Bonne Année!

"All those days watching from the windows
All those years outside looking in
All that time never even knowing
Just how blind I've been
Now I'm here blinking in the starlight
Now I'm here suddenly I see
Standing here it's all so clear
I'm where I'm meant to be"

So this was the song I was singing when I was alone on our terrace last year, with my coffee and a cheesy maggie and a pack of salted chips, while I watched the floating lanterns and crescent moon above in the sky. And I was hoping that at least next time I will not have to celebrate my new year like this. 

And today I am writing this post after having an amazing new year bash with my new made friends whose names I didn't even know last week. And we tried to get into a pub but it was almost full so we just sat on the tables outside of the cafeteria where there was no music to deafen our ears but a kind of serene calmness and a company to enjoy and ordered our fried chicken and coke and laughed till my cheeks hurt. 

Then when it was past twelve we all shouted out and wished strangers going by Happy new year and shared cakes with them without even needing to know their names or never having to give them ours. 

There was a time when everyone was shaking hands and giving Happy new year wishes and I could see just the one floating lantern hovering in the sky and that reminded me of my last years alone celebrations of new year. 

I never been so aware of the dynamics of the life, as how things shift right below our feet and it just gets so easy as if riding a slow ride but when we look back its just horrifying tracks which has led us to this very moment. 

Last year been real bitch one with lots of moments of sadness and happiness also. I finally completed my dream of being in a corporate company working as an independent woman. I received my first paycheck as well. and I have learn a great deal about patience in this year. I guess most of the time the good years dont matter as much as the tough ones do. :)

So, 2016 has ended officially and I am starting a real new phase of my life from tomorrow with 2017, I wish the next new year bash will be even more amazing than this. 

Happy New Year! 

Bonne Année!

Merci!

Bangalore Day

Phhew…

Wow what a week.

Well just been shifted to another city… And this time its Bangalore baby…

I had written a extensive blog about Bangalore last time when I was here. I kind of felt it in my nerves that maybe I should try living here for a while too. And as per my wishes and weird visualization skills I have which I am not even sure exists but which always works I have got my joining here in Bangalore. Two of my college got Pune but me… I got Bangalore.

First thing I absolutely adore Bangalore, I am not sure what exactly about this city that attracts me but it gets on my nerves. I feel a kind of clean energizing vibe from this city since the first time ever I set foot into it. And now I am gonna be working here, which is even more fascinating.

Last week been a haze of things happening so fast since I received my joining date and location. Before I was here I was feeling as if these things aren’t happening to me but to someone else. The joining, the location, the rush, to get all the things all in one place. I cant even believe I am sitting in a small apartment where we decided to stay and I am going to be spending quite a bit time here.

I don’t really feel homesick yet, because from past 6 months I have been waiting patiently for this moment when I go into the glass sealed company and start my new career as well as life. Weird thing about visualizing your goals is that they are so definite in terms of their steps, and you cant possibly think of the next one until you have found one already. I kind of hate this feeling, being aloof, being unable to control things. But it turns out to be good every time.

I guess I learnt a great deal of patience in these last 6 months. I have been extremely irritated with this wait and wait and just not being able to finally get what I wanted. The night before I actually received my joining location was one hell of night to remember. I got through it with this one line quote which stuck on my head like a bolt of lightening, “God has it all under control, go to sleep”.  I do get some of these super excited and frightening nights before something big really happens in my life, and it did. The next morning I opened my eyes to my joining mail with Bangalore word high lightened in it. And it was absolute bliss, Like a secret magic wish coming true.  And since then things have been going on pretty good. I guess I will be writing more about my new self in few days.

