An Evening Walk

For those who wish to see a cheerful fun filled post this may not sound inviting. You may wish to stay back. I have tried my hand once again at a senti post. Once you finish reading this post, in all likelihood, you will get a feeling of watching a Cheran’s film. Cheran is one director turned actor who produces and directs emotion packed films set up against the backdrop of a village with the plot revolving around its cultural milieu. The hero himself weeps for the most part in those films. A kerchief or two may come to your rescue. Though I belong to the fortunate lot who missed those films, I can still assure you that this is of the same genre. There is nothing special about this post-this is just run of the mill.

It was the day after I bid adieu to the University exams. For the past one month I was stuck in the thick of it and its all over now. It left me listless. I just sat around the whole day doing nothing constructive. It was a wilful and deliberate seclusion from the demands of the competitive world. I decided to take a few hours off from my laptop, a break from the excitement of Google-Orkut-Facebook, from the obsession of the virtual world and meet the real world. With no enticing options before me, I decided to take a long walk to rejuvenate myself and regain my lost temperament. A walk away from the cacophony of everyday life. A walk without caring a whit on what next.

When I stepped from my home I was completely clueless as to where to go. I walked in a slower pace which is rather an unusual thing. I walked to engage my senses and just breathe in the fresh evening air. It was raining all through the day. I felt the fresh wind blowing across my face. It was relaxing and rejuvenating to walk across the road less traveled. I could feel the tranquillity and privacy which deeply reflected my mood. I embraced the solitude as I walked past the road and it reminded me of the poem by Robert Frost

“But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep”

I then walked through the streets where I spent the most part of my childhood. I engaged myself in unforgettable experiences. I walked past the tanned buildings standing erect for over a decade losing all its architectural beauty. I have seen them grow storey by storey. Those buildings have stood the test of time. Now it looked like the few old buildings shown in the Paint advertisements. I walked past the house where I lived. I remembered my little mischievous adventures. I remembered how I used to gloat over my victory by calling the flower vendor from behind him and escape the scene when he turns back. I remembered how I used to climb up through the windows to get the scale (my mother’s tool to lick me into shape) from loft and break it into pieces as a defence. I looked at the street whose length I used to measure by running to and fro holding my friend’s hand. I felt the dormant child in me raising its head. I wondered how melancholy struck me down the lane as I grew up. The Power of Time. This lady, now sans all the vigour, boldness and liveliness which was once vibrant.

I returned home with some good memories. Back to the place to get glued to the net once again. Back to find my forte, to play my part where I have the liberty of designing it, to raise my game, to face the reality. I know that I am too young to verbalize on the passage of Time for I have not reached the evening of my life yet. I don’t know what prompted me to scribble these. May be the song of Enya “Who can say where the road goes, Where the day flows, only time?” which I was hearing since morning brought out the Cheran in me.

Hope to be back with a cheerful post!

Countdown starts…Tick! Tick! Tick!

After a hectic college day, back home with a cup of coffee in hand and a soothing music in the background as I glanced through my mailbox, I saw the status message of one of my classmates which read “10 days to go” and it created a lump in my throat. Yeah only ten more days to go before drawing my college life to a close. You would have by this time stereotyped me as someone who is unduly pessimistic, one who always vehemently rails against something at all times, complains about silly issues (exams I mean). After all the rants, belabors and tension that a PG college life can give, it will always remain nostalgic bringing alive the poignant memories, reminiscing both the good and bad moments encountered, lived.

If I bottle up my feelings and defer it till the tenth day, I am sure I will loose the competitive advantage of being the first one in my class to write on the college life. Now that I have started one, I don’t mind even if others follow suit and parrot my words.

As I write this post, I am reminded of the lyrics from my thalaivar, the legend Kamal’s film Guna (enni paarkayil kavidhai kottudhu...adhai ezhudha ninaikkayil varthai muttudhu) I am struggling for want of words to describe my college days.

