Acceptance?

Remember the old school days?
Remember the time when you used to pen down in slam books “Friends Forever”?
Remember the times when you felt things would always be the same?
Remember how u thought you'd never realized that couldn't really hold?
Remember when you came to Pilani?
Remember when you thought “Soon I’ll be out of this place” and smiled?
Remember when you thought four years would make no difference to life?
Remember when things changed?
Remember how you met the people who did make a difference to your life?
Remember how the place meant more to you than any other?
Remember how the bonds with people just kept getting stronger and stronger?
Remember the precious few who you realized you’d have a tough time without?
Remember how four years passed like four weeks?
Remember when you thought “Soon I’ll be out of this place” and cried?
Remember the times when you felt things would never be the same?
Remember how you told yourself “It’ll be OK” without believing it?
Remember when you told others “It’ll be OK” wanting them to believe it?
Remember how you knew nothing would be?
Remember how you hoped everything would be?
Remember how you realized “the best days of my life” was an understatement?
Remember life as we knew it?
Remember?

And then Winamp plays this for me:

There’s so many different worlds

So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

-Brothers in Arms, Dire Straits

Music… and a lot more…

Today morning I was sitting at my desk trying (as usual) to make sense out of the hexadecimals spread across the screen. The minimum interest I show in it is due to the fact that dear faithful Winamp runs constantly in the background. Nothing better than hitting the shuffle button and letting the songs play one after the other, not caring which comes next and letting randomness rule! And this is what has made me listen to songs on my playlist which probably never hit the top of the charts, but nevertheless, ones which you can relate to so much. Three weeks ago I heard this:

All that you reason
All that you care
You've got to leave it behind
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much but you have to
Walk on…

- Walk On, U2

Maybe it was because I was in such a “phase” then, but it really struck a chord. And that made me listen to more songs of the band. First there are bands and singers who sing volumes about love and the things it has done for them. And I have also been an admirer of most of them. I’ve happily sung MLTR, Bryan Adams, Boyzone and lots more… and I still do. Definitely the softest and strongest emotion on earth demands so much attention! :) And then there is Metallica, GNR, Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd who have defined my rock music.
And then U2, who dares to experiment like no one ever has. Each song I listen to makes me realize how different all their songs are, and how much they have worked towards that difference. It hadn’t taken me long to sing along with With or Without You (thanks: Soundz@BITS, Pilani!), and I don’t suppose many could ignore that song. But now there are many more that I cannot ignore… One, The Sweetest Thing, All I Want is You, Walk On… the list has plenty. In fact, this made me listen to entire albums The Joshua Tree (’87) and Achtung Baby (’91). (For the beginners, let me suggest you listen to U2: The Best of 1980-1990) Awesome music, but what made me even more of a fan was the lyrics. Awesome, again. Over the last three weeks, Bono and U2 have become very much a part of my daily “cubed” life... time to tell Ojas, my wingie-U2-die-hard: “Now I know what you see in them!” :)

Fresher no more?

The best gift that you can be given is to get used to the changes that happen around you. From the studious and focused student up till 10th, the drastic school-hostel split personality in 11th and the 12th, the hater of tests in Pilani, to the city corporate here in Bangalore, that is where learning to live life shows itself to me as the most important thing around you.

But how easy is it to get used to changes? “Why is it even a problem?” would have been my quickfire question back three or four years ago. Now it’s not so easy to ask such a question or give a similar discarding answer. And it took me four years in a place with a temperature range of over 50 degrees to realize that. 333031 has changed me in more ways than I thought could be possible. It is now the life of yesteryear, but it stays with me today, and surely will for many a distant tomorrow.

And then the corporate started, and it was, to say the least, promising. Two months into work I lost the “fresher” feeling. Two more months later this was how life was to take its course. Come December 2005, and the change was starting to sink in again. Two weeks later everything had changed. A new job came up, and there was now a tough choice to make. Is it that life doesn’t let you settle for the easier choices? Or is it that after you’ve made them, the other seems to have been the easier choice? I try not to think too much about that. But as I see things now, change is around the corner again. One month later I will no longer be sitting in my comfortable blue-and-grey cube typing out code and verifying their outputs (didn’t I say that was extremely boring sometime earlier? I still choose not to change my mind, but heaven knows what awaits me next!), and what I will be doing is tomorrow I have no idea about.

And the people around you? How will you get used to never seeing them again, get used to the fact that you’ll be having an old beginning over and over again? But let me save that for later… :)

Getting used to change: life’s best gift.
Change: definitely not anywhere close.
Fresher: a word you'll use a million times in life.

The Bridge…

My solitary post completes nine months of its existence tomorrow. Surely, the blogger in me is not very much of an active person! But now there’s a need to get this back up and running. Have thought of why I even need to have a blog in the first place… I don’t discuss burning issues and give my two cents on anything even if it’s an issue I personally feel strong against. It’s not that my life is exactly what can be described as “hot and happening”. And personal opinions, are, surely, meant to be just that: “personal”? The more I think, the less I think I need a blogspot. But things change and so do thoughts, is the excuse I always give for changing my mind. Now I see this space as the best to dump the madness of thoughts that I prefer not to keep within… and let me now bridge the time separated by the two hundred and seventy days, and welcome myself back! :)