Happiness

Shaz wrote this on 14th April 2008, but did not publish it.
Don't know whether doing right or wrong, just felt like sharing it with his friends...

Happiness
- is thing of past
- is present
- is not future

What was the last time you were happy?
- You got a deserved promotion or an unexpected promotion
- You had your first baby in your arms and your wife lay smiling on the bed in hospital looking at you both
- You met your family after a period of 10 long months
- You had the proposal of your life
- You made love to your dearest one
- You cuddled your dog in your arms
- You saw the whole world from 14000 ft above the ground from a parachute
- You won a player of the game award by defeating an undefeatable team
- You got your visa filed successfully and you are all set to travel abroad
- You spent the entire week’s vacation all away from tensions and challenges
- You climbed the whole 800ft mountain and reached the pinnacle of it
What else…
- You got married to whom you desired to marry
- You got your code working and received accolades
- You got admission to a B-School from where you see your future going great guns
- You got a new job at a place very close to your home with no loss on other aspects

Omelette

How many omelettes have you made till date? Good, if you don’t remember exact the figure. To be frank, till date, I have hardly made 20. Still I’ll take the praise of making them taste good.

After having more than 27 years of experience in life, I believe that there are many things which can be brought back to their lost shape. If you have gained weight, you can reduce it with little effort and self determination. If you have increased your waist size, that too can be brought back to normal.
The other day, I was walking past my television, and because of my sheer restlessness, the crystal piece kept over my television fell and broke into pieces. I cursed myself to have broken 1.5 grants worth crystal piece. Next day I got the glue from the market and fixed it. Great, it looked quite similar to the original.

Even relationships can be brought back to normal with ingredients like honesty, the word ‘sorry’ and promises for not repeating such mistakes in future. My neighbor is a family person, with a wife and two kids in his family. We are three guys sharing an apartment situated right below his apartment. We all three are in the age group of 25-27 years. What do you expect from 3 young guns? We sit quietly in our apartment? We don’t talk to our friends on phone in our balcony? We don’t play loud music to pump up our adrenaline? We don’t celebrate birthday parties in our apartment sitting late night with some friends? We don’t jam with guitar and our melodious vocals? Well, to the inconvenience of our dear neighbor, we did all this. He complained about the same to the apartment authorities and to our landlord. My landlord checked with me if there is a problem. I accepted mistake on behalf of all my mates and on further request of my landlord, I met and talked out the matter with the neighbor. He was pleased that I accepted my mistake and my promises sounded convincing to him. Relationship patched up.
Some time back, some crazy biker banged his bike into my friend’s car from behind. The car’s back bumper came off. I’ll keep this instance short. My mate got the bumper replaced. Car was back to normal!! Even biker’s wounds were gone in a couple of weeks. We came to know about him when we met him later.

So, where is the omelette?
Last time I made omelette, its shape was a perfect round, like a pancake. It looked too awesome. I was happy to cook it in shape. It tasted equally good. Preparing omelettes in their perfect round shape needs a lot of patience.
Today was no different day. I was cooking omelette with all my patience and determination. Everything was going fine, but the damn 'son of a hen' (or daughter, I am not sure what it was), broke in between into three jigsaw puzzle pieces, while I was turning it the other side. No problem. I tried my best to put the jigsaw puzzle pieces back into shape, but they were not ready to come back. As if the pieces have become magnetic and I am trying to join the same poles together, they just did not get along together. Well, it didn’t taste any different.
But after this entire struggle, I recalled, that not everything can be brought back to shape/normality.

To move on with life, it needs a lot of patience and determination from a person. We should never lose our patience in between and should always keep on trying. If not all, somethings can definitely be brought back to shape and normality.

Bon Appetit!!

Thieves and Hypocrites

Saludo

I have read a lot of movie and song reviews by bloggers. People also like to pick up famous quotations from known writers which mean a lot to them. For example, "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." by Paulo Coelho.

