The Survivor...

It was a bright July morning, a pleasant break from the otherwise dull and cloudy monsoon weather and it did bring with it, a hope that something good was bound to happen!:)"Nature could not have set a better tone to this!" said the old lady, waiting outside the Operation Theater, anxiously waiting to see the birth of her 7th grand child!

Inside, Dr.Radha was busy at her work, helping the mother deliver her baby with as little pain as possible!This was definitely no big deal for her, for she was a name in the medical field and the delivery had absolutely no complications!

"We are almost done here!" She exclaimed as the baby's head started popping out... Well...it seemed as thought nothing could go wrong!Suddenly,the doctor noticed that the baby had started turning blue! She could not think of anything that could have possibly gone wrong..hence she attempted to pull the baby out with utmost care possible.. She noticed that the baby turned bluer! Now that was not meant to BE!

After a moment of brief panic, she observed carefully! The reason suddenly caught her eye... The umbilical cord (the cord that connects the child to the mother through its naval) had unfortunately been wound around the baby's neck and with every successive attempts to pull the baby out, it got tighter around its neck making it difficult for the baby to breathe!She cut the chord off instantly,pulled the baby out softly and had it(still blue in color) delivered into the mother's hands "It is a boy ma'am!" She turned and reached for the door to let the family know of the boy's birth and as she walked she thought to herself "A couple of pulls more and the boy would have died!Thank God, he survived!"





YES... I DID SURVIVE :)

P.S LOLOLOL... Everything that I have written above is true to THE CORE!of course the whole "nature" thing is all drama and i am sure you would have sensed that!(yes, vidya...go ahead and call me a narcissist) but the rest is all true.. lol

P.P.S Finally a short article!!! Yipeeeeeeeeee

Taking life with a pinch of salt

It was around 12:10 in the night yesterday... and i was closing all my chat conversations so that i could hit the bed asap...

me :k i gtg...cya..tc
friend: me too.... EURO calling..btw,who is your money on???any favourites???
me :hmmm.. i don't really follow euro... not a fan of football at all for that matter...
friend: woahhh! really...? oh ok.. thats really wierd.. anyways cya bye...
me :hmm...bye ('phew!glad it did not go further' I thought to myself)

It was a warm April morning... I checked my watch... It was 3 40 pm...I decided to buy myself a coffee from the IC before I left for my mup class... Though I struggled a bit(thanks to the heavy rush there) I did end up buying one strong cup of coffee and settled down along with two of my Music Club friends on a nearby table... and the conversation unfolded...

Friend1:"So you mean to say you have never seen Hidey?"(I hope I spelled it right)
Me :('oh shit! not again.. I am in no mood to explain!..ok...watever...u need to say something but do choose your words right...ashwin')hmmm...No not really...as in.. I never really liked cartoons.. Never watched them as a child you know...
Friend2:"OMG Ashwin... How is it possible?? How can a child not like cartoons??? Thats like the most insane thing on earth!!!
Me :('Shit i told u to choose your words right'..you could have said an 'I donno' and ended it with a sheepsih smile' But NO you had to spit out the whole thing.. LOSER!.. now at least give a sheepish smile and end it..')"HeeHee"
Friend1:"Thats true... I am really surprised... How can ......."(I turned a deaf ear to the conversation and it did not end until we entered the class)

Two days before I had met a long-lost friend(LOL) on my way back home from class and after the mutual "hey"s and "where r u"s and "wat r u doing now?"s we drifted off to our discussion on friends...

Friend:"Oh He bought an Apachi... "
ME : "Huh? what exactly is that??"
Friend:"Ashwin..you havent changed a bit.. Have you???"
Me :('Get ready dear... thats the next one coming up!!! all the best... start off with a stupid grin.. we'll see where it goes')"HeeHee..."
Friend:"ok.. FYI ,its this new bike........('Yeah right!It took me around 2 months to by-heart my own car's name and you expect me to know some random bike???') ....... "

Oh!You might be wondering what kind of an association I am trying to make with these 3 random incidents that happened to me..well some of you might have already guessed it.. (for all those intelligent ones... please be patient until i explain it to the rest or move on to the next para.. :P i know u wont though.. lol) and to the rest... hmm... here we go! Well I often had this feeling that life had been unfair to me in many ways!Especially when it came down to scenes as typical as these where the conversations were all about "woah"s or "omg"s let out in tones of surprise or contempt(or sometimes a mix of the two) followed by "How can anyone... "s and "You haven't changed a bit..."s. All that was different about each of them was that the people who i talked to, changed and the Hidey/Apache/Euro were replaced by either a hot-selling car in the market or some gaming-talk or maybe even an action-movie... (the list is pretty long and it is not at all as trivial and as materialistic as it sounds... it has a lot to do with my thoughts and views that i basically live on.. but i don't want to mention them and add weight to the already-heavy blog! :) )anyways...

