Aging

Life, oh dear life! I think I have tried to keep it as simple as possible, constantly running away from any sort of complexity. It was never a choice, but more of a necessity for me. I just can’t stand complexities. Everything has been simple; always! Family relationships, friendships, or any other social relationships for the matter. The moment something got too complex for me to handle, I would abandon it and look beyond. This often required giving up on friends or bringing an end to such a relationship. If I liked someone, then it came without any strings attached to it. So there were always and always only two categories; people I like and the people I dislike.

Yesterday while waiting for a bus, I saw this very old woman walk up towards me. Probably in her 80’s she could hardly walk but still trying. I think I have always been good with elderly. No matter how impatient otherwise.

“Are you waiting for the 303?”

It is the only bus that passes through that bus stop connecting it to the rest of the “world”, so I answered with a simple polite “Yes”.

“You are a long way from home son!” with a gentle smile no different than what I often see on my grandma’s face.

My lips spread wide into a smile again, still trying to figure out as to what she might have meant. Unable to do so, I asked “Do you mean in Sydney or India?”

“You are a Sikh! Are you not?” answering my question with another question!

At that moment I gleamed with pride, a Caucasian knew what my identity was, till date very few people that I have met actually knew as to what Sikhs are. It feels good to be recognized, oh yes it does. Just imagine how screwed up you would be in a similar situation where someone tells you that you are Pakistani, Fijian or Bangladeshi. So this indeed was sweet; sweet as in nice. The conversation continued for another odd half an hour or so. We boarded the same bus, I helped her onto it, all the while thinking of my grandmother back at home in India. In the little less than half hour, she narrated to me a short version of her entire life’s story.

Her youth, her first love, the second world war, her brother in army, herself in army, the downfall of Japanese, her first marriage, her first child, her first car, her farms, her divorce, her second marriage, her second child, her third child, her second car, her third car and so on.

I just sat there looking into her eyes all the time, pretending to be listening to her while lending in an ear to my own thoughts.

Why? Why is she narrating all this to me?

Not really a question for me. All these years that I have spent with my grandparents, I learnt something, they all need one thing, someone to talk to. No matter what they talk about, they just need to know that someone is still there, some one still willing to listen to them, give them their time and attention. Someone to tell them, that yes, they are still an integral part of my world.

Back at home every night before I went to sleep, I would go into my grandmother’s room; always find her watching T.V. waiting for me to come in. I would sit besides her and she would run her hand on my forehead and then kiss it. Then I would massage her back and legs while she would narrate a totally new story from her life to me. She says the massage helps her fall asleep. I doubt it! I think all she wanted was my company, for me to sit besides her, for her to be able to tell me that once she was no different than I am, that she too had a life once.

A simple life, with complexities no different than the ones I face!

Striptease

Deluxe Budget Hotel; The place I stayed at on my arrival in Sydney! I had booked this temporary accommodation over the internet and at a time when I had absolutely no idea about Sydney. My flight arrived at Sydney around 05:30 in the morning. The laws here don’t allow you to bring medicines, plant material, pets, dried food, spices or any organic material. I still remember the tension gripping me while standing in the queue for Immigration Check. I was so tensed, oh god! Constantly thinking of all the reasons they could ship me back for. I was carrying medicines without prescriptions, I had two packets of Maggi noodles, had aerosol cans in my luggage…..

Proceeding in the queue they gave me a form to fill up in which I was required to declare any such contents of my luggage. The form had a small line at the bottom which read “Declare it or dump it!”, and then I saw the large disposal bin in front of me. I chose not to declare the medicines but declared the aerosols and Maggi, but I didn’t dump the medicines anyways. So finally I’m at the X-ray machine where this young beautiful girl asked me for my form. She gave it a quick glance while I was trying to read her expressions. I think there was a drop of sweat on my forehead, but I’m not too sure about that. Finally she raised her head and I tried hard to not let her read my mind. And then her lips spread into a wide smile. She opened my bag and asked me to show her around in it as to where the food item which I have declared is. I took out two big packets of Maggi noodles, and handed it over to her. Her hands turned into some sort of a crushing machine and she probed around on the packets. Oh yes, they did allow me to bring them through.

I stepped out of the airport at around 06:15 and the first thing I do is dig my pockets for the mobile phone and called up my dad. It rang and rang and no one picked up. I kept calling again and again and I finally I heard a sleepy voice on the other end. Suddenly it dawned upon me that in India it is still around 1’oclock in the night.

From the airport I took a cab and arrived at my Deluxe budget accommodation. It was located in Kingscross. I knew nothing of the area, absolutely nothing. The first thing I noticed on arrival, were the large number of sex stores the place had. Every third shop was a striptease joint. Ahh I thought, Australians really do have a crazy sex drive to have such a large number of sex shops. At that point I presumed that whole of Sydney must be like this. Anyways, I learnt a few hours later that Kingscross was Sydney’s official red light area. No wonder the accommodation here was cheap!

