I wish a wish

It was a starry night. I was on the lonely beach. Tired, exhausted, confused. Sitting on the tiny couch of the hotels challet. Lost in my world, the world of a Single man in love for the first time ever. Taking in the breeze. Taking in the music that played lowly on the old radio in the distant challet. Lost in my thoughts. She came in from behind me. I glanced at her. She looked equally lost. But she looked surreal. Just like the night. She had her sweater to keep her warm from the cold night. She looked at me. And then, sat down on one side of my lap making herself comfortable resting her head on my shoulders.

There was a moment of silence. We both didn't say a word. Time stood still. I couldn't hear the music or feel the breeze or see the night sky. Nothing made sense. The only thing I felt was the warmth of her touch, the smell of her hair. We sat speechless both staring at the ocean and taking in the moment The feeling was blissful. Something that you wish you could capture in a box and keep it with you for the rest of your life. I didn't know when we both fell asleep. Right there on the lonely beach, on that small couch.

When I woke up, I was alone on the couch. The sun was about to rise. I realized it was a dream. I lasted for the feeling again, I wanted to sleep again. Go back to the dream. I was gutted. 

I stood up, wore my sandals and someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned around to see the Challet's worker. Semi-asleep, rubbing his eyes.

With a frustrated face, he said, "YES Sir, can I go now?"

Me: "What? Go where?"

Him: "Home? Where else? I had to keep the bloody gates open because of you…."

Me: "......what? because of me why?"

Him: "WHY? You went to sleep with your bloody gf on that stupid couch. I was going to wake you guys up when good thing your mate stopped me and paid me a fuckin fortune to keep the hotel gates open, else I'd have kicked you out I swear to god. I don’t usually hAJPQWNK DLKA HDPJHP WEMASDMK L:AJSK LHPIJD NKANMD KNKLJDSJDJBNSLDBNOL..."

She was there..she was!

In Lonesome valley

What is it with us humans and loneliness that makes us think and think and think and think some more. My mind right now is like a wild forest-fire - Unstoppable!

I look outside and it's absolutely breathtaking. The entire horizon is snow laden. It looks like a scene right out from some movie. Everywhere you look and everything you see, is covered with snow. Beautiful. But..I'm in my room. Sitting alone. Absolutely no one in the house.

Some have gone to work, some have gone to their loved ones, some are back to their real home to celebrate Christmas with their parents. How much fun it would've been if there was someone to enjoy the evening with. The perils of being away from home for your career - Right there!

But past few days have been quite normal. Nothing extra ordinary. People keep on amusing me with their behaviour. You sometimes get into a cocoon mindset where you make an image of someone which you believe won't change. Like someone you know for years and you think he/she is trustworthy or he/she will never back stab you. And guess what, they do just that. That's when you, what nature likes to call it, come out of the cocoon - the transformation.

And then you meet someone new too and it feels like you've been knowing that person for absolute ages. Such a brilliant feeling.

In my case, as much as that feeling was exhilarating, it almost cost me the next day. My enjoyment at meeting that new person resulted in me sleeping at about 5:30 am and getting up at 5:45 am (after 15 mins if you didn't get it) to go off to work. My eyes looked like I was high from a dosage of ecstasy. After 3 red bulls, I seemed alright. Hey, but you know what, it was worth it!

The day started quite well at snowy Ascot and soon the racing was cancelled because of the storm that we experienced. That was one of the most breathtaking sights I'd ever seen in my life. I stood in the balcony of the grandstand and all I could see was white from top to bottom. You couldn't see the horizon. I couldn't see anything past 5 feet from me. It was just amazing. We finished quite early than usual and predictably, next day's races were cancelled as well.

Hence today, I'm home, I'm writing this.

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS to all you good people out there!

This song is much much deep than the vocals, something clicks in you.

Epigraph

I've sat down on a snow-laden beautiful lonesome evening to write another one of my rare blog entries. I always keep on thinking of writing one every week if not every other day but I am too lazy for that. It always takes something awe-inspiring to happen for me to sit down & pen my dispostion. I get bored rather quickly even If I decide to update my blog which, for the record, I reckon hardly anyone ever bothers to read anymore. So who am I kidding here? But its always good to pen your thoughts down so you can go through them whenever you need a bit of introspection. Anyway, so one would wonder why the crapiola now?

Well, things happened. As they always do. And always will.

I was goin through the papers a couple of days back. Its a common read about an awful lot of teenage stabbings and teenage suicides and what not. It is such a pity to see someone at the age of 13 has to think of ending his misery by putting a blade through some mates ribs and ending it all. Over a girl? Over a pety fight? Over "respect"? It takes me back to my teens when my worries included, how to dodge dads erate eye because a teacher called home for my less than impressive showing in the exams. Or worry about not saving enough money for a movie at the weekend. Or to worry about a new kit of cricket. I had fights. Arguments. But it all went out of the window after a few days, if not hours.

