Illusions are they....

Why is it that it is always the past which seems to be more appealing than the present. Is it because there is no uncertainty in the past….its something that you have gone over and triumphed over all the ups and downs……but wasn’t it the the very past which had always pushed us to be what we are in the present today……and will today’s present when it is past someday seem as dream like…..

When I was a kid , I remember my father had got transferred to a district and had to report immediately. I didn’t want to part from my friends…..I had settled down comfortably in the city school and a district school didn’t at all lure me…I cried helplessly when I was dragged away to the district. The first day I had stepped in the district school I was disgusted looking at the simple appearance of the school with no extra frills and no prim uniformed students walking meekly in a queue….I found utter chaos everywhere to my horror and clinged to my father denying to be part of what seemed like a rowdy like crowd….

But my woes went unheard…and all that my father said before leaving me to the mercy of these troublemakers was “wait and see your memory of this school will always stay close to your heart”….

I walked alone along the corridor leading to my class wistfully looking back at my father again and again till he disappeared around the corner and I was all alone….I muttered a silent prayer before entering the class and stepped in shivering a little in my nervousness…..and as soon as I had stepped in the class surprisingly fell silent with a single murmur passing around which sounded like “new joinee…new joinee” and after that the entire class was at the doors to welcome me…..each house (which was allotted based in the row you were seated in) wanted me to be a part of theirs….everybody wanted to know my name and my mother tongue and all other details…..I was offered every little goodie each one possessed ……I was offered notes of all the classes I had missed…..and some of the students even offered to write notes on my behalf and update me on all the classes I had missed as the exams were soon approaching…….any teacher who entered the class was importantly informed about the new joinees arrival….and even the neighbouring sections students paid a vist in the recess to gain acquaintance……such was the welcome and the days that followed just sailed past like a dream…

Little did it matter…that the students didn’t know English….discipline did exist but the fancies of a spic and span uniform with shoes to go with was not of prime concern…..a lot of creativity existed in the school and was encouraged equally…..homeworks were checked but a small mark on the cover of the notebook didn’t create a raucous….the warmth of the students seemed to override the shabby building and the broken English…..Teachers were not looked upon like Hitler’s army…and the memory of that school sure did remain very dear to my heart…..

And when I compared the royal treatment that I got here with that of the city school I was in where I had entered meekly as a mice and no one had even noticed me….some of the teachers even had not noticed that there was a new face in the class…when I asked for notes of classes that I had missed to the students around me I was ridiculed…..my heavily accented broken English was a source of entertainment to the teachers and students…I still remember the teacher who knew that I felt embarrassed because of the constant giggles when I spoke in English and she always loved to make me read lessons to the class and become a mockery….spic and span uniforms, neatly covered books, huge playground and freshly painted building…..but it missed the charm of the district school….no human warmth……

Now, why I got reminded of this today is because of an incident that happened in the train today. A girl standing near me was complaining to her friend about her IT job and how she detests it but for the friends she had made in her job….and that’s why she wanted to pursue higher studies and go another college experience and a better job….a better job meaning higher bucks, more responsibility and less of every other thing which seem significant only when they aren’t there any longer…

And it just made me think frills and fancies lure us so much that we always seem to want to leave the warmth of our present and follow them but little do we realize that when at leisure we ponder its only that past which was simple and dull that it had seemed then is what forms our memory….but alas its too late now to return…..because a better tomm is as much uncertain as the certain good yesterday….present is just a shuttle between the two….pondering on one and unable to compromise with the other….

HFD

Aug,1^st, 2010

Guys,

Happy Friendship's Day :)!!

For K please someone send some "cute" pupies, flowers, plants anything from my side...A plz do the honors

To R and P each one please contribute INR 1 as they are in need of funds desparately due to negative balance in their salary accounts

To S each one please send a mail with content written as "S Reply to the group Now" in huge black 32 size font all caps

To SV, SP, N and M each one send a flower for their computers to rest in peace (which have long passed away due to overwork)

And to me each one send a nice reply and a hug :)

Friendship’s Day….Every year this day comes it always takes me back in memory to the day when as a kid we had first discovered that such a day existed…..so excited we were that we decided to make handmade gifts for each other…..it was all NS’s idea and we were just too excited to implement it…although it wasn’t exactly a surprise gift with the recipient completely aware that he/she would be receiving a gift but the content of the gift was supposed to be a secret….the enthusiasm and efforts that each of us had put in to make those lovely gifts was greeted with equal enthusiasm by the recipient in guessing them and opening them…that had been celebration of my first Friendship’s Day two decades ago…..

