For you...a thousand times over...

I am in daze again....i have just finished watching kite runner...the movie....and that reminded me of my encounter with this book....i warn you...if the novel had broken your heart then...the movie will go even further....it is sure to break you into pieces..

i remember the days when i first came across this book...did not know the author ....i did not know the the title 'kite runner' before...i was utterly surprised to see it listed as 'best seller'.....ok...i mean...this wasn't something i would have chosen as the first choice...story of two boys set in the backdrop of Afghanistan...But once you are into it....the story of Amir and Hassan...told to us thro' amir's eyes and experiences sweeps you off the floor...i remember wanting to put the book down and was completely unable to do so...there was something extraordinary about each character....you couldn't close this book midway...just like that...Khalid Hossaini manages to keep you hooked...even makes you feel as if you are right there...in the land of Kabul along with those two boys...it was a story about sin, suffering, sacrifice and friendship....enough to keep me engrossed....and moist eyed...yes...

After 3 years....i have watched the movie...when you had so much from the read version....you tend to expect even more from the reel version of it...and astonishingly it does a creditable job.....of course the book is way ahead....but i did not watch it as comparison....and once you do that...its a work of art...the personalities...the protagonists...who linger in your mind when you read a book now gets a live face...and thats when you know you can not escape the phenomenon called kite runner again...it will touch you in a way you cant imagine and wont let you go at least a week afterwards.....

P.S. 'm absolutely in love with this phrase..''for you... a thousand times over....''

Agony...

Yesterday I met an old colleague of mine after almost a year….we sort of ran into each other on the road…..last time we met…his wife was carrying and the baby was due in ¾ months….

so naturally the easiest question to carry forward the conversation was ‘how’s your son/daughter…how old is he/she’…suddenly I saw drastic change of expression on his face…agony written all over...and he replied in barely audible voice…’no…we lost our baby in the 1^st month itself…it was a boy…’….I didn’t know where to look and I cursed myself at least thousand times…I made him relive his ordeal…..

i mean most of the times I forgot to ask the questions that are there to be asked….and ‘m hopeless in following socially acceptable norms…so in every probability I wouldn’t have asked the question at any other time…but it was not to be…his silence thereafter made me feel even more guilty.

I was left wondering what’s tougher…the tears you held back so defiantly lest u will be called a weakling or the tears you just let out easily….crying as & when want to does take lots of guts….i tell you…

I am selfish....

Sometimes you like someone only because you like yourself when you are around them….how cool is that……everybody on this earth is selfish....come on...u better accept that…

Being different...

Just wondering...GOD has put in enormous amount of efforts to ensure that no two individuals in this world would be similar...even the identical twins dont have same fingerprints...how many permutations and combinations he must have formed.....and we human beings spent all our lives trying not to be different from each other....they say being different from a group is a demerit...

Menace...

Its been No. 118 till yesterday and counting… Pune is waking up to the menace with the new name…’swine flu’…. puneites who are so used to laidback approach and style of living are scared to death…just a few days back…the hot topic in vogue was scarcity of water…shortage of rain…and now new version of flu is knocking at their door…

Just the 15 days back…when my daughter’s school reported the first case in Pune…we never thought it could go to this vast proportion….we just laughed over the fact that now as the kids are at home…..we will not get even a few seconds of breathing space…..whats strange now is everybody is afraid of even a fundamental right to breath freely….just a cough or sneeze puts everybody in panic…and suspicion…there is really nowhere to go..and no safe place…even yours truly spent 2/3 sleepless nights over my daughter who was suffering from cold…we finally breathed a sigh of relief after getting all clear from our doctor…

Whenever I go out…I see the masks all over the place…children, adults...students everyone is hiding behind the mask... and I kind of feel vulnerable…

Now the Ganeshotsav is just round the corner….i have a knot in my stomach…whats in store for us…a disaster waiting to happen…it’s a perfect setup for a pandemic to spread its tentacles….i hope government exerts some kind of control over the festivities this year..and I hope people show enough restraint to stay at home..and avoid crowded places…I sincerely hope there wont be any talk of ‘religious sentiments hurt’ and all that crap…I hope no one loses the sight of bigger picture here…

May god bless all…

Happy Friendship Day....

I am sandwiched between two generations and torn apart between two lines of thoughts on either side….

one that enthusiastically observe all the ‘days’ that are more important than normal 7 weekdays…one that fills up the f.c road, j.m.road to capacity on 1st Sunday of August every year…for them friendship day is a festival to celebrate….a religious ritual to take time off from busy schedules and appreciate near and dear ones…a day of cards and gifts and get together…a day of friendship

and the other one who doesn’t believe in celebrating these days….they consider these rituals as ‘silly’….they say we never had these days to express our feelings…nor we had cells to txt and thank our friends…and even without these tools…we have remained friends…

We belong to the third generation…initially we never had these days to follow…we as friends just enjoyed the time together….and that was all..then it started somewhere in between…and we just fell into line…we started meeting on friendship days…buying a whole lot of bands…and counting the number of bands we have got at the end of the day…it became one of the most important days of our life…and then just we were warming up to the idea…our fun days were over….’we r mature now...no more celebrating friendship days…how childish…all hype of generation next…and on and on’…

Today when I saw happy hands bearing all the colourful friendship bands…it really made me sad and nostalgic…’cos I don’t have the single thread on my hand....and though we do have cells today, nobody has wished me…..and this was the first friendship day when I haven’t wished anybody since morning…HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY!!!...