Where's My Insurance?

Every vice has its excuse ready.
- Publilius Syrus

I tried to taste as many dishes I can in the marriage function I attended today. It was a good one. I gave a decent treat to my belly without overdoing anything. I didn't touch the biryaani though wanted to have a taste of it. Later my father said it wasn't very good. I was sitting with one of my elder uncles and my father on the other side. They took good care of me but uncle finished early. He asked me if I could cook any of the dishes we had there and also reminded of "fox's meat we used to have" recollecting an old joke we shared.

Yesterday night I watched "Finding Nemo" and today it was some part of "Minority Report". I will finish watching it in some time now. We have plans to meet in the college tomorrow. We wanted to watch a movie but every movie released is readily available in form of DVD rips. So, going to a theatre is not a question. I just have to ask my friend to get a particular movie downloaded and there it is! He gets it to me within two days. I had requested for "Minority Report" last.

I suppose I have become a symbol of gossip in my friends' circle. I am talking a lot - about many things. It was my first belief that I was just sharing it. Then I thought it was my curiosity. Then I realized that I was becoming an entertainer! I never had the intentions to create fascination or excitement but I surely did. Perhaps I even got close to back-biting or even committed it. I never wanted to make any names bad; I just wanted everything to be openly discussed and cleared. I always had this heaviness within me because there are things I can't discuss with some close friends. I tried a lot but backed off fearing repulsion. It always made me feel guilty for it made me feel that I was taking sides with irrationality. My only intention has been to be transparent. It would be painful to know that I am misunderstood. I am into a lot of gossip though!

Love Finds No Preamble

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

The curiosity went into an apparent loop that seemed to keep me turning pages without pausing. It was 11:40 pm already and I had to kill the feelings to put myself at the computer. I have less than 200 pages of the book left to be read and I will accomplish that tomorrow. I have some more in queue. And one of those will stay for long - till February 4th! I will finish one before that. The classiest one will take a lot longer if I am estimating myself correctly.

I wasted a lot of time today after waking up early - at 10 pm. But then I had a nap stretched in time after my lunch which too came at the correct time in the day. The breakfast was spread across several hours - two bananas, a mug of cold coffee and a fried egg. I wanted more. I feel hunger every hour but don't find the exact scratches for this confusing itch. I had a good meal as my dinner sometime back and I am sure I will go for the cucumber in the fridge after writing for today.

I find Yahoo's spam protection service as the worst. They keep letting 2 to 3 mails reach my inbox folder even without knowing that they belong to the classification of spam. Perhaps that I could have accepted but to make things unacceptable, they send messages from my friends into the bulk mail folder. They mark the valid mails as invalid. That gives me the additional burden of checking those tens of nonsensical mails. I like the protection provided with Gmail and Hotmail. Hotmail in fact blocks the garbage at its server without letting me even see it. Gmail presents it in the spam folder with takes in at least 10 daily. But Yahoo works pathetically.

A friend misunderstood my yesterday's post and asked me something referring to a person he thought I had written about. I explained him that he had made a mistake and he doesn't know her. Though my friend didn't go much deep into what he questioned me about, he did question me and made it clear what he thinks. I avoided all talks of the person I mentioned yesterday. I went for the person whom he tried to relate my post - I wanted him to realize that he was the only one against me on that context of defamation and he was ignoring some critical points. I even felt a surge of anger when he asked me about her. Yesterday when I wrote the post, I had only one person in my mind - the girl whose blog I read. I was empathetic and I wrote my heart out. It's saddening to see somebody could take it wrong.

I feel odd sitting at home with no plans for the coming days. I might be doing productive things time to time but spending time alone at home looks wasteful. When I go to sleep in the night, it always makes me feel good to know what I am going to do when I wake up. It gives me a reason to have a complete sleep and have some motivation for waking up fresh for work. Living on a slow-hill is ludicrously tiring. It takes my mind to distasteful places giving damned logics leading to guilt and dissatisfaction.

It's Smothering Me, I Have To Do Something...