As days passed the importance of this day had only slowly faded with time …hand made gifts were replaced with readymade friendship bands and redymade tit bits….neverthless there was still a day to celebrate…remember your friends…contact them and be glad to hear to their happy voices and wishes on this day….those were the good old days of graduation

When my friends and I had joined our first job the day was greeted with wishes being SMSed and mailed to each other….a convenient and shortcut way adopted but nevertheless again it did bring a smile on your face to see a nicely typed or an emotions filled message in your inbox right on the first Sunday of the August month..

Then came the days of Orkut when an application made life even easier…at one click the message of Happy friendship’s Day could be posted on all the scrapbooks of the friends added in your profile…

Today, in 2010 about 20 years later from the day I first had known and celebrated this day …..life has become even easier as I see the status messages of all profiles on facebook having the message ‘HFD’…..

And today as I retrace my memory and smile remembering all those friendship days that had passed I only smile thinking what if my mail had not brought back any replies atleast maybe I can rejoice and be satisfied by telling myself it probably brought a smile on all those faces who decided not to shift delete my mail without reading it as it wasn’t any critical official mail……

Probably a day will come next when there will be an application which by itself will send messages or change the status of your online profiles when such days arrive and on b’days, festivals etc..life would become even more easier…….or is such an application already there and I am not aware….otherwise may be someone can take this as a new cool networking business proposition and make money out of it …….or probably I too will resort to the easier way of just putting the three letters ‘HFD’ on my facebook profile and save myself from bringing frowns on all those faces who cursed me for cluttering their inboxes…..

(I know you must be nodding your head at me after reading this post and thinking ‘grow up my dear…grow up’…well! I can’t agree with you less…I have also been telling myself the same thing all this while)

Always the same

Over the last one month I have been reading a lot…it feels great to be back to my good old hobby of reading I must admit. And each of the books that I read were like gems in themselves. I started off with Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and then went on to Harry potter book 5 i.e The Deathly Hallows and then read Cane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer and finally I am just done with Leap of Faith by Danielle Steel…Four different books…with distinct themes…and four different experiences altogether….

Especially the book ‘Leap of Faith’ which discusses about a little girl’s family home in great detail just somehow took me to my childhood days when my cousins and I used to spend our summer holidays together in my maternal grandmother’s house…..My father being in a job with frequent transfer orders the only home that in true terms I can recall as a family home for me has been my grandparents place which always takes me to those childhood memories whenever I visit the place….and just as the book describes I am not sure it is really so or if it just appears to us as such because our memory of the place is so strong that even after so many years when I pay a visit to my grandparents the house still appears to be just the same..And I can still visualize all of us running around in the corridors bringing the whole house down with the racquet created by us…..with spankings from our mothers…and our grandmother protecting us always being on our side…all the delicacies prepared by my grandmother being equally distributed among us kids to the very last bite otherwise the raucous that we created…the innumerable weddings that had taken place in that house and it had meant as many rasgullas and sweets as our hearts pleased for all we kids…..with us feeding every single bit of paper found in the house to the domesticated cattle through the window railings…..the garden by the house that seemed like waiting for us kids to trample down it every summer and weed out every possible plant most religiously and get spanked which didn’t seem to matter after the triumph of our achievement…..And my sweet grandmother as always greeting us sitting on that very window looking onto the road awaiting earnestly for our arrival with the aroma of all the delicacies cooked all over the place that unfailingly invite you right near the cranky gate….

Some places just seem to never get old enough to be trampled by time in your memory and each time you visit them the place along the memories only seem to renew and one such place that the book talks just makes you think of one such place as this. I wonder if our kids will ever have such a place that can form their memory which is permanent and not changing and just stays intact with time in this everchanging world in this era…