The Hollowness of Applause

This post has nothing to do with cricket or Tendulkar as much as i enjoyed watching them both but yes it came to mind when i heard (its been very long since i watched them with as much passion as it used to be once.......now its just tracked on the web and news) about the booing by the Mumbai crowd.
Did they have the right ....may be yes....they can....everyone has a right to be boorish, to show they are frustrated.....whether they care how it affects others or not is again their own wish just as disliking/ignoring them is my wish.

The moot point is how something like this affects the person in question and why. How many times people love it when we are appreciated in public by their teachers, parents, managers and others but the moment they make a mistake happens and they are made to look like fools again in public. So which is the truth the applause or the booing. May be both because its directed towards an achievement and a blunder...to those who mostly take part in this cheering and booing you as a person has no real meaning.

All this brought to mind is how much most people wish to be applauded by a nameless faceless crowd collectively termed as world but its too late when they realize what they’ll cherish and what will always remain is not that applause that makes you feel for a moment the greatest person on earth.........
What is eternal and lasting is that affection ,the love of those people whom would love us as we are and as we move with life, not those who will cheer us in success and boo us in failure.

Earlier i remember before KBC happened every TV channel and newspaper worth its name was doing spoofs of Amitabh, his age his dances with Shilpa Shetty and Manisha Koirala which agreed was pathetic but the spoofs some of them were really cheap and insulting.
He succeeded again and now he is revered and every damn anchor who made fun of him says he is the greatest inspiration/admirable person in their life...and he again is the greatest actor.
Nothing will last for ever as it is and the collective applause of the public/world is very fickle....Out there
“Nothing succeeds like success” but what good is success if all your life is a struggle to go on proving yourself.
Its best to live for oneself or for person/people for whom you are just a person not a success/failure.
Certainly success should have a place in ones life but associating it with applause from the whole world,
or the whole organization or as they say “everyone should be proud of you” is just nonsense. Theres no harm in enjoying applause...its just that beleiving in it is no help and most dangerous is beleiving it will last.

As is rightly said
“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby
In fact even pleasing a few is hard the fatal mistake is by people who try pleasing everybody and end up pleasing nobody.

I could......
I just was reading my previous post coz i dont feel like doing anything better....i can do hmm well so many things but i just dont feel like any.So here i am at it again and i found the post ecccentric...exactly ...exactly what i feel most of the time.
I could go and pull out some Professional books and read to help me improve my technical knowledge but i start imagining things when with technical and reference books.(they ignite the imaginative and artistic part of my brain rather than the side they are supposed to use which is actually turned off and hence i am lost.).
I could go ahead and read a novel but i feel tired to read esp im in midst of not very easy novel and may miss out on parts which i dont want to.
I could try to dust off some books from the distance education course i enrolled and read rather than complaing during hectic exams that its hard....but then i guess i m never inspired without the exam hall ticket...to read for an exam(Old habits die hard).I actually need to sleep but somehow its lost on me these days which is why i am all the more nonsensical.I could go and arrange the mess i have made of my shelves but it seems too much of a task and anyway from someone who beleived in arranging and cataloging things ive grown to someone who thinks if things are messy you'll ever find something interesting tumble out......ah what does life do to people.I could mail a few people but i am in a very generous mood and dont want to subject people who have better things to do to compulsory reading.I could ask if my mom needs any general help but wont dare coz the list she may reel out will kill me and so i better be the hard hearted hopeless daughter .I could listen to some music but after a day when i had enough of it on headphones at office i prefer Silence.
I could sit down and look back at memories.......yeah smile for 1 hour and then drench myself in saline stuff...there are places in my mind i try not to tresspass deliberately.
I could sit down think what to do with my life but thats like getting into quicksand.......
I could just sit down and relax but i know then id simply be writing this post in my mind .....so i thought i better write it as i can now.... unlike oh so many times when those thoughts kind of evaporate......
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P.S: this post look just like my life.....
I could have.......
If only...................
but to me it looks just as funny.....
after a point Tragedy seems Comedy