Enumerating all the incidents of college life will take at least a few MBs of scarce computer memory, so let me confine myself to the collection of a few light moments epitomized by humour.

When it comes to lectures, I am being tested for my patience at college by listening to a few which extends to 3 hrs each by knowledgeable professors who are keen to see us becoming consummate management professionals out in the industry. I have listened to a few interesting ones. Period. But I feel guilty for having paid scant attention to a few boring lectures, super boring lengthy case studies and the list goes on. I cannot be good at all times, you see.

All I have done is that I have mastered the art of daydreaming with eyes wide open. There have been various instances of me falling asleep also. The process starts with my eyesight becoming blurred, eyelids drooping and finally having a brief rendezvous with sleep and waking up to see my notes, trying to make sense out of it and going haywire and asking my friend by my side “Did the previous slide really contain these stuff?” and peep into her notes and she greeting me with a bizarre look and asking “Thoongittiya? (Did u sleep?)”. Believe me I had even gone to the stage of browsing to find out how to keep myself awake during lengthy lectures. We are back with the master plan and it goes like this, whenever we find the lecture not so interesting, we play cross and knots, think of the black forest ice-cream and water our mouth etc etc. Most of the class does the same except a few first benchers. As time goes on many become restless, keep glancing at watches and dropping things down. But one thing that constantly haunts me is that how professors could stand all these indifference at class and still continue with their commitment to teach being stopped only by the power cut at sharp 12 noon ( its been programmed I guess, some student must have bribed the person in charge). Now that we have only a few classes to attend before the semester breaks, I am a bit worried. The guilty conscience pricks me.

When it comes to presentations, the thing which I haven’t even dreamt that I ll ever do in my lifetime, I am a little jubilant about it now. I am really happy that I could overcome the fear. Worse still is that my friends are happy when I go and present something, not because of my presentation skill (don’t know If I really have one) but they can be free at least for the next 30 mins.

The assignment part is even worse. Lethargy, procrastination and what not. All these will motivate us not to submit on time though there is a little leeway allowed by our kind professors.

Keeping all these at bay, we still find time to rejuvenate ourselves. Birthday celebrations, cutting cakes, traditional day celebrations, friendly ridicules, self established groups and now the approaching management fest which gives a chance to leave our footprints. All these keep us going. We are looking forward to the approaching zeroth hour, the last day in college where there would be photograph and autograph sessions. But what next? Will there be rejoicing moments like these college days anymore...Gonna miss all.I would take this as an opportunity to thank all my friends and professors who made my college days worth remembering.

Years from now when I look back, all these will turn to be a fine nostalgia. Let the memories speak for itself.

Exams Exams !!!

Let me first give you a heads up that what follows is not my view on the recent controversy over the Exams “Should board exams be banned?” I am not inclined to revamp the education system that is prevalent today. Kapil Sibal is there to take care of it. I am here just to vent my feelings on the “EXAMS”, the devastating effects of it and the course of trauma incidental to that.

For the past one week I am in a state of introspection, mulling over few questions “What bothers me so much?” “Why do I look like a deflated tyre losing all charisma and charm?” I am afraid I am shedding my serenity and moving to the profanity zone. And now I am back with the discovery of the genesis of my present state. Hurray! I found where it all started. The recent mid semester exams have taken away the smile in me. The chronic illness characterized by nausea, fatigue, mental imbalance, head ache, the temporary blues of depression is called the Exam fever. I am a victim of it. It has left me in utter shambles. What I am now is the debris remains of a fiasco called Exam.

Exams ruin the lives of many, if not the entire life, atleast a few constructive man hours of lives. Yours truly is no exception. I am not a goody goody to talk only on the topics that suits my calibre, a profession where you talk on business, strategies, tactics, ethics and what not. Nothing would deter me from articulating my feelings.