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
-Martin Luther King

Yesterday after I logged out of all my accounts on Gmail and Yahoo, I began to read my blogs trying to recollect and bring back to reality the thought processes I had when I wrote those old posts. I even wondered if I am the same person who had written them. I realized nobody else can put it all that way! I found many errors in the posts. They were not exactly grammatical - the erratic behavior of my fingers that put some alphabets at absurd locations made the spelling mistakes look like grammatical. I am not justifying my language - alphabets come natural to me!

I had a long reading exercise on the computer yesterday as I read not only my blogs but several others. I am using Google Reader these days to collect feeds and present them to me from a single access place. Its making my work simple and I don't have to open any page other than my account there. I can even share the posts I like. I just have to click on a button and the blog-post's name appears on the widget on my blogs. Using this application from Google, I can keep a track of all the updates made on several blogs. It doesn't save any posts; it just makes them available to me.

A day my mother takes leave from her work always comes as a blessing to me if I have a holiday that day. I get to spend some time with her without worrying about her mood. She has problems from her work-place and I know it takes a lot from her away. We went for shopping in the morning then to meet my grandmother. I reached home in the evening and left to attend the reception of the marriage I attended a couple of days back. I missed the presence of a cousin there. We have more functions coming up.

I got around a blog yesterday and read many posts from it. It made me feel good; but it made me feel bad more. It was the feeling of overpowered emotions and the victor was the blog. Some things hit hard with no reason - or perhaps a reason we are afraid to talk about and don't even realize unless we think about others who have faced it. I have light all around me, I have the whole world open to be explored, to be enjoyed, to be overpowered - if that can be mentioned with no isolation of desire, and the only one who can change anything is Allah. But after I read this blog, I saw in real words that there can be people who have the whole world open in front of them, it will even help them enjoy it, they can overpower it if they want to; but the desire is lost, the prime mover of life - love - had exploited them.

Nobody is to be blamed - not even love. It does its work the way guided upon and the way it can be guided. Neither the reality nor the dream hurts - it hurts from inside. The pain can't be measured. Even an innocent child laughing in his sleep would hurt us making us feel that he is laughing on our plight. We try to be strong and tell ourselves that we can endure anything that pain gives, that we cannot be exploited by any emotion, that we have to stand tall and keep a smile on our face always. But it hurts from inside. Because a smile has to come from inside. I know how easy it is to make it appear in my eyes with nothing similar to it in my heart!

There might be no light ahead in some people's lives. But this blog introduced me to a person who has lots of light ahead of her but perhaps she has fallen in love with that only view. She won't let herself enter the joys of the brightness. She can't for the light betrayed her past. She had been made to weep. All I could do was read her words and comment. I don't know her. I could just pray for her sitting at my desk. I found myself naïve not able to understand what exactly I can say to make her feel better. My words could hurt her. So many people must have said her so much and tried to console her. I tried to put myself in her place to imagine what could make me feel better.

Putting me in her shoes was horror to me. The light I have mentioned looked really obfuscating. It was intimidating. I somehow felt that nothing could sooth and there was no face or a word that could make me feel good. It looked like the end - the end of what I didn't know or perhaps couldn't understand. There was no fight to be fought and no reason to be salvaged. Not even pain to be felt. Just silence. No voice.

I remember when I used to feel bad about various things some months back. What my parent would say passed through my ears like unnerving voice. Every thought was giving me pain. It used to hurt in the throat first. Then it started to move inside like some fluid accumulating in my head, moving into my teeth and then in my chest spreading all the heat and breathlessness there. I wish I could be more descriptive but I haven't felt like that since many weeks now. Only some tears have rolled. Yesterday I recollected how it used to feel. And understood that she must have endured more than that.

Companionship is the best word to describe a necessity worth life and all its prerequisites. It's not just about having an intimate friend. It’s not only the peace it gives. It’s not just about love. It’s about being complete. Its about being in the place where we belong to. It’s about having a home. It’s about sharing life and the commitment to give it all when needed. It’s about having children and furthering life. But when life itself steals away the right to all this, how can a person move ahead? No matter how much light she finds around her, she can't see it. Her right has been stolen. She has been betrayed by the light itself.