We all are going down the dirty road. As I once previously stated, I wish I could just lock my future kids in a box somewhere till they are about 30 so that to keep them away from this new culture, these new people, these new trends and this new society.

A 10 year old now "must" have a cell phone which for the record, I only got to lay my hands on secretly when I turned 17. All the monetary "blessings" that I used to receive in India was actually the real reason why I could afford a Cell phone during those days when even picking up a call was chargeable.

Now we all follow Lady Gaga, her music and her fashion sense!

Oh well, those were the days. Bless us all!

Man proposes but She disposes!

Funny incident.

Worked with this Indian girl at Twickers a few weeks ago. Really pretty. Good girl. Spent some time chatting with her with no intention of asking her out. Nevertheless we added each other on facebook or rather I added her on facebook and we talked for a while thereon. She went back to wherever for her Uni and I didn't hear from her ever since.

Come this Saturday for the Kiwi game, I see her queuing up for her Signing in on a level below my floor. I was in the lift and I just had a quick glance, she did too and in that brief 3 second period, I waved at her and asked her to come up and she waved back "ok, call me!". Brilliant I thought. Hence as soon as a I got on my desk, I called the floor manager downstairs and asked him to send her up to me and promised him some really pretty replacements.

Here's how it went...

Alok: Hey man, do me a massive favour, you should have this girl XYZ in your staff queue. Send her upstairs and I'll send you the hottest girl that comes to me.

Y: Umm what's her name? How does she look like..?

A: XYZ...Indian girl, long hair...you'll notice.

Y: Ahh, hey ..(Chitter chatter)...Mate, she says she doesn't want to come coz she's got her friend with her.

A: Nah it's alright, send both of em' and I'll send you 2 girls. Like for like replacement.

Y: ...(Chitter chatter)...nah mate she says no she doesn't want to come. Sorry!

A: (BUMP)! Alright thanks! Bye..

I have no idea what happened there but it was shocking. I hadn't in the slightest thought of that. I tried to ignore it and concentrate on the job ahead but it kept on playing at the back of my mind. It really bamboozled me.

I went downstairs midway through the day to have a chat with "Y" and see what he had to say. I met him and he started laughing. He said "Mate, she said she doesn't want to work with you today or next week. She even said to me that you have no chance with her. Forget about her man!" I was like, wtf! I was feeling so low because this was totally random. I had no intentions of getting into her pants neither did I protrude any behaviour to suggest the same. The way we chatted for over an hour when we first met all but suggested that she thought I was a funny guy and she kind of took me as a nice guy! So when I heard of all this, it obviously meant she was pretending to be nice to me just because I was a manager and inside she was just waiting for me to fuck off. It pissed me off and I just decided to not give a fuck and walk straight off.

When I went home, I was kind of taken aback when I saw her facebook post on my wall quite early in the morning asking me if I was working that day at Twicks. I was wondering if she didn't want to talk or work with me why the hell would she ask me that?

Hence I decided to msg her on facebook and clear off any misunderstanding. I let her know I have no intentions of hitting on her and I was really surprised she said all of that to "Y".

.

.

.

She replied back instantly, saying she didn't say any of that and the way she said it was reverted back to me in a totally wrong way. Obviously, the guy wanted to keep her on his floor and she said some really nice things. Made my day!

Hence proven, Guys are dickheads!

And the biggest of them all is "Y".

Time for REVENGE! Wait for Part 2 to this post..;)

Kiwis in town, HAKA dance and the matter of punctuality

D'oh! After reading people scribble on their blog for quite a few days, I've decided to follow suite. I've never been very good at keeping my mouth shut just like Jonathan Ross but converting those thoughts to words and eventually on the blog has been a problem of sorts. I put it down to getting no time and being busy with work while some may put it down to sheer laziness. To those "some", a one finger salute, although they are sort of correct. Sort of.

So, had a very entertaining past week. Eventful. November and December is one of the busiest period of our event manager's lives up here in London because of all the November and December Internationals at Twickenham. 6 in total. We all look forward to the start of the month and as soon as the first game is over, you can't wait for the end of the 6th. It is the time to make money, but at the cost of some real donkey arse hard work. But oh well, we mere mortals have to slog around to make our gold unlike some shrek-ish creatures who just show dissent and get rewarded with over 200k GBP a week. Don't bother with the maths my fellow Indians, it is pointless. And if you don't know what I mean, google Rooney! ;)

I was particularly enthusiastic about these two months. It means more business for me and more work for all the guys over the holiday period. On the Thursday though, I was so over enthusiastic, I woke up early at about 5am, got ready and was at work at about 5:45am. I was looking forward to seeing the security guards on duty to be amazed at my punctuality but instead found out there was not a soul around. After parking on the "RFU Staff" (Im not one) parking space at the Old Rugby House, I made my way into the stadium to see the Duty Manager. Still, No one around.

