Gag bag

Actually this came as quite a surprise that I decided to write this post. I wasn't so much in the mood to write one, and its pretty late as well, so I am not up for it as well. But something just struck me, and I had to stop everything I was doing, and just get down to writing this.
Another thing is that this was one topic I had decided I would write on some days ago, but never got to elaborate on it, cause say, maybe for lack of time or just laziness on my part. But well, one thing now and it suddenly dawned that I had to write it because it was all the part of a sequence which was pointing to the same thing.
Now I am really confused how to start and go about the topic, because I don't know whether to give priority to my older story, or the newer one. But well, lets see... :)
The thing is I was watching P. S. I Love you right now. Its nothing about the movie, but rather how the whole thing has led me to think so much. It could have been any other damn movie, but the lead up to it led it to this thing. Ok, well, I am just dragging the story as if I am writing an examination paper. So ya, I am watching this movie. Actually, I got the movie from a friend today, but for some reason, it was not getting copied the whole way into my pen drive. So I was like well, I will just copy as much as I can. Leave the rest to well, time. So all along while watching I know that at some point it is going to end. And let me tell you, that's so disturbing. Because whenever a scene or a story line starts, you start wondering if this will get cut off mid way eventually. And this keeps playing at the back of your mind. So you can't just concentrate. It's like as if you know that you are going to die sometime in the day, but just don't know when. The wondering really kills you.
Well ya, so that was the story. Which led me to my earlier topic. Which was supposed to be on how thankful I am about life as a whole. I mean the most wonderful thing about life is that you can't predict it. And though at points we are like "why can't I figure out for sure what is going to happen", I think that's life's best gift. Else it would be plain boring, and it would give you nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, nothing to dream about.
From that, I just started wondering how people still don't realize that palm reading, prophecies, future telling, tarot cards are all so waste and sad, even if they were to be true by some godly intervention. I, as an individual, would never want to know whats in store for me. It will just ruin the fun of living life. It will then be like something like a sort of a program. It just wouldn't suit.
Again, from here I go to the point where I say I am against planning. I mean I don't mean to say that don't plan. Do plan, but plan something for a short goal, and keep within your limits. But I guess I have already elaborated on this somewhere in my blog, so I needn't go into that. See, if I had foreseen that I would be writing this then, then I would have never written that then. How life is all so jumbled and nested!!!!
Not much said, but I just had to write this... Keep enjoying the fruits of labour. That is, if you work!!! Else, enjoy the fruits of laziness...!! Either way, it's fun...!!!

All these years, I wondered why people drink tea. And I used to call them names, I used to call them addicted. But I never figured out as to what is it that attracts so many people to tea. And its the most all pervading addiction. I mean I can understand smoking and booze. That's bad and all know about it. Tea was a different type of addiction, of which the first evidence was found right at home, that too right from the very beginning. I always used to protest and at times have also fought with my mom and dad about the so called addiction. I have tried to reason and tried to deter them from tea. Some people get head-aches in its absence, some require the stimulant just to work, some have just formed the habit of the 7:30am and 3:30pm tea,and don't even realize that they drink tea. Whatever be it, people consume an incorrigible amount of tea overall, and i never could figure out why.
Over the last two months though, I have suddenly started realizing as to why it forms such a huge part of the Indian families in general. And I used to try to stay away from tea and try to be 'cool' maybe all the time, but that is slowly fading away.
The foremost reason is the 'time required to prepare' to the 'am-full-again' ratio. Tea is basically awfully simple top prepare. And hence, if you are alone at home, or guests have come and you need to have something ready in a jiffy, then tea is the answer. The ingredients required to prepare tea are readily available at everyone's place. Plus, no matter how many people come, water being the basic ingredient, it never so happens that you can't prepare something just because you don't have enough of something. If you don't have sugar, you can drink sugarless tea. If you don't have milk, then you can drink black tea. If you have both, well then you are in for a treat. All in all, tea leaves/tea powder and you are ready to go..!!! And then if you are really in for something extraordinary, then the spices and condiments are at your disposal forever.... Honey, cardamom, clove, cinnamon, mint, lemon grass... Just everything... One of the major difference between tea and coffee...
Another thing is that it goes along with anything and everything. Hence, its the perfect side dish or the main dish. Biscuits, bread, toast, rotis. All is fair.
Because of its very little ingredients, it is obviously very cheap to prepare, and hence affordable as compared to coffee again. An added plus in a country like ours where welcoming guests is important, but spending too much on them is not affordable.
It forms an ideal break time or hang out drink. You get to sit down and enjoy the cup while sipping and blowing puffs of air, and a small tiny discussion with your colleague. And the cup can be in any and every shape and size, and still the time spent is equal all over. That's the beauty of tea, that it takes up exactly equal amount of time no matter when and where you have it. So its perfect to give during snack times to the workers or employees.
It also forms the perfect meal during lonely times. That's the main reason i have started 'tee'ing off on tea. When you come home alone, and there in no one else, you aren't exactly in a mood to cook or dish up a snack for yourself. You are famished, you don't have time, and aren't in the correct mindset to go through the ordeal of cooking something. At such times, tea comes as a safe bet. If you have a toast or a cheese sandwich along, or a few biscuits, then you can survive a lunch or dinner with the same as well. You can sit alone then, reading some stupid piece of paper, with the fan on full, and relax completely. A little 'U' time is provided by the 'T' in such cases. Some friend/family member/relative comes along. He/she is in a bad mood, and tired to the core. A cup of tea, and he/she ll be back to life. Tea is perfect for getting people to mellow down, or calm down with. I used to think that this can be possible with a cup of coffee as well. But suddenly I have started that its not the case. It's tea alone which fulfills this request.
Maybe I can never get addicted to tea. Maybe I can never give up coffee, cold in particular. Maybe I will never accept that tea is better than coffee. But one thing is for sure, I will never be calling tea names, and calling tea drinkers something close to people being addicted to something bad. In India atleast, tea is not just a drink, its a way of life...!!! Kudos to the holy slopes on which they grow. They have given me a good reason to try to figure out life further, and certainly a topic for my blog to write on..!!