I might be too young to understand this or I suppose one would agree if I said that I don't have to understand this. I don't care for what the ethics or the cultures say. It makes a difference to me and I don't know why it does that. It moves me beyond my comfort zone. It makes me think - think if somebody has to suffer so much then I have no right to be happy. It gives me guilt, it makes me sad. It makes me hate what love is about. It makes me feel like betraying myself. And the worst part - I can only sit and write.

No matter how hard we try we can't cause to make any differences by any means. We can analyze them, learn from them, and even teach others. But where is the point when we cannot help the person who is making us realize all that. She is the one suffering. There might be people to stand by her, to take care of her, to be with her. But they are not the ones she is supposed to be. She is not living in her home. She is not living the life she must have. Is anything I can do apart from praying for her?

This Is Where I Fail

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
-Ben Franklin

Things seem to be going very unpleasant with no servant-maid in the house. Mother's getting too tired with the extra work and she finds very little time to rest in the mornings. The floor never looks untidy but the other things are in a mess. We are keeping a few places in order but its all pathetic and any guest would embarrass us by his presence. I don't know how long this will continue.

On Saturday when I went to meet my cousins, I browsed through several books before starting with 'Digital Fortress'. Today I finished a good 60 pages after the 100th. The book is a fast read with very less word-density. I hope to finish it soon and start 'Atlas Shrugged'. I had been waiting to put my hands on this book and it was gifted to me by my friends. After I finish reading it, it would be the bulkiest book I will have ever read.

Yesterday at the wedding function I saw the groom staring at me many times. After many guests left, he came out to meet all the people who were sitting there. I was with my uncle when he came and stood in front of me. He was looking at me making me feel odd. I wondered if he was going to ask me who I was. His face told me so. Then he started meeting my uncle. I stood up immediately, shook hands with him and sat down. I thought of congratulating him. I would have even done that but the cold chemistry we had developed from those eye contacts stopped me.

I saw him looking at me an hour later too. Perhaps my shirt was too shiny for that occasion and my idea of making it sober by having a jacket over it made him more interested. My father and I were the only two with formal jackets - it was Sherwani with others. I told my father that his coat looked old-fashioned with the lapels very narrow. I had asked my brother if my clothes suited the occasion. I saw many eyes telling me there that they weren't exactly. I enjoyed so many eyes.

At Nestlé

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.
-Samuel Lover

I asked my father why it is considered as bad by some people to play cards. He said it was usually because they relate it to the involvement of money for gambling which is surely illegal in Islam. Otherwise, he said, its perfectly alright to play it for fun purpose. I asked an elder cousin sometime back today if he knew how to play, and he said he used to play 'Rummy' a lot. I remember once I tried to learn it from my father but couldn't understand. I play 'Solitaire' a lot on my computer and I once finished the game in 39 seconds. Yesterday I learnt how to play 'Bluff' but couldn't learn how to win it. I was too lazy to think then.

Having said how playing cards is not at all a bad thing as perceived by many, I think I can tell how much I enjoyed playing it all night yesterday till today morning. We were seven friends sitting on my house's terrace with two yellow lamps burning. I had arranged a taqt, some sheets sit on the floor and gau takiyas. And of course we had the famous hukka spreading the almost-sweet smoke. We had three grilled chickens and lots of chicken biryaani with coke.

The plan was made some days back when I told a friend that I can get a hukka and we will party someday soon. Then I said it can be done on Saturday but I didn't then know we would be doing it all night. I had to get the equipment from my cousin, and purchase the flavor and synthetic coal from a shop at Mehdipatnam. I was afraid that I would not be able to set it up perfectly but it turned out well when I did it the first time. The second time I used a little less flavor and it wasn't satisfactory. But we had a great time. Everybody tasted it!

