Tuesday, May 11, 2010

To Mum, with Love

It’s a typical weekday. D and R have been up for a while and D is packing R’s lunch and making cornflakes for R while R is getting ready. D impatiently reminds R about the time and after packing the lunch, gets to feed R the cornflakes, followed by some bread while R is all the more reluctant and is making reasons to skip breakfast. After a lot of argument, R picks her bag and lunchbox and D bids her bye and gets back to work.

Doesn’t it seem like the typical morning in every house? It indeed is, except that D is not the mother who is sending her daughter R off to school/college/ work. It actually is the other way round. :) Yeah, D is me, persuading my mom to finish her breakfast, scolding her if she makes any reason to skip it, packing her lunch, pushing her by reminding her the time and sending her off college. And for the record, she is a professor at a prestigious institute for over 30 years! It seems like a déjà vu to me, as this was the exact same thing that my mom did to me when I was in school!

I often wonder, and by often, I mean at least a zillion times a day, what is this person made of? How is she able to put up with my sinusoidal temper tantrums and my freakishly annoying whining and sinful wishes? I often feel I do all of those things which she thoroughly disapproves of – keeping my room in the most untidy manner, using my keyboard as my dining table, not cleaning my closet. In spite of all this, she has never uttered a word that would hurt me but one thing she says or does that is not really what I like, I pounce upon her complaining that she doesn’t love me and many such accusations would soon follow. She then, very patiently, cajoles and coaxes me, apologizes for nothing, and makes the one thing I can never say no to – coffee. She surely knows her way out, doesn’t she? :)

Every morning she wakes me up from bed. I don’t even bother to put myself out of my bed even if I am wide awake. I wait for her and she tells me this exact thing every day – ‘hush! Don’t open your mouth and start blabbering. Pray to Lord first and then start your day’. I have the exact same thought each day – I sometimes think God exists, I sometimes think he doesn’t. But I see you, and for me, you are more than God. I bow to her, of course, an absent minded professor that she is, has never noticed me do that for the past 10 months that I have been home. People who know me fairly well, think this is quite unlikely of me to utter such mushy things, but surprise surprise!  :)

She has immense faith in God (thanks to the ongoing IPL, it’s not Sachin, but the real one) She never lets me out of the house without putting vermilion (kumkum) on my forehead. Again, I am not sure about God, but I have immense faith in her and her beliefs and thoroughly respect them and I abide by them. 
She is a tigress at her work, the best of the lot, according to her superiors. She has a handful tasks to do at her work, and has to sprint around from one place to another unlike me who has to stare at 2 screens and type something which impacts a meager set of people. What she does, I say, lays foundation for the greater beginnings of a number of people’s lives.

I whine twice a day that I got her small eyes which make everybody think I landed here from China; that I got her curly hair and that I crave for a straighter one; and her nose. I wonder how these exact features make her look so beautiful and don’t make me so! She laughs at my anguish and says that I am the most beautiful precious thing in her life. I am not flattered, neither am I boasting, as this is evidently not true :)

We eat the same food, but I slump as the day becomes night and she works round the clock both at home and at work, singing chirpily. As I reach home from work, all drawn and worn out, she greets me cheerfully with a cup of adrak chai and has the best of the stories to narrate to me. 

After a tiring day at work and the painful travel back and forth, the loner that I am, who would prefer sitting and eating alone in the company of a good book or a good movie any day compared to talking to a person when tired ,actually look forward to go home and chat up with mum and dad. I’ve always considered delaying my masters plan was a huge mistake but only with that decision did I manage to love my mum this much. Well if best things come at a price, then I think I have cracked a superb deal with god in this case :)

On my part - I am her fashion designer - her jewelry; her saris are all my selection. I am her beautician, she says, I tell her what to do get all fair and lovely. I am her adviser; she thinks I can judge and handle a situation more maturely than my age demands! I am her defender, if dad ever dares to complain something; he has to think twice to utter it, for I wouldn’t tolerate a word against her. :) If I want her to do anything, all I have to say is, "do this else I wont eat"  and I use it practically everyday be it to make her finish her breakfast or to force her do some exercise in the evening, and knowing how much I love skipping meals just for the heck of it, this threaten works like a spell :)

Bless her; I say everyday to God, for, you would be immensely hated by me if she ever has to go through the smallest of the smallest suffering as long as I am around.  Sounds more like a threatening than a prayer probably but it indeed is my prayer.