Verdict: I don't necessarily have the same interests which my friends do(which unfortunately happens to be the most-sought-after interest for a person(or a guy as the case maybe)of my age) neither do I hold the same views about life as them. ..hmm... or to make it even shorter.... I AM DIFFERENT!!... wait a minute... now thats a word i should use with a little caution because it is highly deceptive for quite a few reasons(which i shall mention later on)...but i suppose you got the picture anyways and thats enough to read on!

The worst part of the whole issue is not being left out in a group.. neither is it those lecture sessions when your relatives comment on how a stereotypical boy of 20 should be... but its those moments when you realize that even your closest of friends question you about the way you are and fail to ACCEPT you for what you are!!!(after all..i was not hurting anyone by having a few individualistic interests and thought...!)ooh not to forget those kill-joy irritating ones who love taunting you, making it a point to bring the topic in especially when you are in a group!(yuck.. i hate them)

It is always tough for anyone to go against the flow and I did have my share of troubles too... There was a point in my life when I thought I had an abnormal childhood and another,when I hated myself so much that I decided to give myself a try being the more-acceptable one! But it definitely did not put me into a comfort zone and i decided to switch back! and days of confusion followed...

It did take me sometime to put myself into a single piece to realize that I am THE BEST the way i am and i should be proud of it and that i could probably be an exquisite piece in the entire world :P... I have absolutely no idea how and why i came to this conclusion..maybe it was an optimism-instilled-deterministic attitude that i developed or maybe it was just that these things kept happening so frequently that i had got immune to them... but whatever it was, i had gone through a lot of trial and error experimentation methods until i hit upon the right set of reactions that would work in my favor whenever unpleasant discussions dropped in... sometimes it was a sheepish smile..hmmm...sometimes it was a sudden change of topic.. and yeah sometimes even being a little pretentious worked!:P(and... boy!it was fun to watch the disappointment on certain faces when i conveyed the fact that I simply loved being MYSELF!:P)

And I also did realize that there will always be people to love you and accept you for what you are... It might not necessarily be the same ones you expect.. But there always will BE at least a single soul out there to help you find your way out(As in my case it has always been true and as a true-optimist should, I would like to continue believing that :P)

(Note: The next para is gonna be highly philosophical.. and there is no compulsion u should read it :P...you wouldn't miss much if you skip this one.. lol ..but those who wish may read on)

The fact that every individual differed from the other and the even more obvious fact that everyone was aware of it but still continued to group up and behave differently to the "different" ones always perplexed me because if it were really true then everyone should treat the other indifferently! right???I really don't know if I found the answer for that... but I think its mostly because people are assured a certain kind of safety being one in a million and its simpler to go with the flow than against it.. and so the psych of a human being always searches for commonalities with the environment around himself which would leave him the most comfortable with the least complexities... and thats pretty much a reasonable explanation as to why one wants to stereotype himself and why he expects the same from others... but as i went on analyzing people, i felt that the types of people were not just 2(the daring ones and the stereotyped ones), it was 4... Type 1-the stereotyped ones who prefer to follow the majority.. Type 2- the ones who have stereotypical interests who wish to be different but are not(trust me!such people exist.. the so called 'pseudo-intellectuals' probably come under this.. and yeah if u r one of those ..please contact me!we can trade our personalities at the earliest!Lol)Type 3-the ones who are different who wanna be a commoner and type 4- who don't care a bit about being different!Ofcourse, there are lots of people with mixed characteristics as well... and maybe I would call myself a mix of type 3 and 1!(i really dunno :P) ... of course the factors that affect which group you fall into are also interesting!!! You can pretty much divide all your thoughts and actions into 2...one group of actions or interests where you are allowed to choose your individualistic taste.. another where you ought to follow what the mass does and its the percentage of each group that decides if you are DIFFERENT or not(phew!mission accomplished!)...(and that would explain why some of my friends who claim to be different are actually not and some who think are not, are!:))

Well to wind up... hmmm.. i ll tell you why i wrote this.. It was definitely not to gain your sympathy hoping you would understand me and treat me better.. all of u r just perfect the way u r (as i said b4)... it was definitely a sincere attempt to let my readers know what kind of a person i am but more than that it is for those sad souls who have been/are in the same state as me and have had problems liking themselves! :) .... maybe they would learn a lesson or two from this and start liking themselves...