The night passed by very quickly. It was cold but I was fine with it. Only my palms were feeling the bitterness of the breeze. As the night approached dawn, the chill increased making the time even more enjoyable. The 'Bluff' games kept us engrossed and excited giving no room for sleep or tiredness. There was no disturbance from phones or anybody else. The only difficult thing came to me after everybody went - I had to wash all the plates and cutlery we used. We don't have a servant-maid helping my mother with house-hold work and she does almost everything. I wanted not to burden her. The platform and the level of the sink in the kitchen is too low for me giving me lots of back-ache while I stood holding each plate under the tap. It was tiring before I finally went to sleep at 7:30 am. My day began at 1:30 pm.

We had to attend a lunch-party at a cousin sister's house she bought recently. I met all my relatives there. I had spent the complete afternoon at an aunt's place yesterday and today again we met. There will a third meet in the evening when we would be attending the wedding function of my father's cousin's daughter. We have invitation of marriage-functions in a row from now on. I hope I get to attend all of them. I like meeting my people, talking to them and spending time with them and these occasions are the only ones when I get a chance. We all are busy otherwise.

After I washed the dishes in the morning, I searched for something to eat in the fridge and found a cutlet and shaami kabab. After heating them for 30 seconds I sat at the dining table thinking about the card game wondering why I couldn't win even a single time. Not that I can't lie, I was surely hesitant. Then I thought how that game can show everybody's intellect and intelligence in a crystal-clear view. The tactics employed by every player show how he thinks and how well he can manipulate his own moves. It even explain how immaculately he can deceive - all a part of the game of course. Then I wondered if I was lacking these skills and if this could effect any of my coming times. I wondered it I am not sharp enough to play such games in real-life. Then I recollected the name of the game and laughed. The name itself is "Bluff" and I felt glad I didn't win any of it!

One of my friends has started working in a call center - GE Money. Another would be joining soon. They cleared the interview rounds and were too happy for what they achieved. I mentioned about this to my mother and she asked me to enjoy whatever time I have before engineering ends. And today I began counting how much I have been enjoying these days and how much money I have been spending. In the last 10 days itself, I am sure, I have spent around Rs. 1500. And I feel fine with it. It am not putting it on useless things. I am enjoying with my friends and I am spending it on myself. I just have to keep a count on the numbers. I have to make the figures on the paper match with the ones in my wardrobe's vault.

Tricked By My Own Heart

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Some years back when I was doing my intermediate studies I had a big debate with my parents in which I tried to explain them why I had no friends giving every quotable reason for it. I couldn't succeed and my father had said that I didn't know how to make friends and I didn't know what friendship was. I had not told him the chief reason for avoiding close friendships. I couldn't tell him how weak I am in staying away from people who are dear to me. I couldn't tell him that I was afraid of making friends because I was afraid of loosing them - loosing them in time, loosing them to others, loosing them to myself. Four years later, now, my fear has materialised and I don't know how I am going to bear it.

I had a particular group of friends in my engineeri's first year and it was all formal. They were my friends because they sat around the place I was sitting in the classroom, and being a student I had to keep formal friendship with my classmates. We all were simply friends with no big emotional attachments. When I started making some friends a little far away from my bench in the classroom, I remember somebody saying "you are no more with us these days". The next year I had a new set of friends.

We were still simply friends with the three guys being a bit closer to being called as good friends. Things kept happening. I never had thought before that I would ever talk to a girl in the college. Soon in third year we were a group of nine friends. I changed. I don't know about others because I didn't know them before. They were all good to me, gave me lots of respect, made me feel important and most precisely, I was getting emotionally attached to them. I had my fears but the warmth never made me realize what all this happiness could lead me to.

I kept friends with old people too. Three of my casual friends from intermediate times got more closer to me though we weren't meeting frequently. When one of them left for US, I got the first blow in friendship. Though I am in good contact with him, I never knew I would miss him. The other two too got more closer to me even when we hardly share anything in common. In the college, I became a part of two groups. I can't call the second one as a group precisely, but I had two different sets of friends. One of them became more than just a group to me. Today, as I write this, I am emotionally attached to each of the eight and it gives me creeps to imagine my time without them. I will surely have some tough times after I get done with my engineering. I will have to move on.

