What

"What" I had
I had lost
in the forgotten woods
of my own past


"What" I will have
Might be a miscalculation on my part
Or something I wud think
I have gained
may be from my loss..
may be from the loss of other's


The questions of "Whats" , "Whens"
That keep me awake
in dreamless nights
Ooh.I so do wonder

"What If" , "What If" ...
And loads and loads of "Whats"

"What" I have
I have no idea about

Dreams of no "Whats" in near future
Floating right there
in the mercurial mind

Oh God..Even in the dreams of no "Whats"
There has to be "A what"

Silly me and the silly "Whats"..

Freedom..

Of Human Bondage!! - W. Somerset Maugham

"Thinking of Cronshaw , Philip remembered the Persian rug which he had given him , telling him that it offered an answer to his question upon the meaning of life;and suddenly the answer occured to him;he chuckled : now that he had it, it was like one of the puzzles which you worry over till you are shown the solution and then cannot imagine how it could ever escaped you.The answer was obvious .Life had no meaning.On the earth ,satellite of a star speeding through space , living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history ;and as there had been a beginning of life upon it ,so ,under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end:man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the enviornment .Philip remembered the story of the Eastern King who,desiring to know the history of man , was brought by a sage five humdred volumes;busy with affairs of state, he bade him go and condense it ; in twenty years the sage returned and his history now was in no more than five volumes , but the King , too old then to read so many ponderous tomes, bade him go and shorten it once more;twenty years passed again and the sage , old and grey,brought a single book in which was the knowledge the King had sought; but the King lay on his death-bed, and he had no time to read even that; and then the sage gave him the hisory of man in a single line;it was this :
he was born,he suffered and he died . "

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If,only, I were Maugham's Philip ....

Well at least for this moment in my life it really doesnot matter that I am alive and my punctuation sucks...

And ... If and only if this moment could last forever....

Frastu artistic aspiration social movement want be rich and wont work for IT group

That's what an advertisement for a groom read in the matrimonial section of a leading Indian newspaper.

A hindu family posted this ad for their only daughter Tehzu.

Mom said you should not wear jeans, so I didn't . Dad said you should do an engineering, so I did. My neighbor's dog barked at me the day I cut my hair short , so I kept them long . One fine day , Dad's best friend suggested I should get married to his nephew Mr. X, so I did get married to Mr. X . After 1 week of marriage ,my husband said we should love each other always,thus I loved him...or so I thought I did . My friend Leena did the same, so as Pujadi and Divya...This Sunday morning when my husband read out the above ad in the matrimonial section of "Rampur Mail" , I could not help but wonder why on poor earth , a good Hindu girl like me deserves such a man.. I assumed all Hindu girls do what we all did ....

All of a sudden I did realize my husband had one of his ever-famous "eyebrows up , glasses down" - something wrong expression printed all over his face. It was odd , after all he was in the matrimonial section of Rampur Mail .

DharamSala,Momo and the Naga Baba

DharamSala,Its a quiet place in the Himachals or may be I should say this is the place where the "Dalai Lama" lives.It has all the peculiarities that a small town in India can boast of.It has its own share of the "Auto walas","the general baazar", "sabji mandi" and of course a brief history.I do sincerely doubt If we can ever find a place in India without any "History" to it.And among all these peculiarities I forgot the most important one, the people, a mix of the paharis(pahadis), gaddis(native Himachalis, who live in chamba etc),punjabis..blah....blah..

DharamSala, however had some new species of people.It had the Tibetans , the westerners , and a variety of sadhus and never to forget the ever charming taxiwalas/guides.

And ofcourse, it had momos and the naga babas..

Momos are a typical Tibetian food.Well you can say its somehow similar to our samosas,but they are much smaller in size and also had a non veg variety.What made the momos so memorable for me is my guides insistence on having them.We traveled all the way from kangra fort till the upper dharamsala just for the sake of momos.

Kangra fort, it looked like a deserted heaven.it had its own story to say,though all its narrators were dumb,definitely they had all their feelings written on their half broken , rock carved faces..and they sounded really insignificant in presence of all the love birds over there..Till now I never understood , if at all the Indian young couples have any interest in history at all..or its just a coincidence that all the historical places are always deserted apart from some lovers hiding here n there .Well I might be wrong about these couples..But definitely it seems India is going to have a great future with some real great history enthusiastic.May be then , my sons and daughters don't have to read, "what happened in India through a foreigner's eye, though they have done a tremendous job till now ".

So we stopped near by the main market and had momo. The momo vendor seemed to be a good friend of my guide.So he readjusted all the items in his thela, lit up his stove, put up the frying pan , made small poories out of a mixture of some varieties of attas (flours),he put up some of the fried chopped vegerables into the poories and made the poories look like small samosas and then , finally fried them.And these thela walas serve the momos with a specific chutney made out of tomoatos.. Well I still need to find out what exact mixture did he use to make those small poories,then i will be pretty ready to go for my own momos..And yes, they tasted amazing..

My guide insisted on visiting the various temples .However, I was much enthralled to go for a ride up in the mountains.Thus much to his despair, I decided to go for a ride up in the mountains.Thus we started .Never ,have I thought ,up in the mountains I am gonna have my most interesting and peculiar experience.Well, up there in the mountains I met a naga baba.

