Sometimes all who wander are lost.

It's funny how we decide to become something in life and we strive for it all along. Funny, how we decide out of nowhere and build a life around it. Funny, how we create priorities, leave your country, make sacrifices, break promises, and work hard, harder than you ever did, for that one thing. Eventually that becomes your life. Your true meaning of life. Your reason to exist. And one fine day, you get it. You become what you want. You achieve what you intended to. You get the adrenaline rush. Your best kind of high. You're there, you're right there, you did it! You're so proud of yourself than you can ever be.

So, what next?

"I don't know"
"How can you not know, its your life and you're the one who should actually know!"
"I don't know, don't push it too hard, I really don't know!" 

If you're not your job, if you're not your ambition, then what are you?

I've read so many quotes on being yourself, living the moment, the reason present is called present, because its a present given to you. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how people live in the present. I don't know how you live the moment. I either brood over past or plan my future. That's how my present is. It's all of past and future but no present. I worry. I panic. It makes me feel alive. If everything in life is running smooth, I worry that something wrong may happen. Call me pessimistic but that's part of me. I don't know how to change it. I'm working on it. I'll do it someday. Someday. I keep telling myself. 

Don't be it. I know how it is, and its not good.

Ever wondered what it would be like to strive all your life to achieve something, and while you're almost at it, you meet with a car accident and die. Scary ain't it ? And in those 10 seconds before you die, ever wondered about what you'd be worried? That you didn't live properly, or that you didn't finish what you intended to?

You wouldn't think about money in your wallet. You'd think about the times you rather spent it on your friends. You wouldn't think about your grades. You'd think about those times you avoided making new friends just for your good grades. You wouldn't think about your job. You'd think about your home and family you left just to be in this job.  

There are these little moments. When your dog asks you to take him for a walk. When your mom, even if she is in a rush to start for work, makes you coffee because she knows you love it. When your workaholic Dad takes a week off just to spend time with you. When you look at your dog in the eyes and you know that he's saying you're his world. Well, I don't know about that. My little Arnold loves mum more than anyone else. He doesn't really care about me unless I have something to eat. 

Your job, your ambition, your happinesses and sorrows matter only until death hits you with its shitty reality. 

Try finding those little moments. For these are the moments that stay with you forever. These are the moments that make you, you. 

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go"

Just as our body is made of million cells, so too our soul is made of million inspirations by every person who shares his/her very existence in our life. 

They come, they leave an impression on your soul, they leave. 

It depends on our basic character whether we choose to be inspired by the person who pees on the road or the group of people who think its their responsibility to clean the same road. 

You can be inspired either to be a better person or to be a criminal. Your choice. And that is the beauty of life. Of people. 

We get better (or worse) one day at a time, one conversation at a time, one moment at a time.

God and Satan didn't make sense. People did. Good and bad in them did. Situations they face, choices they make and the consequences they welcome, did. 

Just an hour of wise talk with a friend made sense. Bible didn't. Listening to two people argue made sense. Reading comments of random people on Facebook made sense. A good wise movie made sense. A very interesting blog made sense. People always make sense.
Every what has an answer. Every why has a reason. Every when has a time. Every how has a solution.
I am a philanthropist, and this is why I don't hate anybody. Oh yes, I definitely detest modernization though. It built invisible walls among people and is killing real conversations.
But I also cannot deny to agree that it is, in one way, connecting the whole world, for better or worse.
As ridiculous as it may sound, my Arnold brought back life into the virtual reality I live in. He taught me how spending time with ones right next to you is more important than just peeping into the phone and be connected to the whole world. He taught me how important it is to make our presence felt.
I owe him my life for all the little important things he taught me which make about what we call, a life worth living.
People (or cute little dogs) come and people go. But they will never go unnoticed.

To the ocean for letting the sky know its blue too. To the moon for brightening the dark nights.  

Wishlist

1) Own a Start up
In this crazy messy world, where the significance of a human is decided on one's job, how much ever he/she hates it, being a part of a start up you love makes you feel more human, more important, more needed and makes more difference than a white collar job.