Among the several invaluable things they all did for me is a blog they made to wish me on my birthday. I have read the messages in it several times by now and the only thing I can say is that I am sorry, I might not be able to return to them the kind of friendship they gave to me, I might not be strong enough to be such a good friend in return, I am afraid of this bond we have built for it is transient and we won't be together some months from now. I am sorry I tried to become a good friend even when I had that fear in my heart. We can't make the time stop. We can't make friendships stop. But someday we have to move on. The fear would be no more then. Because it would have by then done the damage.

Yesterday we all went for a lunch at a restaurant in Jubilee Hills. We had a wonderful time there. The gifts, the flowers, the presence of each of my friends, the presence of the friendship, the smiles, laughs, giggles, and mischief - it was all mesmerising. The fear too was still there and it didn't cease to exist for a single moment. I couldn't even move away from any of them telling that I can't take it when time moves up apart. I am sure they all are stronger than me. Mental strength is something I couldn't teach myself till now.

I went to meet my aunt today in Malakpet. Even my grandmother is there these days and it was long since I had been there. I sat talking to my cousin for long about our engineering syllabi and campus placements. She is in second year and already worried about the later thing. I spent about three hours there and returned home just in time to receive two of my friends here. Now I am sitting here reminiscing not able to understand what I must do next keeping in mind about what has to be done - as a plain objective.

I Don't Feel It

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
-Robert Benchley

I tried to search within me if there was something new after I turned 21. It was all same. I wasn't feeling any different. Surely a number can't differ with my feelings. Numbers don't define maturity either. They just give more permissions! This time I already had them. Somethings just got legalized.

I had the most sleepy of all my days today. I slept after 3:30 am yesterday and I keeps sleeping from time to time till today evening. I hardly did anything apart from spending some time with a friend who came home. And I am feeling sleepy again now.

A cousin for mine who had started a blog more than a year back but didn't continue writing has started another one. This time he looks promising with an Internet connection at his home in Mecca. He is 13 but 'works' like 16. I remember a friend telling me that these days we find generation gaps for just four years' differences in age.

Purview

Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgement.
-Michael Corleone, The Godfather

Like how I did several times in the past, I opened the 'create' page and signed out without writing a single word. I had words but no feeling of having the need to type them. I thought I could sleep a bit early but I went to bed after 3 am. I am afraid I am getting used to this schedule. I have to correct myself soon. Yesterday a friend who came to my house met with an accident and it was for the first time I saw such physical pain with blood. He got badly hurt on his fingers and we just hope that he finds enough strength in his fingers to write the last exam tomorrow.

It's environmental studies for tomorrow. We won't find any marks of this subjected being included in the aggregate percentage but scoring 40% is compulsory. I have been through some questions and though I can get away with it even without opening the book again, I will spend some more time. Not that I have opened my book till now, a friend read those answers to us and it was sufficient. I was at the college today with three more friends.

I spoke to so many people today - mostly on phone and it was nice to hear some voices. Talking to my aunt from Mecca especially was soothing. I had been wanting to talk to her but was missing the chance always. She called me first in th evening, the line wasn't clear. She kept calling but we couldn't talk. I called back and the line wasn't clear again. We spoke finally when she called sometime back.

And This Will All Just Be A Dream

Mother. Tonight I decide.
- Achilles to Thetis

I have always thought of the idea of my father dropping me to my college thinking how warm it would be to have him at a place that has taught me some very important things for my life. It could have made me feel so fortunate if I could walk with him showing all the places in the college I have memories attached to. He dropped me to the college in November 18th but he couldn't come inside - the authorities weren't allowing anybody but students to come inside the campus. I left from outside. I had asked him to drop me there that day and he had agreed.

I still don't know how I did the test. CL says I would score 58 and also shows a small list of worthy colleges I can apply for. IMS speaks of the same score but presents a brighter list of colleges. TIME gives some motivation to apply for these colleges telling me that I will have 63 as my score. 58 or 63, my percentile would be between 73 and 81. No talks of how I am feeling and neither will I write about these numbers. They might end up meaning nothing. I neither feel pain nor feel like calling the nothingness as pain. The test looked like a mock to me.

