A way to live

You live in your dreams, but dreams may die. Don't get shattered, never ever cry. The world is big and has lots to give, pick up a new dream, coz that's the way to live! :)

- Pradeepa Rao

That which slips like the sand in your hand

And the last time she looked, her dream lay in a pitiful sorrow. Even through all that pain, it looked her unabashedly in the eye and inquired if she had forgotten about its existence. In response to that, she was forced to reminisce the time she held it close to her heart.....

Now it hurt, just to know that she was bound by the ways of life. And yet again, she failed to understand what hurt more...to not have lived the dream with all the passion in the world......or just having one in the first place?

If it was slipping away from her palm like the sand...would it help if she closed the fist to save some of it?

Would the dream then stop slipping out of her whole existence?

Moi :)

Life in MSUW : dedicated to those 3 yrs of my wonderful hostel life :D

• Using mobiles in the 1st year of grad when they weren't allowed


• Never abiding by the 7:30 deadline(can't tell u how much fun it was!)


• Thinking of a 100 excuses to come up with when late


• Sleeping in someone else's room instead of your own when this too wasn't allowed! :D


• Never reaching on time for breakfast and somehow managing to escape the warden's eye..phew!


• Fighting for the remote in the TV Room.


• Playing the piano and acting as if we were the world's next mozart to be ;)


• Straining the ears to listen for the evening snacks bell...yummy!


• Ringing each other's mobile during the assembly time :)


• Singing 'Abba Father' when everyone else in the hall was singing 'Rise'.


• Bitching about the warden 24*7 (fave past time)!


• Celebrating buddays at 12 in the night with the help of a torch light...aww i miss those midnight sessions and budday parties!


• Pragya & me running to Monginis to satisfy our cravings for a dessert at 7:15 pm knowing we won't be back by the 7:30 deadline.


• Making excuses of sickness when the dinner wasn't tasty and Mama mia's Golden eye pasta was to be ordeered instead ;)


• Ringing the hostel's PCO no. just to irritate the watchman!


• Going to the top floor library on the pretext of studying and disturbing everyone there by dragging & pulling the chairs loudly


• Trying to eavesdrop on the juniors conversation about us, the seniors....who cares anyways...we were the seniors...and WE had the power!


• Getting all our guy friends to come & meet us in the evening in the hostel shed while they could use some eye tonic :P


• Reading all the nonsensical news at the newspaper stand


• Washing clothes at 11 in the night while singing in the bathroom right next to 5 adjoining rooms and hearing people yell for some peace...loved it ;)


• Sneaking into the warden's TV Room in the middle of the night through the small window on the side door and watching all the saas-bahu serials :D


• Planning for the Gholwad trip 3 months in advance...although nothing went according to the plans :)


• Being very nice to the management just before the committee meeting ;)


• Suddenly switching the channel when the warden is on the round....coz u were watching the Desperate Housewives!


• Never adhering to the dress code of 'no-shorts' & 'below the knee level' garments


• Sometimes mischeviously sneaking & ringing the hostel bell at the wrong time :)


• Cursing Fabby for barking while we were sleeping, but otherwise cuddling it.


• Somehow managing to get the didi's in the kitchen to give u an extra plate of snacks even though the rest of the lot may feel a lack of it-well, who said favorotism din't exist :P

Nostalgia ain't good all the time!

There was a time i used to call my home with a glorified tag of "home sweet home"! I guess the charm of that name doesn't stick with it for long ;-)The day when i arrived home after 5 long months, i was received at the airport by my mother and the caretaker with great enthusiasm. The almost visible tears in my mother's eyes were so touching! On arriving home, the table was full of my favourite dishes. My mom stuffed me till my stomach could take no more.I relaxed, had a nice afternoon nap and woke up to a cuppa cooffee which my mom said- she had prepared with all the love in the world.i thought to myself-'how lucky am i!'

I opened the door to en elated father in the evening when he had just come back from office.There were hugs, there was laughter, there was all the happiness one could imagine.The remaining day was spent in discussions of what all i missed when i wasn't home and what all has been happening on my side. Little did i know that this was all an 'ek din ka raja' programme.I started cursing my fate the very next morning when my dad woke me up at 6:30 saying that i needed to do Yogasana with him!!

"C'mmon dad, u can't be serious..pls stop playing pranks n lemme sleep well"

"No darling, since i can see you have put on considerable amount of weight and because you are so lethargic that you won't start gymming right away, i will make sure you do yogasana with me daily for your own good"

"Aargh! Dad, you don't have to be so considerable" Somehow i shoo him away like he is some unwanted crow perched on my window sill.

