Along the way to a journey called Life

They say life is a gift given to you by God. They say life is beautiful. Maybe they are talking about something that I never got to experience. For me life has been a little rude. Maybe a bit more than that. I got married some thirty years ago. But you can never guarantee the success of a marriage. Initially it felt good. I believe there should be two people to keep the relationship together. I wanted to be a good house wife and only God knows I tried my best to set things alright. God knows I tried to become a woman every mother-in-law wants. Sometimes you give up on people for so many reasons. Not because they don’t treat you with respect and love but because they try to snatch your freedom of becoming an independent woman. I had a dream of becoming an actress which dried up along the way in life. 

But there was always something within me that didn’t let me give up on my dreams. As you go along the way, your dreams also change. New ideas open your mind. So, now I am a successful dietician and astrologer. I believe health is the biggest gift in life that you can give to yourself. I truly know it from the bottom of my heart. I cannot skip a day without good healthy food. I also run aerobic classes for women. It feels good being with them, sharing happiness. I work 15 hours a day.  I have decided that I would be keep standing by truth, by hard work and by everything that makes me happy. Because I don’t like being lazy, most importantly, being dependent on people. I am a happiness seeker. After all, happiness is all what everyone is seeking. Isn’t it? 

    Breathing Football Day in Day out

I can’t recall the day I fell in love with Cristiano Ronaldo watching him in the field on TV. I am a huge fan of Ronaldo. I always managed to watch Real Madrid matches. Sometimes, I would get up in the morning at two and my parents would get disturbed in their sleep. India is a big country. But I haven’t given up in thinking as yet that it would not be able to collect best Football players in the world. India is new to Football. But not new to hard work and passion it can put in any game. Be it then in Cricket or Hockey. I have always played Football in my school. My friends always call me as a Football freak but they also often encourage me to be a Footballer. I know becoming a Footballer is a dream for me. But I know following your dream comes at the cost of your family and l don’t want to hurt my family because I love them very much. I can sacrifice even my life for my family. Football is just a small thing. All I want my family to know is that their Manoj loves them very much.

 Sultan Punches above His Weight

It’s not every day in the morning that you get up only to watch a Salman Khan movie. Trust me I am not the ‘coolest’ guy that indulges in watching the typical Bollywood stuff. But today I did. And, I did it for two reasons. (A) I didn’t have much to do (usually I do have a lot do including reading a lot of books, chatting up with people on Facebook and Tweeting sort of some weird stuff) because of Eid. (B) I hadn’t seen any movie in the past few months and this I had in my mind –you can call it a movie reminder but I call it a task-at-hand. So, it was after I was convinced to death by a colleague of mine who not just bought a ticket for me but also made sure that I get picked me up in his Honda City CRV from my home to the Saket PVR. There was a huge crowd out there. Huge! I didn’t see that crowd even when I last voted in Delhi Election –it was my first time when I voted for Arvind Kejriwal.

Coming back to the subject, Sultan is about a young wrestler of India who had no ambitions until he fell in love with Aarfa, Anushka Sharma. Life halts midway for Sultan Ali Khan when he ends up at losing her. And it’s when he starts his real journey in quest of life, determined to take back his self-respect and love. Sultan takes a challenge to be in the Mixed Martial Art (MMA) tournament only to take control over things. I must mention that I sort of cried watching Salman Khan. Yes, I did. Sultan is possibly going to be one of the biggest Bollywood stuff ever watched by Indians, maybe across the world by Non-Indians. There is an emotional touch which keeps you connected throughout the movie, making you think in a what-next mode. You must go to see this movie in theatres –it’s not that fun at home you get to see in theatres, isn’t it? Having said that, there is one masterstroke scene in the movie where Sultan is looking at his body in the mirror, being out of shape and this will surely keep your heart bleeding. So, take a chance, even if you ain't in riding habit of watching Salman’s movies, and thank yourself later.

    Uttrakhand –the Land of cloudbursts

Uttrakhand has been a beautiful place. Not only for me but also, I am sure, to all those people who have ever stopped by there to witness the gigantic mountains made of magnificence and breath-taking greenery supported by Holy rivers of Gods. It’s my native place. Of course, for me it’s a different feeling being out there. Yes, it is.  In literal meaning Uttrakhand means the Northern Land. Uttrakhand is also referred as (Devobhumi) the Land of Gods. Uttrakhand has also been an ancient Puranic term for the central stretch of Indian Himalayas, a mountain range in the Indian subcontinent. In fact, this is the place where ancient rock paintings, rock shelters, Palaeolithic stone tools (hundreds of thousands of years old), and megaliths provide evidence that the mountains of the region have been inhabited since prehistoric times.

However, today with hundreds of people being maimed and killed due to cloudburst and floods in last a couple of years, the government seems to have learnt little and have done only almost nothing to the security of its people. I don’t want to go into the political stuff and neither I want to blame on anyone for this. Because all I just want to say, not point out, that people living in such cloudburst-prone area should be given security from such horrific events for God’s sake. I know it’s not under my control. (you’re right!). But somebody must take the responsibility for this job. After all, it’s us at the end of the day, affected and afflicted. So, we all need to take this thing a little more seriously. It’s the need of the hour. And how do we do this? Well, next time these goofy politicians come to your area scrounging for votes, you must raise this issue. Of course things won’t change dramatically. However, hope is something they say makes things okay for people down the road. Isn’t it? So, let’s hope that God will bestow his grace on us. If the government doesn’t. 