I start feeling the symptoms of exam fever a week before the exams. I am a bundle of nerves on the day of the exams. I see my fellow classmates cramming with the goal of getting good marks and to have a cut above others. There is so much hype and hoopla about the questions that stand a high chance of being asked. I fall a prey to it. After all my hard study, last minute cramming and burning the midnight oil, when I walk into the exam hall my mind goes blank. I feel that the brain stopped working all of a sudden. The worst part of the story comes now...When I read the question, a callout appears ,with a thinking bubble “hey, was it not the question I answered for yesterday’s test?..Oh my god!”. And finally I manage to complete the paper with a cocktail kind of stuff, a mix and match of all the subjects.

The aftermath of giving exams is even more terrible. It sucks my blood. Reaps my soul. I move into a state of paranoia, feeling that everybody (professors who set the paper) hates me. The feeling that I have not prepared enough hurts. It hurts more when I am not able to present what I have prepared well. Sixteen years of formal education didn't teach me enough how to get rid of the phobia.

I hate to belabor on the simple issue of exams but the excruciating pain that I underwent recently made me rant on it so that I could let off a bit of steam from my head. But now I am back to my resilience mode to meet the hurdles of life. There is a ray of positive hope. So hope to be back with a cheerful post.

MY TRAVEL EXPERIENCE

Sounds like an essay topic given to 7th grade students in school to recount on their fascinating experiences of their recent visit to their favourite hotspot. Believe me, I have not copied this from any of my cousins who are still in school writing essays on the same topics which I have written few years back during my school hood. The education system has not changed yet, I guess. The English syllabus is still the same. LOL! And I don’t want to kindle your curiosity unnecessarily by exaggerating on the topic. I confess, I haven’t been to any of ‘My Kinda place’ as you wrongly guessed. My travel experience is only about my everyday journey from home to Mount Road for more than a month now. May sound funny for city dwellers but for the one who lives in the suburb of Chennai called Greater Chennai, the one who pridely proclaims herself as a Chennaite (yet nobody still believes it and make funny faces when they hear the name of the place where I live), it bears a significance as it takes a considerable portion of my time.

And I believe nobody would have given a one paragraph explanation for having chosen a topic for a blog post. This is due to the lingering effect of giving Anna University Exams, the tradition which I have developed of late.

After receiving the darling buds of May for my first post, I didn’t want to leave my blog in the lurch with nobody visiting it. After a pretty serious post, I wanted to write a cheerful one. Neither could I write about rocket science which I dare not even think about nor on any attention-grabbing topic which my very seasoned instinctive blogger friends have already attempted. “Travel Experience”, is all what you could expect from a poor reverie blogger who is still an infant practising the first steps in the shore of the ocean called blogosphere. Thanks to Sowmiya for christening me with a new name Reverie-blogger. I love being called so.

It has been an incredible experience to travel to Mount Road, the heart of Chennai. The public transportation can be awesome if you prepare yourself for it. I have had really tough times with it, a few bad experiences too. I thought that travelling with this premonition could really make my life miserable. I was wise enough to make note of the time when the bus starts from my place and there was no need to make a beeline to the bus stop. I always chose the window seat. You have the option of choosing the seats when you get into the bus before even the driver and the conductor gets in. I made sure that I have a book to read during my travel, a fully charged cell phone, not because I get calls often , rather I own it for a very important purpose (listening to songs).

After getting the ticket, I open my book, read it for half an hour wearing the anti-glare glasses (to give a ‘getthu’ look to my fellow travellers). It serves two purposes. I get the satisfaction of well spent time and the other is a funnier one. I can pose as if I manage my time effectively. Once that is done, I get the ear-plugs of my cell phone, hop between FM stations to listen to my favourite numbers. Though I own Nokia 6030, one of the oldest models, now I am head over heels in love with it. First things in life will always have a niche in your heart. It is one of them.

