Open Up!

I love watching movies. It's my favorite past time. And every good movie has something unique. This goes for movies across genres. Of course depending upon your liking and ability to relate or understand certain subjects, you might not like a good movie. But that doesn't mean it's not a good movie. But what a movie buff would always agree is that any movie that gets fan following, does follow one strategy. It sticks to the core subject. It has a character. As long as a movie or a web series sticks to it's core subject and puts in efforts to convey the story without getting slow, it would turn out to be a good movie. If it's an action movie, it should have the best possible action sequences. For a comedy one, you should be laughing your guts out. For a drama, it should touch your emotions. A musical should make you tap your feet.  I believe, just like any good movie, we all have one true character. Some are calm minded, some are outlandishly funny. Some are extremely...

It's almost a decade now, when Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar for Dallas buyers club. And during that ceremony, he perhaps gave the most inspirational and yet pragmatic speech. He said that we only need three things in our lives. Someone to look up to, someone to look forward to and something to chase for.  And I think it's a minimalistic approach. And I too believe that it's the right way. We fill up our minds with so many things, we forget the basics. We forget why we started the very thing. We get fed to the grind economy, to generate and then spend.  I don't have any problem with that, but while doing this we all are entering in a cycle of infinite comparison. Like the saying goes, we have entered the era, where we only see the greener grass on the next garden. We are looking so much outside, we are losing the art of appreciating what we have, known as Gratitude.  We forget to acknowledge the love we receive, or the work we do, or the little things we enjoy. And a...

 One of the perks of being an ambivert is that when you feel indifferent from the surroundings you can choose to become an introvert.  And every introvert has an advantage. They are aware of their thoughts in a very good way. They understand the source of the feeling they are currently having. Confused? Let me simplify. When a person gets some sort of feeling in any situation, that feeling is always associated with some sort of change in the environment. The change could be tangible or intangible. Often intangible. And people often are unable to identify the exact source and this makes things frustrating. You might have experienced this yourself or with people around you. And this is where introverts get the advantage of being comfortable with the solitude, ability to stay alone. When a person is comfortable in being alone s/he gets to spend time with her/his thoughts and feelings. Every feeling is linked with some sort of thought and thoughts never arrive alone. They are link...

Summer rains have a special place in my life. They show us that no matter how things get heated, one rainy cloud is good enough to cool things down. And obviously, for few moments, every human becomes still, in this fast paced world. Have you observed how fast life has become? Or maybe I belong to the age group where I can feel this. Youngsters don't feel it, old folks don't care, middle age people don't have time to observe due to various responsibilities. But my age group, the millennials, I think we see the world in different perspective. Somehow life has become a rapidfire multiple choice quiz. You gotta keep selecting one thing after another, you just must, else you might become irrelevant in society. But then I ask myself sometimes, is this how I imagined my adulthood. Ofcourse many of the things from my 'Someday' list are there, but something is still missing. And I can't point it out. It's like I'm driving at high speeds, taking timely brakes, t...

Nothing. Before there was nothing, and after would be nothing. Life is all we have in between. But we never appreciate life, untill someone close leaves us. Leaving us with grief, just grief. On the infinite canvas of time, our lifetimes are nothing but a blip. It's there, and then it's not. Our existence is mere a blink of an eye in the fabric of this universe. So insignificant. But What's significant anyways? It's everything that we value the most. It's our hearts that decide what's significant in our lives. And often it's the people we love the most and care the most. Not the materialistic world. And when a person leaves us, abruptly or not. The only emotion they leave us with is pain. And there's no way to run away from it. There's no solution to feel better. There's simply nothing that a person can do. Just pure helplessness. An then there's grief. Grief is emotional suffering you feel when someone you love is taken away. It's that t...

There are stories. There are good stories. And then there are stories which touch your soul. One such story is written by Markus Zusak, named as The Book thief. Narrated by the death itself, it's a story of a kid from Nazi Germany. Her name is Liesel. Living in a foster home, with her new Papa and Mama. But life is not fair with her. She has memories of a brother, she lost on a train. Her new mother is awful cook and pretty tough on her. She has nightmares every night. As she starts to live this new life on a place called Himmel Street, stuff keeps happening. She makes a best friend Rudy, who's has crush on her. Her father teaches her the art of reading from a book she has stolen from grave yard. And hence the title, the book thief. And then there's another important character, called Max. Who is a Jew in a Nazi Germany, who is given shelter in her basement. You go on a journey from a train, to a football match on street, to stealing apples and bread. From playing accordion...

