The Mask

It had been very long. It had protected me from doing things which otherwise could've ruined my life. All that, that wanted to get out of me had stuck to it. It helped me stay the very self inside without letting the outside world get to me. Yes ! I'm talking about the second face I put on in front of the world .. My mask !!


Now it was getting heavy. It was beginning to wear off. I didn't know how much longer I could hold onto it.

But I was not the only one wearing it. Everyone wore it and so successfully for so long that it had become a part of their self. Its a shield in fact, which one would get behind to protect that deep corner of one's heart which one would never dare to expose.

The mask was not the same. It took several colours. It gave me the liberty to choose who I wanted to be infront of the world, how I wanted it to look at me. It gave me a second me. I had grown into the mask. With every mistake and every fall, the mask grew bigger. By now, I had sculpted it to perfection.

The irony is that one cannot identify the mask of another so easily. Now I look at someone smiling at me and I cannot make out if its the mask or his genuine self that is smiling at me. Trust hardly makes sense now.

Ever had this constant nagging to throw off that mask and be yourself ??
But everytime you try to do that, you evaluate the consequences, the damage and back off. The stakes are just too big .. reputation, acquaintances, future .. phew !!!

The mask is a saviour indeed !
A saviour you'd never let go for reasons best known to your heart.

Ground Zero ..

 Men can be so selfish and self occupied at times .  

She was the one who kept me breathing when I was isolated from the rest of the world , the one who understood my pain and joy , the one who taught me to express my emotions to the outside world . She made me feel I was not alone . She had been with me through all my difficult times .

                                                         She did not come easy into my life . It took me several months of hardship and perseverance to find her . And now she is gone . All that she had expected from me was some time and attention . And I had been so insensitive that I had failed to see her gradually go far away from me and finally leave me .  It is true that you don’t realize the worth of something you possess until you lose it . I ignored her . I took her for granted. I was lazy and gave myself all the lame excuses for not attending to her . I pretended I was busy . But now .. I had lost her ..

                                                     Its hard to reclaim something that one has lost in his life . My passion for writing is what I had lost and to reclaim her is much harder . It needs patience and focus . You have to think of something different every single time – a new theme , a new perspective , a new way of narration etc., else you become monotonous . You have to give wings to your thoughts.All I need is a new sunrise.

And all this becomes ten times harder when you’ve had to work on nothing but CAT and MBA for the past  twelve months .Thanks to CAT prep , I have the goals listed above but the way to go about it –clueless .(Would have helped if CAT included a section on writing too !! :P) Now I put pen to paper and the best I could come up with was the different ways in which I could put my signature . Doesn’t really help , right !!!

So , never let your passion for something in you die down . Keep her alive . Give it some time and attention and  she would keep you alive .

Starting from ground zero , again .. In pursuit of my passion .

Cheers J

its all worth it ...

Its friendship day all over the world and people have been sending out flowers , greetings , e-mails etc wishing their close friends .. why not ?? .. for all the good things that’ve happened to us would not have happeed if not for them ..

But is it just the good stuff ???

Lets see ..

My best buddy is back from London for a month and the first thing he does .. wakes me at 2 a.m and says “ dude .. am not able to sleep .. unable to adjust .. so why don’t you come over ?? “

People who know what a best bud means would’ve realized that I was not requested but ordered to do so ..

When you have a friend ,

You’re not alone in “anything” !!!!

Now don’t get too ecstatic .. this is not as good as it sounds .. kind of an inside joke that you play on yourself .. trust me .. most often than not .. it spells trouble on you ..

No matter whose fault it is .. you become an automatic choice for the teacher /prof ..

Right from fifth std when it was “prayas & dinesh get out “ to now when it is “silambarasan & dinesh get out “ .. you don’t have a choice .. you just get dragged along .. no matter where he goes .. its like” buy one , get one free” …

You’re responsible !!

Whenever you become a close friend of someone you unknowingly take an oath holding yourself to be responsible for all his mistakes and deeds .. sounds kinda scape goattish right ?? exactly !!

Its like a mirror’s reflection .. As long as he is good .. they’ve no problems with you what so ever ( by they I mean his family ) but otherwise you’ll be held responsible for all his stuff .. mostly foul language , failing to respect elders ( prof) and all such crap (oops !! foul language .. sorry !!)

You’ll be looked upon as a evil creature who spoiled their “innocent child“ .. And all this coz you chose to stay a few nights at his place to play ps2 .

You’re a dead man !!!

Its even worse when he falls in love .. not only do you’ve to hear his lame one sided love story 24x7 ( ask mohan & simbu .. they know it better .. lol ) but also give him ideas as to what he can do to get his girl .

And if it fails .. you’re a dead man !! “ I lost her coz of you “ (as if he was in her arms before ) else you’ll have to hear him whining for the rest of your life !!

Now I know why friends give their everything to make a guy reach his love ..

You just can’t say a NO !!