Merci…

 ☺

The green mile

Well I finally finished second book of Stephen King. And it was absolutely amazing.
Here's a short summery of book,

A first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home sharing his story with fellow resident Elaine Connelly in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the block supervisor of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary death row, nicknamed "The Green Mile" for the color of the floor's linoleum. This year marks the arrival of John Coffey, a 6 ft 8 in powerfully built black man who has been convicted of raping and murdering two small white girls. During his time on the Mile, John interacts with fellow prisoners Eduard "Del" Delacroix, a Cajun arsonist, rapist, and murderer, and William Wharton ("Billy the Kid" to himself, "Wild Bill" to the guards), a wild-acting and dangerous multiple murderer who is determined to make as much trouble as he can before he is executed. Other inhabitants include Arlen Bitterbuck, a Native American convicted of killing a man in a fight over a pair of boots (also the first character to die in the electric chair); Arthur Flanders, a real estate executive who killed his father to perpetrate insurance fraud, and whose sentence is eventually commuted to life imprisonment (while serving his sentence, he is killed by another inmate in the laundry room); and Mr. Jingles, a mouse, whom Del teaches various tricks.

Paul and the other guards are antagonized throughout the book by Percy Wetmore, a sadistic guard who enjoys antagonizing the prisoners. The other guards have to be civil to him despite their dislike of him because he is the nephew of the Governor's wife. When Percy is offered a position at the nearby Briar Ridge psychiatric hospital as a secretary, Paul thinks they are finally rid of him. However, Percy refuses to leave until he is allowed to supervise an execution, so Paul hesitantly allows him to run Del's. Percy deliberately avoids soaking a sponge in brine that is supposed to be tucked inside the electrode cap to ensure a quick death in the electric chair. When the switch is thrown, the current causes Del to catch fire in the chair and suffer a prolonged, agonizing demise.

Over time, Paul realizes that John possesses inexplicable healing abilities, which he uses to cure Paul's urinary tract infection and revive Mr. Jingles after Percy stomps on him. Simple-minded and shy, John is very empathic and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others around him. One night, the guards drug Wharton, then put a straitjacket on Percy and lock him in the padded restraint room so that they can smuggle John out of the prison and take him to the home of Warden Hal Moores. Hal's wife Melinda has an inoperable brain tumor, which John cures. When they return to the Mile, John passes the "disease" from Melinda into Percy, causing him to go mad and shoot Wharton to death before falling into a catatonic state from which he never recovers. Percy is committed to Briar Ridge.

Paul's long-simmering suspicions that John is innocent are proven right when he discovers that it was actually William Wharton who raped and killed the twin sisters and that John was trying to revive them. Later John tells Paul what he saw when Wharton grabbed his arm one time, how Wharton had coerced the sisters to be silent by threatening to kill one if the other made a noise, using their love for each other. Paul is unsure how to help John, but John tells him not to worry, as he is ready to die anyway, wanting to escape the cruelty of the world. John's execution is the last one in which Paul participates. He introduces Mr. Jingles to Elaine just before the mouse dies, having lived 64 years past these events, and explains that those healed by John gained an unnaturally long lifespan. Elaine dies shortly after, never learning how Paul's wife died in his arms immediately after they suffered a bus accident, and that he then saw John Coffey's ghost watching him from an overpass. Paul seems to be all alone, now 104 years old, and wondering how much longer he will live.

I don't really like to read the Gothic or Dark fantasy novels because I hate the feeling of being afraid of something that doesn't exist. But I guess I can make an exception for Stephen King's books. Because its not just the fear that takes control of us while reading his stories. There is something much more to understand and comprehend in it. I loved the small lines which keep lingering even after its gone like the feel of train which left the platform. and all the interconnected parts of the story which makes total sense in long term. And you are trying to remember everything there is to find how it effects the story. 

Green Mile was different in a sense because it kind of made me think about my old age days. The time when Paul is spending his days in retirement home all alone despite his kids. And when Paul's life is at the end he is trying to find ways to spend rest of his life doing something. 

I dont know what I'd be doing to pass my time in my old age, probably too old to read anything and too slow to comprehend them. :D Perhaps I will keep the audiobooks stocked so as to be prepared for the green mile to pass. 

