Sid.

Next time I come back from Mumbai, it will be bit difficult for me to accept this flat as 'house'! No, not because you will not be there, but there will not be any stuff lying around on sofa, bed, chairs, no fan running at full speed, no shoes scattered everywhere on floor. And surprisingly, somehow, to me, it will look like no one stays here! Without the dry daaru bottles and drying utensils, the kitchen too will look empty. I will not have to remember to close the gas knob before I go to sleep, neither will I have to think whether to keep the outer metal door open so that you can come in anytime at late night (rather morning). It will be like, I will have nothing to do in this place still called house! (oops little too senti!)

It's not that I have never stayed alone in this house before, but then I always knew that you will be back sometime, may be we will even see and talk to each other once in 3-4 days at least. Even when you had gone for your long jaundice holiday, I still didn't feel like I feel today (not for you, for myself). Sadly, I also feel that it's not because you are leaving, but because I will be alone, that I am sad. But I guess that's the case with everyone in this selfish world.

When we were classmates in NID, I never imagined I will spend so much time with you after NID! At the end of these 4 years (f...o....u...r.... years!) of sharing a house (and few other things, like your laptop charger and my laptop), I still find it surprising that we actually did! And if someone asks me what made you two stay together for this long, I have no answer! I wonder how come we even never had any fight or argument!
As if this feeling was not surprising enough, as I am writing, I receive an SMS from a very distant friend,"Some reasons definitely make relationships strong, but the fact is, only strong relations will remain forever without any reason!"
aamen
take care
bhavin

Epilogue: This reminds me that I will have to buy a new laptop charger now! :( This post would have been a much better read, had someone paid me to write it. I might have even taken little effort to find and photoshop a good picture of yours then, and name this post as 'an open letter to my house-mate' etc. Jokes apart, there were so many things coming to my mind as I thought of writing this Sid, but somehow its not possible and even required. To some extent this whole blog itself is somehow related to all the time we spent together, all the things we did, from chatting on our own blog comments, to bike rides, photography, to window shopping, movies (and writing the reviews on blog!)..... I have to stop writing now as the dictionary meaning of epilogue uses the word 'short' write-up. I also have to spend some time talking to my next room-mate, a much better one! ;)

रेस

कुछ देर तमाशा देख लेना तूम भी

जिंदगी तुम और करोगे भी क्या मेरा?

लम्बी रेस का घोडा हूँ,

कुछ देर साथ चल लेना तुम भी!

.                                         -भावीन

(woww... after rejecting so many filmy hindi poems, finally i post my first hindi lines in blog! :) )

My first DUCATI

:)

:)

OK, it's just a pair of shoes,but it's DUCATI! :) And I am happy for finally having bought them! I have been thinking of buying something nice from Puma Ducati series but was always confused if I should really do that for different reasons. Sometimes I found them in green or blue which is certainly not Ducati colour, the red ones were so red that i didn't know when will I use them, sometimes the ones I found in Ahmedabad stores were so 'too much' that I just wanted to take that Ducati logo off from them, and almost all the time the price was beyond my budget! Ohh and once I decided no to buy them ever, after I watched the movie 'Children of Heaven'! hahaha...

Anyway, so yesterday When I actualy wanted (almost = needed) to buy a pair of shoes and didnt like anything other than the 2 Puma Ducati ones, the only option was to buy one of them! Sid acted like catalyst (even offering to contribute as my b'day gift! :), and I ended up buying these! Thank you Sid!

:)

The funny thing about these DUCATI shoes is, the instruction inside says,'Not recommended for riding!' hahaha....

I think I can't write any more meaningless and purposeless....

So thats it, and now I have something in July 2011 archive of my blog too! hooshhhhhhh...

ohh and before I conclude here is the newest and best from the Puma DUCATI series, which I would still love to buy (or rather be gifted) if it becomes available in India, The 'DUCATI Testastretta II' riding shoes. Dont miss the aluminum sole rim below heel and below puma cat in front! coollll, isnt it? :)

You are beautiful!