P.S I would not really wanna have a chat with anyone as to whether i have had any incident similar to those 3 ones, with them.... :)

A tryst with the foes!

The mornings in Andamans are rather deceptive with the sun rays touching the earth earlier than usual, owing to its eastward location and the 4 am sky appearing as bright and shiny as an 8 am Goa-sky or Cochin-sky... and I guess that would explain why I woke up early that day.. :P

But that was not the only reason.. We were on our way to see the limestone caves of Baratang islands and the journey from Port Blair to Baratang was through thick dense tropical forests that were home to the Jarawas..

Jarawas (which means 'enemy' in Aka-Bea) are the indigenous tribes of Andamans who are believed to have relocated themselves from Africa around 70,000 years ago.. Now that would explain why they are of the Negroid race but how they relocated themselves all the way from Africa 70,000 years ago still remains a mystery...

Anyways ...we took off at around 5 am and within no time i resorted to my favorite pastime... I dunno for how long i was asleep but a noisy argument between my dad and sis woke me up... ' Achcha.. Its inhuman' shouted, my sis... ' You have no right to collect money from people to see them.. For Gods sake..achcha.. they r human beings.. not animals in a zoo...' I put myself into a single piece and looked around... and then I asked my mom what was happening.. ( I had absolutely no interest in being a part of a verbal argument(right in the morning :P) where my dad and sis were literally FIRING words at each other) She said that we were at the check post and were waiting for the clock to tick 7 so that we could move into the Jarawa-inhabited area.. I shifted focus to the argument making sure I was totally unnoticed... Thats when it all made sense... Apparently the men at the check post collected money from any traveler who crossed this particular area and there were police forces which accompanied them through these forests to ensure that the interaction between them and the Jarawas remained minimal...

"But divya... look... They are tribes on the verge of extinction... and its the responsibility of our Govt to make sure they r protected and to provide them with the basic necessities of life like food, clothing and shelter... and this takes money.. So maybe you would wanna look at it that way rather than the zoo-point of view.. " I was expecting another outburst from my sis... But thank God.. She chose to SHUT UP !(ok sis.. if u r reading this no offence please... because I had just gotten out of sleep and its my responsibility to let my readers know what my exact state of mind was! :P)

I needed a bit of stretching .. So i got out of the car... Seeing the growing queue of vehicles behind us I thought.. " So if they collected money from each of us and if they were supposedly giving it as food/clothing/shelter to the Jarawas, the Govt would be actually minting quite a lot of profits because..afterall how much would the basic amenities cost... hmmm.. Bravo Govt! :)" ..

I was feeling drowsy and so I went ahead and decided to buy myself a coffee from the shop on the other side of the road.. I noticed that our chauffeur was standing a few feet away from the shop having his (usual) chit-chats with the other fellow-chauffeurs and he suddenly stopped the conversation, smiled at me and started walking towards me... and as he approached me i asked him " so what do they look like??" ("they r human being.. you dumbo! they look like any other human being" i screamed back at myself.. ha but i couldn't think of anything else to get the the driver talking about the tribes.. ") "They are dark in color.. remain bare chested throughout the day and cover only their frontal essentials" he replied.. "hmm so what about the clothes that govt gives them?? dont they wear them??".."well... the elder ones resist to wear them but the younger ones r more liberal.. you know..they are more fashionable"( i couldn't believe he had just used the word 'fashionable'..i jus hid the smirk to myself and let him continue..)"u know.. they actually carry around sharp harpoons and bows and arrows and mainly live on fruits and animals" "oh.. really??? how do YOU know all this??? have you ever talked to them or interacted with them?? " "oh no sir, they converse in their own signs and languages.. we never understand them" "hmm.. interesting!!" i replied, took the last sip and walked back to the car thinking ' there definitely IS a distance of 70000 years..if not more'!

The road sides were quite slushy, thanks to the night-rains of the forests.. So I decided to get back into the car though the coffee had given me enough vigor to stay behind and enjoy the scenic beauty.. Mom was half asleep by now and so was sis.. Dad was engrossed in his newspaper and so i knew that i had nothing better to do but wait...

As soon as the clock ticked 7 , the queue of vehicles began to ride in through the thick dense forests... I was trying to figure out my exact feeling for the Jarawas.. "hmm.. maybe its fear.. oh yeah... the idea of a half-naked man walking around with harpoons and bows n arrows are not my ideas of comfort" I slightly raised my window shield up with a straight, confident face hoping that no one would catch me do that.. "oh come on.. they are not gonna eat you up... you should actually be excited of seeing a whole new species or breed that you had never met before(dont blame me for using those words.. the hype was SOO much that anyone around will be forced to use them) because they could possibly be the earliest trace of human life on earth in its full glory n vigor..." as i was trying to relieve myself of the fear when dad started howling as if he had just hit upon a pot of treasure "Look look look.. there goes one Jarawa... " I leaned my neck as much as possible to get a glance of him..."oh yes..there he was!!!"i had just told myself when my mom said ... " right.. its just a worker mending the roads" we all had our share of laughs on that and i did pull my dad's leg for quite sometime and got back into where i had paused...