I was playing with a friend sometime back using the coloring application which is a part of yahoo messengers. I was glad to see even Pidgin supporting it. The pictures I have posted are some of what we did. There are some more but I don't want to get into any controversies! We ridiculed on some people and made fun of them drawing colors out of excitement. It was fun with attempts to include irony in it. We both made proportional contributions to all these pictures and all of them have more than one meaning.

Dear Grandfather

Dear Nana,

I have seen you several times since you left us. But I couldn't touch you; neither could talk to you at my will. They were dreams and they were of the kind that would never come true. Hardly a day passes by when I don't think of you before sleeping. Though things are the same as they used to be, they don't give the same feeling with you not around.

I frequently think about that hospital ward inside the most critical place there where I came to meet you after you had a major heart attack in 2005. You had asked me to pray for you and hearing that was a very painful thing for me. You knew that your heart was very less on functionality and the doctors had given up. You had asked me to pray for your life. And I went home and cried because I loved you and I couldn't imagine my life without your presence.

Now you are gone Nana and I don't understand what it is that troubles me every moment I go to your house or sit down to pray. I remember you holding my small fingers and taking me to the nearby shop to buy me candy. How can I forget those car-shaped chocolates you used to give me and my cousins usually on Saturdays when we met? I haven't eaten them since the time you were asked not to go out for walks - nobody gave them to me and I never bought them. Nana those chocolates are still sold in some shops. When I see them I only hope that someday when I go to your house, you would ask me to take them from the fridge and share it with my brother. I have taken several chocolates from the fridge since then given to me by Ammi, but I miss those 'cars'. You loved me more than your son and daughters.

I remember holding your hands when I met you in the last Ied. I didn't know I was holding them for the last time in my life. On that Saturday when you lay lifeless, I wanted to touch you but had no courage. I want to touch you and hold your hands again Nana. Please come back.

I know I was a very troublesome grandson not obeying you too frequently. I used to love making fun of you so many times. I never listened to you when you asked me not to play outside. I always shouted while playing with my cousins and never heeded when you asked for peace. I countered everything you said about life. I disobeyed you when you asked me not to stay outside late-night. I know Nana I have sinned and I could never give you the happiness of having a considerate grandson around. Please forgive me if you can. I loved you and I will always love you.

You come back Nana - I will show you how I am no more the kind of person I was a year back. I will agree to everything you say and I will obey all you ask me for. I will never disturb you while you go to sleep, I will never play outside and make noise, and I will always take every advice you give me considering them the words of a man who has seen everything life could offer. Give me once single chance to live with you again Nana and I will be the best grandson the world has ever seen. And this time when you come back, I will spend more time sitting with you and when you go to sleep, I will stay in your room praying and begging Allah that you wake up this time.

That day, Nana, when you didn't wake from your sleep, I was with my friends in the college. There was nothing important I was doing there - just gossiping. I wish I had come to your house at least an hour early and I could have met you. By the time I was there, you had already left us. Forgive us Nana; we realized about your departure a lot later when Ammi tried to wake you up to serve tea. She shouted; Mamma, Aunty, Khalamma - they all ran to your room and tried to wake you up. I ran out to get some help. I remember that Nana, I was running on the street like crazy to find an auto-rickshaw. When I returned, the doctor who lives beside your house had explained everybody at home that you have become cold and there was no life in what lay of yours in your bed.

You couldn't have endured seeing how everybody cried. I stood at the door staring at our neighbor who carefully tied a cloth around your face and pulled a white sheet all over your body. I wanted to stop him. I wanted to ask him not to do this with my grandfather. I couldn't speak and he finished making you body a divine object of peace. I stood there still feeling myself lifeless, hearing everybody crying, hoping that life returns to you. But you were gone and now as I sit to write you this letter, all I feel is immense pain in my heart and tears rolling down my cheeks. I don't know why I am writing this.

Nana, you might never get to read this letter but many people will read it and they will know that I loved you even when I couldn't be a good grandson. And Nana, this letter will be read long after even I am no more. Everybody will read it Nana, but you. Can't you at least give me one chance to let you know how much I love you? Can you please let me tell thank you a million times and allow me to ask your forgiveness? Please Nana, I can't keep the guilt any longer with me. I need to tell you all this.

