Dead and Gone...

I turn my head to the east, I don't see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the west, still nobody in sight.....

Lately I have been approached by a couple of my old friends from school, they are my close friends. They say, I have changed. From what I was before. It's a drastic difference in how I have been behaving in this span of 4 years. I agree with them. But does friendship change?

I was a complete "Filmy Character" till I was 18 years old. I used to talk a lot [endlessly], trust people too easily, love people unconditionally, expect a lot from everyone around me, and blame things a lot on every body else. My life was like an open book. I used to live in a reel life world, where I am running in a dark forest, when a knight in shining armor comes to rescue me on his white horse and then takes me away on a land far, far away.. I used to imagine myself in every movie that I watched that time. Every single movie. I used to even dress in loud tacky ways with temporary tattoos on each arm [One with a cupid and the other with a heart]. Sigh.. Those were the days when I could just be as stupid as I liked. And ofcourse, friendship back then was like.. Sharing everything! Right from the sizes of our everything to how many times we went to the loo to every thing about our love lives. Those were the days!

And then, I went away from home, away from friends, at a land far,far away, hoping to find my prince charming there, with a million dreams in my eyes. Enter the real life. I got a smack on my head every single day. I learnt new things. I had to "judge" people now. I had to worry about right and wrong all of a sudden. Most of all, I had to be responsible now. I still tried to be the same one, trusting every one, caring for every one, loving every one, and letting every one know every thing about me. But well, I learnt what life is in a very very hard way. I learnt, I lived, I coped up, and eventually I got good at it. It is what I am now.

In the 4 years that I was away, I spoke to my friends back in India a handful of times, and according to me, it was the same old conversation, atleast from my side, and it felt like we had spoken just yesterday. I spoke and spoke and spoke, but I could feel the reluctance in their voices, wanting to say things but not being able to, just because I was calling from a long distance. Ah well, inspite of me asking, the answer was always, "Everything is fine".

I got back to India last June, as a changed person, and I have been having trouble adjusting eversince. I am still adjusting with every thing around me. Especially friendships. I have stopped socialising. One reason is because I love being alone, second being that I will feel left alone in a crowd. After a lot of coaxing [from their side] I met my close friends last November. It was just like before [from my side again] and we spoke endlessly. The reply from the opposite end was still "Everything is fine".

Oh hey, I've been travelin' on this road too long
Just tryin' to find my way back home
But the old me's dead and gone
Dead and gone

After 6 months, I come to know that there was nothing fine. Things were harshly wrong with this friend of mine. I think she decided herself that it was time that she stopped sharing stuff with her old buddies. We just stood amazed and wondering, as she threw bombs of shocking realities one after the other on us. I thought that things were supposed to be the same.. But they weren't. Nonetheless, we thought this was the incident that would bridge the gap between us and things would be hunky dorie again.

Now, I receive a call, last month, and my friend [the same one] says that I am not the same anymore. She thinks I have changed. She thinks I hide stuff. She thinks I don't tell her things. Really? What were you doing wandering on the streets last night in Mumbai all alone all night, when you told me you would be reaching home? Why did you tell me that you wanted to meet me, when really you wanted an excuse to meet someone else? Is this your friendship? Really? And I have changed...?

......I turn my head to the east, I don't see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the west, still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the north, swallow that pill that they call pride
That old me's dead and gone but the new me will be alright...

... I love this song.

Friendship is nothing less than a Love affair, and a Love affair is nothing more than friendship.
-As said by the great Satans Darling™

AF 447 - This is going to be a long one!

I am in a state of minor confusion right now. I don’t know what to think or feel. On one hand there are feelings of ecstasy, excitement and happiness and on the other end there is shock, sympathy and devastation. But after numerous attempts to write about this topic yesterday, I am finally going for it now, hereby taking the side of the shock and sympathy.