2) Own an NGO
I have complaints. A lot of them. On top of my head are two. Female Abomination.Women are being objectified, raped, thrown away like garbage, tortured for money. People (I said people, not men) are making the most of a woman's defenselessness. Its making me feel that my country, my own country where I am born in, is not a safe place for a woman to be.  Regionalism. From the waiter I spoke to in Kashmir to the auto driver I got to interact with yesterday, everyone suffers from regionalism. They do not want to be a part of India or Pakistan, they just want to be left alone. We here are being discriminated as Andhra or Telangana. Its a not-so-mainstream problem which is eating us up slowly.

3) Buy dad an Audi 
Payback time!

4) Buy mum whatever she wants 
I am a miniature of my mum. So I can safely make a statement that she is what I am. I have a huge     list to shop. Always. So does she.

5) Fall in love
The head over heels kind, yes! This one's a bitch. The more you fall in love, the less denser it gets the more confusing it gets.

6) Get hair highlighted
A red streak is on my mind right now

7) Short hair 
Chop chop chop it off !

8) A pair of Steve Madden's 
No I'm not a brand slave. But this one makes me weak in the knees. What pleases a woman more than a pair of pretty shoes!

9) Learn Guitar
And make the stay of the one at home meaningful.

10) Learn Karate
What better way to keep yourself safe anywhere than self defense. 

Oh Womaniyaaa...

I was born here. I call this country my country. By this country/my country I mean, India. How much am I proud of it? How much do I hate it here. I wouldn't have got this doubt in my mind if I weren't a girl. A girl in India lives a different life as compared to a girl living elsewhere. At least that's what I think. How are we different. Firstly in population. You literally see people right next to you, in 10 cm vicinity and that's not awkward. We, like virus, have occupied every little place in this area allocated to us, called our country. There are people. If there aren't any people, there is garbage.

Welcome to India. We are filled in filth ourselves as much as we fill the country itself with. Some people have little filth. Some people do a lot. I stopped believing in any other criteria by which we differentiate people, except this. Filth to you is not filth to me, or the other way round. There are people who are driven by ambitions, by money, by love, by lust. But in common, we are all driven by the rules made by the society. They define what kind of people we are. That is the criteria which matters right now.

Personal learnings do not have any impact. They are to be buried within oneself or are to be passed on to your immediate friends who are really close to you or you wouldn't really open up. If you do not tell anyone they are as good as going into the grave with you.

I have my learnings too. I have defined how my life is going to be. How I do not want to be married at 24 like many of my Facebook friends, how I need an MBA more than I need a husband, how I am an independent woman and would want to dress up as how I want to. How I do not need those judgmental looks, how I want to be happy in my own skin. But no. They are not applicable here. This is India and people don't really care about what you are as a person as long as you are acceptable as part of this filth.

Is 24 a right age to get married? Really? What is the right age or wrong age anyway? Isn't the criterion supposed to be the right person but not the right age? Doesn't "I'm not ready yet" make any sense to parents? And if anything doesn't make any sense to them, does that mean we are wrong? If the parent himself thinks one's thoughts and plans are immature, what makes him think one can manage a huge responsibility called marriage when one is 24? Does 'seeing each other' make any sense here? Does being agnostic or atheist mean nothing here, but the fact that Satan is playing his role on us? Are we defined on what faults we made and are abducted our right to make decisions? Does having an opinion of our own make any sense here?  Is it everywhere or does it happen only here in India?

Should we cover our faces with a scarf just so we are not thrown acid at? Should we cover ourselves tip to toe even on a hot sunny day just so we are not eve-teased? Should we stay home after 8 just so we don't get raped? Does slapping a person who misbehaved with you a crime which is going to haunt you all your life? Is fighting back a bad thing to do? Is that why my mother is scared, that someone is going to throw acid on my face if I raise my voice against something/someone? Is lodging a complaint a crime here, that we are asked filthy questions and made fun at but the problem remains the same? Should a rape victim cover her face in public or in media just so she is not judged by our filthy eyes? Are the girls asked to dress properly but the boys aren't asked to behave themselves? Is there no protection here? None? Is it everywhere or does it happen only here in India?