The letter that I wrote to her yesterday:

"I am awed, dearest mom, at the boundless amount of love you shower on me, every single day, every single hour, every single second, and I cannot but feel the luckiest person on earth, to be blessed with such a wonderful person, every time I see you.

Mom, when I am your age, if I am at least half as successful in my career as you are now, half as happy with my family as you are now with us, half as chirpy, energetic and at least half of everything that you are right now, I would consider myself to have led a great life! 

You inspire me to be you. You are an epitome of love, of patience and tenderness and I draw inspiration from you every moment.

Thanks for always being there for me and the least I can do is to be there for you too! "

The cover's story:

"Now I know I always complain that you never listen to me, so here is a letter for you and I am sure you are quite good at reading from a paper :P
I cannot be all that amazingly classy but its only words that I have to express what I truly feel for you.

                                          Loads of love,
                                              Deepu "

Behind the scene:
 Rugz and I planned to surprise mum on Mother's day and the classy elegant person that my bro is, sent home a pack of dry fruits ( which I am eating while editing this, Thanks Rugz I love you too :P ). Anyhoo, a pack of dry fruits from Rugz, a bouquet of roses from both of us and a dusty letter from her rustic daughter is what my mum got yesterday and she indeed is quite happy :)

                                   
Oh-and-btw0: I had another post lined up before this, sort of a comeback post, but this popped up before that, so.. Anyways, you would be seeing some butterfly effect happening in here since the next post will be dated sometime in the past or future or.. whatever ya!

Oh-and-btw1: Bloody hell, I can still write.. Its been an year and I can still write.. :) Not as good as I was before prolly (well ya, thats what the comments on my previous posts say) but bloody hell, I can still write. ( give it a pass, i am just hyper-excited).

Oh-and-btw2: Yes, the letter was originally in English, typed it word by word.

Oh-and-btw3: Rugz, if you are reading this, mum said she loved the dusty letter the most :P ;)

Oh-and-btw4:Thanks Maruti for proof reading this and asking me to blaag eet. :)

Oh-and-btw5: Title adapted of course from the famous Brit novel "To Sir, With Love"

xoxo (aah, forget it) Adios,
 Deepti

Now listening to : Neend Na aaye, fuzon.. Thooope song, superb lyrics!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Quarter life crisis

Quarter-life crisis = The quarterlife crisis is a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the early twenties to the early thirties. The term is named by analogy with mid-life crisis.


[Source wikipedia]


Disclaimer: This post is not related to Samvedana..This is an outburst of the rarely observed not-so-like-me side of my persona..


Prologue:


When this title struck my mind, it sounded quite funny. Doesn't seem so funny now, somehow.. whatever!


There can exist few variations to this title – “The one with the last one from -H's desk” "I rant therefore I am" or "Selling whines" and the like


The Rant:


I never thought I can ever get all melodramatic about leaving college Change is good and awesome and the more of it the better is always what I have believed in. Staying at home is a good change, a huge one indeed. But, life inside campus was exhilarating and comfortable. You want time for yourself? Shut your door and play some of your favorite music at any volume you wish to, drink bucket loads of coffee, do some thinking and writing and thinking and writing and there you go! Your mind which was fogged with all kinds of thoughts is now clear. You cannot be all that cranky at home, can you?



The whole circle of friends which you have so carefully woven for the past 4 years is now torn apart and its elements are living as discrete entities. They are no longer just a door step away, they are no longer beside your desk, they are no longer hanging out there at the coffee shop nor are they out there to chat up and make things up when they go terribly wrong! Things like these, which seemed nightmarish an year ago are actually happening for real now.



You know very well that you deserve a lot better in all spheres but are not really getting them. And anything on which you are laying your hands is ending up as a huge disaster making you feel as a cursed Midas, making you feel it was rather better before when things were untouched and you did not venture upon anything new which led to spinning a web around yourself out of which you cannot get out now! Is this Quarter-Life Crisis?


And the only thing which keeps you going in this murky, rather gloomy road and the only thing which offers you any solace is Samvedana..


What do you do when your most precious and treasured (personal/professional)dreams take a toll on you/seem to crash right in front of you? Tired that you are, with a sense of bewilderment, you rummage for support around rather helplessly, but you hardly find any! You feel like running away, far far away to a “no-one-to-judge-me” land


The Epilogue:-


And when you have run some distance and slow down and turn back, probably you will realize that you have been giving smaller things a greater deal of importance – something which was not needed. Probably, when you have run far enough and turn back, you might have zoomed out the scene a bit and might now see the actual big picture which was so totally missing from where you started running! Probably the whole image will get loaded now and the view will become clearer to you.. Probably..