I have been constantly following the news since last evening, and I was shocked to hear that an Air France Airbus 330 flight, AF447, flying from Rio-De-Janerio to Paris, carrying 228 people on board including 12 crewmembers, 1 infant and 5 children, went missing. Now I know that I am related to this news in a slightly more important way than usual people, but when I shared this news with some of my friends online, they were least bothered about it. I mean they were like, “Oh, yeah.. okay…” and one of them even made fun of it by saying that the airplane was lost in the “Bermuda Airangle”. Well I have nothing against them, but it could strike anyone, anytime and anywhere, and people should really start to know what’s going on around them. If you don’t know what happened, you might as well Google it and get some information before you read this post.

Like I mentioned earlier, I am related to this incident/accident [I don’t know what to call it yet since they found no dead body, but death is inevitable in this case] in a slightly different way. While the whole missing theory was being shouted over and over on the news and internet, I was thinking of what might have happened. I am not an airline pilot yet, but I will try to speak about it from whatever little I know about airplanes and weather. Firstly, I am so glad that it did not happen in India. And I say that because the French government handled the situation pretty well at that time by setting up a different cell for the relatives of all the people aboard the flight and took care of them and made them as comfortable as possible.

I was watching news when they said that the flight had been missing for over 4 hours, and that the SAR [ Search and Rescue] operations had begun. Military planes from France, Brazil, and even Britain began searching for the airplane. News officials said, the plane must have been struck by lightning. Now first of all, this plane is said to have been flying well over 40,000 feet above mean sea level, and this is the height above the Earth’s Tropopause [All the weather phenomena occurs in the Troposphere which is of the order 40,000 feet to 45,000 feet depending on the time of the year.] and rarely any adverse weather occurs there. And also, airplanes are designed to withstand forces of lightning in their structural design and it is not easy to knock out a huge Airbus 330 just like that. So I would like to dismiss the lightning theory there itself. But yes, at high altitudes there is CAT [Clear Air Turbulence] and it cannot be detected by weather radars installed on the airplane.

Then there were reports that the airplane transmitted a short circuit message 4 hours and 14 minutes after it had taken off from Rio, just before disappearing. They were predicting that the aircraft must have undergone electrical malfunction. So for all of you who do not know, an airliner would never run an airplane these days without a backup system. And A330 is a modern generation aircraft fitted with several electrical systems. In a case of complete failure, there is a last backup system called the RAM rise system which runs purely on air pressure and keeps the instruments working.

The route of the flight was over the Atlantic Ocean, and it is difficult to have ATC facilities there, besides there is no low level air traffic over an ocean so there are radar services provided to airplanes for flying these kinds of routes. These are like imaginary rings extending at a high altitude level which provide radar services to the pilot. Also, the vertical and lateral flight profile of the plane is tracked automatically and fed to the nearest ATC operators so that they can track the flight. The plane is reported to have been flying smoothly before the electric malfunction. So I believe that there was no engine failure or so. I earlier mentioned that there are rings of radars at high altitudes to track the airplanes, and the radar has tracked this plane diving abruptly and then going missing somewhere over the Atlantic. Now anything with wings, even a paper airplane that we make, cannot just sink below this way. If it has wings, there will be aerodynamic forces acting on it which will make the airplane glide. Even without an engine. If this plane sank abruptly, it probably would have undergone an explosion. Or even more accountable would be a structural loss, say a wing or an elevator. Although the A330 is a new airplane, this particular aircraft [which was just 4 years old: in service since April 2005] had last been serviced in April 2008. It could have been a technical malfunction too.

The French government has been ruling out possibilities of terrorism. I ask, why not terrorism? There could be a bomb on board too! How can you just rule such possibilities out?
Another interesting thing I observed is that, the route of this flight passes through the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone [ITCZ], where the tropics meet and the winds change drastically. This area is known for violent thunderstorms and really strong winds. So maybe the plane came under one of the thunder clouds, and got pushed down drastically in what we call a down draught.

Now, if any of you follow the Air Crash Investigates on Discovery, then there is an episode about loss of cabin pressure. If you guys don’t know about it, read this [Helios Flight ZU522, 14th August 2005]. The same could have happened in the case of this flight too! Of course followed by other malfunctions too. Maybe everyone was unconscious and that is why the ATC must not have received any signal from the Pilots! I am just trying to analyze the situation from my point of view. I could be wrong. But I am wondering what went wrong!