I was staying in a dorm and my dorm had 7 girls and 3 guys including me. It didn’t take long to be friends with them all. I really enjoyed my stay with them all and later prolonged my stay there despite having found a permanent accommodation elsewhere. Everything was fine until one night a middle aged Vietnamese man checked in. he seemed around 40-45. His English wasn’t too good and he never really stuck around. But he definitely made his presence felt at night. His snores didn’t let us sleep that night. It was so loud, so, so loud. How bad could my luck be? He was directly above my bunker and I was the closest to him. The worst thing always happens to me. I don’t know why!

The first night, no one did anything. The next night was my last at the place before I moved into my permanent accommodation. So just to give me a send off they all planned a bye-bye party. We got drinks and stuff and the Vietnamese guy hadn’t come back from his exploration of Sydney. Half way into the party he arrived. All the while we had been making fun of him and now all of a sudden we were all shut. No one had anything to say as he roamed around changing clothes and humming some Vietnamese song. Then someone broke the silence and we all eagerly jumped into a conversation trying to pretend that we hadn’t noticed him. After a while the Viet went and sat on his bad still humming a tune. We all looked at each other and laughed, just the thought that he will be snoring again tonight! And then he got up and walked up to us. I don’t know how he started a conversation but we all just pretended to be nice to him. Somewhere in the conversation one of us said something about the striptease joints down below. The Viet’s eyes opened wide, so wide that he didn’t seem chinki anymore.

“STRIPTEASE! Oh yea, oh yea!”

Pointing at one of the well endowed girls ... “You striping?”

And then quickly he rolled over to his bed and came up with a camera and started inserting batteries into it. And we were all shocked or rather amused by his enthusiasm for a striptease. At the same time trying to suppress our laughter for how he misunderstood us!

No! We didn’t have a striptease. Of course we didn’t! but the Viet was not the only guy disappointed on that. I saw the conversation heading towards an uncomfortable territory. To break it off, I asked him something.

“Will you be singing tonight?”

And we all broke into laughter again except him. So we had to clarify to him that I was talking about his SNORRRR!

He didn’t hang around any longer after that. Before leaving he asked one final time “Are you guys having a striptease or not?” and we all replied “NO!”

Later in the night I got too drunk and was probably the last to goto bed. I could hear him snoring above me, loud and clear. Somehow the alcohol helped me fall asleep. Sometime later my bed started shaking and felt like an earthquake. Still trying to open my dizzy eyes I looked around. Finally when my eyes zoomed into focus, the Danish girl was standing next to my bed. Clad in almost nothing. Oh good lord, I said to my self. I thought I must be dreaming. Shut my eyes and lay back on my pillow. But now I started hearing her voice. She was shaking the bed to wake him up, the Viet. Finally managing it, she shouted on him and asked him to stop snoring.

Q: Did he stop snoring?
A: Well, ehh for around a minute or two he did and then he was singing in all his glory again.

Q: The morale of the story?
A: I got my striptease :)

Q: So?
A: Ohh nothing much about it! :)

Physics

Love, oh yeah, love again. The one thing that the heart has always cried out for and never really achieved. Something so pure and divine, but full of obligations. For me, it has meant more of heart ache than pleasure, but yes, there was some sort of sweetness to the pain. It is the one thing I share with most of my friends. We never really found true love that could last. But with this one special friend I share more than just the pain. With him I shared my very first E grade and a cassette. Marc Anthony's Mended. I have had this for a long time. No not the cassette, I'm talking of this little thing that he wrote. So yesterday i finally asked him, as to if it was okay with him if I put it up on my blog. He could have said no but he said yes and I'm both glad and thankful to him for letting me share it with you. The very first blog that I ever wrote on, was a joint venture by me and him, but somehow we never really got around to publishing more after our very first posts. Then I came to Australia and didn't know what to do with all the spare time on my hands, and thus started this private blog which you know as Seeds of Randomness. At present he doesn't own a blog and we have both forgotten the password to the one we owned together. Anywayz getting back to the post which he had written but never really published, here it goes ...

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Heights of immaturity...

I am sitting with my physics course book trying to read what’s scribbled under the heading "young’s double slit experiment”. I have my physics semester major tomorrow morning but not even such an important exam would stop my thoughts from drifting away into a fantasy world.

A few hours pass by in the above fashion and now I am not even trying to read what’s written in that book because the idea about imagining me with a girl is too overwhelming. A girl for whom, I have started to have some serious feelings off lately. I try my best to push her out of my head and focus on the book but all in vain.