With Yesudas and S.P.B in the background, rendering their golden voices to the well written lyrics, I, as a casual observer, listen to the petty conversations and the rantings of a few lady office-goers and delve deeper into the thinking mode on variants of human behaviour. Now that I have oodles of ‘my time’ still left in my hand before getting down, I peep through the window to get the flashing scenes of happening Chennai. Needless to say, Chennai has become the most happening place and has transformed into one big celebration with a cosmopolitan heritage. The modern side of the city with plethora of big buildings, posh shopping streets, and designer boutiques with fashion articles in the display makes my heart race and it’s really appealing. Sitting in the bus, I felt I can still explore the city and immerse myself in its colours and feel the smell of it. Thus my 90 minutes travel, you may call it a journey though, was carefully proportioned.

And now that it is all over and I am back to square one, I thought I would express my tribute to the small things that made my journey beautiful. After all, Life will be beautiful when you want it to be.

“Life is a succession of lessons…”

According to Ralph Emerson “Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.”

I never thought I would write a blog in my lifetime. I am happy that I could present an incident or accident (whatever you may call it) which taught me the life’s hardest lesson as a debut post. Though I am happy about this new venture of mine, I contradict myself saying that it makes me feel sad to present death as a subject to start with.

I can’t help but mention that I haven’t witnessed a death until I was 20. I was in my third year of Under graduation. It was one bright Tuesday afternoon. It was the last day of my mid semester examinations. I was pretty tired after a few sleepless nights (busy preparing for exams), spent burning the midnight oil. I have no regrets to say that I still continue to burn the same …You could very well imagine the feelings of a person (a daydreamer .absent minded....refer to my blog URL) like me immediately after the exams. I was lost in thought. I had a mixture of feelings then, feeling of joy that I could enjoy that evening without studying, a feel of contentment that the toil is over and of course a feel of fear about the results. I was busy preparing the schedule of sleep during my travel from college to home. I was happy that I can be free at least for the next few weeks before the next exams crop up. Exams, I would say is the nightmare of most students (I plan to write one about exams in the near future).Yours truly (An exceptionally good average scorerJ ) is no exception.

Getting out of the bus I walked straight towards the pedestrian walk. As it was not a busy hour, the G.S.T road was then as silent as a grave. I then cursed myself for describing the road with the adjective “grave” because it turned out to be one. I have learnt that accidents happen on busy roads. But I was wrong. It happens in not much busy roads too. I was merrily walking without giving any damn serious thought about life, about worldly events .( I live in my own world with custom built definitions of life, exclusively created list of principles.) A passer-by who looked like a peasant in looks was also walking, say a few yards before me.

The worst part comes now. A bus which was speeding towards Trichy suddenly lost control and changed its direction towards the pavement where I was walking. It took a zigzag motion and everything was over in a matter of a few seconds. The bus didn’t come to a halt even after The inevitable happened. Death. Yes, it eroded the life of the person who was just a few yards ahead of me. I stood there motionless. The reflex action did not take its normal course. All the science theories proved wrong. I stood there, still, witnessing the aftermath of a collision. By aftermath, I mean all the unpleasant and horrible things that accompany a road accident.

I came home with a sort of bewilderment. It took me a month’s time to recover from the shock. You could imagine the plight of a girl who was happily daydreaming being stopped only by the witness of a death. The incident helped me to give a serious thought about life and its value. The deceased would have least imagined that he would become the victim of the accident. What if he wasn’t there walking before me. I felt myself very fortunate for having survived the accident. The days that followed were a bliss thinking of the life’s countless blessings and it still continues to be. I feel dejected for variety of reasons but immediately the thought of a sudden death without achieving anything in life would help regain my spirits. I started feeling fortunate for all the physical and mental faculties still vibrant in me to enjoy the life that God has given, to enjoy the pleasures of the mother earth. God has put me into this earth for a purpose and I am in search of it. Sometimes the search is also like a never ending melody. Hope this blog stands as a testimony to my favourite tagline “Life is Beautiful”.