Hobbies I wish to get back to!

A few days back while gazing idly at my computer (at work), my mind aimlessly wandering over minute details on the screen. I realized.. I was clearly jobless. There was no work to do at the moment and new work wasn't going to come any sooner either. The very idea of doing something constructive just to while away time, simply exhausted me.. I reminisced those days where I used to devote my time on cultivating new hobbies and sticking to them. They were a perfect escape to any sort of monotony my life would come across. Its high time I got back to them, so as a written promise to myself.. Here's a list of hobbies I wish.. no vow to get back to!

1. Reading Novels

That joy of losing yourself in a comforting paperback, where nothing else in the world matters except for you and your book. Your troubles fade away instantly and your focus revolves around the plot, gradually the mind drifts to another world.. A happy place!

2. Sketching 

Although a clear amateur that I am, creating works of art and beauty on a paper is a delightful experience to all. Bringing life to a portrait with every stroke at a painstaking detail is like watching magic unfold before your eyes. 

3. Dancing 

Why wait for a party or an occasion to work those stiff muscles up? A beautiful art that can make your woes disappear, let the music take over your body, please your soul and make you sway.. because child ..

“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.” so get up and DANCE!!

4. Playing the keyboard

Again.. a complete beginner but with an avid sense of hope to do better. Just the feeling of distinguishing one key from another and letting your fingers do the magic, with every note of music you achieve a sense of joy.. simply priceless.

5. Making friends

There comes a point in everyone's life where people get comfortable in their own space (or zone as many would like to call it) where things like eating or having coffee all by yourself is not a problem anymore, just a few friends in your vicinity to gossip once in a while and make weekend plans with, and you suddenly realize your life is stuck in a vicious box ready to suffocate you to death. I say, better break that box of your inhibitions, meet more people and add color to your life.

The Two Sides To Practicality

Being practical, as the oxford dictionary likes to call it "A sensible and realistic approach to a situation or problem". Now Realistic, I agree, because no problem can be solved hypothetically! But sensible, now that's where I wonder.. When someone is being practical they are actually mostly numbing down their senses, say their emotions (how it might affect me, the world and yada yada), prejudices, instincts (that gut feeling you can't ward off) and a lot of other things which comes in the way of a logical solution to the problem. Many a time, practical thinkers have been branded as head strong, moral less or sometimes even soul less! Various situations get various names and it’s mainly pointed out by the ones who bear the brunt of this practicality. The practical being himself is however unscathed, his interlude of logical thinking being an easy mask for his own selfish purposes or escaping a pang of guilt and sorrow, thereby following the mantra "You forget your emotional side for once and get drawn to just plain old logic"

Practicality when accepted as a way of life, often lessens the scars of emotional trauma and the meaningless taunts your pessimistic mind sometimes hurls at you; such people most often don't regret their decisions or their outcomes. If followed it until their death, they mostly die with no regrets. Eventually, it has its own pros and cons. So what would you prefer?

A random chat with my 11yr old self!

Off late I have been obsessed with the concept of time travel, courtesy too many sci-fi movies on the similar lines! The other day while sorting out some of my old pictures, I gazed at myself during my 'awkward phase' of growth, that stupid grin and hideous sense of fashion (how I envy the kids today!) completely unaware or bothered about how her life would turn up. I instantly wished I could go back in time and talk to this care free girl. Just to probably know how my mind worked about 12 yrs back and maybe give some tips on better dressing and zit control! Since time traveling is not possible, or at least, not yet.. I figured, I can definitely write about this, after all everything is possible in the amazing world of literature!

So here it goes, conversation with my 11 year old self.

Present me- Hi there! umm OK, before you cream me with one of your newly learnt Karate moves.. its me Neha, I mean you, I mean you 12 years in the future.

11yr old me- Huh? I hope this is a dream! Yup I'm definitely dreaming.. so I'll keep away the ideas of attacking you.. So, how are you and most importantly what are you doing?

Present me- I'm doing good, well right now.. working in a software company.

11yr old me- Software? but we don't even like computers! Don't you remember that horrible computer teacher and her impositions! I thought we resolved to not go on the same path!

Present me- That was a long time ago, well.. atleast for me.. and IT is fun you will like it eventually.

11yr old me- But, but I thought our dream field was Biotech! Did you ditch that finally?

Present me- Hmm, I did.. until recently, but there were other issues and finally ambition had to take the back seat.

11yr old me- Are you kidding me? So you did follow our dream till the very last and gave up finally? Wow.. you suck!

Present me- Shut up! Do you even know anything about the passion you just grew so fond of?

11yr old me- Of course I do! 'Biotechnology is the science of creation of.."

Present me- Gosh stop it! you and I both know that definition is made up! It's just some random Hi-fi sounding biological terms which vaguely talk about cloning!

11yr old me- Huh! Atleast I am passionate about something, I have an aim!

Present me- Aim of what? Cloning humans and sending them to the 'Bermuda Triangle'? Not only is that very unethical and absurd but also impossible!

11yr old me- What? you can't clone a human being?

Present me- Nada..simply impossible, just like your chances of ever getting that admission letter from 'Hogwarts!'

11yr old me- Psshh (rolling eyes) I knew that!

Present me- Yeah right! but yeah please don't lose heart and stop following your dreams.

