Phases

Living with parents is about dreaming of somedaymaking it big and living alone. You never realize how it is to live with your parents when you are living with them. But once you are away, the reality dawns on you that what you left was heaven where you lived a princess life with nothing to bother except your studies.
Living alone is freedom juxtaposed with boredom. You have the freedom to watch any TV channel you want to without any interference from anyone to change the channel but you miss the nearness of someone along with whom you can share your 2-cents on the movie you watched just then.
Living with friends is freedom. And freedom only. Not a single ounce of boredom.
You watch your favourite TV serial in bits and pieces, in between breaks of the other TV serials that are on,sitting in a common-hall along with 20-something people with constant chatter where you have to “Shoo” them everytime your favourite actor is appearing onscreen.
You cook ‘Bread-rolls’ on a low-flame heater in your room at a corner with a bunch of friends and making almost no noise so that none of the other hostel-mates could know ‘whats cookin’’.So what if the bread-rolls took 2.5 hours to cook, they would remain the best bread-rolls you ever ate.
You argue hard with your friends and with yourself if it is fine to go PVR to watch the night 12:00 show of that block-buster movie and end up going there and munching popcorns and loving the feel of walking in the deserted streets at 4 in the morning.
You sing a line of a song, your room-mate the next and this chain continues from one song to another with bouts of giggles and laughter and breaks for correction in between and you realize that what a joy it is to sing with someone singing along with you and forming the chorus. And you chukle when a freind mentions in your testimonial (in Orkut ofcourse;)) about you singing "Tanha Dil" loud in the corridors of your hostel.

Ah those days...

The Curious Incident of Dog in the Night-time

It's a simple story of a not-so-simple boy who understands science, loves mathematics (in the book you will find numerous instances that proves his love for the subject), likes dogs, dreams of being astronaut . But he doesn’t understand people and jokes, don’t like being touched, hates colour "Yellow" and "Brown"loves reading mystery novels and that’s why he wrote one of a true incident .
The narrator is Christopher Boone and he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. Yes ,this is the same syndrome of which Rizwan Khan’s character suffers from in the movie “My Name Is Khan”. And this character Christopher is such nicely created that you can imagine him in flesh and blood. In his locality, there is a murder committed and he goes on to find the murderer and in the path he resolves to write a book about it.

The peculiar points of the writing style in the book are so different from the other books that I read.

Not many characters that you lose focus as the narrator don’t like crowd.
Chapter numbers are only prime numbers because the narrator loves prime number. Hence when you find the first chapter 2, don’t go back and start looking for the Chapter 1.
It has graphics and maps because that’s how his mind works. His mind calculates and make maps of any place he goes.
It has an Appendix that is a solution of a mathematics problem. He didnt include it in the book’s text because his teacher says that one should not include un-interesting facts while writing a book. And the writer Mark Haddon proves true to the words he wrote because not in any instance does the book loses the interest of the reader.
The chapters are written in such a way that they make an alteration between the actual story and his basic nature. Like Chapter 2 tells the story and in chapter 3 the narrator talks about himself or anything that comes under his curiosity (the main plot is not at all here) and then again the chapter 5, the story plot resumes and so on.

Just the way, you fall in love with Holden in “The Catcher in the Rye” because of his thinking, you will fall in love with 15-year old Christopher for his quirkiness, that I can assure you.

A couple of years earlier I recall, I read the interview of Shah Rukh Khan where he was asked about the book he was currently reading and he named this book. That was the same year, I suppose, when this book received “The Whitbread Book Award”. The name of the book remained with me( oh yes, I remember namesJ) and it was only in 2010, when I chanced upon the book and I totally love it.

In short, what I can say is that reading this book made me :)

For Carry-on-tuesday

I knew this would be coming

It's that time of the week.

But on work-front things kept showing

And I had much stuff to seek.

In the evenings I had to do groceries

And read that unfinished book.

The morns I was always in hurry

Even the newspaper I had to overlook.

Each day just goes so fast

I turn around-its past.

I told myself that its fine and

I submitted this at last.

;) ;) ;) ;)

Main Hoon Naa

The three most important words that can make an impact is “Main Hoon Naa”…
Sometimes these are said explicitly and there are times when the warmth in the gaze, hold of the hands make it come alive.
It is this same support a mother gives to her kid when he hold her fingers to take the first steps.
It is the same faith a father renders to his son when he pushes and balances the bicycle to teach his son the art of cycling.
It is the same support a friend gives when he stands by you and lends you his notebooks and teaches you the missed lectures when you were down with chicken-pox.

I remember a particular incident when my father had come to meet me at the hostel. I lived with my 2 room-mates. In the evening he proposed to have dinner outside and asked for some good restaurant nearby. My friend K told him about this great non-veg restaurant “Maharaja” nearby adding “ but we must not go there as it is usually filled with guys and it’s night time”..To this what my father responds still is my friend’s favourite line..He simply said “Arre Main hoon naa..We ll go there.” It was not a big issue but the way he said it in his spirited voice makes it a memorable moment for me as well as for my friends.

When I was new to my job, my boss assigned me with some work which was new to me. Obviously, I was not very comfortable and asked a lot of querries about it.To this he just said me to “work with no fear because even if the project doesn’t turn out right, what I am for? Main Hoon Naa”..I don’t remember what happened to the project, but his words remind me of my father and I smiled and started working as I know I had a firm support at my back.

This idea that no matter what we do, there is someone who has set a safety net for us whenever we fall, someone to whom we can return to when everyone has turned their back to us, someone whose hands are holding you in every step you take, gives a high, a motivation to work your best.

And these three words also show that the person who is saying them has the power and the means to support you as well as that he is caring enough to lend you his support. It is great to be at the receiving end of the someone’s unflinching support but it is more important to be at the stage to say these words and mean it. Because these simple words can make someone to go to his farthest limit because he knows that after a day’s hard work, no matter what the result is, he has someone to go to who is there for you at your every step.

Pic courtesy: Internet