It's a phenomenon which a writer stumbles into once in a while. Basically s/he is not able to write anything. Somehow, the thought cycle which connects to words resulting into something meaningful is broken.  In other words, Monday blues. Unable to work. But this is little different with a writer. In an office, there will be an external enforcer (a Boss, in fancy words). But with a writer, it has to be a force within. An Intuition. But that's the thing, right? The urge, the motivation, the intuition, at times, just fades out, once in a while. When the linearity of life just stops bothering you. You fall in love with the concept of dormancy. Basically you become a couch potato (Until your mom starts to scold). But I feel, sometimes this block is a necessity. In terms of  industrial engineering, it is called mandatory buffer. A system should never be run at its max capacity all the time, or it will fail. Just like humans.  In life too, we keep figuring out what's next, all ...

It's a book which takes you to the world where humans have created a new species of humans, called Crakers. A world which has cross breed of dogs and wolves, called wolvogs. A world which goes through an apocalypse. A world through the eyes of a survivor of this apocalypse. The protagonist of the book is Jimmy, also named as Snowman. Book opens after the apocalypse has occurred, and Jimmy is the survivor. He's narrating the story in two story lines. One is past and another is present. Past story line covers his childhood, his upbringing, his experiences in life, his relationships with different important people in life. It's how we learn how Jimmy reaches to his present version. Present narrative takes on his struggle after apocalypse. His relationship with Crakers, the new species. It's also about a journey Jimmy embarks upon for survival, and an intense attempt to stay sane in meaningless life. Beauty of the book is that these two stories unravel side by side, chapter...

These days my favourite pastime is opening my laptop, and finding old memories. Be it old nokia captured photos or some stupid status posted on Facebook wall, Or just some old melodious song which is connected to some incident in life. And fun part, I can't get enough. I'm not very sentimental guy who cherishes every moment. But somehow I created some sentiments while growing up. In the pace of life, I  left those sentiments behind, and now when life is little slowed down, or maybe locked down, these old memory boxes are opening up. But every memory I relive, I feel one more emotion. And this one is little bit sad. I remember those faces which I don't even call or text anymore. While chasing the purpose, alot has been left behind. And just glimpses of those remain. But Again, that's life right? You know what, that's not. I refuse to accept that here on. I understand that to achieve in life is important, but to hold on to people is way more important. A...

I have always wanted to know my destiny. More than just what I want to become, but where I'm going to end up. Isn't that all we always trying to figure out. We never do what we do to just survive the day. We try to build something brick by brick, step by step. And we hope that eventually it will mean something.  And in this path to understand where I might end up, I realized that we don't have forever to build this so called destiny. We have so many aspirations and so short of time, in which we want to achieve or gain so many things.  And then imagine, you wake up one morning, and step out from your own shoes and see outside. And then realize, may be the time we have, is probably cut short, significantly. Just a maybe. And we have a minute left. Minute to midnight. As the clock hits midnight, it's going to reset itself. But you don't know for sure. Then what would you do. I keep thinking. It's maybe I'm too young, but this very thought scar...

To listen is an art. Cause every statement made has some hidden meaning in it, probably not all the time, but definitely many times. It's like the magician's act. You have to keeep looking at the smallest things in performance, to catch the trick. And believe me, everyone is an performer. And we all plan and act in some point in life. Probably unconsciously. But we know deep down, about the trick, the thing we are hiding while having a conversation. So while following the act, we try to  keep it as best as possible, Just like the magic show. But there's always a smart ass, who'll find your trick. All s/he has to do is observe carefully, and listen. Yeah, just listen. And even the best performance will leave behind some clues. And to pick those clues is an art. That's often called as reading between the lines. And being grown up is all about that. Cause after a certain age, reading people becomes way more important than reading books. Like the famous he...

Another year ends with shit load of lessons. Many would say that it was an awesome year, many would say otherwise. But everyone will find the new year's Eve very attractive. Reason is very simple, end of something old, brings arrival of something new. And this something new is what we all look forward to. Cause this new has some uncertainties, surprises, and probably again, shit load of lessons. But more importantly it brings us one more thing, Hope. But that's not just it. Everyone is hopeful about at least one specific thing for the coming year. The one, most important thing. Could be anything, from job promotion to a world tour to publishing a book. One thing, which could not happen this year, and that does make us sad. And when the clock hits midnight, we'll wish our closed ones a happy new year, and few may drink and dance and eat good food and lots of stuff. But everyone will recall their one thing, and make a promise to themselves (again), to keep chasing, unt...

Diwali! The festival of lights of India. But like Diwali, there are number of festivals all over the globe. Like Christmas, or Easter, or Ramadan, and so on. But on this day of Diwali, I had a thought. Why do people all over the world celebrate something or another? Why do people have this immense need of coming together and celebrate an occasion which may or may not have any significance in past? Here is my understanding on this subject. But before going in the festival part, here’s little about human behavior. I think any human being is just another machine made up of atoms and molecules. Now for any machine to work in a specific environment with multiple variables, it has to have a feedback mechanism. We all have input sensors, like eyes and ears. Then the input is fed to processing part of the machine, our brains. And then we take actions with the actuators, like hands, mouth. Basically we provide an output. And here’s how a feedback mechanism works. If your action gives...

