Somewhere I Belong

Since today morning I've been asking the same question to myself. 

Do i belong here?

Am so confused and dunno where will i get the answer.

Decisions maketh life.

I consider choosing my college was one of the crucial decisions of my life, though there are many...

I still remember. My mom told me to choose either of the 2 options, REC - CSE or PSG - ECE. From my childhood i was obsessed with REC. Dunno why. May be cos of my mom. She's from Trichy and used to recite many things about REC cos of house-proud. 

But at that moment, i chose PSG. Still am thinking why i opted for that? Cos of ECE fever that prevailed at that time? May be. 

But now am thinking what would I be if I chose REC. 

I may not be writing this blog, I may not be here, I may not have got my friends,.... There are lotsa may and may nots for what am now... 

Indirectly I've influenced someones' life as well.. Someone might have chosen this admit and his life might have changed... 

Something like what's happening in the movie "The Butterfly effect"...  watch it... You will see how a small decision of one person influences everyone around him... 

But i wanna know..  Had i chosen the other option, what would i be now? 

I know very well that, this is just an act of imbecility.... But am still searching for the answer.... 

Do I belong here

May be or may be not

Am i being insecure?

Am i troubled?

Am i scared?

May be or may be not

They know me

I know em

Do i have someone to be known?

May be or may be not

Am i the only one confused?

Have i felt this before?

Am i what i ought to be?

May be or may be not

I walk, I smile, I eat, I sleep, I cry,..

If not here

Somewhere I belong.

Iron Man

It was a Friday (02/13/09)...

I hate earlier part of Fridays... Timesheet, offshore hours matching, status report - i hate these words... Many times i used to think what is the need for these status report... யாருயா இதெல்லாம் கண்டு பிடிச்சது? Oh we need to see where we actually stand.... Crap... At the least to get rid of this i need to go back to India.... I thought of completing all this junk work before noon so that i could do some other rubbish work afternoon... At last completed everything before noon...

Post lunch session - If you don't have any useful work after lunch, then one can experience dreamless slumber.... Even if you try to concentrate on your monitor, you will just see tortoise mosquito coil whirling inside it... Yeah I had the same feeling.... I tried to hear some heavy metal rock to make me awake.. No use... None can fool the nature... At last i decided to intake some caffeine to stimulate my brain... I hate the way people make coffee here... No milk, no sugar, just the coffee extract... Else to dense the coffee they'll add something called "Non-dairy Creamer" which contains all the chemicals needed to harm your body.... I just thought how i used to drink coffee in my home... A glass full of thick unadulterated milk... 3 teaspoon full of sugar.... 1 spoon of bru instant coffee powder.... I always wanted the coffee in a stainless steel glass... To check the quality of the coffee.... I will gently tap the glass (with coffee) against the floor... The sound should be "dhakk"... If it's "dhanngg", that tells that the milk is watery... That coffee is rejected at once....

But now.... God.... Anyways I badly needed a coffee to kill my sleep... I went to the lunch room and started brewing coffee... There came "that" man... Let me tell something about him....
He's actually one of the senior most programmers here... He's in his late 50s... He's staying in the same community where am staying... I know that he's a biker and swimmer... And so he comes to office by his cycle... His manager has given him special permission to go for swimming during the office working hours... Nice manager huh? This man is really amiable... We used to call him as "thatha"...

To kill the silence, i just started the conversation,,,

Me : Hi.. How are you?

Him: Hey Pranav... Am pretty good... How are u?

M: Fine. Thanks. So what's ur plan for the weekend?

H: Weekend... O yeah... I have a triathlon competition this Saturday...

M: Triathlon? So what's it? (this shows my interest/knowledge in sports)

H: Oh.. that's cycling, running followed by swimming....

M: Really???? So everything at a stretch??

H: Yes... First 18 miles of cycling, 10 miles of running finally 1 mile of swimming....

M: @#$^%$&^& (just dumb founded expression)

H: But the good thing is this week's weather is better... During the last competition, the weather was too bad... The outside temp was 45'F.... And it was colder inside the water.. So when i swam, my fingers became numb... i couldn't even move my fingers.... i was wearing a sweat suit and that made me to keep my body warm... But i couldn't help with my fingers as i need to use it for swimming....

M: (My god).... That's really cool... Oh not the water... But... u see... the competition, the swimming... (just a jabber talk)....

H: Yes... It's really cool...

M: But are you allowed to take any break during triathlon????

H: Oh yeah yeah.... There will be lotsa crazy crowd to cheer us.... They will be providin us Gatorade and water to keep us not to get exhausted cos of dehydration.... And we can take some pit stops if we want... But those stops are also accountable...

M: Oh that's good... So you can even take a quick nap if you want :-) ???

H: Yeah... But you know.... Am so rude and i won't even stop.... I just grab the drink from them and just vanish from that place....

M: So non-stop??? 18 + 10 + 1 = 29 miles (nearly 47 KMs)....

H: Yeah yeah...

M: So how about the track??? Is it elevated or plain?

H: Sometimes it's hilly and sometimes it's a smooth way.... We need to endure all this to complete the race...

M: Am just curious... Since when, are you into this?

H: I had my first athletic event on September 1995.... So nearly 13+ years....

M: (I just calculated his age, 13 years before... so he might be in his late 40s...) Are you an athlete during your school/college days???