The Naga Babas can be said to be a particular sect of sadhus. They are said to be the worshipers of Lord Shiva.They generally live in the deserted areas since their appearance is enough to scare away the next door poor soul .Well to put in clear words , they cover themselves with ash from head to toe.So all you see is a naked white ghost.If you are still not shocked, then when this white ghost addresses you in perfect English as "Here comes Radha devi" .. definitely you will go for a toss.At that time I had the least knowledge on this sect of Sadhus,I didnot know they generally speak English, do have all latest updates on a range of subjects starting from ..world politics to Nandigram problems to California fire.On further interaction , I did find out this very respectable person used to be a high ranking Army officer posted in the Kashmir.Its quite a story to know how he landed on the new found path of the Naga babas,however in short he went on a pilgrimage to Amarnath , there is a certain saying about an eternal white parrot over there.This officer happened to see and hear this eternal white parrot, after which he wanted to explore and find what is the ultimate truth .. during this quest for the ultimate truth he met a certain naga baba, whom he considers his guru and then followed this new found path of the white ghosts.He had plans to spread across the messages that his guru had taught him .. but just waiting for the right moment to come on..My guide was growing more and more impatient..He called up to go further for a famous temple..I decided to move on, the silly time machine happily declared my time in dharamsala is running out.. I should better move on or else I will miss out the most revering view of the grand Himalayas from the topmost place over...We are again on the road.

I never used to believe in Heaven , however I started to do so when I saw Himalayas from the topmost point that Dharamsala allowed me.I don't know what a feel it will be if i ever could see the world from the top of this heaven on earth.

The Laundry Room

It was known as the” Laundry Room” to everybody in the building. People hardly noticed its existence …but during weekends it was the “Laundry Room” that hardly noticed others. It’s as if the “Laundry Room” has come alive...And its big mouth the “Door” has the word “I am busy. Please come after sometime” written all over it.

I was never on time .Well, well... Just to clarify things, I am not particularly proud of it but still being an Indian, I rather would say I never hurry in Life. I do indulge myself in my leisurely pursuits (if it is not leisurely, then I make it leisurely by delaying it till I am in a mood).Thus I was rarely allowed to the “Laundry Room”...Because the realization of doing “Laundry” strikes my brains only during weekends, and again rarely does do I have the patience to wait outside and check for availability like everybody else.

Last Sunday, I did not expect things to go any different .But they did.

In that afternoon, I paid a visit to the “Laundry Room”. As usual I had to return with the same old Laundry basket with the same old :-( set of unclean clothes. I went to the lift, pressed the button and waited, while thinking about which movie to watch. The lift opened and alas! There they were two more laundry baskets. I did not take the lift, rather decided to follow the “Couple” and their laundry baskets.

This “Couple” looked like happily married, 35+ and very silent .I smiled at the Lady, She smiled back. I desperately wanted to ask her “Dear Mam, how long do you plan to wait?”But then the man nodded his head and started moving towards the pool. I guessed the Lady won’t be staying Long .By “Long”, I meant not more than 10mins.I thought, ok let’s wait for 10 mins not any more .The Lady looked at me ,she waved at me. I smiled again expecting to start a conversation to kill time. But then she looked at my basket and returned to adjusting her Clothes in the basket. I was bored, I noticed she had not separated her whites and colored ones. I felt good, I have arranged my Basket very neatly, all the whites on one side, then the blacks in the middle with the colored ones on the end, and then the fabric softener and the Detergent on the top. On this Earth If anybody should be allowed in to that “Laundry Room” at anytime, then that should be me. Five minutes went by. I decided to put my big “Ego” aside and talk to the Lady. I told her” hope we don’t have to wait for more than five minutes”. She showed me 10 with all her fingers, and smiled very friendly. I frowned, and told myself “What the hell, I have already been waiting for the last 8 mins and this Lady has all plans to make me wait 10 more mins”.At that time I did not realize, It wasn’t her but my own poor self...That was the cause for my wait. I was all geared up to compete with her. Seven more minutes passed by.Ooh!! I did not tell you people about the watch either. I had forgotten to put on the watch, but this Lady had a rather nice Swatch on .The first time I saw her, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful Swatch. During this wait, every two seconds I would rather have a look at her Swatch, promise myself to buy one the next day and somehow would manage to note the time.And then a miracle happened, the “Laundry Room” announced ,”All the washers are free,you can move in now”.I have been staying in this building for almost 5 months now, and this is the first time I am not thinking about buying a new set of clothes for the next week .


We both marched in with the feel of a big conquest. The man came back from the pool and started helping the Lady. I was busy in putting up all my clothes into the washer, the man turned and asked me my name and then he said my wife said you liked her swatch .I turned and somehow managed a smile. Both of them smiled back, she made some gestures with her hands to her husband; I looked at them a bit surprised. The husband smiled and told, “She says you are the only one apart from me who understood her sign language”. I did not know what to say, but I heard myself saying “that means you are not that smart :-), she moves her hands so clearly that anybody can understand)”.And we all laughed.