Random niggles of a day like everyday
I dont know...its not like i mind but sometimes when people repeat it again and againand some times with no apparent reason...it does upset you.But then again its too trifle compared to bigger headaches of life but then a problem is a problem and a niggle is a niggle.They dont go away ...they get to you differently yet surely.And little niggling things with no apparent solution sometimes get to you...............everytime i speak friends or rather colleagues r like shhhhh.....i know i have a loud voice...one reason being i do speak at a lesser volume but somehow then it becomes less audible and non-understandable.I am at my best when i am sharp ...loud and clear but in offices i guess its always shhhhhhh.Sometimes its necessary esp after that terrible incident in the lift described in previous post but using it as an excuse to say dont speak loud when i am not speaking loudly also kind of puts you off.....because its ingrained in their mind that i speak loudly .
Sometimes its amazing how hurt kind of spirals in a way.Ive seen it so many times and today it was yet again.Its at the moot no one's fault yet we both kind of felt bad.I was working on something at which V is very good.Actually she's pretty good at whatever technical she takes up...i am someone who likes to appreciate and she's really bright and helping too though a bit short tempered(a trait we share).
Ive been working on it too for some time but as i had once written a poetry my virtual memory is too low and when i am surrounded by someone who has such a sharp memory i take advantage and dont hesitate to keep asking......."whats that command"," what steps to connect to this.." .she sometimes will get angry...that i had said it nah and while she gets irritated and i know its my fault to never memorize it (so i try to make a note of it but i miss out somestuff or other...and if i remember also i doubt myself a very bad trait...i just like 2 opinions and then doing my own thing)...but in the end it never lasted the feeling of my by being scorned or her being irritated.
Today when i asked her something she was replying and then saying " If you still have a doubt...then go to the properties file.......and check there"Now when she said this our PL who passed by heard it and V being someone who joined as a young talkative fresher last year and they like to say a word or two to them just for fun(which i dont understand) said laughing as ever whats that..."if you have a doubt....only then ..... why cant you just go and show it to her it will take a minute".
I knew it instantly her thought would have been "i always help everyone here........yet he says like that".In fact she left for training in the next few minutes and then smsd me (which she rarely does) if i had given in the correct inputs for some stuff which i usually give but now she probably felt it was her responsibility so she cross checked.Hmm they are people who have so much respect for authority and position and then some who have none....and we co-exist.
It might have been nothing but i knew it at that moment she took it to heart and what she did and how she spoke the rest of the day made me feel upset whole day as much as i could see the pattern.It kind of was no one's fault and we'll get over it as ever but it makes you mull about life and and its twisted ways.
All this after a day when me n V slipped off from office(possible now as manager off to the greener shores else it'd be like impossible at our place ) to catch "Pride and Prejudice" just coz fed up of having no real work....just for three days....wonder how do benchers at some of the illustrious companies manage with months of no work???

A book and an obsession and me

There are books and oh so many books.Some are special to everyone....not because they are classics or good books....some unread books too can be special........ The reason being they touch you somewhere ...or trigger a special memory......or just leave you perplexed......and then there are people who cite how one book changed their life.
I guess that one thing i am safe from.
But this week as i looked back at a book i had bought some four years ago at a very dark time of life.......it was bought as i buy things mostly by intuition.
I particularly recall a joke by friends on this habit...it was a tease but it was executed so well that i still smile when i think of it....We had gone shopping the three of us and R was the only one who was sure of buying something. the two of us were like if we like something. So as we shopped and went in and out of shops and i just was like in 5 minutes out saying lets go nothing here...they were like ok what do you want....what kind of dress are you looking for sequins....embroidery and all i could say is something i will like.....and they teased me endlessly yeah she shook look at it and love it....that’s how she will shop and strangely thats true thats how i shop. There’s no reason to my madness.I am amazed at how quickly in one glance my sister can judge the cut the flow and fit color and all that.I am like hooked onto something say the colour or duppatta and and i ignore everything else.
I was thinking how all i do is by default.I never can be clear about what i want...because i always am clarifying what i dont want.....probably thats my problem.

Neverthless getting back to the book.....I had read the First Impressions on it in The Hindu and thats all but one day i just saw it at the store (i too am like many book lovers with a fetish for covers) and as i just held it and flipped through i bought it.Its called “A Himalayan Love Story “ by Namita Gokhale. I will not review it or anything there’s enough such stuff if one googles.I just interpret my reaction and memories with it.....and i have a very strong one actually associated.This book somehow brought together two things i kind of get passionate about Books and Flowers.

Today as i look and think i guess the book is kinda ok.......good if you are someone who reads Indian fiction and such stuff else many people may be bored by it.
Like everyone has their crazy thing i always have a thing about finding out names of flowers...even though i did not study Botany and know no one who does....people still say come on...did you study engineering or Botany.