Is it our fault to be a girl or is it our fault to be an Indian girl?       


It is Chaos. And I hate it here.

"And then I decided not to work for a corporate company again!"

I shamelessly call myself a writer (for a rookie writer which I am), and realized I wrote only three posts, one a year! That's the exact definition of a bad writer. Like any other post of mine, this is also a series of incidents which happened in my life.

That was December, 2012 when I first joined the job, got first salary for the first 15 days I worked, the time when transition from being a miser to being a brat happened. We moved to Bengaluru, all of us. We called that a honeymoon period. Life was pretty okay even without money (the consequence which happened because of the transition). Apoorva made it easier. If there was a single slice of bread, we used to share(not that we had just a slice of bread thought! We had a loaf, maybe).  We had freedom, individuality, self responsibility and no money.

That's how we landed back in Hyderabad. Only expenses were spent on parties, pretty clothes and commute. Yes I started using the words like commute. Welcome to the software world! Its their lingo. Or 'our' if I'm allowed to call it. 

However miserable, it was a comfort zone. It was a bubble which we'd choose not to come out of. That's not how it should work. You take chances. You explore. You check for other opportunities. Think twice. Thrice. Did you really want to become a software engineer? If you're a mechie, what the hell are you doing in front of this shitty box? Did you ever want to become a bartender, a film Director or a beat-boxer? Were we programmed all our life to be what you are now? Did you decide to be this? 

What if I really wanted be a chef or a tennis player? This is India. We aren't allowed to take chances. Parents wouldn't be proud if their daughter were a bartender. That's why there are more engineers than there are artists. There are more software employees than there are professional dancers. And me? I just went with the flow. It was MPC because it cannot be BiPC. It was math because I cannot draw. It was Sreenidhi because that's the most decent college I got with my EAMCET score. It was ECM because the CSE seats were filled by nerds and rich kids. It was Cognizant because that's the only company I got recruited by. I don't really know what I want. Would I? Ever?

Money isn't really a priority anymore.
Two years is enough. I quit.

I promised to myself, that I will grow as a person. I will learn new things. I will explore new opportunities. I will do real business and give my MBA some meaning. I will do everything I wanted to, and everything I never did before. 

From this two years of experience, I decided I do not want to be a human robot again. I do not want to work for an MNC where you don't get to use your brain, where there is no vivaciousness and no identity. *T&C Apply 

*except when I have to pay my education loan or when I'm in deep shitty crisis.  

Confessions of a Corporate (Enthusiast)

Sitting in the lawns of a huge corporate office, gazing at the glass building, wondering what the hell you’re doing here? That’s okay. You’re not the only one. I still remember the day we were sitting in the college, on the day of the interview, when we were reading about the history of the company just in case anybody pops a question about it. Waiting for the call, tension filled heads, hoping we’d get in because parents expect us to(or maybe even we!). It all started from the time when we used to bunk, bunk a lot. Pocket money wasn’t sufficient for all the movies we wanted to watch and junk we wanted to eat. Any student would want a day in his/her life when he would stop asking money from home, be financially independent and not answer to anyone for the money they spent. So did I. Maybe a little more because of an independent feminist in me. The call had come, I went in, was asked a few questions and got the job! Everyone in the house was happy, relatives proud (after all of mum’s touting about her kid getting a job with kickass salary to start work with. LOL.)

Mistake #1 : Did not apply for Masters. I should have.
Everyone around convinces you to get some work experience and apply for masters. Wrong. Experience doesn’t really count when you have good scores. Or maybe it does. But you can still get into a good university without it.

