The Tears of Pain

It was my cousin. She was eight years old when this happened. My aunt, her mother and my mother’s sister, was at her in-laws house at that time. It was the puja holidays of 2004. It was the year I fell in love for the first time (rather, I should say that I thought I had fallen in love, within a month I would realize it!). It was a good year nonetheless.

My aunt’s in-laws house is a big joint family in a village. She goes there with her family every year for the pujas before coming to our place in Durgapur. So, in 2004, my aunt and cousin sister were in the village when a relative died in her in-laws family. The deceased person was my aunt’s sister-in-law’s husband’s father. My aunt had met him some three times and was not very perturbed by the death. But his death meant a lot of rituals had to be followed, especially because it was in the village. First there would be the period of mourning, followed by the ceremonies and rituals to please the spirit of the dead man, and then another spell of mourning.

When the corpse was being readied for cremation, all the women gathered to wail and mourn the death. My aunt was in charge of providing refreshments to the mourners (they needed energy to mourn). As she was distributing lemonade, she noticed my cousin sitting cross-legged and wailing aloud. My cousin was almost choking o her tears. This surprised my aunt very much. The deceased person had met my cousin a few times and had even bought her toys and chocolates, but my aunt had no clue that her daughter was so attached to him.

My aunt took my cousin in her arms and coaxed her not to cry for the deceased person was going to a better place. Tears welled up in my aunt’s eyes too. With a choking voice my aunt asked her, “Why are you crying my little girl? Don’t cry, everything will be fine.”
Weeping profusely my cousin answered, “What will happen now? How will I go to Durgapur now?” And tears poured down her cheeks like waterfall.

The Eyes That Stared

Her father had been posted to a new place. It was a small, sleepy town with a hydro-electric power station where her father worked. Coming from the city, Taryn was pretty much bored and bugged by the place. The high school she went to was an old building and her class mates had no clue about the latest fashion or the latest songs. They were not cool at all.

On the other hand, Taryn, with her high heel, mini skirts, latest hair-do and gadgets had become a flying success. All the girls wanted to be friends with her. All the boys stared at her when she passed them. Secretly she liked this attention. In the city she was just another girl, but here she was the queen.

School was not very far from where she lived so she used to walk it back. Everyday when she returned from school she noticed a young man at the window of the house opposite to her’s, staring out of the window at her. At first she did not mind. As the days turned into weeks, she began to get the creeps. Her friends from the city adviced her to be careful, after all these rural people had not seen a city girl. One of her friends even asked her to go and confront the guy. But Taryn was scared.

One day as she was returning from school, she noticed the man staring out of the window. Something snapped inside Taryn and she decided to end the matter once and for all. She marched straight to the door of the house and knocked. A woman in her late forties opened the door. Furious as she was, Taryn bitterly complained to the lady about this man who always stares out at her and how that was so vulgar and compromised her dignity and the dignity of women-kind. She advised the woman to control the man or else a formal complaint would be made and that she would see the matter to this end. Throughout this tirade, the woman listened patiently to the complaints and threats.
“I shall see to it that you are not inconvenienced again,” said the woman in an apologetic tone.
“You better do” retorted Taryn.

As she was about to leave, an old man called out to her from inside the house. Taryn stopped to look back and saw an old man emerging. He beckoned to her and said, “You are talking about the yong man who stands by the window?”

“Yes, I am.” Taryn pouted her lips to show that she was serious.

“Well, I thought you should know, he is blind,” said the old man.

(This is a story that my father told me.)

The Future... as they predict...

I have a nice stable job with a good stable salary. It is not a corporate job and so I can come home by 5 in the evening, max. I have a fair, pretty wife, whose family has a lot of money. I also have a house and a Maruti car. My life is complete.

This is what people say would happen to me in the next five years if I clear the NET exam. I clear the NET exam and I shall have a fair, pretty wife whose family has a lot of money or else I shall marry a penniless ugly hag; I clear the NET and I shall get a stable income or else I shall be running from door to door for a job; I clear the NET exam and I shall have a happy settled life or else I am doomed! Well, is it really that dramatic?! I know of a lot of people who have not given the NET and yet have a stable job (even in the corporate world!), a nice house and a pretty wife. And how does it matter whether my wife is rich or penniless as long as I have money enough!

Well, giving into the pressure I went to sit for the exam a second time. Because of this exam I missed out on meeting a friend in Cal, missed out on a trek, missed out on a crucial football match, missed out on a feast, and missed out on sleep! I was woken up at 5 in the morning!

A freezing chill greeted me in the morning as I left for the bus stop for the ride to Burdwan. Jumped onto a bus and sat beside a snoring woman and a broken window, and reached Burdwan just as the sunlight was getting warm. It was a blessing to stand in the sun and bask. I warmed myself up before going inside my exam center. But boy, what an experience it was!

There were women all around, hundreds of them, dressed up and strutting around (obviously with books in front of them). But what struck me as odd was that all of them were on the verge of being pretty, but just not pretty. They were good looking and fair, you would surely give them a second look, but just not pretty. I guess it was the books that had this effect! I was wedged between four girls on four sides. I thought it would be my lucky day but as it turned out, I WAS WRONG!!!! They seemed to have taken a bath in perfume and deo, and by the end of the first half an hour I had a throbbing headache and aching to escape! And I did escape, 45 minutes before the first half of the exam was to get over.

I came out of the hall at 11:15am and gave my mother a call to report my status. She picked up the call and on hearing my voice shrieked, “Have you not given the exam?! What happened?!” It took a lot of effort to convince her that I had actually given the exam and had come out early. In the meantime my father arrived after a fulfilling photoshoot of his alma mater. We decided to watch the noon show at the planetarium which was opposite my exam center. It was a nice one hour show, interspersed by children jabbering excitedly beside me.