The Body

"The body" well obviously to the name this novel was about a dead body of course by Stephen King the king of mystery. 
First of all I would like to express my happiness for starting my first Stephen kings book because I did not know I was a supreme fan of this author until I found out that he is the one who has written Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption so of course whoever has watched Shawshank redemption has to know what kind of an author he is. 
So about this book of course, the body opens with a sort of deep monologue about how hard it is to talk about things we are ashamed of which by the way actually got my nerve. I felt as if someone has written the same thing I haven't quite figured out. 
Later the story turns and twists into an amazing tour of four friends going on a unthinkable adventure in these days that is to go and watch a body. They go through a absolute plan of how to keep their parents fooled while they are gone, they come across mean dump ground keeper and survive a massive train wreck on a bridge of river, witness a really horrible night in a forest which is followed by a soothing morning and like always the sun comes up kind of thing. And finally after lots of hurdles and patience they finally see the dead body over which they fight off with older body that who should report it to police. Ultimately winning the claim to do so by making them afraid with a gun they had stolen . They return back safely  ,never actually report anything to anyone but this adventure kind of turns the narrators life around, making him to keep the good things he has and turning himself into an author while three of his friends dies one after another in different incidences.

The thing I absolutely loved was of course when Gordon witness a deer the next morning after quite a horrible night. The way it is related to the things happening in his older life makes it kind of the readers secret. We absolutely get the kind of feeling it gives us, that how we feel after a massive blow has settled down and we are left with soothing realization that it's alright now. Everything is fine and nothing can go wrong anymore. 
I guess we all have a deer moment reserved inside of us. Keeping us going on from one adventures to another.

I guess I will be posting few reviews about Stephen kings books now, as its like a hidden treasure box for me now.

 

A magic genie and 3 wishes

If only you could have a genie to grant you 3 wishes what would you wish for?

Well of course this isnt probably my original idea to write my post on but its only because I watched a video of people around the world answering this question. And surprisingly the answers seems to be given by a same person.

Here's the video of course if you are interested- The Genie question

What my take away from this was it made me realize how shallow our thoughts about the world are and how easy things seems when we remove all the hurdles in between and add the world "Magic" in it. If you watch the video of course you will find out that most people value their happiness, and their family and money which would make their families happy and of course world peace.

You will still find the same thing wished by a black skinned man sitting in dark as well a white person sitting in a well lit cafe or a small kid living in slums or a beautiful girl sitting in a beautiful garden. What does that tells us? Isnt its rather easy answer to all our doubts and fears from some another part of the world which is not us?

After watching a huge amount of hate and racist behavior not long ago, I personally felt so hurt. It was like watching a modern world take a step back into the darkness where there was suffering of people only because of the differences of their races and color of their skin and the dialect of their languages.
Every time when I read any book regarding this racism issue I feel the same kind of sadness which shakes me to the core the same way it does when I watched people getting beaten by whip. And the only question which is left unanswered that - Is this how hard it is? To give a freedom to another person same as us with flesh and blood and feelings to feel comfortable in their own skin? Why does it takes decades and decades to accept something which we were meant to accept in the first place?

If all the people were Tall and handsome and fair and beautiful and blue eyed would you have admired the beauty of them?
If we all looked like the robots molded out of the same mold would you have accepted that as an equality?
Maybe that would have been better ! at least then there would be no racism term neither all the questions that has left us stunned with the amount of cruelty.

There is a quote in "To  kill a mockingbird" which was my favorite for a long time. This is when Atticus says to James- “You’d be surprised how hard that’d be. I won’t live to see the law
changed, and if you live to see it you’ll be an old man."

I was happy because the world back then had changed, It had given opportunity to a man without considering his race but only his ability to do a job. But then after few years world still had the anger and the same frustration for the race. And now its not only for the race but for religion and for a person holding different values and a different gender suffers from it. ''

I'd just like to say this for the years I will have to witness,

“I have witnessed how hard it is. But I'd like to stay alive till I see the laws changed and more than laws, I would like to see people change so that we wont need any laws to be enforced on them to treat everyone equally."