But before this book mine was limited to only some general flowers not poinsettias and such.The book is set in a hilly setting of Kumaon and Nainital and hence the author beautifully talks all along of flowers....and uses the Hindi names of some .This kind of made me want to find out the English names of all the flower names i knew in hindi and vice versa.
It kind of became an obsession that time.It was a time when internet was very expensive and i was jobless and yet i somehow saved some bucks from the little i had left after spending money buying such books though......i was really a bit strange...actually am.
There was a reference to magnolia flower and tree w.r.t heroine’s house throughout the book and while i seemed to have heard and known it i could not place it.....and did i spend time and effort on just finding it out heck.
I loved flowers always though i never make huge issue about it but my obsession with finding out their names kind of grew a lot after this book.I had enrolled for a part time course in Communication Engg which i never finished or rather attempted (just blew up the bucks) but i had some wonderful time in the University library looking at books on Flowers and reading Rushdie and Vikram Seth.

Then there’s the opening passage of the book.

“I have always recognized that i carry an emptiness inside me, although i did not first understand it.When i was a child i would look at other faces, at their ordinary expressions of laughter and sadness and tears, and wonder at the ease with which they juggled these masks about. All i ever felt was a constant festering sense of anger and unease. I felt trapped inside my skin and bone and circumstance, and for this reason i began at a very early age to avoid people.”

I felt it was what i could write of myself then and strangely do even now....though i do have to learnt with huge difficulty to carry at least a few masks....it leaves me uneasy and angry and so i guess i blog.

Life's KALEIDOSCOPE and my Varied reading

My initial reading pattern actually was not the normal one...most people graduate from comics to nancy drew and famous five to Agatha Christie,mushy novels, Mills and Boon...popular fiction like Grisham, Archer , Sheldon.....Ayn Rand, Richard Bach etc and on to better stuff.

I started off differently....Readers Digest....Russian Childrens Novels, Nancy Drew(Oh i owe Carolyn Keene and i will write a post on this), and then went on to Jeffrey Archer and Ayn Rand and Grisham.Then i read Sheldon a bit...and then Richard Bach and then mushy of the likes of novels Danielle Steel and finally sick of life went on to Mills and Boon(Esp the blue covered Modern Romances....others are extremes they bore too much....they make no sense anyway but what the heck they are so stress releiving you just dont think....and a story just glides through and you fall asleep).
But that was then.....now i am stable at literary stuff mostly Indian Fiction or Literary stuff.

I read Danielle Steel books when in college....till i outgrew her or may be got fed up
Have a few novels of hers unfortunately not my favorites
I mean we friends thought she had a sadism the way she almost always kills the hero in the novel and the second one's characterisation never matches up the way she starts off about the original hero.
Its this thing that irritated the most but also over a time reading the same stuff bores you...i of course intersped reading her with Archer so i got through till i was saturated.
Anyway i read a lot of her books and some of them i think are extremely beautiful......
My favorites are The Ranch, Ghost, Granny Dan, The Promise, ........ and somei cant get the names and many others which i do like .... like say Zoya ,at least as i remember them as liking them a decade ago.......can't remember the finer details.though there is one book i think one should strictly stay off if you dont want to slip into depression.
Its too dark .... its about abuse...its called 'Malice' and its real mood turn off and depressive.

Anyway it is here i was thinking women have a distinct advantage over men with respect to books.Women can happily enjoy detective stories, Science fiction(only genre that i keep off but i know girls who love it), legal thrillers and all the genres by any author and of course sappy stories, romances, sentimental stuff ....unlike men (exceptions are the norm ) who just cannot enjoy most novels by women or women centric books.

I have a few of them still, as most of them were from library..neverthless i was arranging my stuff and things tumbled out.
I had written so beautifully in cursive handwriting a poem from one of her books called Kaledioscope...
I remember the storyline very lightly or rather hardly ...its about 3 sisters or so...what i remember is one of them unfortunately has an unhappy ending and an unhappy life throughout.

KALEIDOSCOPE means a constantly changing set of colors produced by an instrument.

the poem is beautiful and i always remember it esp the last five lines .
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To deepest dusk,
from morning sun
to twilight dreams
fantastic schemes
and lives that go awry
such shining hopes
such sudden twists from
bright to dark
from grim to grand
from joy to sorrow
always waiting for tommorow
and a twist of fate
a ray of hope
with the faintest sleight of hand
the alteration of all of life's schemes
and all its scope..
all with one tiny turn
of life's KALEIDOSCOPE.
Danielle Steel
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A hopeless feel of life

Nothings worse than self doubt.It sometimes though creeps in and destroys you.And then in such times when you see darkness around in life it simply adds on to the worst .Its very hard ....its not as much about anything....its simply when you feel for a time that you are worthless and the world can do without you.I guess the world can do without anyone actually even the so called best people but still there are timeswhen you just feel if only you could avoid this mess called life and its everyday duties....of living.