One day your eyelashes will turn white, one day your lips will be covered with wrinkles and so will be your palm. And I will still say, "you are beautiful!" For, the love in your eyes will still be the same, the smile on your lips will still brighten my day and the warmth of the touch of your palm in my hand will still give me all the strength to overcome the challenges in life. And whenever I will tell you that you are beautiful, I will mean it, irrespective of how you look then, for the real beauty never ages, it only becomes richer and richer with time.
It takes time, not to look beautiful, but to 'be' beautiful, to be perceived beautiful, for you to understand yourselves that you are beautiful. 'Cause the real beauty is something to be experienced and not just seen!
I always wondered what is that makes you look so beautiful, all the time! I knew it is something beyond your beautiful tender skin, your silky hair and your deep black eyes. And then one day I saw you with that baby oil bottle in your hand! Eureka! No, it's not your skin as tender as a baby's, neither your eyes as expressive as a baby's. It's your heart! You have a pure heart, as pure as that of a baby. A heart that brings such a beautiful smile on your lips, the heart that says it all through eyes, without any hesitance, without any hidden intentions. It's this ability of yours to have maintained the purity of heart, which makes you beautiful. It's this lovely spotless heart which makes you happy and smiling about all those tiniest of the things, from a mere thought of having an icecream to making new plans of travelling to places. A happy person always looks beautiful. I can now see all those small things you do and you have to make yourself happy. 'Cause to be happy you need to love yourself, appreciate yourself and be confident about what you are. I wonder if this is what you think about when you sit in front of the mirror, with all those colourful tiny bottles and brushes? Trying to do things to make yourself happy and not exactly beautiful? Or actually giving that beautiful expression of your pure heart, a finishing touch? Yes you are beautiful, and now I know your real beauty is in the happiness you have and the happiness you spread, and that this way you will be beautiful forever!


image from Juliettesunshine.wordpress.com

To indulge in more discussions about realy beauty, visit Yahoo! Real Beauty

बड़ा आदमी

मै: भैया यहाँ रूम बुकिंग का कौन देखता है?
चौकीदार: मै ही देखता हूँ, क्या हुआ?

मै: तो मै एक घंटे से आपको ढूंढ रहा हूँ,यहाँ कोई नहीं था

चौकीदार: कहाँ से आये हो?
मै: अहमदाबाद
चौकीदार: मै घूमने के लिए गया था
मै: रात में ४ बजे?
चौकीदार: हाँ, आप एक घंटे से यहाँ इंतज़ार कर रहे हो?
मै: हाँ
चौकीदार: आपने किसीको नींद से जगाया तो नहीं यहाँ?
मै: हाँ, वो जो पहली रूम में अंकल है उनको पूछा, लेकिन उनको कुछ पता नहीं
चौकीदार: उनको पूछा? उनको कुछ नहीं पूछने का
मै: क्यूँ? (typical me!)
चौकीदार: वो बहूत बड़ा आदमी है! जज साब है!

will miss you!

The window....

 the view......

 the moon......

 the river.... the bridge...

all this as seen from my bedroom, I will miss. Strange enough, we are shifting to a new house which is just next door, same floor, same building.... and still I will miss all this..... Truth, they say, is stranger than imagination! I hope the change will prove to be nice in some other way, unknown yet!

(more about the bridge here.)

Sunset

With hands in my pocket, I am walking towards the setting sun. Its just the sand and the wind whispering around me, even the waves have calmed down after a tiresome day of struggle. The sun is just above its shivering reflection on waves. I subconsciously stand still somewhere, gazing at the sun. At one point of time, the sun gently touches water. I somehow feel the memory of that touch deep within myself.


I stretch my right hand towards yours. I don't feel the touch, instead i keep staring at it... on the reflection of sun.The sun keeps melting in its reflection... slowly... "I want to tell you something", I say while looking at the sun. Coming in front of me, you start melting in my arms. I am still looking at that drowning sun. just few moments... under the golden sky... my eyes now keep wandering on the reflection. Reserving some light for itself, the sun has almost vanished. And so is vanishing, the feeling of your touch in my arms. I am trying to keep track of that disappearing reflection... unsuccessfully.

For a long time now, I am waiting for you, with both my hands still in pockets. The little  golden orange light, left by the sun, makes the pain of your absence a lot more severe. The crazy wind keeps searching for you around my still body. It doesn't even need any sunlight now... just like me....
 
(I a just trying to come back to blogging with this attempted translation of my very old marathi writeup! :) )

Once upon a time in TIME.

Once upon a time, there was a second hand, running inside a wall clock. Always fresh and energetic, he kept running, faster than the minute hand and much faster than the slow lazy hour hand. He was very proud of himself, his speed, his precision, his energy, his successful life! Meeting the 12 numbers every minute, he felt he was popular too! Untill one day, he decided to think about his successful life, or rather the life.

He couldnt afford to stop and think, actually the first thing he realised was that stopping was not in his hands, neither was running! disturbed and disappointed he kept running, round and round and round, reaching nowhere.