#Electionnight

So this is my morning starts with a panic attack maybe. As after month and days spent while watching the sudden shift in world where anything you can say as a Probable US president while campaigning your way to the white house.
And till today morning I was absolutely sure that the results will be absolutely clear after the drama that whole world witnessed. But even then, here I am, a someone holding her breath and feeling as if this is something like a black death or a meteor hitting the earths surface while Trump takes lead.
I was looking for the newspaper to find something in it, while the news of 500 and 1000 rs note being disqualified from our economy in search of black money flashes on first page while I dive into the page 8-9 where news of American election might be. And my mother says the news is on first page while I leave the newspaper laughing at our situation when something happening across the worlds end seems more important to me than what has happened in our own country. But isnt everyone(who were aware of the fact of Trump's so called "great big beautiful" presidency) feeling this?
Many the times people need this kind of moment shift maybe, so they can actually feel like living. and then some phrases start to pour themselves as "WWIII, racism, ignorance, disrespect of women,  use of neuclear weapons , a big big great beautiful freaking wall, and what not' I see  the destruction needs only fewer and fewer steps to win.

And it did change, the moment when I was standing among group of people who were absolutely unaware of the fact of consequences of something happening far beyond.
Maybe it is true that there is Happiness in Ignorance. Perhaps I would have been one of those people leading their lives unaware of anything at all.

Maybe I did witness the "World change here today" moment, but I really didn't want to. Or maybe I dont want to be in the world where change meant witnessing something horrific as this. Or maybe I should rather focus on page no. 1 in our news paper rather than digging for 8 or 9 who knows.

So while I helplessly watch someone setting an example of being conservative is a good thing, assaulting women is a good thing, not helping the people who needs help is a good thing, being a racist and insulting war time heros is a good thing, not paying taxes is a good thing, being unaware to listen to the cries our planet sends every day is a good thing, saying lies in front of thousands watching and then denying it in front of the same people is a good thing and ... also this all makes a country great, and despite of all that you can and will still win in this up-sided down world I think to myself that what sort of world we might be leading on.

But of course a but is always there isnt it. I guess I am gonna have to keep hell of work into myself while adjusting to the new situations and tackling such more shocks after this. And more than that I guess I will have to be hell of a mother to set an example before my future off spring that this wasnt what we were. It was just so out of control and we were a victim of it, just born at the wrong time to witness a tragedy. 

Outliers-a person or thing differing from all other members of a particular group or set

So here’s my review to “Outliers”

First thing, its way way way amazing book than I had thought it would be. And then its just something you don’t often find easily.

I guess my review is going to be slightly overwhelming with the kind of thoughts I had while I was reading through. But still…

Would you believe if someone told you if you are willing to put enough efforts you can master anything in this world? Well I do, I absolutely do believe that now.

What Malcolm tells you through this book, you can not find easily anywhere. It’s the kind of thing which has to be the extract of most studied logical things and stories around the world.

I loved the reasoning in each story of this book, and the impeccable logic with which each thing was explained. There is not a single thing about which I have objection which was mentioned in this whole course of book.

Often we look at the success as something only a born genius can do, but this book has taught me literally that geniuses aren’t born, they are made. Made with hours and hours of the knowledge they can gather and perfect it over the course of time. This book has made me believe that your success in life is not only depending on your luck but is also depending on how much you are willing to give your time to be perfect in the thing that you absolutely love.

And that also success is not directly proportional to your talent, rather its just hardwork vs nothing else. I feel so strongly after reading this as there in nothing in this world we can conquer if we are willing to put enough efforts in it.

Well I might be sounding too phony by this time, but that’s all there was which I understood and loved a quote from this book,

“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich” its an old Chinese proverb and absolutely amazing because it delivers something difficult in such simple and easy way.

Well I would give all stars on the scale for “Outliers”, Malcolm you truly are an amazing writer, speaker and I guess soon I am going to finish all the books under your name tag!

Merci!