If you come back Nana, you will never have any problem with the water supply in your locality. They have installed new pipelines and Mamu has got the sump repaired and this one doesn't leak. There is plenty of water and none of my cousins waste it. Aunty had postponed her departure from Hyderabad by a week then and now she is in Mecca. She was not well a few weeks back but Alhamdulillah she is fine now. Her younger son has started going to school and when he speaks to Ammi on phone, he asks her to come to his house there. He has forgotten you Nana, but I give you my word, the next time he comes here, I will tell him everything about you and also how you loved and cared for him.

Mamu has left Aramco for-good and he is staying with Ammi. He is doing a job here and is always busy. I had not spent much time with him before but now when I see him now, he is all you. His way of talking resembles you, the way he walks, his height - he is indeed you son Nana and he was alone in Abquaiq when he heard about your demise. I still remember his crying voice when I spoke to him on phone that day.

I can never forget that day Nana. When I reached you home, I was hungry and was about to sit for lunch. I ate sometime only in the night when was forced. I wanted to eat nothing because I was used to hearing you ask me to have my lunch when I came to meet you on Saturdays. You were not there to ask me for that. Nana you didn't even ask me if I had gone to college that day and if I had any classes to attend that evening. Nana I didn't hear your considerate voice that day asking how I was. Please Nana I long to hear that. And trust me this time I will reply with all smiles and stay with you all the time. I will have my meal only when you ask me to and I won't shout back.

Pappa and Uncle were arranging for your funeral to be done with Zuhar prayers. I asked them and insisted that it should be done before that - in Fajar. I couldn't bear seeing you that way Nana. I couldn't even participate in the last right where your body was being washed. I knew I couldn't stand that and I stayed in the other room. I wished I had heeded to Uncle when he called me.

Even though it was early morning Nana, many people came to your funeral. Almost the whole of our neighborhood was there and Nana those guys you always used to hate were the people who did all the rights to help bring you down gently below the ground level, rest you there, seal your body and cover it completely. They are very good people Nana and they did what your grandson should have done. Your grandson is a looser Nana and he is weak. I am sorry; I couldn't be the last person to touch you.

That night one of your friends came to pay his regards. I was the one who took him inside and rolled up a little that cloth that was covering you. He stood there for a few seconds and I could see pain and grief all over him. I understood how it could feel to loose a friend. Nana while I was pulling that cloth back on your face, it rubbed your untrimmed beard and produced a scratch noise. I am sorry if I hurt you with that Nana. It was a mistake and I couldn't forgive myself for that till now.

So many people came that day Nana - even the sons and daughters of your long lost relatives. Your elder brother came the next day from Warangal. That was a bitter part. He was crying Nana. He was crying for he had come to pay respects on his younger brother's death. Everybody cried that day Nana but me. I have been crying every few days ever since then. I love you Nana and I couldn't cry that day because it was too big a thing for me to believe in. I never thought I had to live my life without you.

I have seen many things after that Nana. I got selected for a job in Infosys, started driving regularly and wrote CAT. Nana I didn't do well in CAT and I have failed many expectations. I wish I could tell you all this Nana. I am sure you would have felt a lot of happiness when you heard about you grandson getting a job. And I know Nana you would have grieved over his defeats and losses. But I give you my word now Nana, I will give in everything to become a successful person and I would do everything to keep my parents happy. I will remember all the things on life you have said and I will follow them with care. And Nana, I will always hope to meet you some day.

In a few days I will be 21 and I will miss your blessings that day. I have my exams going on now and I sometimes hope that you call me and ask me how I was doing them and wish me good luck. I miss the care you used to show me whenever I was sick. You used to ask me about my health so frequently Nana that I used to get irritated. You were considerate beyond comprehension and I never respected that. Nobody asks for me so much now Nana and I sometimes feel lonely. Mamma and Pappa take good care of me but you are missing.

