the other kind of emptiness

the clock mentions it is 10:17 pm or as i'm used to writing 22:17 (hangover from an overdose of loads of Hollywood army movies while growing up!). i'm about to call it a day. some work was finished, some not even started, but as there is nothing that urgent, i guess i should leave. what hurts more is that in order to finish office work on tight deadlines, i happen to lose sight of some very important personal work. and now, one more day has gone!

mind is kind of empty right now. not in the literal sense. there is so much inside that all of it together is not making any sense. so while i can pick and choose and lay threadbare whatever is going inside my mind right now, i don't have the patience. this is the other kind of emptiness. when you are so full with something that it starts meaning nothing. like too much of beauty or money! 

when you have too much of something, you start to drift away from it. fullness breeds emptiness it seems. what do you think?

22:25, Thursday, August the fourth, 2011

the good or bad in us

last night, i was watching this movie, Blood Diamond. fantastic movie that, but i'll talk about it some other day. (though i might or might not.) this is perhaps my favorite scene from the movie.

Danny Archer (played fabulously by Leonardo DiCaprio) has taken refuge at a local chief, Benjamin's estate who runs a shelter for war victim children and adults. there is blood and carnage all around this oasis of peace and Danny and his companions have literally escaped death a few hours ago. Danny is actually a diamond smuggler who has got entry after lying that he is a journalist.

the little dialogue between these two opposite characters is fantastic as a critique of the human nature. 

Danny Archer(talking about the rebel soldiers): So you think because your intentions are good, they'll spare you, huh? 

Benjamin Kapanay: My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise. But what about you, Mr. Archer? In your long career as a journalist, would you say that people are mostly good?

Danny Archer: No. I'd say they're just people.

Benjamin Kapanay: Exactly. It is what they do that makes them good or bad. A moment of love, even in a bad man, can give meaning to a life. None of us knows whose path will lead us to God.

think about it. i kept thinking about it. and i realized one thing about me. i've never been able to completely hate a person, even if s/he has done some real harm to me. i've always found some bit of good in them, not that i want to further test my patience! dear God, please don't test me anymore :)

and that is why, i want to ask you, do you, would you also believe that there are no good people or bad people, that there are only good deeds and bad deeds? should we define/brand people as good or bad, or is it about being generally good and generally bad? maybe nobody is completely good or bad, OR maybe there are a few pure souls and a few gone beyond redemption, who knows... maybe we are just supposed to forgive and forget and move on OR maybe we are supposed to fight and seek revenge... who knows?

whatever be the answer(s), what i do agree with is this, "A moment of love, even in a bad man, can give meaning to a life." actually, it gives meaning to all of humanity. do you also think so?

when an artist dies

"When an artist passes away, some bits of him start living in his works. till the time he was alive, he was this other self, roaming around the streets of this world, but now that he is dead, his works take an inner glow, as if they hold some bits of his soul... shining from behind the canvas and the frame, in a soft, translucent glow."

Posted as a comment on this post by my blogger-senior Ennyman, http://ht.ly/2MWTM . thought it was good enough for an individual post :) tell me if you liked it.

of taps that run & wishes fulfilled

I've shifted. I'm not staying with Rahul anymore.

It is an airy, spacious, one room + kitchen + verandah + other facilities - 'a complete floor for us' set-up. At 2.5k + water/electric, it is a little over budget, but then I wouldn't mind complete calm & privacy as little added benefits. No nagging, almost hysterical next room occupants; no shared bathrooms; no locked gates after a prescribed time - ah, I feel like a king.

And the best thing is that taps here actually have water. At the mere slight of a rotation, the taps come alive with fresh, gurgling, pressurized water. What a relief. The first day I was very excited upon my discovery. 'Hey, they are not showpieces, they actually have a utility.' Most of the people don't realize how fortunate they are to get taps that actually work. I was like that also. But almost two years of tap-less existence has made me wiser. (There were no running water in Indore also.)

Running taps are like promises fulfilled. You see a tap, you feel sure that it is usable. If not, like in municipal toilets & drinking fountains, that promise, that trust is broken. That's why running taps are like promises fulfilled. A very comforting thought indeed.

I'm staying with Mr. & Mrs. God here.

Perhaps I've begun to enjoy my life also. The first tentative steps. Like a mystery being solved very slowly, some veil is lifting from my life. Some of the real basics are getting clearer, some are in the process of. Slowly, step by step, piece by piece, somebody up there is putting together a grand life for me. Tonight, on the 13th of December 2005, I feel like God has started fulfilling my wishes - his promises. Like taps that work.

Who says Silence is Golden?

again a piece from my diary...

December 08/05 21:40hrs.

Here I'm, sitting with Mr. Rahul Kumar Raichowdhury who is currently yap-yap-yapping non-stop in his unmistakbly street-smart indianised version of the queen's english with all the wrong grammar & punctuation-pronounciation that would fill at least 10 episodes of 'the great indian comedy show' & keep your tummy rumbling for days afterwards.
And the best thing is, I've to listen to it with as straight a face as I could keep.
Oh my! What can you do when somebody is hell bent on calling a chemist (that is, kem-ist) with a 'chuck' type ch-emist. And telling you that he knows it is incorrect, that he has been speaking like that since childhood (yeah, chemist as in child) and doesn't intend on correcting this supposed flaw. He in infact is proud of it is another thing altogether...
Okay, time out, I can't do it. I've to laugh and laugh out loud.