Many things in life puzzle me. And though science has gone so far ahead with its inventions, discoveries, theories and solutions, it still has left many things open to debate. Of them, dreams surely are a major point. And although being a fairly regular occurrence, we still can’t explain dreams to the point where we can satisfactorily say that, well ya, I can understand the concept behind them, and can now hence predict and maybe manipulate my dreams according to my liking.

Though I am not a very ‘dreamy guy’ as such, I have had my small share of dreams surely. And I do get these bouts wherein a just have a downpour of dreams in succession and then, there is this vacuum time where I enjoy my sound sleep. Another thing is that I hardly can recall my dreams. I mean there is this point where I am half awake, and at I totally am in the whole dream world and the real world too at the same time. And it’s at this point I decide that well, this is the topic and surely this time I am going to memorize it so that I recall what I was dreaming about. But well, I sleep off again and on getting up, its same old, “What was I dreaming about?” thing going on.

Dreams are a hot topic of discussion as well. So I have talked a lot on dreams, and it surely is a different thing for each individual. I know people who hardly have had dreams. Some who well, it’s just as regular as a cup of tea. Some who have the same dream everytime. Some for whom they mean just more than ‘dreams’ and so on. So basically, this is the reason why they are so difficult to define, because they cannot be summarized in a nut shell.

For me, dreams have always been mysterious. I have read a lot on dreams but could never figure them out completely. Plus, with my very weak memory of the things I see in dreams, I can’t even apply the brute force method to debug them.

However I have observed some things surely. Dreams affect mainly those who are very restless or in a state of mind where there is a lot of activity. Basically, for those who can’t give their brains a rest time because of tensions or problems or just workload and so on. This I generalize because I observed that when I am bogged down with loads of crap, I tend to get more ‘dreamy’. (And also because I read somewhere that you dream more often when your brain is awake when you sleep off). Actually last year during this time I did have my torrent of dreams suddenly, mainly because I was damn overloaded and because I wasn’t getting my share of sound sleep. And the funny thing is I learnt to recall my dreams during that time (lets say I was getting experienced). And well, I had the weirdest of dreams, which included me moving to Jupiter to stay for a while. But that streak broke off soon in a week or so, and it’s back to no dreams for the last year. So here I thought that well maybe, the restlessness of your mind causes you to dream more. Not a bad explanation.

I also have observed a funny thing about my dream. I have had this recurring dream since like I was 6 or 7. And it scares the shit out of me everytime I have that dream. I remember the first time I had this dream (actually I don’t remember anything, but my mom told me about it the next day). I was dreaming about something and suddenly woke up and went into mom’s room to call her. I got her along with me and told her to touch a mirror on my cupboard (I don’t remember this, but my mom told me I made her do that). Now call this sleep walking or what I don’t know, but certainly this wasn’t natural. Well, I did sleep off later when she touched the mirror. But since then, I get this dream quite regularly. And I woke up with starts in the middle of the night, and used to be frightened to the core. It’s been like 12-13 years since then, and during this time I have had this dream hundreds of time. But I still can’t figure out what is it that scares me in that dream. I try to recall it in the half state, but I can’t. Of late it’s not been that regular a visitor. But last year during my dream shower time, I learnt to control my dreams a bit. Everytime I started dreaming ‘that’ dream, I could make my mind not think about it, and could make myself wake up in order to rub it off the temporary slate of my dream. So now, even if I start dreaming about it, I can shove it off. That’s a good thing, since now I don’t wake up crazy frightened in the middle of the night. But still, I would love to find out what that dream is all about.

