Growing Up

She switched the channels on the radio. The singer gave a loud shriek on realizing that he would be switched for someone else, or was it just a high pitched verse. But channel, she did change.
Then suddenly she started waving upwards through her driver’s window. I jumped and asked, "Did you like the song so much?" She looked at me disdainfully and said, "I was just raising the antenna!!"
Once, someone had placed an advertisement leaflet on her windscreen. She was feeling lazy to pull it off, so she started the wipers, and soon the model in the advertisement, was all over her wind-screen.
Another time someone was once honking a horn at her callous driving at rush hour that she got so disgusted and shouted, "Shut up or I will call Daddy!!"
Then there was once that she bought two stupid looking teddy's for her car. One adorned the front rear view and the other at the back, where she could look at it from the rear view (how innovative!!)
I could go on and on about her and her gleefully stupid ways. But that was when we were at college (as they say, when the leaves were still green and 14th Feb was Valentines Day and rose day was bigger than anything). Now it is different. Now after, 7 years, 2 bad relationships, 3 broken bones, and one black eye, I met her again. She is married and has a kid too. But that’s food for a later part. This one is different.
We were so close to commitment, yet something pulled us apart. There was this chauvinistic idea in my mind, that I was not earning, so how could I ask her to step down from the luxuries of life that were hers. Then there was.... her dad.
He didn't like me two bit. He thought, I was detrimental for his daughter.....a bad habit. She was unaware of it, and made a big point that I was the first guy she wanted her parents to meet (whatever that meant). Her mother was nice and cheerful. But he hated me from the first look, I knew it.
Somewhere inside, I realized he was right. I would have done the same for my daughter. I couldn't have let her languish with some young good-for-nothing guy, when I had created a world of comfort for her by working double shifts.
Despite the animosity we shared, he knew that she listened to me. I could convince her the way he no longer used to. So when she had refused to marry his friends’ son, he wrote a mail to me. I know he would have felt like hating himself for asking me to convince his daughter to accept the guy he wanted her to marry. In his mail, he said, that since she would only listen to me, I was the only one he could ask. He was controlled, yet somewhere it was a man to man sort of a prose. Mail was a good medium as I know he couldn't have asked me on my face. I understood. He was a good man, a loving and brave father.
I didn't write back. But a week later, she said yes!! I slowly made myself scarce in a shell of my own.
He met me at the wedding. I had just entered when we spotted each other. Excusing himself from relatives, he walked slowly to me.
We stood in silence for a while, and then tried to make small talk. Soon there was nothing more to say. Someone called him from behind. Just before leaving, he patted my shoulder and gave a bear hug. That was the first time during this whole ordeal that I felt tears brimming my eyes. He quickly turned away and walked, dabbing his eyes.
A month later, I got a mail from him. He wrote:
“She is happy and safe. We finally understood each other so late. Thanks.....son.”
I haven't seen him since then. But the mail is still there. It’s a reminder of my growing up years. Whenever I am feeling low, reading the mail brings back a sense of belief and security. Even when I am on a high, there is nothing better to see how good he was and how much more I need to grow. He was truly her hero........my hero......God Bless!!

Some People

Some people get whatever they want
Some people get whatever they need
Some people will get just whatever they get

Some people sense something
Some people grant something
Some people will just ignore something

Some people gleefully accept things
Some people shout their throats hoarse
Some people will just write what they feel

Some people read what others have written
Some people discard it as a futile effort
Some people will just look inside

Some people always be some people
Some people always be who could have been somebody
Some people will just grow to become somebody

Some people change the world for somebody
Some people mean the world to somebody
Some people will just feel so alone with somebody

Some people move ahead
Some people walk along
Some people will just fall back

Some people are a step behind
Some people are far behind
Some people will just be memories

Some people cherish memories
Some people shed a tear
Some people will just be stoic

Some people become weak
Some people resign to fate
Some people will just do something about it

Some people read this and think I have lost it
Some people read this and get scared
Some people will just see a step forward

Some people are mere spectators
Some people laud what they couldn't understand
Some people will just loathe what they missed

So I say it again.....
Some people get whatever they want
Some people get whatever they need
Some people will get just whatever they get

I am Alive!!

There are a few things which money cannot buy, but for other things there is some credit card. I have borrowed this phrase from a popular advertisement because it really is true. And if you think I am going to bore you with the reasons why this is so true and good, then forget it. Didn’t have a starting line (or something I love to call my pick up line) so thought why not use this.
Now coming straight to the point!! I have a confession to make. I love to bitch about others. Don’t know for how long I have been at it, but it seems like ages. Like for example in school when a guy brought a brand new snazzy school bag, I was literally in tears, bitching how lowly this guy was acting whilst showing off his bag. Agreed, that a bag is such a small thing. But please see I am writing of an age when I too was small.
But whatever be it, I was bitching. You might call it as an outcome of jealousy but you can never deny it. Jealousy or whatever, we spend close to 10 to 100% of our daily routines bitching about something or someone. Be it boss’s new shirt or the neighbor’s new car. We are doing it without even realizing. Is gossiping or bitching the best form of rest and recreation during our oh…so hectic lives that we have to also harp about the need for work-life balance at the end of the day?
Before I dwell further into the topic, let us first understand the cause of doing what we do (...okay I didn’t want to write it again, but here we go...bitching). I feel jealousy at various levels more or less sums up the evolution of this urge. It is the feeling of under-achievement whenever someone achieves something. Achievement, here is more than just material. It may be something we couldn’t care much about, but still somewhere the green in our psyche shines.
I have heard stories of great men and women who were happy for other’s success that they sometimes gave it away themselves. Well, I am not a great man; I am just an ordinary person you pass by every day. And ditto is true with you, because we definitely do pass by each other sometime. So, that being settled that we are ordinary people, we can also agree on the fact that we all do feel jealous. You know it, I know it.
I asked a few people what set them off and triggered this urge. I got a plethora of varied replies. In professional and competitive scenario, this urge is sparked off if someone gets a better project or profile (which I couldn’t care much about), an award or recognition (even for a cause I could not do in ages), a better seat (even if it meant the poor guy would not be able to check personal mails and chat with friends on phone), and so on, but the crux is that he did get something, and I didn’t.
In personal interactions, there are a lot more colors which mix and make us go green. This friend of mine had gone to party with his date. As per him, she was looking good that day (as per me she always looks good, may be he was wearing his glasses that day!). As soon as they entered the party, there came another stunning friend of hers, and our man was left gaping for fresh air. This stunner came and pecked his date on both cheeks as he looked on longingly and starving. As she left, his date remarked, “Did you look at her? She was wearing such a cheap perfume. Must be her dad’s or brother’s after shave.” He just looked on perplexed.
Is this just jealousy or is it more? Is it not jealousy mixed with some bit of insecurity? I believe, it is not just some little sense of insecurity, but really a lot of insecurity!! But why? May be my friends date must have felt insecure, even though she knew deep in her heart that she had my friend for as long as she knew how to flutter her eyes.
I have seen colleagues at work acting bitchy about others in front of bosses. They just need to show others down. Okay, let me not say they, cause somewhere I also do that. And we all just cannot deny being insecure here. We have to do it, so as to somewhere massage our own ego’s.
Have you ever thought who feels more jealous and more urge for bitching, is it men or women? Though more associated with women, jealousy, gossiping, and bitching is as much man thing. We all love to do it. It’s as if it is the spice of our mundane lives. It makes us feel more alive and more up to the minute. It makes us feel more human and less scratched reflections of our idols. Whenever someone tells me not to be jealous and take things in my stride, I just tell them, “I am Alive!!” Are you Alive?