That packet of Namkeen

The packet of Namkeen or as we say Gaja in Odia, reminds me of the days in hostel and college in SRM University. 

Four years of engineering
comes with a lot of memories. In those four years of my life, I made a visit home at least a dozen of time and each visit the amount of food being sent with me kept on increasing. I never realised it until today, until I spent a moment to contemplate it. 

As a child, Gaja used to be my favourite thing to munch on. The first thing in the morning that I wanted to grab on was that and since then everyone in my family knew how important it was for me. I used to finish a whole jar in 2-3 days. Being a single child, I was made a lot of them, by my grandmother, mother and even house-helps. So it became a ritual for them to make it to make me happy. 

When engineering happened, my folks were bit too emotional about things and started on my first trip to college, I had a jar full of Gajas sent with me increasing the already heavy luggage I had. The jar stayed in the hostel cupboard for around 15 days and finally when i saw my room-mates eating on stuff they brought from home, I was reminded of the same. No, my love for it had not subsided but the emotions attached to it were not the same. No one was there to stop me from eating them and that didn't make me want to eat them any more. 

As I opened the jar in my tiny hostel room, my friends got a glance of it and asked me what it was. I offered them a few, something i would not have done back home. They seemed to like it, and i passed the entire bottle down to them. It finished quite fast. 

Since then, it became my ritual as well to get at least one bottle of Gaja with me when i returned to college because i has my room-mates waiting for it. There was more and different food each time but the Gaja was always there and all of it would finish off in a matter of days. 

I am an engineer now, I am done with the hostel and flat life I had back then, but I still am away from my folks and I stay in a PG. My family never really realised where the Gaja used to go and why i was always keen on taking back a bottle back to college each time. They still make me Gajas and get with them each time they come to see me. Those Gajas lie in the cupboard, waiting for me to open them and eat them. But I don't. I don't know if I have lost the taste for it or if it doesn't taste the same without my friends but I just don't. I don't even tell my parents that  I seldom had it and took it for my friends. I just keep it with me thinking that someday I will meet them again and we shall munch on it. 

I miss you guys. Meet soon. 

MIAMI, not just a restaurant.

The first thing that you notice on the first day of a restaurant is the ambience because no one has yet tried the food and therefore you are entering the restaurant with an open mind. But the eyes do seem to go towards things of beauty. I can say it without a doubt that the ambience caught my eye and I became interested in trying the place out.

I have been passing by the same way since a little more than month and I had seen the restaurant being constructed. I saw the fancy stuff going in day by day and I must admit that I already had decided it long ago that I will for sure try the restaurant. On 21st of August as we passed by the restaurant again we saw people dining inside it. We were a group of 5 people and we decided to try it out. 

The restaurant has a menu with a variety of options to serve the need of all the possible tastes. Starting from continental delicacies such as pizzas, pasta, gnochhi, sizzlers to amazing Indian food. They have it all. It is a place where a group of five different people can serve their moods at the same time. The mock-tails not only are tasty but the presentation of all the food and beverages makes you want to have them all. 

Being humane, we ordered for a couple of pizzas and pastas accompanied by a mock-tail. The food was not only flavourful but filling as well. Most importantly, you can get all the taste and aura without burning a hole in your pockets. It is made keeping in mind the needs of all age groups and the party hall is surely going to be great hit. 

I feel honoured to be present there on the first day. 

Until we meet again.

It’s that time of life when every goodbye scares the hell out of people, thinking when we shall meet again. It is that time, when everything happens for the last time but we keep reminding each other of the first times.

The first friend, the first eat-out, the first class, the first bunk all of these suddenly becomes of utmost value and at times brings about tears to one’s eyes which silently roll down and leave a smile on the lips before falling off the cheeks. It is a time when you are not sure if you are happy that it happened or sad that it came to an end.  I too remember a few firsts of our college life and I would like to keep a list of memories to talk about when we meet again.

Orientation week, when we were told a lot of things which we hardly heard because we were busy sleeping. The first day of class, MBA Block 2^nd Floor, as my nervous steps took me inside the classroom which was already filled with quite a few students, 
I realized this isn't school anymore. Day 3 order it was and we didn't meet our Class In-charge on the first day of college, instead we were welcomed by our maths faculty for the semester. I meaningless introduction happened in the beginning of each section as if the teachers remembered anyone’s name.

The next class was English, in which we were asked to introduce our neighbors. That actually made a lot of sense and broke the ice for many people. Many other firsts followed soon, the first CT, first models, first semester exam and much awaited first going back home.

The first big group outing was to Bessy beach. Waking people up early in the morning to catch the first local and then the fun in the beach and breakfast after that and lest I forget the infinite photos in between. Wish we did more of that.

The first big eat out at Mahindra City. Thanks to Prantik, Dikshya, Shreyasi, Ayush and Sanjula. While the heat of Chennai got the better of a few but the walk towards and back was the best part of the day apart from the food of course.

As the years moved on, some bonds became stronger and some not so much and thus, all the firsts after that would be different for different people until we went as a group to Salem for the industrial visit. Like always the purpose of visit became secondary and the having fun became primary.

One more first would be our first mass-bunk which came pretty late in the end of the third year, though it technically was not a mass-bunk, but the bad-ass in me would like to call it that.
There are a lot of more firsts which I could add to the list but I would leave it for the comments of people reading this.

Whatever it might be, we had a heck of a class and we made a lot of people jealous and made a lot of eyes turn. It is inevitable to part ways in a few days from now but with a promise to meet again whenever we get a chance. 

Losing a friend or just staying away.