Nothing can be investigated till the Black Box of the aircraft is found, which in this case, will be somewhere on the bed of the ocean, approximately 300 meters under water. And it must be in a pretty good condition since it is designed to withstand very heavy forces. The latest I heard was that another pilot of another airline spotted “Orange Spots” over the Atlantic, just after the plane had disappeared. The French Air Force team is being said to have sighted wreckage 650km (390 miles) north-east of Brazil's Fernando do Noronha island. I hope they find the Black Box soon.
The purpose of this post was to tell all my readers to not fear or dread airplane journeys. The rate of an air accident is 1 as compared to 10,000 accidents on road. And anyway, whatever has to happen, will happen. That does not mean you stop traveling by air. I know many people who stopped air travel, especially in US and Canada, after the 9/11 story and I have been trying to convince them too.

I offer serious and heartfelt condolences to all the people who are even remotely connected to this incident. I am really feeling devastated. May the souls of all the people who lost their lives, rest in peace. For them, this was probably the journey back home to their loved ones, maybe for some it was a trip to Paris, for someone it was visiting friends and relatives, and some of them were just at work. I have been shedding tears on and off, looking at the worried friends and relatives at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

10 things about me

So well, this was saved in drafts for a long time and I decided to post it since it was making my post count 50 but was not visible since it was in drafts :P

10 things about me:

1. I love cooking. That explains why I love eating :D

2. I value friendship a lot. I hate traitors. That explains why I find it difficult to trust people.

3. I am very reserved. That explains why whenever I make friends, they are friends for life.

4. I drink less water when I am outside. That explains why I don't like using public convenience :P

5. I cry a lot. That explains the secret of my watery eyes :D

6. I brush twice a day. That explains why my smile is my asset.

7. I have colored my hair 7 times. That explains why I went berserk when I was away from home.

8. I love traveling. That explains my profession.

9. I cannot speak a lot on phone. That explains why not many people call me.

10. I love to be alone, and that explains my silence.


I had to mention 10, I guess I doubled it :P



Feel free to do it on your blog :D I tag every one!

So how do you choose to live your life?

Hello Everyone,

I have been experiencing a lot of negativity around me in the last few days, that includes me too. People are sad, mad, bad, disappointed and full of problems! They're so full of problems themselves that it's very difficult for them to hide behind the fake smile [Yes, I notice that]. And most of these problems have a common point of origin. Ourselves. If we look into ourselves we will find all the cause for how what went wrong. Now that does not mean we start fretting and taking a whole Earth's load on our shoulders, it needs to be handled with care, because many of us get so busy in taking care of others that we forget taking care of our own fragile self. I cannot ask each one of you whats wrong, I don't wanna invade your privacy. Besides, I know you're trying to avoid interaction by keeping your guards up. But I would like to share how some people [including me] deal with issues. It might not help entirely, but if you think of it practically, it might just change your thinking a little bit.

Let me start with myself [I don't spare anyone :P]. I am not exaggerating, but I am a perfect example of "been there done that". Everything that can go wrong in ones life, every mistake that one could ever make, I have done most of it. And I have been sad, mad, and bad too. But in due time, I only realized one thing at the end of each incident. Live your life to the fullest!

I have a million things to tell. I could have done what Kajal did in her blog, say things to each one anonymously. But I have already done that non anonymously in my diary :P So I will just pen down some general thoughts. A guide to live life to the fullest :D

• Love yourself - Unless you do that, you will never be happy!
• Love others - Spread love. If you love people, they will love you back. If they don't, they can go die.
• Have an ambition. Set your goals. Work towards them
  
• Accept and Embrace people- No one's gonna change for you, and you shouldn't change for anyone either! [Unless it's a good change]
• Strike a balance between your mind and heart. Do not mix the two!
• Accept death. If you know you're gonna die, you will be more motivated while living your life :P Don't be scared!
• Don't fear change. Change is an important part of life. Learn to adjust.[But don't let people take you for granted!]
  