Here is something which I picked -

I cannot take this anymore, saying everything I've said before
All these words they make no sense, I find bliss in ignorance
Less I hear the less YOU'LL say, YOU'LL find that out anyway…
- From the song “One step closer to the end” from album “One step closer” in 2001

Every step that I take is another mistake to YOU
- From the song “Numb” from album “Meteora” in 2003

YOU promise me the sky, then toss me like a stone
YOU wrap me in your arms, and chill me to the bone
There's truth in your lies…doubt in your faith
So I… I won't be the one, be the one to leave this… In pieces
And YOU…YOU will be alone, alone with all your secrets, and regrets
Don't lie!!
- From the song “In Pieces” from album “Minutes to Midnight” in 2007

Crawling in my skin, these wounds…they will not heal…
- From the song “Crawling” from album “Hybrid Theory” in 2000

I've tried like YOU
To do everything YOU wanted too
This is the last time
I'll take the blame for the sake of being with YOU
- From the song “Pushes me away” from album “Minutes to Midnight” in 2007

And I know - I may end up failing too
But I know - YOU were just like me with someone disappointed in YOU..
I've become so numb I can't feel YOU there
Become so tired so much more aware…I'm becoming this
All I want to do…is be more like me and be less like YOU
- From the song “Numb” from album “Meteora” in 2003

I don’t want to be the one, the battles always choose
'Cause inside I realize, that I'm the one confused
- From the song “Breaking the habits” from album “Meteora” in 2003

Take everything from the inside and throw it all away
’Cause I swear for the last time I won't trust myself with YOU
- From the song “From the inside” from album “Meteora” in 2003

I put my trust in YOU, pushed as far as I can go
and for all this, there's only one thing YOU should know...
I tried so hard and got so far, in the end, it doesn't even matter...
I had to fall...to lose it all, in the end, it doesn't even matter...
- From the song “In the End” from album “Hybrid Theory” in 2000

Forgetting - All the hurt inside YOU'VE learned to hide so well
Pretending - Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can't be who YOU are
- From the song “Leave back all the rest” from album “Minutes to Midnight” in 2007

Sometimes solutions aren't so simple, sometimes goodbye's the only way...
- From the song “Shadow of the day” from album “Minutes to Midnight” in 2007

What I've done - I start again
And whatever pain may come
Today this ends…
I'm forgiving what I've done!!!
- From the song “What I’ve done” from album “Minutes to Midnight” in 2007


If you could not guess it till now, these are some of the lines from Linkin Park compositons which I like the most. From the day when I first listened to them, every single line of their compositions, someway or the other hover around me...

Hasta Luego

P.S - The heading of the blog is from song "No more sorrow" from "Minutes to Midnight"

Forever 27

I know, this is my second blog inside a week's time. But I could not resist myself to not to write this..

For those who do not know, there is a popular term among Rock stars and fans... Forever 27 club. It has nothing to do with the devil's number 666, or a 13th day of the month as Friday, or 12 midnight... its worse than all...
This is a club formed by some the best composers in the history of rock, who died at the age of 27. And the reason of their deaths is still a mystery.

5 great rocks stars - Brian Jones (founder of the group Rolling Stones), Jimi Hendrix (best guitarist ever), Janis Joplin (Lead Vocalist for Big Brother and The Holding Company), Jim Morrison (Lead Singer of The Doors) and one and only Kurt Cobain (Lead vocalist, guitarist and song composer of Nirvana) - died at the age of 27. The club also includes another 30 well-known musicians.

Well, there is an astrological reason for this too...(though I hate to believe in astrology)... this has something to do with the mighty planet - Saturn. Saturn takes about 29.5 years for a complete revolution around Sun. When it returns at the same angle it was at the time of person's birth, it is termed as 'Saturn Return'.
Well, according to astrology, poor Saturn is considered to be associated with doubt, confusion and all negative aspects of life.. 'Saturn returns' for each person at the age group of 27-30. So, when a person reaches the age of 30, it is considered to be the 'true beginning' of adulthood. (Astrology can make anyone look so stupid..what's the mistake of that wonderful creation of almighty?)..anyways...

All the 5 stars, reached to the pinnacle of their career during this age. They had a huge fan brigade and people still love their creations. I myself is a big fan of Kurt. I remember we met this lady at the Indianapolis road show, a day before 2006 Formula 1 championship. My pal was wearing a Tee which had Kurt's face on it. And she said that she attended the concert which Kurt last played and some days later, she got the news that Kurt was dead. She said that she cried a lot. She still admires Kurt. Kurt's last words in the suicidal note read 'it's better to burn out than to fade away'.. and he got 27'd.