Consequently, I decide to take a break so as to gather my disintegrating willpower & try make myself understand the gravity of situation. Hence I start strolling in the verandah of my hostel where I realize that it has just struck midnight & I am left with at the most 4-5 hours to pull off tomorrow morning’s exam. To make matters worse I had not scored much in my minors therefore now it was all the more important to study well in order to clear the exam tomorrow. Thus with a strong resolve to focus only on physics I march towards my room.

As I enter my room I find my other roommates totally engrossed with their books but with the exception on this one friend of mine (our very own bEAST, yes the owner of this very blog). He too wasn’t studying like me but for different reasons. I felt somewhat better that at least there existed someone as stupid as me. I head towards him & ask "kitna padh liya" & his reply was an amazing relief because he too hadn’t studied anything more than me, to be precise we had studied almost nothing .I was too glad to find a "partner in crime".

While talking to him I see this audio cassette lying on his bed, picking it up I find it’s the cassette of Marc Anthony’s new album "mended”. It was the same album which my "partner in crime" had been listening to for the last couple of weeks, reason of course had to be "unrecruited love".foolishly, I decide to take a taste of this music.

Little did I know that this was going be one of the biggest mistakes of my life...

So before I realize I am out in the verandah once again with earphones in my ears & that cassette in the walkman. How quickly the next 3 hours passed away was totally unbelievable. I lost all sense of time along with my intentions of studying physics. I spend next 3 hours wandering in an absolute imaginative territory whose boundaries were created by feelings which had been troubling me since evening.

Some lines from the cassette like...

"When I think of you, I am not alone"

"Do you believe in loneliness...I do now because that’s where I found & I am never letting you go"

"I love the way you smile when I look in your eyes"

"When u sleep I watch u breathing, when u dream I dream with you, everyway you are is where I wanna be"

"Can't believe she can't see that she's taking the best part of me"

It kept me confided well within the boundaries of that unknown territory where I was wandering aimlessly. I can easily say I felt every damn emotion which can be or could be ever associated with the word "love”. Finally when I had felt it all, when there was nothing more left to imagine, nothing left to explore...a sense of satisfaction filled my thoughts, a sense of satisfaction which can be termed equivalent to an "achievement not achieved”. Satisfied with my unachieved achievement I went to bed.

I wake up the next morning only to see my roommates revising for the exam that awaited us in a couple of hours. I too thought of revising but what could have I revised, certainly wasn’t in any mood to revise "Marc Anthony".

I write the exam where I spent much less time answering questions as compared to the time spent in cursing my last nights feat. An hour into the examination & I knew my fate. I had safely secured my 1st back in engineering.

After coming out of the examination hall I went straight to my “partner in crime” & asked him "kaisa hua exam???", he says…"fail ho jaaongan" to which I replied "me too" and then we just hugged each other for god knows what.

Some 3 weeks later…

Results came out & as expected I secured an 'E' grade (bole toh FAILED) in physics, I was obviously disappointed but then there wasn’t much I could do now. But the most consoling factor was that my "partner in crime" too managed to secure 'E" grade in physics & hence we stayed "partners in crime".

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Somehow I feel that this post would be incomplete without the song that touches my heart. Thus I'm inserting it below. I would like to write a follow up post about the things that were happening in my life at the same time but avoiding it right now, as I think it makes the whole thing very monotonous. But do keep on the lookout for it, as it will be comming your way sooner than you expect!

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Song: She mends me..

Singer: Marc Anthony

Album: Mended

Finally!

Finally I got around to launching my second blog. It is just a collection of pictures that somehow are a part of my life. Pictures I have clicked myself or somehow associate myself with!

Http://theoriginalbeast.blogspot.com
Http://beastpics.sub.cc (Shorter url, same target)

Vegetarian!

I'm a vegetarian. Not a joke. Gave up meat and other non-veg stuff when i was in about my 3rd class. Haven't tasted it ever since. I believe in animal rights and my heart aches when I see animals being slaughtered in front of each other. After coming to Australia it was difficult to stay a vegetarian. Every place you goto serves meat and meat alone. Everything here has meat in it. Everything. Almost! Thus i tried eating meat once, the moment my teeth clenched on it, it felt as if the piece of meat in my mouth was pouring blood into my mouth. I couldn't do it! Cutting the long story short ....


.... this sardarji is a vegetarian, and shall forever be one! By the way this is not a post, just a decleration.

Devils horns!

Some question off late in my mind. Is it ok to curse some one? I mean, is there anything wrong with it. Isn’t it something all humans do, isn’t it human tendency to do so? I never felt jealous of my friends. The more they succeed the happier I was, always. And I guess I could say the same for them as well. We laughed together, cried together, rejoiced together and did everything. I hardly recall being envious of them or vice versa.