• True friends are important. They always know what is best for you.
• Learn to let go of things. Life goes on...
• Try new things in life.
  
• Be adventurous!
  
• Keep that smile on :)
• Take out some time off for yourself atleast once in the day.
• Go traveling alone sometime! Explore...
• Have a control over yourself. [Money wise, Mind wise and Heart wise :P]
• Meditate to have mental peace.
  
• Remain fit so you can enjoy your life even more and live ailment-free. Take up a sport!
  
• Party with friends once in a while!
• Write a diary, note down things you would wanna look back to when you grow old.
• You don't wanna feel you missed out on something in life. You have just one life. Live it to the fullest!

Well, during this week I got the news that three of my friends [they know who they are :), not all of them are friends], are on their way to get married.. And I was thinking, mera number bhi jald hi aa jayega! So I have set some goals I wanna acheive or I will not get married :P I'm gonna travel a lot, find new places, explore new cultures and experience a different life in the next couple of years. :)

So what are your plans?! Do you want to live that tension filled life full of worries, or you wanna join me in the Live Life King [or Queen] Size movement? :P

Of Me and Pigeons...

Pigeons… [Sigh]…

Wikipedia says, “Pigeons are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills with a fleshy cere. The species commonly referred to just as the "pigeon" is the feral Rock Pigeon, common in many cities”. Well, these are the ones that have made my life miserable! Most of you who read any of my tags must be wondering, why do I always mention Pigeons in anything that I post about myself? Especially when I talk about hatred or fear. Well here are the answers to all the questions and wonderings:

Pigeons for me are like… The most irritating living organisms. They are so ugly, actually forget about ugly, that is the way that God made them, that is individual preference. But they are so dumb! I have seen them going round and round… Rotating around themselves for a whole day continuously! And to top it all off, they are super duper pricey! I mean, they just fly into our house [without permission. But it is ok because they are dumb] and they just sit anywhere, they fly here and there without caring about running fans on the ceilings. And when you try to hit them or throw hot water near them to shoo them away, they come back again! They are so stupid, they just flap their wings in that irritating fashion and I just cannot take that noise. Oh how can I forget their Ghutar Ghutar… The worst sound in this world. And I am not scared of admitting that I suffer from Liviaphobia [That is what I found when I googled fear of Rock Pigeons].

Why I hate them so much? Well there are a few incidents. The first one was when I was 8 years old, but I still remember it all so vividly, because it is one of those incidents which haunt you for the rest of your life. Well so I was playing downstairs with all the other kids, and back then we did not have a playground so we used to play “Pakda Pakdi” around the building. And I was being chased, so I was running full speed, I remember I had a good lead too… And I turned around for one second to see how far the boy who had been chasing me was, and right at that moment my leg fell into this small bucket which was lying in my way. Instantly I felt something biting my leg, and when I looked down it was a Pigeon! And it was flapping its wings rapidly and biting the hell out of me. Oh my God, I was so scared… I still remember. The watchman had to come and save me! I cried so much! L

The second incident was once when I was napping in the afternoon time at my place, and I had the best dream. I was 12 years old that time, and I used to watch a lot of WWE. My hard crush was The Rock [Dwayne Johnson] and I was dreaming about him! In the dream I was witnessing his match with Triple H for the WWE title [It was WWF back then] and The Rock won hands down. Then he asked me out on a date and took me to a seashore in his arms and there was a table where we were to have dinner. So we sat facing each other and gazed into each other’s eyes, and then suddenly he picked up a knife and started stabbing into my palm really rapidly! I was crying for help and I woke up from my dream just to find out an ugly Pigeon dancing on my palm. I was so irritated! I had screamed my lungs out that time!