     Laws that made a Chutiyapa out of Americans

Where is a thirsty person supposed to go when the laws of the land don't hold water? That's the question worth sleeping with in times like these. For a change, I'm referring to the USA instead of India here. This is not to forget what a mess of a nation we've built for ourselves but two events from America compel you to think through the surface. Americans takes pride in being a functional democracy with utmost regards for laws. But if a rapist gets preferential treatment for being an ex-Stanford and a psychopath can get easy access to weapons, something is rotten. Brock Turner of Stanford received six months (he'll be out within three) of imprisonment in a county jail (not even a federal prison) for committing unmentionable acts to a sloshed woman. Omar Mateen killed 50 and injured 50+ in Orlando (wonder how he managed to pull off this action single-handedly but then, he pales in comparison to Anders Brevik who killed 77 and injured 300+ in 2011) merely because he couldn't stand gay men. Whatever their backdrop, these two ungentle men proved how ineffectual human laws could be. Neither of them had a Wikipedia page five weeks ago but now they do. They are a part of our daily conversations. A part of our reality we can't escape. A reality we need to deal with. A situation the world, including India, can't afford to see a new chutiyapa out of Americans. 

              The English Bug

People look at me suspiciously whenever I tell somebody that I don't watch an English film without its subtitles. And I do this despite watching the Hollywood stuff for almost 8 years. However, in last three years, if not fewer, I have watched more than 200 movies. I have also learnt several accents and have gone into rigorous practises to train myself better not because the kind of job I was working demanded me to do that but because I had sort of passion for learning different accents. I have got so close now that I can tell whether a foreigner is pretending to accentuate English or he is going natural with his articulation. In a small stint at a call centre in Noida, I used to come across different accents as a routine. So much so I could distinguish where the speaker is from by the way s/he speaks. I am good at it.

Boston English isn't the same as Yankee English. Finns speak English differently than Danes. Chinese and Japanese might look similar in appearance but their approach to English is as stark as their foreign policies. An Aussie speaks English with careless attitude while a Scot speaks the same language with a hidden disdain. Despite all these vagaries, I still prefer to use subtitles while watching Hollywood films (British and Australian films as well). Simply because I can't pretend to understand something I don't. And if I miss a dialogue since I’m more verbally inclined than visually, then it bugs me. However, if I’m in line with the words spoken in a film, then I’m at peace. So, it's a personal reason. But what I’ve noticed among my friends and colleagues is they avoid subtitles because they don't like to read while watching a movie. That's also their excuse for overlooking non-English gems that come from the world of cinema. They'd rather pretend to act like they understood everything that they heard in an English film (when they haven't) than take the effort to read in sync with the movie.

English is one of the beautiful languages in the world –Yes my favourite. Though the British have lost their ability to speak correct English over time in last a few years, countries such as India, China and Japan, including few European countries, have honed their English skills very well. I am not at all saying that a country should be judged over its language. However, what all I am trying to say is that irrespective of the country you belong to some languages really take your heart away and for me English is one of them. I love Urdu as well but since my surrounding contains Hindi and English I am not that good in Urdu. Yes, Sanskrit had been my craze when I was a child. Mahatma Gandhi said “One who wishes to learn English well must learn Latin”. My inspiration has something do with Him as well. So, you can never (ever) beat me in the love towards English and I can tell it to anyone’s face. It’s a long story how it all happened. But yes, people must learn the essence of English. And for this, you can read books from Shakespeare, Drummond Allison , Kenneth Allott , Kenneth Allsop , E. M. Almedingen , John Almon , David Almond , Vincent Alsop , Al Alvarez , Moniza Alvi , Eric Ambler. I am sure you won’t forget thanking me later. 

             That You Are!

The most interesting of people are those who are

....

hurt yet bursting with care

broken yet their pieces emit light

awesome yet unaware of it

beautiful yet scarred by breeze

fragile yet courageous enough to breathe

wise yet prone to worldly silliness

lonely yet filling the space in your heart

clumsy yet comfortably in sync

honest yet cherishing a fairy tale

poetic yet fluent in prosaic silence

mistaken yet willing to repeat

indecisive yet up for the road trip

relentless yet unbounded by fate

lost yet found in your thoughts

....

raring to make it one day at a time.

You might be one of them.

Even if you aren't, stay the way you are.

 In retrospection the World                          

Jack Daniel's completed 150 years of existence and for the first time ever, they admitted that the original recipe of their whiskey came from a slave that Mr. Daniel owned. This revelation is just another thread one can hold on to for showing how dominant racism was once upon a time. It’s unimaginable to see a white person sharing a platform with a non-white. Remember, it’s always Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay—not the other way round. But i’ve got a bigger grudge to grind here. I think the world, be it any given era, relied on the lower section of the society for the cool stuff without giving the due credit. The finest form of music came from the poor and so did the language and art. The only difference being the rich and the privileged lot somehow hold the trump to declare what is cool and what ain’t. This has been going on for ages. The so-called upper caste, be it in Europe or Asia, did two things: accepted whatever they liked and owned whatever they could make of it. The flow has been upward for the most part. Which might explain why two decades ago, the Hindi gaalis were hush-hush but today, punctuating sentences with MC and BC is a unit of cool quotient.