Mistake #2 : Wasted 7 months of precious time waiting for the call letter.
I could have done a lot of things. I wanted to. On top of my head right now I have guitar classes. Should have learnt how to play a guitar, but didn’t. Wasted time thinking I will get a call next day or the day after that. Days passed, actually months.

Mistake #3 : Joined IT IS. Should have waited for an IT call.
I was told that there are no IT projects anywhere in India and getting a call itself is a luck. Therefore this.
Well, I don’t regret this much because of all the wonderful people I got to meet and that Bangalore happened to come my way with all of them in it! :)

Mistake #4 : Wasted 10 months of humungus time!
I don’t regret this much either because of Bangalore and what it did to us! :)
I could have done a lot of things I wanted to do in the seven months I wasted earlier. But it was bench (a paid vacation as we called it). All you want to do is chill with roomies, go on dates and spend every last penny you have, self sympathizing for the four years of B.Tech you struggled. Yes, that was me.

Mistake #5 : This project right now!
When there was no enough money sufficient to survive in Bangalore and when at last you wanna save money, wisest thing to do is go back home! That’s what I did. Left Bangalore(and also a piece of my heart) and came here because at last, after a long wait, found a project here. Excited initially, for all the new experience to work with a team or maybe to just work ! :D

What I didn’t know was that this job was killing the enthusiasm in me, leaving me perplexed about what all this is. This is probably how it is from inside of a pressure cooker!  

Here I am now, 2 years after completing B. Tech, clear about what to do(and what not to), at least made a decision for myself and feeling thankful for the work experience which is useful for my MBA!  Everything happens for a reason. All you have to do is make your mistakes and learn from them!

Its your Shit!

Its been a while, yeah three years since I blogged last and frankly, I never got the spirit to write again for this long. This is one way of talking to oneself. In olden days it was dairies and now this. Now I question myself- Why wasn't I writing for three damn years? Was I too busy that I did not talk to myself? Spend some quality lone time with myself? Was I too immature? Were there too many friends back then? Well, probably all of it. Its college and everything there is happier. That you will definitely know, when you face the real world. That was the time when life gave it all wrapped up in a big blingy paper and sugar coated it for you.

 Was that why it's hard to keep up with all the shit you have to deal with now? When every day back then, you spent had something to do. Was it why it was so difficult to deal with when everything comes to a halt all at once? Those days when you are just out of the college, when you wait for the call letter from the company you were luckily placed in, when everyone else were getting something to do one by one, when you were left all alone between the four walls.

The awareness of the rotting of eagerness in you to do something- but all you could do is nothing but be helpless. The time when you live in a hope that everything gets better, not today, then tomorrow. When you think the world will be a better place to live, but all you see is people getting brutally raped and murdered. You have that raging feminist in you who wants to do something but left helpless because the world is too big a place to fight back.

When you are in your end teens, everything seems so perfect, so colorful. You would be intrigued with life, wanting to grow up-to someone you wished to grow up into, to someone whom you admired. Why is it all shattered in the twenties? Is it because you were immature to not understand the dark phase of life back then? All you planned to be the future slowly shattered into pieces and rots away into nothingness. The relations you made for lifetime break and make no sense anymore-getting you broken into pieces and make you see no hope in future. The phase in life when you do not know if you are doing the right thing or not but that has to be done for life to move on. The guilt, the mishaps, the burdens, the excess baggage are all you think of. Those mistakes you made, rule your present and you cant do anything about it except sit and watch karma doing its thing.

That is probably why it is called 'The Quarter Life Crisis'. Are we mature enough to deal with all this shit at once, one after the other, just making it worse? Would you think its just you or if its everyone else too who are dealing with their shit as you are, but too stubborn and introverted to talk about it? Yes.

If not now, later, anytime in life, its your shit- it's you who has to deal with it.

Be blessed because the ones whom you have held on to all this long are still there-and will stay forever. The ones whom you have held now will stay forever too. Many a lesson are yet to come, many good things and bad. Get your shit together, hold yourself up and face everything 'cos you are a fighter and you are meant to be!