Bloom...

Lots of bloom in Bangalore. The trees have brightened up, so many colors - violet, yellow, red, pink. Captured from my mobile phone, on the way to work. 

Neelam is here...

There is a cyclone. The sky has been overcast all day and has made me dreamy. Drizzles, chilly wind, dark clouds. Such a perfect weather – well, not for a working day though! Want to be tucked in bed reading a book by the window, right now! 

Wishful...

Yesterday when I woke up I just wanted to get back to sleep. The weather was good to stay in bed. But we had a family outing planned and I did not want to play a spoil sport. There are times I wish I don’t have anything to do for an entire day and last few weeks have been not so favorable in this regard. How I wish I can laze, day dream and just have no plans for a day!

For a reason...

Over the years, have wondered if things happen for a reason. The human psyche  needs a story, a cause to make sense of what happened and believing there is a reason behind it makes it a convincing story, even to the self. It is a nice way of looking at things actually. Life does not guarantee fair treatment and this “reason” funda can help us cruise through difficult times. Some of the reasons are not evident at first. And when you do not understand why a certain thing happened, it is unsettling and may remain in the subconscious for years. Sometimes it takes several years to construct that one simple story, to give you the insight you need to detach yourself from an event that affected you in some way and move on with life. It is sure a liberating process, and everyone likes a good story! 

Simple..

After so many years of having various kinds of dreams about life, I suddenly wished and actually visualised a small bit of my future and just hoped thats how it turns out. I will improvise it run time to make it feel good while I write it as well. It was simple. It was a nice saturday evening, in a monsoon month. There was a light drizzle, not annoying, not really drenching us. Just chilly enough to keep us close. The streets were calm, unlike the weekdays. I was walking with him and we were going to Rangashankara to watch a play...

Oooooops!!!

When you look back at some of the "blunders" you did, you probably end up laughing at them.We were doing our final semester project in IISc, Bangalore. We had to test our equipment ona vehicle and the prof under whom we were doing the project had a research person under him,who would help us by lending his car for a few times for our experiments. It so happened we needed a CRO for measurements and we took one, we used an UPS for the power supply. We took it all from Tumkur, and after getting into his car and getting our sensors set up, we realised we had not got the cable to connect the CRO to the UPS. Hell broke loose.The person probably thought we were just a bunch of careless youngsters fooling around at IISc and and gave us a sound blasting. When things got better, and we showed some good progress in the project,we became good friends is all together another matter. But that day me and my friends were shell shocked and thought that was the end of our project there. But as it turns out i have a good laugh whenever I remember it!

So why did I recollect all this today... I had made kesari bhath and had kept it to warm for a second serving. After serving myself, forgot to switch off the stove! I went out and came back after 20 mins to see it all black! Oh my god, how very careless of me, what if a fire had started, what if...Thank god for it.Right now I am somewhat shocked at my doing. You should have seen the container to understand. It was pitch dark inside. Hope I can laugh at it someday...

A novel idea...

I have always wanted to write full time someday. A novel bearing my name as the author on the cover page has been a fantasy for a while now! But even if I can think of a story line, I wonder how can I make it into a novel. Sometimes I think I should write short stories and publish the compilation. But I cant get any new story. I can clearly know where the story is coming from, inspired from some readings, somewhere in the newspaper. It doesn’t seem original. Are there any original stories I wonder. So far I have written only one story and am quite proud of it also. But it is heavily drawn from experience. May be it must all be drawn from some experience, not necessarily one’s own. I remember distinctly that I could not sleep that night properly when the idea of the story was born. I had this urge to switch on the light and scribble something on paper. The next day when I got to office I was feeling very restless. I finished the morning work with great fervour and stretched the lunch break to put it in black and white (typed it I mean). I never ever have experienced that feeling again. That restlessness to put it down on paper, that flow. I also have another problem, until I feel very passionately about something, I can’t write something interesting, it will be very mundane and boring. When I re-read some posts much later I can clearly tell what made me write which post and I like the ones which had some deep feeling associated with them. Like the words had to come out at the time to provide that relief. I have read autobiographical works by R.K.Narayan ("My Days") and Somerset Maugham(The Summing up), who happen to be my favourite authors. These people used to spend hours everyday writing, reviewing and reading when they became full-time writers. I have heard people travelling to far off places and write in seclusion, like I read that Kiran Desai went to Mexico and stayed there for long while writing the book “The inheritance of loss”.
What gives them ideas? Are they just more observant or do they travel extensively and seek newer experiences? Are there characters a combination of many real people they have met and not purely imaginary? From what I gather from my various readings, some writers socialize to get more ideas/subjects/stories and once an idea gets into their head, they confine themselves and start writing...
How does it all work? A restless person like me will become crazy if I turn into a full time writer and have a writer's- block! huh, scary thought. What do they do and how do they reinvent themselves as writers? How can they spin stories after stories without repeating themselves? I wish someone could help me with that...And wish I get a novel/book published by the next Olympics! Hmmmmm nice thought!