I love Rahul. Period. With all his eccentricity & sincere stupidity. He is all that what I'm not. He is positive, cheerful, effervescent, zindadil, khusmizaz, extrovert, makes friends easily and so many other things that i'm not. He is all that & more. He complements & completes me. Through him, I live everything I can't.
Sample this: A 65ml peg of Johnny Walker costs around Rs 200 at Pot Pourri Bar, just above Nirula's pastry shop at Connaught Place. I'm never gonna go there. And that French Onion Soup tastes like shredded-fried onions trashed in plain boiled water. I wouldn't even attempt this. (The only time i like onions is in salad with a generous dose of lemon.) Things like these and so many more.
And how it feels when somebody dies in front of you. Literally.
I'm sorry Rahul. I would have done the same thing, if I was in your position. Watching someone die...I can't.

Accha, I was on the topic of silence. Yeah, who said silence is golden? I mean being silent is a pretty unimaginative thing to do. If you are not silent you can do a lot of things, like putting both your feet in the mouth, like appearing to be not so bright afterall, I mean, ummm, u got the point. Haven't you?

I've been silent for about 10 days. And haven't liked it much. As much as i used to. The last time I blogged, I was all starry-eyed, going to join a far bigger ad agency Uk and the tension and apprehension such a move brings with it.

Well, nothing of that sort happenned. I went there for a day, that is the 1st and came back to De' Hub 2nd onwards. A lot of factors went into this decision and I'm satisfied that I took all the pros n cons into consideration and decided what was best for me. Although sometimes in the past 10 days, there had been that sneaking feeling, which made me wonder, 'what I did'. What was I thinking then?

What took me 10 days to be back? I don't know. Except that I didn't enjoyed this period. Of silence, of introspection & circumspection, but still nothing much. Now that I'm back on track, i would try to be a regular with blogging, 'cause I'm loving it...

of beauty & love

...and beauty asked,
"you act so strange, why do you call yourself my worshipper"

with a heart, that skipped a beat and eyes, that smiled at her eyes

love chuckled, took a pen & opened his heart

Shahrukh & Me

"When I need money, I dance at a wedding or do a show, I do films only for love"

Shahrukh Khan

Novemeber 27, 2005 10:25am

Sunday Morning & the Newspapers
I'm enjoying the sunday morning. and what's my idead of doin that? Well, first of all, get up late, really late & if Rahul tries to wake you up at 8:30, mutter up all the swear words you normally don't, 'neend mein sab chalta hai', slowly sink in two cups of ginger tea (ahhhhh) with an hour's interval & gorge on the newpapers on offer. And the Bible says laziness is a sin...

I'm prompted to write now because of Shahrukh.
Am reading about him in the Times Life Supplement. Yaar this man does wonders to me, everytime I read something about him. He exudes so much energy.
And how I hated him while growing up???
Actually I liked Aamir & instead of his better acting skills, it was Shahrukh who was a bigger star, almost always. Amir is like a comet who comes visiting around a year, while Shahrukh is always there and the sun shines brightly.
I digress a lot. Do I?
So, I was on Shahrukh & the effects his words/actions have on me. Sanple this, "I don't carry even a rupee in my pocket. My logic is that the amount of money you carry out of the house must be spent, so earlier, whenever I left the house, I'd give money away to people who claimed to be needy. So my wife forbids me to carry cash on me. I usually borrow from my spot-boy or driver." Amazing, isnt' it? This is India's biggest film star speaking..
It is this lovable quirkiness, this brand SRK philosophy that I like very much.
Shahrukh does wonders to me...

Adi

So, i'm through, wish me best of luck

Its been taken care of...
Finally, i gathered enough strength to tell my loving boss, was leaving his firm and joining other...
with this comes a period of tension & apprehension....
of leaving a comfortable cushion and starting all over again,
just for a thing we call, achievement...
am i ready for the things to come?
only time will tell...

i've been in this job for 10 months, i've done everything and somedays nothing, but sometimes the other things took too much time and focus rather than what i was looking for, i'm a copywriter and i'm supposed to write, but here, sometimes days passed without me getting hands on anything worthwhile,
and i would instead be doing, office mails, correspondence, co-ordination, meeting with clients, net searching and all that stuff which i was not suppossed to do.
yes, being a small agency, everybody has to multi-task a bit, but when it becomes the main thing-to-do, you know you'll have to leave....

so, i've bagged a posting with another bigger agency, it has seen slightly better days, kinda top slots in Delhi, but now it is in a bit shaky position. still, i've chosen it:
to leave the small agency mindset,
to get a hang of how things are carried out in a bigger set up,
to see where i belong in the professional hiearchy, 'yaani main kitne paani mein hoon?'
and a lot many little things like a significant increase in the pay packet. i seriously dont know for how much time i'll stay there or they'll keep me, everyone has an apprenshion about joining a new job...but one thing is for sure, i'm prepared for it.

and God willing, i'll be able to prove myself also.

i hope, i've my well wishers' blessings with me...

i'm adi, this is the 23rd of november 2005, and delhidreams are well & truly on...