There is so much I have to tell you Nana but they don't come out now. I will write to you again soon. And this time, I will do my best to tell you things that would make you happy. Once again Nana, I miss you a lot and I long to meet you again. I pray for you so frequently and hope that sometime in the hereafter we get to talk. I will take the replies to my letters from you then.

See you soon Nana. Khuda hafiz.

Regards,
Zubair

P.S.: I have done some cleaning of your room and trashed several old things and some magazines. It took a lot to heart to do that Nana. There are several valuable artifacts lying safely in the cupboards and even the collections of stones and photographs. I will keep them safely until I meet my day.

“Look guys, if you're just going to stare at me, I'm going to bed!”

But it made me think about death. I don't feel I'll live a long life. That's why I have to get what I can from every day.
- Elvis Presley

I can still do something very easy like joining Infosys when I finish my engineering next year. I can start earning immediately and have a good chance of staying with my parents for longer. I can enjoy the rest of my days in the college and even get to keep around Rs. 20,000 I have taken from my mother for admission processes for MBA. My parents would be happy with this and nobody would complain. I will become independent and do what I want and when I want. I will be in control of my life.

The difficult thing is to become a slave of my dreams. I will have to work a lot more - do my best in CAT, try to do better in XAT and IBSAT and work even more to get the admission. That won't be the end of it - I will have to spend two years doing hard work like I have never done before. And stay away from my parents. This will even delay money reaching me. And I won't be able to relax in the months to come. I will miss everything I have enjoyed these 21 years.

The rewards might constitute a heavier pay check when I finally get a job, more respect and most importantly the fulfillment of all the dreams I have seen. I will become a slave of my dreams. I will have to make sacrifices. Stay alone and away from my parents and not meet them for months together. The biggest sacrifice would be the ease I would be running away from on a chase for something that could bring a lot of criticism for me if I succeed. I will have to face negativity and loneliness.

Everything has a price attached to it. I don't know why my parents keep talking about me getting married. They enjoy it and confuse me. It confuses me because it looks attractive and easy and simple. I will get respect even this way. I am just 21 - a bit less than that in fact - and my parents look excited already. They just make me think. And I enjoy thinking about it. That's the problem with me right now. It's a feeling I must contain and look for delayed gratification. But why?

I had this thought when I wrote the last post here. That even made me put up that quote from the movie 'Troy'. I don't compare myself to any character from it and neither am I interested in making my name immortal. I just want to be happy, lave and be loved. And right now I feel like pouring all my heart here the way a drunk would do in front of his closest friend. It would be such a big relief only if I could do it and nobody questioned. I wouldn't mind being laughed at - I laugh at myself more than anybody. I know every boy or a girl of my age has these things, or rather plans, in mind and many fantasies attached to them. I don't have any fantasies though - I have stopped enjoying them long back - but the things that could easily be turned into reality seem far from real if I choose to continue with my studies. And I am going to go ahead for my dreams. I don't dream wild; I dream hard. I never work hard.

I remember my father telling a few times "you need to have children and lots of money when you are young", and I agree with him. I guess I would still be young at 24! And this is not immature thinking. Staying away from my parents is my biggest worry now; it's not much with CAT. There isn't much I can do about it - I can only write it and pray for the best - for its only Allah who decides. I don't want to be a celebrity or a famous personality - I just want to be called as the best person by the people who know me. This, I don't know, is realistic or not. As a bottom line, I have to live for what I have dreamt and see it come true not as a miracle but as a blessing from Allah which gives satisfaction to me and a feeling of deserved achievement. Some things still attract me.

I have not written this post to come to any conclusions or make resolutions. I wanted to be analytical and critical of this dilemma and confusion I am facing and for which I know, it is just a transient feeling. I have never found anything in my life as boring. I have enjoyed every bit of it and have seen how it feels to be so blessed. Its not even that I am living in a fast lane - I know what's happening and where I am leading myself to. Some earlier defeats come as a reminiscence but retrospecting and learning from them makes me feel stronger. I couldn't have experienced them at a better time and I couldn't have salvaged any better. I want to be loved, not envied.