Well I couldn't really think further because my dad had started howling again in a similar fashion as before...with an extra decibel this time...:P.... I thought it was just another sample of the tiger story and paid little attention.. but then slowly a black figure started appearing out of thin air.. and as the car rode ahead i could see HIM.. A Jarawa man was walking down the street with his back pointing to us, hardly clothed, except for a hip-band wound around(which i suppose was to hold the little cloth that he used for covering his frontal essentials) ...He did have his weaponry on his right shoulder and a basket hung on the other(which i think contained water that would help him survive the hot sultry weather) i had barely finished analyzing his physical appearance when he took out his hand.. my first reaction was to hide under the front seat.. but then i saw his hands rising to his mouth and he closed his fingers into a unified bunch and pointed into his mouth.. it did not take me even a split second to understand that he was hungry and was asking for food... the driver waved at him and we drove away...

well we did see a lot more of them through the journey and of course we did get a glance of the 'fashionable' young ones too.. but nothing got me into thinking as much as this man i had seen and to explain what i was thinking.. i am sorry! u' ll have to wait a bit more... let the journey go on..

We were at the boat jetty on the other side of the forests waiting for the boat to Baratang... I casually looked around and i was right on time to catch the glimpse of 2 people moving out of the water(the shore-line rather) into the thick forests.. A young Jarawa man walked ahead and following him was a Jarawa lady with a 2-3 year old child on her hips with his head on her chest...

Well.. the distance of 70000 years had suddenly become oblivious... "If a man could point his fingers to his mouth and I could understand that he was hungry and he needed food.. what was the distance I was talking about???"i thought to myself.. " and if i knew that the scene i had jus witnessed was a family that had gone in search of food with the man leading the way and the woman making sure her man was safe from behind and her little one felt the warmth of her love for him, how different is it from my family where my dad n mom go for work to earn for their daily bread making sure that i always felt the warmth of their love???" the distances HAD died down!!! :)

i realised that it wasnt necessary to speak the same language or even wear the same clothes or for that matter belong to the same species/breed/race(or whatever the scientists call it) to feel close to someone.. One factor assured it all : The fact that we are all human being, the fact that we all harbour emotions which are 'human' in nature, the fact that we all speak the sign language of humanity... I boarded the boat with a heart full of remorse for all the ill thoughts i had an hour ago about the Jarawas... and I thanked God cus i knew i was lucky... not because i was not born into a tribe family which resorted to ancient living habits but for having realised certain subtle but glorious truths about life!!!

Moral of the story: never think during sleepless nights!!!

i am not sure if this is the blog i wanna kick-start with.. but wth.. it is not as if i am writing for the first time.. so i guess its alright :)

it was one of those nights where u lay semi-asleep for an unusually longer time.. ofcourse not that i was disturbed by any incident( yeah!this dus not include the sloppy background score of the 2 a.m repeat telecast of mahabharata my granny was watching :P)... but jus that i had slept thru the whole day and it was becoming seemingly difficult to get sleep in the night.. but i ignored this fact and tried my level best to sleep...

thats when the wierdest of thots struck me... i am sure most of u have thot abt it too (oh come on dont be hypocrites .. jus accept it).. the whole deal of dreamgirl and/or (:P) prince charming business.. as in my case only the first one wud hold true (:P)... oh and if u r one of those who haevnt thot abt it yet.. pls do not read ahead.. cus u wont be able to relate with me at all... (tata! c u in the next blog :))

so.. how dus the whole thing work??? i mean have u ever thot abt how u wud be meeting her and/or him(ok ! for convenience sake from now on i will use only the feminine gender.. pls change n read wherever necessary! ) the next few moments were probably the most cheesiest in my life...

is it gonna be in one of those bookshops... where i wud come from one direction and she, from the opposite and we wud lay our hands on probably the most romantic book ever and our eyes wud meet.. we ll stare(is luk a beter word???)into each others eyes until eternity (i.e to say 2 seconds) and as she is about to take her hands off the buk.. i wud take the buk n offer it to her ( as a chivalrous man shud) and we wud jus walk away ( again in opp directrions) turning n giving momentary glances to the other, just in time to notice that the other had done the same too(tho u had obviously missed it)

or is it gonna be in the London raliway station where i enter the train prolly a minute before the door closes and and i see her running desparately from the end of the platform with her extra large luggage to enter the train.. and as she approaches nearer ..the door begins to close and i realise the only thing that can save her(ofcourse from missing the train) is a hand and i stretch it forward to her and pull her towards me into the train.. and we land safely ( i am not gonna define that watsoever) on the floor ...