No one in the present world can play guitar like Jimi Hendrix played. He is the God for all the rock guitarists on earth. He is still remembered for all of his compositions and I can only dream of playing my 6 stringed monster like Jimi.

The others too have a significant place in the history. And they will remain alive in our hearts forever.


Bis spater

Friends, I'll be celebrating my 27th birthday on July 12th... so don't forget to wish me :-)
...and remember...this is just a blog :)

The Two Towers - Travelogue of Gorakhgad Trek

In the vicinity of Karjat, are very beautiful forts which were conquered by Shivaji. These forts were made on various mountains which are a part of Sahyadri range. We decided to climb one such mountain, Gorakhgad.
Our journey started when we all finalized that we will climb this mountain on the night of 4th July. First big challenge for me was to get up at 4.45 in the morning and reach at Nik's place where I can park my car. I had already missed Kamalgad trek last weekend and Junky had no hope that I will be waking up this time too. With lots of excitement filled in me, I was not going to miss this one. I woke at 4.45, got ready and reached Nik's place at 5.30. Nik saw that I was carrying a camera, he quickly asked if I had polybags with me. I hadn't. He rushed inside his home to get me two polybags. I parked the car and accompanied Nik to Shivaji Nagar Rly Station. There I met my fellow trekkers – Ninad, Richa, Kunal and of course…Junky. We boarded the Deccan Exp at 6:05 AM. Inside train, we all came to know about each other. Our talks were like that Antakshari, where one team has to sing a song starting with the word they pick up from the song sung by another team. There was lots of humor around.
We reached Karjat at 8.45 AM. While we all did breakfast, Nik was trying to find out a way to Masah. Nik called us and asked us to rush as the only bus towards Masah was about to leave. We rushed towards the Bus station and got into the bus. We reached Kashede village (around 20 Kms from Karjat) in about 30 mins. From there we got into another bus to Masah (another 22 Kms). In about 40 mins, we were at Masah. From Masah, we got into a Jeep (capacity of 11, carrying 16) that dropped us at Dehri village (around 13 Kms from Masah). Throughout this journey from Masah to Dehri, Gorakhgad and Machindragad were standing tall in front of us. We also saw another fort Siddhgad (our fuftre trek). We reached Dehri at 10.20 AM.
We all 6 stood in front of those two mighty ancient towers. And we were all set to roar with all enthusiasm.
Machindragad and Gorakhgad were two watch towers for the fort Siddhgad. While Siddhgad was conquered by Shivaji, Gorakhgad and Machindragad were never conquered. Later on I came to know that why are they called Gorakh and Machindra. According to Hindu mythology, there was a saint Gorakh Parasad. He was very much determined to his tapasya. To break his tapasya, he was lured by some beautiful angels. At this time, Maya Machindra, one of the biggest followers of Gorakh Baba, came to his Baba's help in completing him his tapsya. So, the towers are named after these two ancient icons. Because Baba was Machindra's teacher, the taller of the two towers is Gorakhgad and smaller one is Machindragad. There is another place in India named after Gorakh Prasad Baba – Gorakhpur.
Nik and Junky were the most experienced of us all in trekking. So, they have this protocol in between them that one of the two will head the trek and another will be at the end. From time to time, the one heading will try to take a glimpse of the one trailing and this ensures that everyone in between is safe. To reach to the top of Gorakhgad, we had to cross 2 small mountains and then climb the last one. First mountain was very tiring for most of us, but a small descend to the base of the second mountain, gave us back our breath. Second mountain was comparatively easier than first one though the terrain appeared more difficult. It took us directly to the base of the Third part. There is a small temple at the start of the third terrain. This terrain is all made up of steps of rock. These steps were not that simple to climb. As we started our ascend to the third part, 'it started raining like dog'(c) (This sentence and its hindi meaning 'Kutta Barish' has been patented by the 6 Gorakhgad trekkers on 5th July 2008 at 11.30 AM. If you want to use this expression or its meaning, please pay a charge of Rs. 120 to Mr. Nik) ;-). We reached to an open door after a lot of struggle. Junky showed us another set of steps and they were huge, and said, that there's still more to come. After climbing those huge steps, we reached to an open area from where we could clearly see Machindragad and Siddhgad fort. This site was so beautiful. It looked as if we are in heaven. We could see all shades of color green. Far away, there was a waterfall falling from Siddhgad fort. Machindragad look awesome as it wore the shawl of greenery. We did some photography there. If I forgot to tell this before, but this was only because of Nik's experience that I could wrap my SLR into polybags, so it didn't get spoiled. Everytime I covered my camera with polybag, I thanked Nik.