That day I did my Laundry after five months.

This Sunday I went for laundry. The “Laundry Room” was unoccupied .But I decided to wait .I waited for almost forty-five minutes. That’s way too long for me. I expected to be able to catch hold of the Lady .She did not show up .I waited for another 10 minutes. In the meanwhile, the “Laundry Room” got occupied. I moved back with the same old “Laundry Basket” with the same old :-( set of unclean clothes.

I promised myself to do “Laundry” next week.

Later that week I discovered that the “Couple” had moved to Toronto.

Art

I was reading this book for the second time.Here is an excerpt from it....

A Lesson in creative writing..

First Rule : Do not use semicolons.They are transvestive hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.All they do is show you've been to college.

And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not.So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding.

For instance , join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy,I'm kidding.We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda.Wave flags if you have them.That always seems to scare them away.I'm kidding.

If you want to really hurt your parents,and you donot have the nerve to be gay,the least you can do is go into arts.I'm not kidding.The arts are not a way to make living.They are a very human way of making life more bearable.Practicing an art ,no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow,for heaven's sake.Sing in the shower.Dance to the radio.Tell stories.Write a poem to a friend,even a lousy poem.Do it as well as you possibly can.You will get an enormous reward.You will have created something.

Blog Mania

I was not much into blogging/orkutting.But I couldnot help but start a blog of my own, otherwise it seemed difficult to survive.Thus, I decided to take the not so easy road of blogging.In this creative process of creating a blog, the first step would be checking out the websites that provide an easy means of maintaining your blog.It didnot take me much time to finalize on eblogger from google.Well ,all the bloggers I knew at the time were using blogger.com.And by nature I am lazy enough to put up extra pain to find out something which others have already discovered.

Next came the big challenge, what should I call my blog.You know its always difficult to "Name" something.The name always has to put up the rite first impression.To be honest , an intersting name will give me freedom to put up almost anything in the blog contents, as 95% of the readers will check the name and then decide to continue further or not.So my major intention of letting people know that I have a "Blog" won't be tough to achieve.Well!! well!! , after spending full 24 hrs of effort after the name search ,I finalised on "Pipe dreams".I was so happy untill I realised i had to feed in a subtitle as well.I said to myself , "allrite , Donot worry dear!You survived the 'Name' .You can handle the 'Subtitle' stuff too ". So after gathering all my courage I leaped forward to search the entire ocean of "English Words-Phrases" for an appropriate "Subtitle" .It took me another two days to finalise on the initial lines of "The Dream of the Rood" - a verse translation by "Douglas B. Killings".I was done with the blog title and subtitle, what challenge could await me next. There it was , the "URL".

The "Unique Resource Locater" , thats what I believe the "URL" stands for , was no easy deal for me.I was tired of searching appropriate names/subtitles. During this difficult time of "Names and SubTitles"(:-)),the only thing that was by me was the "Televeision" with thousands of ads on weightloss,good figure every minute.I was exhausted , my brain was dead, and anyways who looks at an url ,so I decided to call the "URL" as - "liteoilnopaingoodshape" as a tribute to all those ads that stood by me and supported each and every little step forward with another ad .Ooh!! Now I could see my own blog.Just type www.liteoilnopaingoodshape.blogspot.com , and you can see my "BlogSite".I was thrilled.I felt great, until the next set of events showed up.

I had a blog site with no blogs listed .I felt disappointed.Now that people can see my blog-site, what impression will they carry forward if it doesnot have anything beyond a "Name" and "Subtitle".The need for appreciation forced me to create at least one blog , before I could announce the arrival of my "Blog" to the world.Hence, with much anxiety, I started writing the first blog.Almost 10 mins went by , still the "Content Page" was empty.30 mins passed by, Still the page looked as white as it was in the beginning.After all this pain ,I felt miserable that I could not decide on what to write on.Millions and millions of thought were racing in my brain, but alas!! none of them were related to a similar topic.For the first time I sincerely believed that at least 500 things cross my mind in 5 seconds , and they are all as diverified as possible.I was on the verge of breaking down with frustration, something caught my attention.It was a book I read last nite.This book was a very different yet good experience for me.I was fascinated by the way the author put forward the picture of an American life.At that very moment , I thought I could write about this book.Though It is not related to "Dreams" which my "Blog" gives an impression of delving into,I decided to write my first blog on it.So I published my first blog.I was relieved, I have a blog. I was so very much dying for the appreciations- "I had visualised, I deserved for the blog" ,that I could not control myself calling up everybody and asking them to check out the blog.

After that fateful day of "First Blog" , every 1 hr , I would go and check my "BlogSite" for some kindaa of comments , no. of profile views.After 5 days I was almost "heartbroken" as realisation struck me as a thunderbolt that all the increase in my profile views are only because of me . And the fact that "No Comments" yet testified my realiasation.

I was upset.

Then the very next day , a wonderful thought came to my mind.Why not to write about the first blogging experience itself. I was all upbeat .I ran to my room, grabbed my laptop , logged into blogger.com, created a new post .......

Well,I hope you all know what happened next.