H: Not like a proper athlete.. But i used to participate in sprints during my school days....

M: Cycling and swimming?

H: I used to ride bikes when i was a kid and i didn't find any difficulty in riding bikes.... And swimming... I just love it....

M: (Even i used to go to my school using a cycle... what's the use? Even now, i can't ride a cycle more than 5 miles... ) So why did you start all this???

H: I just wanted to participate in triathlon... I decided it on Apr 1995 and i took my first try on September 1995 and am continuing it till now.....

M: This is just great... So good luck for the competition....

H: Thanks.. And you know.... We still have room for another competitor... Like to join???

M: ----------------------

Well you might have easily guessed my answer.... He just left the cafeteria saying the last sentence.... I just stood there awestruck and was thinking what i would be doing at his age (if am alive).... May be with my grand kids, reading newspapers,gardening (courtesy - tamil/hindi movies - this is what all gramps are doing in the movies)....

I was not at all feeling drowsy after that.... He woke me up.... I just learnt the following lessons from him...

1) No age limit to fulfill your passion

2) You just need inner propulsion to achieve your goal

For me, he's the "Iron Man"....

Love verse for Her

This is for UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

Everyday is my day

when you are with me to mend my way

I will walk u along the shore in the twilight

with your hand holdig mine tight

While the chilled sea touches our feet

as the sky covers us like a sheet

As we walk we feel the zephyr

which shower us more pleasure

I love to walk you miles

just to see your smiles

I haven't given u any love letter

but i have millions of unknown words to utter

And I will always be there for you!!!!!!!!

Rowthiram Pazhagu

Have you decided your next topic?

Hmmm... Still thinking.

Why?

In contrast to the first post i feel some difficulty in this.

What's that?

The first one was just a 'Yes/No' question. 

So?

But this question has multiple answers. Actually the answers are legion.

Oh fine dude... Just decide something...

Still thinking...

May be this???

Nope...

May be that???

No way... K fine... I've decided it.... Stop messing around....

I told that sometimes I feel astounded at certain things... This is one of em... To be precise this is just a snippet of a poem... 

"ROWTHIRAM PAZHAGU"

Most of us might have heard it somewhere. This is nothing but a snippet from Mahakavi Bharathiyar's "Puthiya Aathichudi". 

A few days back I was listening to the song "Acham thavir" from Anjathe. And suddenly there was a spark in my mind when I heard the line "Rowthiram Pazhagu".... Then i started analysing this....

Anger.... More often than not, one of the worst emotions and everybody hates that... Then my mind started rolling few years back...

During my school days my mom used to (and still) recite(s) that her elder son (yeah that's me) is a calmmmmmmmmm and quiet guy who seldom gets angry and my brother is really splenetic... 

So in general everybody likes a calm guy... But why did such a pioneer, a prodigy and a great intellect like Mahakavi ask us to practice or learn to be angry... That perplexed me a lot... So I came to a conclusion that am not getting the actual meaning that was connoted...

I tried to analyse this further.... After many hours of cerebration I got the real meaning.. Or at the least I just got a convincing meaning... 

Many of us doesn't know that each and every human emotion is a source of energy. We'll do extraordinary and unusual things whenever we are drenched in any of the emotions...

E.g :  Your friends may be pestering you for a treat for no good reason. But if a gal (whom you are ogling for a very long time) just gives a glimpse and if the same friend asks you for a treat at that time... That's it.. Like Alaipayuthey madhavan... "Ava enna pathutta!!!! Enna pathu sirichutta!!!!!!! Heyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!"..... 

The answer is none other than "Yes"...

This is nothing but a mere imbecility.... 

Yeah and i don't have better example :-(

So whenever we are happy, sad, angry, etc enormous amount of energy flows throw our body with the help of adrenalin and make us to do wonders... 

Mahakavi got this instinct well before the cyber age and crafted a very beautiful poem... 

So when we are happy, we'll try to make others happy. When we are sad, we try to share our melancholy with our friends,family to half the sadness...

But what do we do if we get angry??? Fine... Let me rephrase the question. What will I do if am angry?

Either I will let my anger go by reciprocating it right away with much more rage...

Or I will keep it inside me and worry about it often...

Am doing a very big mistake here.... Both the approaches are fallacious... In the first one am just letting my whole energy to drain at some trivial things... In the second approach am not at all using the energy... 

So what should i do now?

Lemme think... When will you get angry? 

When something/somebody insults me, during some failures, when something/somebody acts against my wish....

Lemme do this...

Whenever such things happen, do not let your energy drain into some petty things... Whenever someone insults you , just keep it inside... Experience it, Feel it, suffer it and take right steps to win it... To endure this we need abundant energy and that will come from our anger.... This is what they call as "Controlled Anger". 

And this is what Mahakavi wants us to understand.... Turning a negative point/weakness to 100% positive point...

And finally i got the gist of the snippet....

"Controlled anger is the best source of energy and great success"...

And I was thinking about all these sitting in front of my computer doing nothing and oh god am in my office... I just made sure that none is looking at me... Thank god, else everyone will think that am such a schmuck... 

I didn't even know how much time i spent on this but i never regretted for the lost time as I got an useful tip... 

Hollooooooooooo and i just finished my second post.....