Next, i am munching on a packet of banana chips while watching TV around mid-noon when my mom suddenly jerks the packet away from my hands as if its a venomous snake and exclaims- "Are you blind or what? Can't you see your waistline is exceeding at the speed of an F1 car?!!" Mom, if i don't eat whatever i want to when i am home, when else will i? Afterall, there are a lot of disadvantages if you are a vegetarian and are sent to a Country where people eat whatever they see crawling!!!

"But i thought u had tears in your eyes when you saw me at the airport..."

"Well, that was because i was so worried about your increasing weight when i saw u " Iam about to retort when i hear a "Nothing Doing! You are going to follow a strict diet from now onwards. That's it!" This was all that was left to my wonderful day to make it even more memorable :-(

By evening i am beginning to have a headache what with all these restrictions. I decide to take some time off to surf the net and see if some bakra is online for me to shower him/her with my day's troubles. Yippee! i see an old friend online and have just pinged him when my mom enters my room and starts lecturing me on how i should keep it neat so that it saves her the trouble of doing that extra bit of work that she otherwise doesn't need to do since when i am not home, she never needs to enter my room. By the time i am done arguing with her, i see that the friend of mine has sent me a few msgs and obviously since i hadn't replied to even a single of them...he thought i was too busy and decided to log off.

Sniff Sob! I should not take hasty decisions like coming home when in a state of Nostalgia! I am about to start crying in the old hindi film heroine style when my Cell phone rings its lovely tune!! I am about to pick the call when my mom reaches to it before me and very smartly picks up the call and says- "oh, Namaste Kiran beta, kaise ho? Umm..Pradeepa? beta wo to thode dinon ke liye nani ke ghar gayi hai...mai bata doongi use ki tumne call kiya tha.Bye beta." What?! How could she say that when i am right here!! I demand an explanation and the answer i get is-"You are home to be with family and spend some lovely moments with us. Not so that you could stick to your cell like people from The Fevicol company are paying you for being so attached to it." I completely deserve this for being utterly foolish to even think that my family would be very elated to see me and will let me do all that i want when i am home this time!

And the saga continues....the next day morning i am woken up by my mom's saccharine sweet voice(a tone that she uses with me when she wants to get some work done)" Darling, would you not get up and drop your mom to the doctor? The driver is not well and won't be in today." Of course i love driving, but not at 8 am in the morning...and that too when i've slept at 4 in the morning after watching a horror movie......Please.!.Please tell me this is a dream.....

Finally... A Confession :)

Walking down the road together
he glanced at me sideways
I wondered whether that was
a sweet loving gaze.

We walked in Silence for
quite sometime,
each waiting for the other to speak
Finally he cleared his throat
as if he'll sing an Opera

Looking at my puzzled expression
he shut his mouth again
I gave a wicked smile as if
asking him to start

He couldn't help it but
smiled a bit himself.
Hands in the pockets,
he started whistling a tune
and soon saw that it was on my ears
so awefully immune :))

Finally he just shrugged his shoulders and asked,
'what is it that i should do, to impress
a snob like you?'
'i shall take that as a compliment',
I commented and said, 'u needn't do anything..
but be yourself'. Life is full of people
who try to be different. But i chose him
coz he din't need to try...he was different!

To him i was his coy but snobbish beloved,
to me, he was my hero, my darling.
I said it all through expressions,
he chose to voice his thougts.He finally knew,
why i liked him and had me say it too.

Clever that he was to do so,
little does he know...he's
about to witness a rollercoaster
ride in this journey of attraction.

An ode to the picture i painted in my head :)

Just before the dawn breaks
with the chin held high &
a stride full of pride
he walks towards the sea shore
expecting answers to a lot of his doubts
thinking the waves might,
provide him with them in bouts.
A frown forming on the face
he quickens his pace
The sky starts taking colour
by the time he is there
He spreads his arms at the sea
wondering if it'd take him where,
he can heave a sigh of relief
making stronger his belief,
that the world is incapable
of understanding what he does
That no one thinks as differently as him
and thus the fuss.
He starts walking slowly
from one end of the shore so vast,
allowing his mind to wander
somewhere in the past.
"was i right or was i not?...
or is it just a vague thought?"
engulfing the chirping of the birds
with questions such,
he smiles at the reminiscence
but not too much.
When his feet touch a shell in the clay
he thinks he's already walked a long way
But when he turns to realise
he is somewhere in the middle,
he shakes his head saying-"life's such a riddle"
Just when he starts to walk again
loud rings the alarm for his day to begin.
He wakes up amazed as the dream seemed to be so real
it left him in a daze cuz it was simply surreal.
Walking towards the entrance to open the door
he wished the dream was prolonged,
just a little more...
Sad that he woke up
just when he was close to solving the riddle,
restlessly with the things around
he begins to fiddle.
Telling himself that he is different from all
in the woods where he'd next be in his dream,
he'd let this thought befall.
In this wonderland for sure,
he promises himself that the dream will prolong
for just a little more.