As we moved ahead, we came across a big cave. This cave was used by soldiers of ancient times to sleep and to cook. While crossing this patch, first time I realized that I had made a wrong selection of shoes. My woodlands were good for patches where it was muddy or on dry rock. But they were not meant to climb a rock which was wet and slippery. Still I crossed a horizontal patch with the help of Junky. Now we reached a point where there were all rocky steps to the top, almost at 80 degrees inclination. This was going to be no less than a rock climbing. It was raining heavily at this point. Everyone climbed the first part with lots and lots of tries. I was the last one remaining. I started climbing this part but once my shoe slipped and I lost control. I pushed my self from against the rock and jumped down 2ft. On a normal day, 2ft jump might be simple to make, but when you have trekked for 2 continuous hours and all tired and on the top of that you are having those 2 kilos of hard rock sole on your feet, it pains to jump 2ft. I tried once more to climb this part. Junky helped me and I could finally climb it. Then I climbed another 100 ft patch with Junky. I decided at this point, that I should not go ahead on the last patch. I might be very brave, having lots of confidence and not at all afraid of height, but it was not feasible enough to climb slippery rocks with rock hard shoe soles and I wanted to be a part of more treks in future :-). I retreated back. Junky came down to drop me and went back to the top. I waited just below the rock climbing patch for my fellow trekkers to return. During all this time, I zoomed on at Machindragad with my SLR, I clicked whole valley. With rains replaced by beautiful rays of sun, the valley looked very pretty and Machindragad shone like a diamond in this valley. After a while, I saw my friends coming back. And I was happy to see them all. They explained that how beautiful the valley looked from the top, I could imagine what they were telling. It was not raining now; we quickly made our way down to a point from where the rocky part started. We sat there and in front of this beautiful view of Siddhgad and Machindragad, we had our lunch. Ninad and Junky had got Theplay and pickle. We were so hungry that we ate all the Theplay and other junk food we had. Now we started our journey back to Dehri village. Ascending a trek is tiring, descending the trek is more tiring as impact of the full body weight is directly on the toes and fingers. I slipped thrice while coming down (not sure about others), but all the time, I was able to regain my control. We reached the base village in less than an hour's time. We were supposed to board a jeep till Masah. But all the jeeps that came were jam packed. We could not find any place to sit so we lay down on the road itself. After sometime, Nik got us arranged a special jeep which will drop us till Masah. Jeep was there in no time. After reaching Masah, we were waiting for the bus. At that time we saw a Trailer Truck coming. We asked if he could drop us till Karjat. He agreed. Wow!! The adventure was not yet over!! It felt so huge sitting inside a Trailer truck. Though it was tiring and not the best journey, but it was the fastest. Trailer dropped us at Karjat and we walked till Railway station. After hogging on Water gourd and tea, we boarded the train at 7.45 PM. Initially we had to stand for about half an hour but we soon got seats. We reached Pune at about 10 PM. We were back home - safe and sound.
We wish to return to trek Machindragad in future, but its terrain is lot more difficult than Gorakhgad and it cannot be done without equipments (required for rock climbing). Also, I will no more wear woodlands on treks unless it is in snow!!
As I write this log, the image of those mighty towers standing tall and handsome, flashes in front of my eyes. Each and every of God's creation on this planet is very beautiful. We think about heaven and how beautiful it would be, but – 'agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen-ast…hameen asta, o hameen asta, o hameen asta'…
Bis Spater
P.S.: If you want to see the whole lot of snaps, please visit the folloing link - http://picasaweb.google.com/shaz.garg/Gorakhgad?authkey=DJkXaZ44jCc