Being mushy isn't my cup of tea..I esshhtaaapp. :D



Oh n btw0: Possibly, I must have sounded clichéd all through the post.

Oh n btw1: Song of the day: Coldplay’s Trouble.



Adios,

Deepti

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Samvedana - The Genesis

Samvedana [saM-vedana ]= empathy, compassion, feeling others pain as if it is ours.

Hello (hypothetical) folks,

Few points to clear off any misconceptions about the title:

a) No, am not a messiah of JV shivir and I am not here to publicize it!
b) I am not being a Sanskrit teacher to teach you different Sanskrit ke \begin(HYD_HINDI) word-aan \end(HYD_HINDI)

Okay, with that in mind..

Samvedana is a dream combined with sincere wholehearted hope and effort to make it a reality.

huh.. So what is it??


"It is a group which is made of you and me and we all get our hearts and souls together by helping for the welfare of the society"

and how exactly do you want to do that?

+ We being IT empowered , we will act as a channel of information between NGOs and the junta.

+ We can be regular in our donations however small they might be (small but periodic) and divert this money to those NGOs which is not able to meet the demands of their basic amenities.

Why so "samajsevak" ??

Well... you see something, you experience something and few of those 'somethings' totally change your outlook. Samvedana sprung in my heart when I saw and experienced the most disturbing sight - a bomb blast in my very home - Hyderabad. It did not leave my family untouched. I lost my cousin to that mindless destruction. How long did I take to get over it? Not over it till now and I dont think I can ever be over it.

Before that incident, it was a very smooth and happy life - wasting bucket loads of water, electric power, money all of which we conveniently take for granted. They say, you need to "put yourself in others' shoes" and taste the pain to know how they feel like'. Seeing my aunt and uncle, I realized how it feels like not to have something which everybody has. And its not a very good feeling. The more miserable I was, the more time I started spending alone in the orphanages which was the only thing which made me happy.

So on Sept 8th, the day of awakening as I call it , I gave my GRE exam, there appeared a list of the universities to choose from. I had my very own list in mind - a 2 month effort which I obtained after a lot of searching and interacting with seniors etc etc. But then, it just stuck me, do I want to do this, or not? The 'no' side of me was so strong that I walked away without opting for a university thinking, well okay, let me think about it..

I thought for a while and then it became clear that I need to make my dream which was dormant in some corner of my mind a reality. So with immense support from my friends and family, 'Team Samvedana' came into existence.

Do you want to join Samvedana and help us in making this dream reality? We are now a team of 30 odd people working real hard on this. Do drop in a mail to me if you are interested!

Ending on a lighter note :P

Oh n btw 0 : If Yash Chopra starts a charity organization named samvedana , its caption would be "come fall in samvedana " :P (jees! how lame!)


Tata,
Deepti (On behalf of Team Samvedana)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Tête-à-tête with my dad

All characters and their dialogues described in this post are real. Any resemblance to any exaggerated, fictitious characters/ dialogues should be considered purely coincidental.

tête-à-tête [teyt-uh-teyt]=(n)a private conversation, usually between two people.

Dee:"Ae ae ae under my umbrella ae ae aeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aieeeeeeeeeee ayeeeeeeeeeee ..."(barking continuously!)

Dad: "What's wrong with you??"

Dee:"Oh, I was just singing,I mean was trying to.."

Dad: "Not about that noises. I just got a message that 83 dollars have got credited into my account, did you cancel your TOEFL?"

Dee: (Clicking some arbit thing on the computer) "Yes dad. Oh shit! I forgot to tell you. I am not planning for MS this year!"

Dad: "What? Why? How did this change come about??"

Dee: (Of course stopped clicking but was staring at the screen)

Dad: "Deepu, I am asking you the reason for this sudden shift in your focus. You keep jumping from one thing to another, what is it this time..."

Dee: "Wait, I am thinking of a reason, err.. i meant.."

Dad: "So you yourself have no clue as to why you don't want to go for MS?"

Dee: "Hmm..I ...Yes.."

(The villain enters : My bro :X )

Bro: "hello people and you".. (Of course you get it, I am not people according to him )

Dad: "Well, your sis suddenly decided not to go for MS and she is trying to figure out why!"