or is it gonna be in those local metro train stations where i jus boarded and am waiting for it to move n her train comes from the opp direction( oh i donno y it has to be opposite always :P)( and yes!she IS there in the train).. and we glance at each other.. and in a few seconds my train jus passes by and i try to get the last of her glances possible ..

or is it gonna be...( ha i know u r getting bored...) there is no more 'is it gonna be-s' and for the record.. the above ideas are one-hundred percent original and are not copied from any popular movies.. the resemblence is jus intentional(err.. i mean coincidential...)

and as i lay thinking.. i hear a 'achuuuuu... where did u keep the remote?? ' from distance... ofcourse thats my granny shouting above the already high tv-volume... i reluctantly get out of the bed ('ha now there is no way i am gonna get sleep tonight !') and went to the sitting-room only to hear her say 'oh yeah it was right beside me.. i dint see it'(arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!).. 'oh its ok amumma...' i smile n get back.. this time instead of hitting the bed i jus land on the chair n start thinking..

ok so wats the deal.. i mean how am i gonna know its HER.. its not like she is gonna have my name board around her neck or something... or a locket with my pic in it( oh my god.. i shud stop watching those cheesy old hindi movies)... oh i racked my brains for an answer.. but i cudnt really find one.. i, then recollected asking the same thing to one of my 'love-married' cousins.. and she had jus said.. 'u ll know it dear.. wen its the right time.. ' oh not the same load of crap again.. i am telling u guys.. its jus not worth taking relationship advices from married ppl... or ppl crrently in a relation or from those who jus broke out of one... cus they ll only talk abt extremes and not the moderates.. i mean the medians..(oh i donno the right word... anyways i think u got it!)

'ok.. problem at hand.. still not solved..wat do i do... wat do i do....' oh then i relaised i think i jus over looked the fact that i cud get into an arranged relation too.. phew! relieeef!!! so i really wont have to worry abt knowing who is the one(THE ONE rather)(it makes a diff wen u stress on the blocked ones u c).. parents ll take care of it... but my brains were not gonna leave me alone... 'ok so wat if she is not the right one for u.. i mean parents are also human beings rt???and wat if they make a mistake??? '(oh no.. not another problem)...

hmm... suddenly something my dad had told me a few yrs ago came back rushing to me and i truly understood wat he meant 'marriage is a lucky draw... achu... the chances that u get who u want for life, is really less... that dusnt mean u lose the draw.. u jus got to play the game right.. or atleast right enuf to be the winner...' i was totaly blank and i think he made that out from the look i gave him and he went on '... as in.... understand ur spouse and adjust n sacrifice accordingly.. ofocurse the same is called for from ur spouse's side too and then u can be a winner too and thats wen they say 'marriages r made in heaven!!'

oh ok.. thats not so much of a consolation but watever... and then bam! i hit upon something that atleast got me temporarily relieved... :P i am not a horoscope guy but i am def one of those who reads 'this week ahead' jus to firmly believe that all the gud things mentioned in there is bound to happen and conveniently ignore the negatives :P and so i somehow recollected my mom making some random remark that i was gonna have a happy married life or something of that sort(oh i am jus acting as if i donno wats ritten in there and that i dont care abt it much.. i know it 100% byheart but hey u r not expecting me to blog it out r u??).. and phew!!! that indeed relieved me and got me into noticing that i was actually feeling sleepy... (hurraaaaaaaaaaaaaay)

and as i laid down i gave a final thot abt the whole thing ... lets suppose the worst happens(i donno wat it is but lets jus suppose) i ll force my dad to practicalise watever he used to jokingly (or was he serious???)say wen i was in skool... 'achu... u jus go around dating girls... and tally down on 5-6 of them who u think suits u the best.. and ur sis n i ll do the narrowing down into THE ONE depending on wat we think is best for you' LOL... i donno abt the whole thing but i sure am game for the first part of wat u said dad :P...hehe...

P.S i am not as cheesy as this blog may sound and its not sumthing that actually happened... well ofocurse i have had in-length discussions abt this with my frens and family.. but no! def no sleepless nights on this topic.. or any other for that matter :) and yeah i am totally ok with either school of thot... :P hope u guys luvd it :)