He wanted to ask those 12 numbers and the other two hands, what all this meant? And he realised, while trying to keep up with the time, he could never spend enough time with any of them! He realised, he had no control over his speed, motion, perfection, his successful life! He was bound to the pivot. The pivot which gave him the drive to keep running, all his life, in the same manner, in the same boundaries of the wall clock, round and round and round. He really wanted to see what was there, beyond the boundaries of clock, if not time. He wanted to know how it feels to once stop and think, he wanted to know how it is to be not bound to something.

Once upon a time, there was a second hand inside a wall clock, who decided to stop running for life, round and round and round.

2011

Dear God, grant us...

the Serenity to accept things we cannot change,

Courage to change the things we can, and

the Wisdom to know the difference.

Patience for the things that take time

Appreciation for all that we have, and

Tolerance for those with different struggles

Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways,

Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other, and the

Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.

The Last Sunday.

1 route
2 Bikes
3 winters
33 months
825 happy mornings
33,000 km
3,21,750 distinct jerks to spinal cord.
Restart.


Few dreams
some wishes
many people
some friends
few relations
lot of exposure
some lessons
few realisations.
Refresh.

Make new Mistakes (epilogue)

I had talked about this here before.

It took a long time, exactly one year! But I did it.... finally.

It's quite strange and weird when you have to choose from one of the two closely linked things.
Time. Money
Thrill. Fear.
Dreams. Reality.
Self. Family.
Now. Later.
Theoritically the choices seem to be easy. Practically?
:)

कातरवेळी

(हो, पहिल्या दोन ओळी सांज गारवा मधून! )

9 months

This post (questionnaire) is dedicated to (aimed at) my expecting friends, wives of my colleagues and some relatives etc. Somehow there are many of them this time! (recession?) ;) Enlighten me.

How does it feel, to know that something is growing fast inside your body? Something that you WANT to grow, something that is completely dependent on you, your life, you breathing, your eating. Something that is as good as your own body part, something that will give you a new identity!
How does it feel, to know that when it is fully developed and ready to see the light, it will be the most painful time in your life! And you still want it to grow, the piece of your flesh, which is being nourished on 'your' food, blood, thoughts! How does it feel to wait for that day? The day when you will get the pain, life and identity!
How does it feel to know this, so much in advance? Something that is even slowing down the time, feeling each minute, kicking inside you slowly! Something that demands and gets all your attention, all the time!
How does it feel to know, this is the closest you can ever hold a life to yourself, your own life! Perhaps something much more precious than your own life, because you know, you had never touched your own belly with so much care and love before this! And you know how exactly it feels to exist and move around in an almost different body for few months!
What is that feeling, that you exerience till that day of 'light', amongst all those uncertainties and huge expectations? How does it feel to simultaneously know and not know something? How does it feel to know that only half the human beings can experience this? that is if you didn't consider a farmer's experience and situation worth comparing. The farmer who buries all his earnings in the soil and expects some life to emerge from there! The life that will probably save his life and few more!
How does it feel to end something good, expecting something better will start? And to be mentally ready, rather willing for it, 9 months in advance!

(update: Aakanksha gave me this link to a supposedly amazing video named 'in the womb'. Will watch it soon!)

frustration sketches

This is an old concept we had in first few days of NID. I don't remember who named it so, but when we used to get frustrated while trying something worth showing someone, we used to do thes frustration sketches. The idea was to take your frustration out on paper, sketch (if you could call it that) with all the possible negative energy (!) and thinking of pencil as sword most of the time! The joy of showing the outcome (or merely of having finished the pencil or torn the paper etc) could help to get over the frustration! At least it was supposed to work like this :)Talked about this to poorva yesterday and today I felt I needed to do that for myself. The quality of these sketches is not so much enjoyable, may be because of 'not enough level of frustration' or may be because they look unnecessarily clean because of the 'hardware' (wacom tablet) used! :)nice exercise though! :)

क्षण एक थांबण्याचा.....

त्या एका क्षणाला,
वारा वाहायचा थांबतो,
पानांची सळसळ थांबते,
झाडाखाली उतरलेला कावळा
कावरा बावरा होउन बघत राहतो.
उगीच दोन तीन काळे ढग
आकाशात रेंगाळत राहतात.
पाउस नाही पडत,
पण थोडं शहारून येतं.
मन उभ्या उभ्या हरवतं,
भूत - वर्तमानाचा गुंता होतो,
न सोडवावासा वाटणारा.
काही कळेनासं, काही कळू नए असं वाटतं.
मन आणि शरीर, दोघेही स्तब्ध होतात,
सगळ कसं शांत होतं, थांबतं.