If they can’t giv you enough reason to make you do something .. here goes the default phrase .. “ I’m asking you as a FRIEND “ and you just can’t say a no .. even if it means driving your drunken friend 16 kms across the city to his gf’s hostel on New Year’s eve just coz he wants to wish her exactly at 12 ..

Guess you get what I’m saying .. they can be a pain in your ass sometimes but what is life without all that .. in case I’ve hurt someone here .. “ avlo dana machan :P”

Cheers :)

8th may

Before whatever I’m about to say in the following few paragraphs , I’d like to dedicate this post to all mothers in this world who have no dreams but to make our dreams come true .. and especially to my mom .

Women , as we speak , are so difficult to be understood . But may be we miss the larger picture as we focus on only our age group . We start to wonder as to why they are so confusing and switch back and forth on their words . Well , lets keep the darker side of them apart (will discuss that on some other post :p)

Over these decades , so much has changed about them (its hard to be mentioning women everytime ..) they have become independent and courageous enough to venture into almost every field . Their vision has broadened and so has their world . But nothing has changed the way they are inside the family and that’s what makes them lovable ..

Girls are more attached to their families than guys are , something which is in their dna and a basic virtue which has not changed thou so many things about them has .. The presence of a little sister makes our family life more enjoyable and joyous than ever . Silly pillow fights ,to buy her an ice cream seeing her crave for one(have a natural sweet tooth) , pull her ribbon and so on .. happiness which money can’t buy (I’m smiling thinking about my 8 yr old cousin sis as I write this ..) would’ve dearly loved to have one of my own .. unlucky . Such is the happiness a girl can bring into a family .. sweet little angels ..

Very often we’ve heard that the love of women is the glue which holds a family together . And nothing can be compared to the unconditional love of a mother – “ epitome of kindness and love “ . I don’t know if becoming a mother imparts so much knowledge . There is nothing they don’t know about us . So often I wonder when my mom would say so much just by the way my bro would say “hello” on phone , so much intuitive . may be it was a guy who coined the term “ sharing “ but I’m damn sure it would’ve been a mother who first introduced it to the world .. Taught us so much about life . The only being who’ll love you to death and strive for your betterment no matter what it takes . It’s a word to us and world to them - “family”.

But what changes in that "between" phase when they don't know whats more important - family,love or career ?? still wondering ..

You can’t blame a girl for acting “crazy” in that transition period from a little girl to a mother . Their hearts are always bound by chains called family and relationships .. The exact things I stated above , bro’s affection , mom’s love , dad’s trust and so on . Its so hard to break these chains when one has been showered with nothing but love so far in her life . And no matter what they do in that “transition” period , its that affection and care they give back to their family as a mother which makes us respect and love them .

Love you mom ..

its only fair ..

I had just stepped into the other half of the world .

So far , I had a “ special “ attention on me all the time . I had enjoyed the unconditional love and the warmth of my family and friends . They were very supportive and helpful . In fact , they never let me do anything . Everything in my life was special and custom made , from the dress I wore to the bed I slept and so on . Everyone else had a two wheeler but I drove on all fours . Was given the priority wherever I went . I felt like a V.I.P when I didn’t even have to get up as the teacher came into the class . I didn’t have to find reasons for coming late to class .

The only thing which irritated me in this world was the way people exclaimed “oh! Poor kid ...” on seeing me. But I didn’t mind settling for that kind of a deal when I had so many cut-offs and preferences coming my way . I had tried to focus only on the water filled part of the glass and was quite successful until the day I shifted to a new school in 11^th.

I don’t know what makes people think that new-entries are a pushover . Like everybody else , I went through a rough patch trying to adjust to new environs and it got rougher when I was beaten up by a group of bullies at my school . Couldn’t do much except limp my way back home. The one bad thing about getting hurt is that the pain worsens with time. And this time it hurt more inside. It’s more of a guy thing when you’re suppressed. U just can’t take it. Something had to convince my sub-conscience and not let it deter. I tried to pity those guys for trying to establish their physical supremacy over me. I said to myself that I’ll forgive them in my heart and give a smile back at them to have them humiliated but I knew , I was talking crap. I wanted revenge . I would have dearly loved to beat them up and kick their ass if only the creator hadn’t made a mistake with my legs. But I didn’t have a choice.. Had to go for the stupid forgiving stuff. I hated it. For the first time, I missed being “normal”.

At some point of time the empty part of the glass had to unveil. I had been long broken but it hit me only now, breaking my confidence. The world left me crippled again. May be I had to discover my boundaries. I knew I can’t be impulsive and let my adrenaline pump high . When there is pretty much nothing you can do to help your cause, you start accepting things and move on. My world now had only two types of people , the ones who pitied on me and the ones whom I pitied upon. Life is a bed of roses, has both petals and thorns. I’m just happy that I have one foot lesser to step on the thorns.

Cheers J

“ a page from the diary of a physically challenged “