I dont know ...there are people i dont like much but it seems bad when you see how one can be the victim of circumstances even in those people. There was an analysis on and someone had asked me ok you read the document i mailed you tell us what was in there and i just spoke what i remembered first....I said the problem to be analysed had to be specified in a positive way. Now a manager there she immediately spoke out instinctively" its a problem and what positive is there".......then she clammed up and said "ok yeah so what shall we phrase it as to be positive?."I sensed it immediately only some one who can understand the negative side of life could see it ...even i think the same why do we have to put it that positive way if its that bad.

With time i got it...thats the way the world likes it............ rose colored glasses......else we wont be able to go on.
Sometimes even nice things and nice people hurt...Its kind of like that....I have friends who speak condemning things, life of others but simply turn a blind eye when i am doing the same thing or at the same position...I dont know how to take it.Do they really dont see it or do they make an exception for me....is it sympathy.....or what. sometimes its just as that song goes. Everybody hurts
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When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong.
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on
'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand.
Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,Everybody cries.
And everybody hurts sometimes And everybody hurts sometimes.
So, hold on, hold onHold on, hold on, hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone .
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Impetuous Me
I seem to have lost my senses .....if i had any i mean i guess i should become more serious and what they say responsible behavior or mature but i do myself no favor on any counts these days and it really happened bad this day...i feel so very stupid....though it seemed quite funny to all.
Well in my group of four in team who hang out together all the 3 others are freshers i.e. 2004 passouts ....i dont hang out much with the senior group whose greatest interest i.e domestic problems are too much for me to be of any use to make conversation.
So they being quite younger than me i tease them well and they take it quite well but i guess i should be more restricted and not impetuous and outspoken (i tend to become that after i stay at any place for 1 year scaring people who have seen me at the begining of the year as the quietest person around).....at least if i want to move up this damned corporate ladder (Do I is a question i often ask).
I was teasing V about a Tool called Silk she was attending training for...teased the daylights out of her calling her “Silk Silk” since morning.
So three of us were moving down by lift in the evening and i was talking about some issue with the manager and a chap got into the lift.V called my name in a way (she meant me to shut up completely...she said later)and i thought we had to switch topic and i started teasing her immediately again “Silk Silk” and that too with a accent and raised eyebrows.
The guy simply walked out with a smile saying “you wanna learn come......”
I was left perplexed....V was like “o god u r impossible....He ‘s a Sr Manager and the only chap here who has any knowledge of Silk Tool”.
I really wanted to leave for the day......i hate coincidences...i was sure.....feeling sick of myself.

Respect i think comes hard to me... u’ve to earn it.. I mean i cant just respect someone because he has a designation or because he’s a few years older.... neither do i expect people to respect me just coz i am older or have..... some position.
Its a old problem with me ...quite old.
Actually i got a dressing down in school class VIII with respect to this...My English teacher asked me to stand up one day and told me in front of the whole class....
” you should learn manners ...you should say good morning to your teachers when you see them outside the class”...i knew she wanted that but was stunned to be told that in class.
I have this problem will not say hi and good morning for formality sake....I do try to get over it esp in this corporate world but it does not come naturally to me....have to remember and have eye contact then i say it.....just saying hi with not even a glance is not my cuppa tea.
Its the same here at office in our small coffee room with a platform on which we perch i just keep sitting whoever walks in while all my respectful company will stand up to attention....when the PL walks in....never any Good mornings or Goodbyes unless its a direct communication or eye contact.
I sometimes dont even acknowledge the presence of some people(currently my PL after my awful pay discussion) ............sometimes because i am uncomfortable ....sometimes because i prefer it that way and sometimes because I am at a loss of any sane look, word or expression.I have that block...whatever such a block is called.

So all day i was pondering .......
As it is i am left behind in this race..As it is i am not suited to this corporate hypocrisy but.....if....and all that
“i should be more serious ....always look like at work even i have none.
Take serious trainings.....not discussions as i call them.............Give lectures about the importance of this that........beleive in it or not”
and all that senior person fundas....but then i guess with time i’ll get over it......
back to square one “ Who the heck cares ”.....thats my natural instinct i think.
I realise i just am not into it......i am a mess and no solution i could find....till now at least..................if it was not for money and if i could get some help and luck on it i’d be happy with a flower or a book shop..........i think.

(I so want to put these quotes at my desk but then thats all i will need to be told why my pay packet is light.....so i put them on my blog)

“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.”.....

Absolutely Absolutely i say.......but what is the excuse for my stupidity i wonder...................
its becoming terrible now ....so are my posts.