ह्या सगळ्यांपासून अनभिज्ञ
डोळ्यांतलं पाणी तेवढं वाहत राहतं!

त्या एका क्षणाला.........

- भावीन

Smart Efforts

It takes a lot of efforts to fool yourself.
But then, the trick is, to keep telling yourself, "you were a fool!, weren't you?"

Inception

Cobb: Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.

*

Mal: I'll tell you a riddle. You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter. How can it not matter to you where the train will take you?

Cobb: Because you'll be together.

*

Mal: You keep telling yourself what you know. But what do you believe? What do you feel?

*

Mal: Do you know what it is to be a lover? Half of a whole?

*

Cobb: Look at you. You're just a shade, a shade of my real wife. How could I capture all your beauty, your complexity, your perfection, your imperfection, in a dream? Yes, you're the best that I can do. But, I'm sorry, you're just not good enough.

*

Ariadne: Why is it so important to dream?

Cobb: Because, in my dreams we are together.

एक होती प्रजा

आटपाट नगर होतं
नगराचा एक राजा होता
राजाला तीन राण्या
तिघिना एक एक राजपुत्र
राजा नपुंसक होता
बाकि सगळं व्यवस्थीत चालल होतं

राजवाडयामागे खोल विहीर होती
बारा महीने भरलेली असायची
सर्वात मोठ्या राणीने तिच्यात
जीव दिला होता असं म्हणायचे
नगरातल्या शेतकरयाशी तिचे
संबंध होते असही म्हणायचे
पण आता असं कुणी म्हणत नाही
दर अमावशेला सगळी प्रजा
एक एक हंडा पाणी विहिरीत ओतते
जुनी गोष्ट आहे इतकच म्हणतात
बाकि सगळं व्यवस्थीत चाललय

दरबारात एक प्रधान होता
राजवाड्याशी त्याचे घरचे संबंध
दरबारात तो फारसा नसायचा
पण राजवाड्यातल कमी जास्त
सगळ तोच बघायचा
प्रधानाची बायको हुशार
प्रधानाचा संसार राजेशाही ठेवायची
तीन वेळा का होइना
पण प्रधान राजा बनला होता ना!
प्रधानाचा संसार ही व्यवस्थित चालला होता

दरबारात एक सेनापतिही होते
राजाची कुणाशी दुश्मनीच नव्हती
राज्यातला सगळा कर
सेनापति गोळा करायचे
राज्यातली सारी न्याय-व्यवस्था
सेनापतीच बघायचे
न्याय-व्यवस्था न माननारी लोकं
सेनेत भरती व्हायची
बाकि सगळं व्यवस्थीत चालल होतं

आणि उरले राज-ज्योतिषी
त्यांच्या परवानगी शिवाय तर
नगराच पानही नाही हलायच!
प्रजेच उज्जवल भविष्य
तेच तर ठरवायचे!
नवीन रस्ते, नवीन राजवाडा
कधी कुठे बांधायचे, हे
सेनापती त्यानाच 'विचारायचे'
त्यांच्या आशीर्वादानेच तर
नगराची भरभराट होत होती

ते आटपाट नगर होत
नगराचा एक राजा होता
'राजा नपुंसक होता
हे फ़क्त राजालाच माहिती होतं'
असंच सगळे म्हणायचे!
-भावीन

नको

(click to enlarge)

Bridge, The time

How many times have you woken up in the morning, sat on the edge of bed facing window, and kept looking at the golden reflections in the river? How many times have you returned home in the evening, looked out from the window and searched for your camera to capture all the heavenly shades of light in sky and the dancing reflections in the river? I have experienced that for almost an year till date!
Even after spending 2 years in this apartment on the bank of Sabarmati River, I still find it so amazing to look at the bridge from window or balcony... almost every day! The bridge, I feel, is something which has it's own character, feelings, moods and I like to relate to that at different times. The bridge has taken me on many thought journeys, some stretching to hours! The bridge is really capable of taking me to the other side of time.
Following are some of the pictures I took over a period of more than a year, in different seasons, or time of day. There were many more moments worth sharing, but they are captured only in my mind, completely unexplainable in words!

On a rare rainy night in Ahmedabad.

The undisturbed patch of water below the bridge.

On a cool morning in July 2009.

A warm winter evening.

A sunny evening in this monsoon.

10 minutes ago!

:)