Another thing which I found out was that I could remember more dreams I dreamt in the noon time nap than at night. This may have been a coincidence, but it’s the general tendency of my dreams.

Also, the characters in dreams are mostly those who affect you the most, or those whom you met that very day. It’s maybe because they are still in your cache and that’s all the characters the mind has an idea about while making the story of your dreams. But it’s funny to think how the people or things in your dreams get manipulated and how a story line is made out of them. I certainly think that the dream stories are the most spontaneous and most hilarious (if you remember them to re-quote them i.e.). A person who can develop this can surely become a script writer because it’s wonderful to think how the mind can make up stories of which you have not heard or seen or thought of ever.

Do dreams come true? Certainly not those you dream when you are asleep is what I think. Maybe they can be a motivation, but I don’t think they are trying to tell you something or is what is in store for you in future. Because if that’s the case, then I would be moving on to the likes of Jupiter, living in a house with no roof, seeing a village called ‘Karad’ and working as a farmer along with other people who speak in a different language totally over there, but look just like humans. That will be one heck of a dream come true then.

I also have heard of this thing called out of body experience. I don’t know if that’s what I experienced, but I have had that feeling. Actually that day I had read about out of body experience in The Times, and was wondering how frightening it would be to experience that. And that very night, I did feel the very same thing, or atleast thought I felt it. It was like I was in two different places. I woke up and saw myself sleeping on my bed, while I was standing beside my bed. I wasn’t frightened as such, but the next day I really thought loads on it and it made me shiver with horror. Living the dream wasn’t as bad as reliving it.

There is this thing, maybe all of us experience it. It’s not actually a dream. Let me put it this way. It’s when you are just dozing off to sleep, and you are aware that you are lying down etc but aren’t as such awake. It’s at this time when you suddenly feel as if you are falling down and you grasp the bed, pillow, or something to avoid the fall. And it makes you look stupid because when you wake up, you are on your bed peacefully, but you feel as if you just fell off. Usually for me, I fall of a cycle or something like that. Is this a dream? But it’s surely something different because you feel like you avoided a major mishap.

Nightmares! Are they the same as dreams? Or those dreams which are frightening are called nightmares? What about day-dreaming? I have never gone through that, but it seems like you get lost in the infinity while you are awake. If day dreaming is thinking, then ok, I have lived it.

On an ending note, I will put up one dream which will maybe surely give me a stroke. That is waking up (in the dream) and looking at a mirror to see that you have no reflection. Man, wouldn’t that be crazy!!! I will certainly switch off if I see anything like that…!!!
Enough said and nothing earned. Well that’s what dreams are I guess. Hehe, I found a good definition for dreams…!!! Cool…!!!

Dream on say Aerosmith… Well, what’s the harm…!!!

There can be a long long list of this. But I ave tried to be prudent in keeping it short, and to pin point the most irritating of them. Lets see. If you want, add your few in the comments section as well..

1)A tyre puncture.
2)Insects. Specially mosquitoes, when they hum around your ear, when you are deep in slumber. I always say this, "If you want to bite and suck blood, please do. But for god's sake, please don't buzz around my ear.
3)Runny nose/ Clogged nose.
4)Someone turns off the fan when you are sleeping, or pulls off the blanket. Man isn't that irritating.
5)In rainy season, when you are riding a bike. And you are avoiding getting splashed with murky water all over you originating from the vehicle in front of you. And when you think you just have achieved it, you get splashed all over. And the spots are really difficult to wash away.
6)When you have to explain a joke or a wisecrack.
7)When you are at your wits end trying to make yourself understood, and people just don't or can't.
8)When you are thinking of relaxing or chilling out, or having some alone time, and then some person comes along or calls you, and you just don't want to be disturbed, but still have to entertain the untimely guest nonetheless.
9)When some small insect enters your eye while riding your bike. And it burns like hell, but you can't do anything.
10)When the electricity is cut at the most crucial of time(every moment is crucial, but it does affect you).
11)When you are trying to get together some friends, and people just don't have time. So finally you are left alone.
12)You are out in the best of clothes, and it starts raining, and there isn't a thing you can do than see your best clothes getting soaked to the core.
13)Some food particle (eg: chilly flake, orange peel, sweet corn and the likes) gets stuck in between your teeth. And you just can't get it out, do what you may.
14)

A small list. Trying to update it as and when I can. Have left a place open for that...
Hope this list doesn't irritate you. Or it might just be the last entry...