I returned to the exam centre at one for the last leg of the NET exam. The exam commenced at 01:30pm and was supposed to get over at 4. It was a pretty straight forward subjective paper of 200 marks. I knew all the questions except two. One was about the Veysara temple style. I know nothing about it and have never heard of it! I am against submitting a blank answer so I tried to guess. The word Veysara seemed to be from the south, so I wrote a page on south Indian temple! I finished the paper and asked permission to leave. The whole hall stared at me. The invigilators consulted among themselves and decided to let me go. So I left the exam hall at 3, an hour before the exam was to get over.

My father asked me jokingly whether it was my aim to leave the hall at 3 so that I can get back home and play. Hardly could he imagine how close he was to the truth. When people asked me how the exam went I gave a diplomatic answer – I have answered all the questions, and now the results will say how I did. A good way to keep off criticism or extra probing. NET is a very important exam for people who are interested in that field. As for me, I would rather enjoy a game of football.

Windows Vista Troubleshooting

I love using the Vista even though my brother, cousin and everyone suggests otherwise. But I like it. It suits me. The only problem is getting softwares that are compatible with it. I sometimes use the ones meant for Windows XP and sometimes my friend helps me out. But for everyone who has Vista I would suggest using the Vista Registry Errors Finder Application for cleaning the registry and repairing the errors. Dude, it works and does not hang. Well, here is a short description of it:

Vista Registry Errors Finder Application offers easy-to-use optimization tools to speed up and improve the stability of your Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP PC. Regardless of your level of expertise, Vista Registry Errors Finder Application safely cleans, repairs, and optimizes the registry and automatically backs up changes for future recovery. Now includes essential tools to fix Windows security loopholes. Permanently erase your Internet activity, personal files, and free space to keep your information away from prying eyes.

Download and install Vista Registry Errors Finder Application:
http://digeus.com/downloads/regcleaner/files/5/regcleaner_5_5.exe

Learn more about Vista Registry Errors Finder Application:
http://www.digeus.com/products/regcleaner/vista-registry-errors-finder-application.html

Here is the link:

Vista Registry Errors Finder Application

Hope I am some help for the people using Windows Vista like me. Have fun!

What I Want....

What I do not want is difficult to state; and what I want, is virtually impossible to state. We think we want something, we fight for it, we sacrifice for it, and at the end of the day when we get it we are not completely satisfied. When we get what we want, we realize that that is not exactly what we wanted. It is like wanting and getting a chocolate only to find that the expiry date has passed.

Most people say they know what they want (they might actually know) and even I thought I knew what I wanted. But when I got what I wanted, I realized that it was not it – there was something missing. The flavor that we had expected or the joy we thought it would bring was somehow not there. I was happy at achieving my goals, no doubt, but there was something missing. I had wanted to win the swimming championship at my club and after a lot of training I became the champion. I was beaming but not quite very satisfied. I wanted to top my school, I did, but I still was not quite happy. I wanted to be the centre of college life, the dude, I became the dude but did not like it. I want to be surrounded by people, I was surrounded by people, but then I did not like it and broke off. I so want to help people who are close to me, and yet when I try hard to do so, they get hurt. I wanted to fall in love and be the Romeo of the 21st century. I did fall in love but the other people could not or did not love me back; and the people who loved me, I did not love them back. Did it feel great to achieve my goals? No, it surely did not.

I have tried to reason why my disposition is so weird. Am I too fickle? I have not got too much evidence to that end. The only other possibility is that I am lured by the chase rather than the kill. The whole enjoyment and the wanting of something is driven by the excitement of achieving it rather than by the excitement of enjoying what I want after getting it. To put is crassly – I love to hunt and kill, but I do not enjoy eating the meat. Sounds awful doesn’t it? Well, it does sound cheap and awful but it is the truth. I cannot run away from it. But after all this, I still do not know what I want. I knew I did not want to do engineering but I did not know what I would do instead – English or History. I knew I did not want to go to JNU but I neither knew whether to go to DU. I believe I should get inspired by the saying, “Everything happens for a reason” that way I will not blame myself. But you guys tell me, do you know what you want? I seriously do not know what I want. Just going with the flow….

Awesome English!!!

Nehru was on a visit to a school in rural Madhya Pradesh. The Principal of the school introduced him to all the staff members but somehow missed the Physical Education teacher. Nehru shook hands with everyone and at the end asked, "Who is the Physical Education teacher in this school?"

A tall, well-built man in his early forties stepped forward with a huge smile on his face and said, "Sir, I is."

Nehru smiled and replied, "So you are the Physical Education teacher?"

With a broad grin the man replied, "Yes Sir, I are."

The Story of One-Eyed Jack

nce upon a time, long long ago
There lived a boy named One-Eyed Jack
He had a dream, to be a knight,
Save a damsel in distress and make her his wife
But his parents made him a blacksmith and
Married him off to a chubby washer woman
And all his dreams came to naught!

This is the story of most of us. We lack the vision and the strength to fight for what we want. We give in to the wishes of our parents or to peer pressure, failing to realize that you cannot be successful in something that you do not want. Most of us are scared of failure and are scared of living our dreams. We prefer the most common road, doing what everyone does, as the route is chalked out for us and we just hope to make the best of it. Are we happy? No one can answer this question honestly. Some say they have enough money and success to be happy, while others say that at least their future is secure. I do not have an answer to this question. Do you?