Since then, I am petrified of Pigeons! They have such an adverse effect on my life… I cannot sleep till late in the morning, because in my house especially in New Delhi we don’t have grills, and my Boyfriend refuses to have any! And at about 8 30 AM every single day they just fly into the house and invade the whole room! Not to forget their loud Ghutar Ghutar which echoes in the whole house. Even if I sleep at say 5 AM, I have a recurrent alarm tuned everyday for 8 AM when I wake up and close the windows. I have forgotten how it is like to stand at the window, because even if a Pigeon flies at a distance of say 1 meter, I start screaming and yelling like a woman who has been possessed by some Aatma! And it is all so uncalled for, I have scared all the people around by this behavior and I have almost stopped socializing because of this! My boyfriend is so unhappy living with me because I don’t let him sleep either! What is more, I have been named “The girl who is scared of Pigeons.”

I hope someday I am able to conquer this fear of mine because I think it is extremely shameful for a girl whose profession itself is based in the sky. I am not scared of anything else! Be it Lizards, Cockroaches, Crows [I Love them!] or even Vultures, Seagulls or Eagles. It is just these Pigeons! But, at the end of the day they are nature’s creation too, so I have to respect them. But one day…. “Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad…!!”

Expressive Silence

Empowered by plasticity;
Xeroxing the same smile on my face,
People wonder how could I be so perfect,
Realize they don't, such is not the case.
Empowered by ease;
Silence rests under this smile,
Still people fail to notice, but
It was her, she took shorter than a while.
Vortices of unsaid nothings-
Explosive silence, when our eyes met,

Soul sisters were a bookish concept,
In no time our eyes were wet.
Loud was this silence,
Ecstasy- no better it could get.
Never, My Soul Sister, had I experienced such a
Chaotic silence, The most
Expressive Silence.


When I thought of writing a guest post for Ms.R, I thought there was nothing better I could do than attempt an acrostic poem :P
It's an honor to know a woman who can dish out a masterpiece every time she starts to write something! May you have many more thousands of posts to come!
The perfect explanation for the poem is in the paragraph after Tan's poem below.

I wish Ms.R all the success and luck in here life,
God bless you and CM ji too :)
Love
Ashrita.

Cross-Posted @ Expressive Silence

A Comeback Question...

Hello Everyone!

Well, it feels like returning home after a long, long gap of staying away. Just like I felt when I had returned back home after 2 years from abroad. It made me happy, but there was still a lack of confidence and a feeling of awkwardness. And it is more or less the same right now. I think I'm gonna wait till I come up with some good prose for the blog as I have some "getting-used-to-bloggging-again" to do. But it feels great to be back! I missed all of you...

I was just thinking of posting something when I thought why not start the first interactive post on my blog! So here I go...

Whenever you look back at your past, do you feel that you shouldn't have done something this way or that way? Or you felt like a total ass for doing something which makes you feel stupid and embarrassed now?

I feel so all the time! I always find some room for improvement in everything I ever did. But that's just me. It's not like I go out of the way with my thoughts but then I just feel that it would have been better if it was perfect. Either way, I had to settle with behaving like that at that particular time!

Well, I would love to share some incidents with all of you... Like just few weeks ago I went grocery shopping for my "diet" and I bought so much of stuff... And I swore I was going to stick to the program. One week later while throwing the spoilt Watermelon in the dustbin I thought, "What the hell was I thinking buying all this stuff when I knew I wasn't gonna stick to the program?!"

This is just one incident. I have tonnes!

But I guess all of us go through this phase many times in our lives. I would love to hear about it from all of you! Do tell us how you feel about this, and if you put in some incidents and experiences too, that's the icing on the cake!

Hoping for a great feedback!

Beautiful Chaos!

Beginning of a journey,
End of which lies after forever;
All the forces of nature
Unite in this celebration.
The fusion of two minds;
In the least, which are unlike each other,
Finally they arrive at one common place-
Unanimously rejoicing.
Love is the ultimate mixture of unstable stability.

Can you find anywhere else, this
Heart calming silence, Peace of the soul, yet the
Adrenaline rush, the war, the cry, the victory, the joy?
On every passing day, a brand new experience,
Such is this love, the most beautiful chaos!

