A Quantum Leap in 5 hours

It took millions of dollars and immense amount of human effort to make Neil Armstrong say the famous words:

"That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind"

But as far as I’m concerned, all it took was an air ticket, visa and 5 hours to make a quantum leap. The leap from one of the most pathetic and disgusting airports in the world (Amchi Mumbai, of course) to one of the world’s best (Singapore’s Changi).

In case you feel that my claims are unfair or preposterous, you can simply google out the worst airports in the world. And you would simply amazed as to how many sites throws out the name of Mumbai. A passenger’s account of the wonderful experience can be found here.


Above picture shows a small landscape from the Changi airport. I prefer not to show any pictures of the Mumbai airport as the effect may be depressing for the readers.

I just hope that something is on the cards of Indian authorities which would prevent any Indian from embarrassment while using the loo standing beside a foreigner at the Mumbai Airport.

Signing off
--Gaurav

Friendship: Stretching the Limits

Recently something happened and the only good thing about it was that it was an “incident” and hence a change in my dull and boring existence. But apart from this fact, all it led to was some bad taste and some unanswered questions.

As the details would be very cumbersome and uninteresting, the summary goes like this – There is this guy whom I’ve known from 17 years (74% of my life time, actually a lot). For all this time we had been “friends”. Wouldn’t like to say that we were “good” friends, but still we managed to maintain a decent relationship with some hiccups along the road. Somehow, the trust that a faithful relationship demands was never there, at least from my side. Thanks to the disproportion between the guy’s mouth and the substance within. But somehow I never revolted. May be because I wanted to be politically correct all the time and wanted to keep everyone around happy. Also I never let the guy feel what went in my mind which according to me gave him the impression that we are like inseparable “Siamese” twins.

Anyways, the life was cruising the way it used to be when something really disgusting happened. During my time of need, I was totally disappointed by my “friend”. I was totally shocked as to how much can someone bluff. Then I started questioning my own patience and self-esteem as to what extent can they be stretched. With some limited experience in my life I’ve learnt a few things, a couple of which can be described by the following quotes. I apologize for not providing the author’s names because I can’t remember them as of now.

“I don’t know the key to happiness. But I sure do know that the key to unhappiness is to try and keep everyone happy”

“You cheat me once, shame on you; you cheat me twice, shame on me”

Finally, after a lot of thought and consideration, I decided to call the relationship off. In the process I ended up hurting not only the person concerned but also a lot of common friends. I have been called “harsh” and “aggressive” which I do feel might be true. Indeed the step I took was extreme but still I’m convinced that the situation called for it. It wasn’t very easy for me to do this and I’m very much aware of the pain I’ve caused to the person concerned. I do feel sorry for him and blame myself as to why I created this web of illusion in the first place. But I guess, everyone has to pay for his mistakes during their time on earth and we both have paid a hefty price.

The important questions arising from this episode are – Should there be any limits to friendship? If yes, how far they can be stretched? Is it better to keep a hollow relationship by keeping silent or to break it by being vocal and true to your feelings? After all, shouldn’t friendship be all about symbiosis? Is there any room for parasitism? If yes, is it possible to draw a “Lakshman Rekha”?

I’m looking for answers. May be you can put me on the right track…….Think about it.

--Gaurav

Same ol’ Boring Days

“Here I stand alone,
With this weight upon my heart,
And it will not go away”

These are the starting lines from an amazing song titled What If by Kate Winslet. Can’t believe that she can sing? Go ahead and hear it and you’ll realize that she can sing more beautifully than she can look :)

Anyways, coming back to relevant space of the real domain – it seems that these lines have been written exactly for someone like me. Someone who has lead a reasonably hectic life in his college days and now stranded for a time period that seems like eternity in a place like Kota :(. It feels like that while traveling at the speed of light, some mischievous force has put the brakes resulting in a loss of control. And I find myself sinking in an abyss of emptiness, yet full of moisture that’s rusting my soul from deep inside.

Destiny has its evil ways to transform situations in such a way that you can’t help being an audience. As things slip from your hands, any effort to hold them together becomes an impossible task. Though I can’t even imagine the state of people who got stuck in Mumbai due to the catastrophic rains in July, all I can say that I too was thoroughly victimized by them. Scheduled to join my job in early September, I got stranded for a good two months more. That made it a break of three and half months between the completion of my studies and my job.

And now if that seems something wonderful to you then let me describe you my daily itinerary. All it has is sleep, more sleep, some more sleep………well tough to sleep for more than 12 hours so I try to squeeze some reading, surfing, cooking (giving some tough time to people around), phone calls (before the monstrous bills arrives, I’ll be away), gyming (no weight reduction as of now) and of course blogging :D. The same day has been repeating itself since last three months with slight variations, excluding the ten blissful days I spent in Mumbai during convocation. And what adds more to my misery is the fact that I’ve no friends around to hang out with. Anyways, where the hell can you actually hang out in a place like Kota.

So till the time I actually fly to the Land of Rising Sun, you can catch some more cribbing write-ups from a person who at the moment is too much pissed with life. The only solace for this poor soul is mummy made grub which I’m really gonna miss for a long long time to come.

I guess enough of this painful story. Hopefully will be back with something interesting, soon. Till then, Adios Amigos !

--Gaurav

Finally.....

Finally its blogging time for me! Have been procrastinating for God knows how long. Well actually I still don’t know what to write but with this humble beginning I hope that the road to blogosphere would become more friendly.

So keep waiting….meanwhile, I’ll keep trying to put some stuff here.

Thanks,
Gaurav