11yr old me- I'll do that, like I have a choice anyway!

Present me- Alright I will have to leave now, please stop wearing those hideous t-shirts, you'll thank me for that. Also, if you don't quit performing surgeries on those zits with your bare hands, you will regret it!

11yr old me- Aren't you a mother! Why don't you try improving your sorry state of life. Seriously, its no fun for me to work hard and end up like THAT!

Present me- Sheesh, I don't take advices from kids!

11yr old me- Haha right! You do realize that I am a figment of your imagination! So basically your imagination is an equivalent of a 11yr old!

Present me- Darn! Why can't you just play along! You called it dream isn't it?

11yr old me- Oh right OK.. So just for curiosity's sake.. Do you get to meet the love of your.. I mean, Our life?

Present me- Haha, that.... I will let you figure out eventually! ;)

Mind Games! -- Part 2

Dear Mind –Gaming  Boss,

Like any other bunch of excited newbies we were super kicked about finally entering the corporate world.. set aside the warning signs and countless advises we kept a positive outlook towards this new environment, bustling with an enthusiasm quotient equivalent of a puppy’s! However, we doubt you even bothered to notice all this.. it being pretty much of a yearly routine, you’re evidently apathetic to any rookie behavior. So you carry on with an air of ‘managerial’ experience until some delusional rookie makes a mistake of asking about the nature of his work or even worse, his pay! Oh the nerve! So this follows by you ruthlessly dodging us and when confronted anyways, simply waving us off by a mind boggling answer which would actually turn out to be totally bogus and irrelevant.

What really baffles us, is that, this very trait in particular is so common among people up at the management side.. its almost as if you had classes (and I’m taking about Mind gaming 101 sorts!) teaching you this wicked witch craft. If god forbid this does turn out to be true, then you better find a safe place to hide, because we are watching and we are learning, we will climb the ladder soon (probably by attending the same B- school you had gone to or better!) Maybe even teach you how it is to really be a good boss, by simply 'managing' the people who work for you. Ever considered that?

Sincerely,
Your 'rookie' (but not for long) employees!

Mind Games!-- Part 1

Dear Mind-Gamers,

So we started off  like any other story in the world.. as strangers, then getting acquainted to each other, lots of random chatter, en route to a decent enough friendship with room for slightly more. Your actions were being sweetly predictable and that was a relief, until you decided to turn around and fall back to square one! Leaving us stumped and doubting our own judgement, little did we know it a was just a brainchild of your boredom, perhaps to 'spice up' your otherwise mundane life, maybe you were done with all the board games and decided to 'up' the level. We were glumly trapped at your whims.. while you decided to play games with our feelings, falling back and forth like a yo-yo, your actions turning hot and cold at the drop of a dime! Its actually your good fortune that nobody has thrown a chair at you in frustration.. yet.. but the time will come, people are bound to get tired of guessing your next move, eventually stop reacting to your inadvertent pretense and you'll finally get beaten at your own game. The so- called exciting labyrinth of your thought process will just come to an unheralded close, when someone finally comes to you and says, my friend its high time you 'Grew Up!'

Sincerely,

Confused souls (who very soon won't give a damn)

Haunting Silence

Many of you might have come across a phase in your daily life where everything goes quiet, not only from the outside, now that’s pretty easy to achieve, but from the inside too! The incessant chatter in your brain gradually numbs down and at some point shuts off.. To many, this might be quiet eerie at the beginning,  like an invisible cord of communication being cut off from the world and yourself, to not have a voice inside your head telling you what to do or what you are thinking, just random images flashing here and there and now gradually blurring off. Perhaps unnerving to some, where we tend to speculate that this muted state might be the calm before an upcoming storm or some optimists might take it as a moment of peace and tranquility. Whatever the connotation might be, we still expect this silence to last for a short duration and hope for the normal jargon of life to reappear. Somehow, no one allows silence to engulf them, like it belongs to something still and lifeless. Ironically, its inner peace and quiet that are on the wishlist of most humans, but we still can’t tolerate it after a while. Almost satirical to see a rather harmless state of nature, daunting the human minds.

Cats!!

Alright, the title says it all .. reading this post is solely at your risk! Because, its all about my long and annoying obsession with cats! Yes, the slender feline (ahem angel-like) creatures that melt your heart with their cute furriness. If by now you've concluded that this is a pointless post to spend your precious joblessness on, then now maybe the right time to switch to some other mundane task your boring life might fancy!
Now coming back to my obsession, when I tried to jog through my memory to find out when exactly this crept into me, I couldn't remember a specific instance, until I saw my dear mother canoodling a cat in her arms.. and then it struck me.. the epiphany.. its in my blood! These wonderful creatures have crept into our little hearts from generations now! Although the good part of it is that they have gotten way cuter over the time. I realized my compulsion with cats has become a little..well..(creepy?) now. I mean, six cats? Whoa. xP And thanks to them, I have gotten the unique ability of speaking their "language" too. Oh yeah, I speak cat. \m/ And this just makes me actualize how Gangnam style would've been a much bigger hit if cats would have not only sung it, but danced on it too. Awesomeness Catified. (Those of you still reading this..no, I did not hit my head.... I think.) So to all you cat lovers out there, a big, fat....MEOW! :D

P.S- Feel free to share your cat stories here, cause you know you wont be able to do that anywhere else!