batch mates, making friends who will last a lifetime, the pain of a broken heart, the ecstasy of finding love, the everlasting confusing b/w being just friends or lovers, the back stabbing from so called friends, burning those mid night oils during exams, pool side parties, having unexpectedly delicious home cooked food, impressing the prof with ur music collection, being lazy as well as the guy on whom ppl can rely on to do the oddest of jobs, to working two straight nights just before the exams to give the seniors a Grand farewell to being the unexpected DJ for the alumni meet to making the MOST of the round tables (ROI) ;-)

       The academics seem to be just a part and parcel of MBA.The real learning comes from outside the classroom. The candid attitude of the prof's, who talk straight form the hips, the no holds barred generosity of a certain prof. to treat all of us TWICE, the scheming n cunning minds of others, the college dynamics ( the politics that goes on), sucking up to the right ppl to get the work done, only to realise that someone else took the credit for it. lol.  

     Not only does it test ur patience, but it also tests what ur made off. Away from home, into a new territory, strangers all around and not a familiar face in sight, jostling for ur place in the food chain, and finding LOVE in the MOST unexpected of places, the constant struggle to keep ur chin up despite having the wind knocked out of u, not letting the ppl know how screwed up ur mind is, doing things for a friend, acting crazy in love, inshort, rewiring ur vey being just to realize that it was just a MISTAKE ( n then they say, women r sure of themselves..lol) *

* a disclaimer : any reference to u sweetheart till this point and in the text further, is just for the sake of truth n not intended to piss u off ANYMORE ;-)

       Memories r a plenty, to the UNFORGETTABLE New years at Gokarna,the confusion after that, to the loneliness during the summers(for more than one reason ;-) ) to the sudden developments during the same (both from the pinnacle of joy to down right ugly ) , seeing Uday for the first time, then watchin him grow in front of my eyes, the unexpectedly warm welcome on comin back, the MYSTERY dates, the trips to Comm. St n strolls in the rain,  to the CONFUSING  rearing its ugly head once again . lol.
 
        No matter what happens next,where the placement happens or where life takes me, one thing is for
 SURE, doing MBA from this place was the BEST decision of my life. For they have taught me, not just how to think clearly in terms of what i want in life, BUT also WHO  i want in my life ;-) 

A Foggy Mind

Haunted by the demons of my regret, confused why i do things i dont mean, falling apart slowly everyday, but blinded by my own numbness, I AM OWN WORST ENEMY.

        When does a person realise that he is actually in love or even begin to phantom the possibility of ever truly being able to under what love is??  It is a perennial question that even the sages of the centuries gone by couldn't comprehensively answer.

       Is love a selfless feeling, when one gives up everything they hold dear, just to be able to spend their life(no matter how short or how long it is for) with that some one special, where u stand through thick and thin, trust each other blindly and expect nothing in return, EXCEPT a reciprocation of the same feelings??(you choose to fall in love)

       OR is love, a compromise where you don't live a dream world, weight things practically, apply the rule "WHATEVER U DO, I CAN DO AL WELL", and have a mutual understanding of live and let live??(you choose for want of a better option)

       It is this catch 22 situation, that clouds the clearest of minds, when THEIR time comes to fall into "LOVE". Do u become a shoulder to cry, a confidante who keeps all the secrets, a pillar of strength in times of need and a safety net on which one can lean on blindly, without the fear of every falling?? YES, would be unanimous reply, BUT for how long. How long can u just give n give n not expect anything in return. Is it too much to ask for something in return which you can show the world or is love just a feeling between two people and meant only for their understanding??

       How long do u keep on giving it ur best, is their any perfect time to call it quits when you know its not workin out, how do u know its not workin out, do u fight till the last breath for your love, or is it possible that LOVE is just a CONFUSED state of mind, where all ur senses become numb, u cant clearly demarcate what the relationship of that SPECIAL SOMEONE is with u?? questions, questions and more questions

       And once in "LOVE" is it not a natural progression that certain things which u took for granted, no matter how small a gesture they were, just fade away with time. Is it too crazy to want to hold on them , or is hurting the other person with the truth a better, higher and moral way to go?? Being open about your feelings is considered a mandate, but when does it lean towards neediness or even down right pathetic to your own self dignity n esteem??
     Does one look at the hidden meanin behind the gestures?? if u get it right, u know the other person so well, and if u dont, you end up being an ass, who thinks too much and is too childish and immature to understand things.
      SO THE QUESTION TO ASK IS whether to try and find "LOVE",cherish it and do whather ever it takes to make it work, with all its confusion OR just simply live at the other end of the spectrum, where u DO LOVE, its just that u love someone elses love ?????


 A DARK AND FOGGY MIND