Well. People splurge. They indulge. And I am of the strong opinion that it is always good to enjoy in whatever you have rather than hoarding up your stocks for no reason at all. Life is too fickle to plan and save up for something to be enjoyed later on. Ofcourse, it doesn’t mean that saving is bad. Saving is good ofcourse. But there is a limit on the amount and the duration for which you are planning to do the same. And the resultant effect it has on your life then. You can’t be living like a beggar your whole life just because you have to save up for like a car. You save a little little over a period of time, and then the result is that you have accumulated quite a sum of money.

In the meantime, you can cut down on your luxuries. But you can’t and shouldn’t do away with the bare necessities of life. That is just stupidity, and here you cross the line of miserliness. It makes no sense to live in rags when you can afford a lot better.

Enjoyment and happiness can be bought to a certain extent with the help of money in today’s world atleast. The line money can buy a house but not a home (and the continued poetic lines) is a little passé now. With a little money you can have that international cuisine you always wanted to try out, the t-shirt or the tracks you always wanted to own, though it may be a little heavy on your pocket. You can gather together over a cuppa coffee, or a quick bite. All in all, to help yourself for a little smile, a little spending does help.

But the point is when people go overboard, and start comparing the amount spent with their standard of living. Like travelling by auto rickshaws or taxis, tipping heavily at restaurants, hosting extravagant parties and adopting comfort before practicality.

I know tonnes of people, who will always opt for a taxi/rickshaw over a bus, for the same distance travelled. Why? It makes no sense. Is it just because you have to wait for 5 mins for the bus to arrive, or have to walk to and fro the bus stop? Or is it because someone will see you in the bus and call you a cheap stake or something like that? Because that shouldn’t be the case. It costs about 5 times lesser. And it’s a lot more fun in a bus than in a rick.

Similarly, always booking an A/C compartment in a train, even for a short distance and even during winters, or travelling by luxury coaches which take way longer to reach the desired destination and are horribly congested. And they cost like twice as much. You don’t get to enjoy the scenic beauty outside due to the tinted glasses, and can do nothing but stare at the stupid movie put up in the bus, or listen to bizarre music.

Again, on similar lines, many a times, the distance is really walkable, but just because you are so uptight, you opt to travel by car or any other fuelled vehicle. I am not suggesting that this is wrong, and at times ‘time’ is really more important, but when it isn’t, atleast then should one think about these small things. We talk about saving fuel all the time. Why not start it off from here? Plus you get that free exercise, which can save you quite a lot because you will be fit and healthy, due to which you will never feel the need to join a gymnasium or go to a doctor for a treatment or so, both of which are very costly and the costs go higher, proportionally with health status.

Then comes the point about having meals. At times, we should be ready to go hungry, if need be. It causes you no harm if you don’t have a meal for a day. Just drink a little milk, or a juice, or even water can suffice. But you shouldn’t be like I have to have that meal or else I will die. Nothing happens. Believe me. You don’t even feel faint. On the contrary, you feel a lot lighter and fresher. Or do with some make shift food. Like just a toast sandwich and tea, or a bowl of rice, a bowl of cereal and or milk. Instead, people go for ordering a pizza, going out for dinner and the likes.

Try living the stringent way. Keep a check on yourself and decide if every penny you spend is really worth the returns. When on a spree, don’t hold back at all. Spend like there is never a tomorrow. Get it out of your system. But otherwise, stay like that intelligent spender. Keep like a note of how and when you spend. It will help you in crunch times, when god forbid there may seriously be a money shortage in your life, and you have to like make do with ‘x’ sum of money for ‘y’ days (where x/y is very very less than the amount spent everyday at an average).

All in all, you needn’t be stingy to save money. Act intelligently, and you will be in a position to face any situation a lot better, atleast financially.

Stupid observation I came across. I was seeing the timings of my posts on the blog, and I suddenly realized that most of my posts (barring like 6 maybe) are after 11:30 pm... Till like 3 am. And many of these are like in the time slot of 12:30 - 12:40 am. I mean its really very strange to observe that so many of the posts have taken place in such a short time slot of 10 minutes. Well of course, from now on I will be more conscious about this, since now I will be wary of it. Hence like I will maybe purposely post it in this slot. So after this, it can't be a very fair thing to observe. But whatever it is, the timings till now certainly amazed me...