P.S. I was reading a magazine the other day and I came across a painting names Beautiful Chaos. I knew that very instant that I had to write an acrostic on this one! Guess I am in love with Acrostic poetry these days ;)

A Thank You Note

Hello Everyone!

Well, just like the title speaks, this is a Thank You note. To all of you, who made me feel special by wishing me on my birthday. I never thought that my birthday would be so unexpectedly full of smiles. I had no plans whatsoever, and it was just going to be another day for me [For the first time in my life!].

Thank you so much Neeraj and Sawan [For the timely wishes ;)], Rag [For the late but rhyming wishes :)], Kajal, Ms.R, Arv, Pulkit, and all my readers [Forgive me if I did not mention your name, there are sooooo many of you. But that does not mean I owe you guys any less!] and also everyone at the Writers Lounge for wishing me. May god bless all of you.

A special thank you to all my ladies at the ILMB forum. Thanks a ton chicas! Love to all!

I cannot thank you enough, Nabila, for making me feel ultra special! Wherever I logged in on my birthday, you had something special waiting for me. I am so touched, and I am very lucky to have a friend like you in my life :)

Last but not the least, a special thank you for my special baby, [I did not EVER think that I would have a baby so soon, even virtually! heck, I get damn irritated and offended if someone calls me "Aunty"...Pun intended!] you made me feel extra super duper special sweetiepie! And trust me, no matter how much older and wiser you grow, I am always going to look upon you like an elder sister, like a mother! I love you loads! Muahhh

There I go, drifting away once again... Now about how I spent my day. Well, I received the most beautiful flower arrangement full of orchids and in the center was one single, beautiful, rosy red, fresh rose! That too at 11:45 pm on 29th April itself :P [Stupid phoolwala!] I knew that very moment that there was no looking back throughout the day! 12 AM sharp, my phone started ringing, and it was raining calls, and I was juggling them with everyone at home dropping into my room to wish me :) Then I spoke to Nabs, who asked me to check out her blog. And I was so pleasantly surprised! On the other hand I was also a little drunk, thanks to the wine we opened in the night, so I was too pre occupied to comment on it :P

I woke up early in the morning, and then went gymming. After a tiresome but refreshing session of workout I came home and then attended some more calls, and finally planned a lunch meeting with my childhood bestie Santoshri, when I had planned not to socialize on my birthday! It was so much fun, we met after ages but things were still just like before! After hours of yapping it out and roaming around, I returned home late in the evening just to find some more guests at my place. Then we had a dinner party. Mom had bought a Chocolate Truffle cake for me on the 29th itself, but I cut it at 12 AM on the following day, just when my birthday got over :P Oh yes, and the whole day was filled with exotic food, from Italian to Continental to Thai to Chinese! Guess the gymming session went for a toss!

We went to sleep late in the night, and then May the 1st was also a day of celebration! I met up with some more friends, had some more food, then came home in the evening and there was a function in my building where I played some games and ate some more food! Hahaha... What a stomach filled birthday I had!

Well, I had not expected anything out of the day, but it turned special all by itself! Looking forward for a great year ahead!

Once again, thank you so much everyone!

Oh and yes, I have also started posting poetry on PoEtPourri! Do check it out!

Loads of love and luck to all!
Ashrita

Wild Is The Wind

Weather; it's gloomy outside,
I sit in the center of my square bedroom;
Leaving my eyes, are tears of blood,
Defeat, Deceit, Death, signified by each one.

I look outside, it's a dark black sky,
Seems there is no light till the end.

The walls appear to close in on me now,
Heartbeats, I can feel, they dimmer every passing minute.
Ending is my suffocation - Yes, this is the end.

With humid moisture, a warm breeze touches my cheek,
I feel that caress, I look outside one last time;
No, this is not a new beginning,
Dawn is not even close, there is a storm behind that warm wind.


P.S. I wrote this a few days ago when Leo prompted me to take up this acrostic. I have a feeling not all may like it since it's so dark! But do let me know what you guys think! Oh and yes! This is in no way related to me :P Just fictional!