College life had to come to an end, I know that but I’m still having difficulty letting the fact sink into my brain. I guess we are all having the same problem. So is it true? Is it true, that people from now on will not make good friends? They will always be competitive? They will always envy me when ever I succeed? That every single glass of wine cheering my success contains their bleeding hearts?

I have rarely felt jealous, at least of my friends. The times I did of other, I can count on my fingertips. Felt jealous when the Abc paired up with her and I did nothing but watch. Felt jealous when Xyz betrayed me and got something he didn’t deserve. And other such small things. Now I find myself face to face with someone who can think of nothing but competing me at all times. I’m not a competitive person, I can’t help it. Please leave me alone! I have always been satisfied with my achievements not matter how big or small. I set my own goals and they are in no way relative to yours. I excel where I desire, because my desire is not to beat the other guy at it, it is rather to give it my best shot.

So why do people feel jealous. Why can’t we all feel happy for each other, the way we friends did. I still remember, the day when Wali got a job. He was the last job hunter to get a job. I remember, I was so full of happiness that I didn’t know what to do next. The adrenaline rush was such, that I don’t really remember what I did next. What my exact words to the guy were. I really don’t. I remember a similar state of mind that Alok enjoyed at the time. We didn’t speak to each other at the time, because Bush was sending him to Mars! Lolz, cold war! However, the thing was that we as friends were like family.

So is it really not going to happen again? Will the every other person I meet from now on see me as a threat, compete with me? Is life a race from now on? Would I not be dragged into it? I hope I’m able to stay away from this! I wish to be seen as a friend again, to be understood again, to make their lips spread into genuine smiles when they see me!

Ohh buoy!

Damn, finally something had to be done about the template! Glad to be back.

Home sweet home!

A poem that my mum claims she wrote for me when I was a little kiddie,

ek chidia kae bachae chaar
ghar se niklae pankh pasaar
utar se dakshin ko jaate
poorv se paschim ko jaate
ghoom ghaam jab ghar ko aate
chidia ko ek baat sunate
"dekh lia humnae jag sara,
apna ghar hai sabse pyara"

template!

srry ppl. the oldtemplate got screwed, the images overflowed the usage quota set by imageshack.us, now will have to wait for the creators of the templateto load them elsewhere coz i cant use the template till they do so!

ohh god how can you be so cruel. you always take away teh thing we love the most :(
koi mere ko mere template wapis dila do plz boo hoo hoo!

ab is dunia mien blogging ka koi maza nahi raha. im quiting blogging now! this is the last and final post ppl! thanks for the support u all provided. im stoppping blogging. I had written such a nice post for posting today and ab :(
adios ppl! thanks for being there!

Love A|N|A|L|Y|Z|E|D

Love, lust, sex, kiss, bang and what not. Different names for one basic emotion. They are all the same, aint they? Why has each and every culture, religion and community upheld a divine feeling towards it. Is it truly that divine? If not then why? Why is it a taboo in my desi land? Why are we such hypocrites? I was watching “Mutiny on the bounty”. A Marlon Brando classic. He enacts the role of a young sailor that finds his way to a remote island somewhere in Africa. You know old English movies. They always depict these tribal islands as a heaven for sex. The tribals shown in these movies are always hungry for it, where anybody bangs everybody. However, a small thing caught my attention. Marlon Brando introduces “KISS” to these tribals. The tribals somehow did not know nothing about kissing. They only seemed to rub their noses with each other. Could that be true in a real life scenario?

As a biotechnologist, the thing that truly amuses me is the study of evolution and phylogenetic analysis. These studies are based on conservation of protein structures along an evolutionary line. It is amazing as to how similar some proteins found in human body are when compared to their bacterial counterparts. However, I realized that conservation doesn’t take place at the microbial level alone. There is conservation of physical aspects and interactions as well. Love is truly the most conserved emotion that is expressed so widely. Take each and every aspect of it into consideration. A simple kiss. Just a simple one. Is there a race of humans that doesn’t express love in the form of a kiss? None I can think of. A man coming home to his partner after many days, what is the first thing he does when he sees her? Kiss! Irrespective of color, cast, creed, race, religion, and community; love is often expressed in form of a simple kiss. They all do it in the same way with same emotion. Physical methods of expression of love beyond kiss are restricted due to their biological constraints, but a kiss is not. There could have been different ways of doing it. As unlike sex, there are no physical/biological restraints on it. Then why do we all do it the same way?

The power of love has definitely been underestimated and not well understood, for it has survived through out ages and changes. It is the one thing that didn't succumb to evolution. I stepped out into my backyard, it was raining, the wind was blowing strong. I looked up into the trees, it absolutely was worth capturing! I think I’m going insane now!!

PS: There are two love birds in the pic, kissing!