It's a tough choice to make about what is tougher to do. Losing a friend or staying away from a friend you had not thought of staying away. Losing someone is probably easier. You tend to forget their existence in a few days. Staying away is far more difficult, thinking about the person. Thinking about the times you could have had together.

Staying away is a continuous process. This never ceases to end.

When you lose someone forever there are things that you can't do with them anymore and slowly you tend to accept the fact that that is how it is going to be. There are a certain things that will not be like the way it was before and after a phase of denial you accept that fact.

When it comes to staying away from someone, the acceptance phase comes really late. There will always be instances where you could spend time with them but you are unable to. This keeps killing you from inside. The initial few drops of tears are just the beginning.

The fact still remains that no matter what the situation is. Time makes you forget both the pains. Having faced both the situations in less interval of time. That's all I have to say. 

While we start celebrating Halloween in India.

While I woke up to the Halloween event in the US and over parts of the world, I had already got enough of it on the English soaps that I followed. But I didn’t know that it was not the end there. As I opened my door to the society via the most famous social networking website, FaceBook, I not only found people posting their Halloween get ups but also updates about how much fun they had in the Halloween theme parties.

Halloween, a time when western Christians take out time and spend it with their family while remembering the faithful souls who departed them. As a part of tradition, they have certain kind of vegetarian foods and spend quality time while the children dress up and go around playing Tip or treat.

Halloween literally means holy evening. While we Indians not only fail to understand the true essence of Halloween, but at the same time we change the whole concept. The traditional celebrations of the Christians is changed into a party where people dress up like their favorite zombie from The Walking Dead and drink their senses off and by the time they go back home, they end up walking like zombies themselves.

I am not protesting celebrating a festival from the west. In fact I say it is wonderful to be embracing the customs of others. But there are a few things that have been bothering me since today morning. While we consider celebrating their festivals as cool but we disregard their social norms such as casual sex, women liberation, respecting the divorced or the old and so on. Why are we such hypocrites about all of that?

At the same time, what bothers me even more is that I never see a Chatt(festival of the North) theme party, nor a Karwachauth theme party. As a matter of fact, Diwali and Holi theme parties are also on a decline. Why? What is wrong in our festivals? Is it not cool enough for us? Or maybe the shifting of the axis has had an effect on our minds as well and we have turned into westerners ourselves? I sincerely hope not.

This is coming out of me when I saw government and public outcry of celebrating Diwali without bursting a cracker because it creates a lot of noise and because the people making the crackers are made to work against their will. Why not make better employment laws for these workers and make their life better? Oh no, that takes too much of work.

I call out to all those converted westerners who consider Linkin’ Park as music but Jagjit Singh as noise, who would love to have an aloo tiki burger at a McD but a Vada pav is too middle class. I call out them to take a moment and introspect, to understand that when you embrace a new culture, you do not forget your roots.

Give utmost importance to the place where you come from because if it weren’t for that place you would have never tasted a pizza, burger, red island long tea and you would not have known these cool festivals of Halloween and Thanks-giving. This place is what made got you so far, the least you can do it give back the due respect.

With this message, i would still like to wish all my friends a Happy Halloween. 

Education.

Being qualified enough to have a 5 figured monthly salary or being knowing by-heart the theorems of the great mathematicians. Is this what education is all about?

Honestly, I feel the basic definition of education is flawed. It goes like “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university”. Education for me is the basic foundation on which a person’s character and life is built upon. It is not a virtue that can be measured by grades but it is something that has to be understood and taken in.

It is a known fact that the most famous personalities, even in the field of education did not follow the way in which everyone else was educated. They chose to think beyond the ordinary and this in turn lead to various discoveries and inventions that the unfortunate future generations study about as a part of the boring curriculum.

The education that is imparted to students at the primary age is what sets the standard for their future. If at the tender age of 9-10, a child is made to mug up the syllabus as if they are stories then it leaves a bad impression on them about the very system of education.

Education is not meant to fill pockets but build nations.

The preset education system which focusses on the theoretical part of the subject matter has proved not to be effective. Better understanding is achieved when one puts to practice what he/she learns. So I my humble opinion, I would suggest a more practical approach to the subject should be done and at the same time, the syllabus that has not been changed since ages is a disturbing truth of our system.

Hoping to see a better life for the future generations.

Educate to enlighten! 

LIFE.

“Life is what happens to you while you are planning something else.” So, the smart ones or rather the successful ones ask you to live each moment to the fullest. But in a practical world, is that possible?

There are times, when you are upset about things you do not know. You sit in a corner staring at the nothingness of things around you. Is that wasting precious times of your limited life? Well, may be yes or may be no. There can be one more way to look at it. For all you know, it might be someone’s way of living life to the fullest by not doing anything for some time. By just letting things be as they are. So life has different meanings for different people like the love has a variety of interpretations.

For one person being able to play a video game all day gives meaning to his/her life while for another person solving numerous mathematical questions. One might find solace in talking to people at the same time another might enjoy the company of oneself the most. It is a matter of perspective.

Everyone has a story, a story that made them the way they are today. Some things happen to on the journey of life that alters your state of being. Due to such instances the person liking of certain things is changed greatly. Such as, a once talkative person becomes an introvert and vice versa. This changed I believe is inevitable and unintentional.

Where there is life, there is fear. The fear of not having it. The fear of losing time. The fear of losing people. The fear of not making it big enough. The fear of not being remembered. But one should look beyond this fear and start living without regrets because life is lived well when lived without the constant fear of consequences. Once you start living this way, there will be nothing to feel scared about. L.I.F.E. shall fall into place.

So, just live. 'Coz you have a long way to go.