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What's exactly a sorrow? A bad feeling, a bad emotion, maybe pain, some disturbed mind, anything that makes you feel helpless is a sorrow. Right? It's that state of mind when you actually blame your destiny, or God, or what not. And while feeling a similar emotion, I decided to give it some thought. Why I feel helpless, why I feel like this pain is too much, or why things are too worse. And as my mind was thinking it in a way any victim thinks, I could not see a clear picture. Studies show that more than 70 percent people think that they are better at their work than average people. That means people like to think that they work more even when they are just doing average. Similarly even while going through little hurdles, we all think that we are victims of some tragedy, and we are some sort of survivors. But fact is we ain't doing anything different. So coming back to my subject, this attitude of a victim wasn't helping. So I decided to go with a different approach....

The Jinn gave Reehan three wishes. It was sort of general practice. Reehan just smiled. He knew exactly what he wanted. But Jinn kept talking. Jinn explained what are the things which are out of scope and which are in the scope. Also explained the basic rule,i.e., you cannot wish for more wishes, LOL. But Reehan wouldn't need that. He wouldn't even need his three wishes. He looked at the night sky, but he didn't focus at anything. He just kind of tried to look through, and beyond. Unclear of his understanding of the world, and what it stands for. He was tired. Not tired physically, but emotionally, mentally. He failed to understand his very purpose, and at some point he gave up. Why, he wondered. May be it was way damn difficult. It is easy to solve a problem. But it is very much difficult to find a problem which is worth solving, which would make you feel whole. And He was searching restlessly. And yet He failed. He always thought, man was never supposed to have intel...

I am a die hard fan of harry potter series, both movies and books. But definitely more of books. And I keep reading it once in a while, I just open any random part with any random page number. And then I find myself spending an hour, submerged in the world of magic. So when recently, after reading few pages, I thought to myself, why do I do this. I mean, after all, I know every page of this book.  And then I asked around, in my circle, if anyone does this. And apparently, everyone has a thing or two. Somebody watches FRIENDS again and again. Somebody likes to watch some YouTube series. Another one likes to read some book, again and again. Someone loves to listen narrations by Pu La Deshpande, Someone watches highlights of some old sport event. And why do we do this? There are very few things in life, we experience, which makes us really happy. And that happens when we feel like we are part of the experience. For example, while reading Harry Potter, I always feel like I'm ...

Do you ever feel like the people around us, at times, influence us too much. At least a guy like me, who listens more than talk, feels like that. I mean it's like you are being bombarded with thoughts and ideas and experiences and views and opinions. And this stuff isn't just about what people are doing, it's about what I'm doing as well. That doesn't mean I don't like to be around people, it's just that sometimes the place called mind is overcrowded. And that's the reason, my own thoughts are finding it difficulty to find their way. Getting what I mean? And that's when I made a plan. A plan to find some me time. But sitting at home alone doesn't work, cause when we are alone at home, we have an habit to surrender to the trio(fb-whatsapp-insta), so I thought, let's get out. But when I got out, the places I know, they were filled with people. Just like crowded mind, these crowded places were unable to give the space I needed. And I kept loo...

'Somebody asked him, what is your drug, He said "Hope", the most addictive of them all' I came across this quote while going through some Instagram feed. And it's true, isn't it? We all are addicted to this thing called 'Hope'. And that's when I decided to give this a little thought. Here it goes. I believe, when humans evolved over a period, and while evolving physically, our brains got evolved too. And then we started to think, and that was the biggest achievement of mankind. The ability to think, makes us different from all the other living species on this planet. But like every good thing comes with a bad thing, this too, had it's own disadvantages. Thinking gives us capability to solve our problems, but then there are some problems which we cannot solve, and that's the trouble. Whenever we come across a problem we cannot solve, our thinking hit a roadblock, and that's when we feel sad, lost and at times depressed as w...

When I was a kid, I always wanted to grow up. cause being a kid, you don't get to have many liberties. Being part of middle class is even worse for a kid. You have limitations on everything. From the cloths you wear, to the stationary and toys you buy, to movie theater and restaurant visits you can have, to the trips you can make. It feels like you are trapped in a life, which has so many things and you can't have most of the things, and there's nothing that you can do about it. And yes, that definitely sucks. And that is when I decided, it's better to be an adult than a kid(Yeah, I was always more mature than the kids of my age). And then I grew up, where I could earn sufficient to spend the way I want to. But what I failed to understand as a kid is that it's just not about money only. When you grow physically, you grow emotionally as well. Being a kid, our emotions are so limited that they don't bother us much. We are not exposed to stuff as attachments, in...