Bro: "May be it's because of some of her FRIENDSES in her college with whom she never wants to get apart!!" (with the biggest grin on his face!)

Dee: "Ok. I am a staunch follower of "THE PLATINUM RULE"-never never date people from your work/college. You actually have to see them everyday and bardash-ify them everyday!!Yuck!!No man!!"

Bro: "That means its someone outside your college!"

Dee: "What? Oh no no..Dad, don't buy what he is saying. He is just taking revenge on me for some thing I did 4566 years ago!"

Dad: "Now that I am thinking, its all making sense to me. So is he a Brahmin??"

Dee: "What? Dad Come on!! Ragz(bro's nick), I am gonna kick you..Dad seriously,dad come on. You know me. Don't believe him. Dad, You don't want me to stay with you guys for some more time??". (Trying to trigger my damn dead emo/senti voice!)

Bro: "Try harder dudette ! You have tried that voice like almost everytime you have to convince us.Never got through though!"

Dee: (Giving my bro those looks which our dear balayya,jr. ntr, mithunda give in movies to the villains, in RGB planes from every possible angle)

Dad: "Okay, give us one good reason as to why you don't want to go now. I am asking this because, you were totally passionate about this right from your 2nd year until just like 10 days. What made you change your stand in such a short interval?"

Dee: "I don't know. I think I have taken enough crap from my you-know-who. I am not sure if I am ready for more crap for the next two years".

Bro: "But job isn't easy dudette!"

Dee: "I know...I don't know..I don't know. Look I cannot tell you why I am not applying now, 'coz I don't know the reason myself. But I am cool this way. So let it be this way. Please Dad".

Bro: "Dad, its perfectly okay to stay back and work for a couple of years. Then she will be vexed up with her job and will crave for MS. You don't have to worry"

Dad: "Hmm..I always thought you were the studious of the two of you and you will study further."

Dee: (Looking at my bro )"He he he.. Loser!! I am the good one huahuahuauhua"

Dad: "I was not done before!"

Dee: "Hehehehe... wat?? Oh.. hmm.. ya dad. I understand".

Dad: "Just be conscious about your decisions."

Dee: "Yes dad, I will. Thanks for supporting me!"

Bro: "You are welcome, jack!!"

Well, that was an awesome conversation at least for me. I kept slipping my tongue at all wrong moments thanks to my bro. But, I am really happy for all the space I am getting from my parents not forcing me into something just 'coz they want to see me doing that something. I am known for changing my decisions at the 11th hour,59th minute and dad's scared lest I do something not-so-correct.

I was really in no mood to write another exam after my GRE. I was too lazy to write a SOP for applying for universities. I began hating Graphics of late. These can be considered as the last three reasons for not going for MS.

Coming to what I want to do after my B.Tech, I have no freaking clue. I am no fan of doing a job and my dad knows it. But one thing I am very clear about and that is I want to start a group which helps in raising funds for a large number of forsaken old age homes and orphanages in Hyderabad. Why do I want to do such a supposedly "NOT-SO-COOL" thing? More about it later...

Oh n btw 0 : Did one good thing this Diwali. Went to an orphanage and distributed sweets to kids.

Oh n btw 1: Bursted 3 laxmi bombs under the vehicle of my neighbor who says to me and my bro "Oh, I sometimes don't remember who amongst you is younger". :X

Oh n btw 2: My parents are still irritated at my Jim Morrison hair and are buying me all kinds of hair bands so that I tie my hair up. :D

Tata,
Deepti

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Pilot

pilot [pahy-luht] =(n)something done or produced as an experiment or test before wider introduction.

Hello folks,
After hating the previous space where I used to write, here I am in a whole new space. Firstly, a quick set of ground rules are needed to be laid down.
1) This blog is totally mine :D . So you don't get excessively worked up on the stuff that I write.
2) Yes, you are welcome to be a critic .
3) I think I have that split personality thing. Most of the time, I am calm and normal, but at times I become totally thoughtful and travel to a whole strange arena. So, the posts might be shifting from one energy level to the other. You people will have to deal with it.
4) Do not shudder/flinch/become all judgmental if I use _THE_ words here and there.
5)
*Whines* not sold here.

Oh n btw 0: Did you guys watch GOD batting yesterday? Wasn't it awesome?
Oh n btw 1: Any idea where we get good vada-pavs in Hyderabad?

Tata,
Deepti