Dream on

Sing with me, sing for the years
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if its just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away.. Dream on, dream on..

These are the lyrics of one of the best songs of America's best classic rock band 'Aerosmith'.

I really don't understand, how and why we get all these dreams. Ya, there are scientific reasons why we get dreams, but is the almighty trying to tell you something? Or, is it just because of stress..

I will classify our lives into three categories - Professional-reality, Personal-reality and Personal-dreams. Professional-reality life usually goes on with work. Its similar kindda work most of the times, so we tend to get bored. Personal-reality, is the real life we are living. It gives us happiness, sadness, challenges, and blah blah blah...
Personal-dreams is the life, which is interesting...only interesting!! You see, what you cannot do. You feel, what you cannot feel because of hard circumstances in real life... You achieve, what you may achieve in another 25 years. You reach a place, where you may not even plan of going in this life...

Some days before, I saw a dream that my GM in the new company has fired me from the company because she didn't find me worth the job. I was so afraid and sad... and then I woke up and realized that I was dreaming. I said to myself, I will never let this happen and work even harder. I was telling this to my roomy and in reply, he told me what he dreamt.. He was in possession of Kohinoor diamond and he had kept it in his office bag. Whole world knew the whereabouts of this..and everyone is after his life...he is running like a Don(spider man/superman) here and there, trying to save it...suddenly his alarm woke him up. We laughed out loud (one of the best mornings I've ever had!!). He is still to see the part 2 of this and I am waiting eagerly too!!

Sometimes we dream of beautiful life with someone. We keep on running after this dream so we can bring it to reality...but we forget, that it is just a dream..its a personal-dream life... not personal-reality life. History has witnessed some of the very important dreams for humanity welfare which came true. A trip to moon, was a dream, and we achieved it. But this was not easy. We had to be daring enough to realize this dream to reality.

The Alchemist, a book by famous writer Paulo Coelho, tells us that dreams are achievable, but we have to try hard to bring them to reality, sometimes, we have fight for them...the end result becomes an achievement of life. If we are unable to achieve them and we leave them in between, end result becomes a failure of life.

I guess I am deviating from the fun part :-)

Coming back to track...Professional-reality and Personal-reality are controllable, but Personal-dream is not in our hands. If its a beautiful dream and it breaks in between, we feel sad. If its a bad dream and it breaks in between, we feel happy..in both the cases, its only personal-reality that tells us, what we are and what we need to do...

But there is no comparison of Personal-dream life :-)

So,
Dream on, dream on
Dream yourself a dream come true
Dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on...

Tiny Villa

Ever imagined, we have been looked upon by someone? Someone who can hear us, someone who wants to talk to us, someone as big as an elephant? Well, all those who have seen this movie, you got it right. I am inspired by the idea of the latest animated movie, 'Horton hears a Who'. For those, who haven't seen, Horton is an elephant and there is a small town on the seed of a clover, Whoseville, where lives very very tiny little world of creature who call themselves as 'Who'. They are unaware that Horton can hear them. But Horton makes them hear himself and finally saves the Whoseville from being eaten/destroyed by someone in his world.

But, I am not going to discuss the movie. Its definitely a great idea.

Imagine, where we are sitting right now is a very very small bed. Or, lets take it this way... our avg height is 1.7 m and there is someone whose hieght is 874310894522907543109875121110978993017890561665110931904567910809011234770900000 m (don't try to convert it..it took me a whole minute to reach to this figure, and don't ask me how I reached to this!!). And the diameter of this creature is proportional to its hieght. Wow..!! I'll call him - Tiny. And Tiny is a small child and its Mom and Dad are bigger than it. They have their own world. They have their own laptops, they have their own bread to eat (how big that piece of bread would be!!?), they have everything what we have and may be more than that.

We get the earthquakes, because that creature is moving and our space tries to put that pressure on us. Meteors hit our planets because some very small pieces of dirt falls from their world into ours.

You might be wondering what the hell am I trying to make you imagine? We have already explored the universe till Saturn and have identified so many stars, so many light years away from us. But imagine, that this whole universe is inside a single piece of a marble. And there are so many marbles up above somewhere. And Tiny...it playes with these marbles!! We are not impacted by the sudden impact that is produced by the bang of two marbles as what happens in our world happens at a very very less pace. Tiny and its world is too fast. May be much faster than the speed of light (I could relate the speed of Tiny's world with the speed of light, as that is the only fastest thing that I have been told since my birth..may be there are speeds faster than light..).
Now I feel very small. I look outside at a land rover on the road. Its not big. It might be bigger for me but its very very ...very very small for Tiny.

We are striding to develop everything small for us, compact. But we have to think BIG create this small thing. We might not be as big as Tiny, but we can think, we can imagine as big as the world for Tiny would be or more than that..

Imagine...