I don't get it. I am 15 Mins early to work for Christs sake! How the hell no ones' there to notice when you're early to work but the entire world including your bosses walk past you when you're 5 mins late is absolutely surprising to me. But it was a fantastic day nonetheless.

Was looking forward to the New Zealand game since a year because I wanted to particularly see them do The Haka in front of 82,00 English Supporters. It has been my long term dream to watch the Haka after watching it on youtube hundreds of time. Fortunately, I was asked to look after Level 6, the view from where, was absolutely stunning to say the least. I literally felt like I was up in the clouds when I saw the first wave of supporters crowding in.

What goes around comes around. Time is the Healer.

I was given 3 Supervisors to work with on Level 6.

1st Guy was/is my immediate boss at Ascot. He was shocked at the role reversal when he was informed I was going to be his boss for the next 2 months.

2nd Guy was a former Sodexho Cash Declaration guy who once half strip searched me 3 years ago citing "random searches" as a reason. Absolute racist and I always hated him since. But the moment I heard he was going to be working under me, the monster in me started growling. Result, he ended up in the bloody hot kitchen dealing with a bloody monster of a man called the "head chef". Someone had to do it, I had a good enough reason to appoint him to do that job! ;)

3rd supervisor was a beautiful girl called Aggie. Never worked before as a supervisor. Didn't like that fact but its always a first time for everyone and I was more than sufficiently staffed so I didn't really mind. Besides it's good to have some good looking creatures working with you. You don't want a sausage fest do you?

Time has a funny way of dealing with things. I have learned over the past few months that if you put your head down and get the job done, you will be rewarded in some way or the other. This Saturday was a very good example. It was hard to get these guys on board to work with me and understand that I was their boss. I didn't want them to pass their judgement based on the amount of melanin in their skin but eventually when I managed to convince them that I wasn't there to boss around but work "with" them, we were absolutely cruising with Alex's hardcore action in the kitchen, Simon's experience, Alex's co-operation and my Logistical know-how about the stadium. We were The Dream Team.

On the closing note, I did get to watch The Haka. Recorded this video. It was such a magnificent feeling when the English Supporters started singing when the Kiwis started the HAKA. Had goosebumps all over me. Brilliant!

Anyway, I'll probably do this blogging thing on a regular basis if I feel like it. But for now Tchao!

Women

I was a just-born and she was Twenty-Five,
Though we were we, we were one.
I would cry out in Latin and she would respond in Greek,
I would learn nothing but she never got tired to teach.

I was surrounded by monsters eager to pull my cheek,
but they would vanish the moment I was wet and weep.
She would come running and hold me in her arms,
as if I had won the contest of the charms.

Now I was able to walk and chew,
and hey, I was two.
I and she could now understand each other,
I was her everything and she needed no other.
I would try to walk and fall down,
But knowing she was with me,
the fear of getting hurt was now gone.

We still could not converse that effectively,
But she would understand my needs so easily.
I could now roam about free,
because now I have turned three.

I was ready to join a new world,
my academic life was now gonna mould.
She would dress me as best as a prince,
but when I would come back,
she would need at least an hour to rinse.

I was now able to talk,
I was a ferry and she was my dock.
I still remember the child, whose shirt I had tore,
Hey buddy, I have turned four.

I now came home a little late,
Nevertheless finding her waiting at the gate.
She would hug me and carry me in her arms,
it felt like flying through the farms.

We now did the homework together,
I would spoil the home and she used to work.
Years passed and now I was fifteen,
and with each year I would forget to lean.

I wouldn't care for what she said,
because now I had become mean.
She would ask me to study for a good future,
but I was busy in a different culture.

Now I had many shes in my life,
I dreamed of having one of them as my wife.
I changed a lot which she did not teach,
She would try to hug me but I was out of reach.

She still waited for me at the gate,
but I would look at her with utmost hate.
She would be awake till late in the night,
because I wasn't home, I was in a fight.

She had so much to scold, but she never did say,
hoping to find me better the next day.

Time went on and now I am grown,
lost in the world of my own.

I and she, between us have a river,
I have left her for my career.
When I was young, for me, she sacrificed her ambitions,
but I don't care, I now have my own mission.
I am not with her now, I am in a different city,
she is so old now but I don't even pity.

She needs me now but I am nowhere to find,
in the race for appraisal, I have become blind.
In a few years from now, I will be two,
there will be in my life someone new.
Then I'll forget even to bother,
I am her son and she is my Mother

Doesn’t this explain a lot? A true journey of a woman from someone else’s point of view. Her other life. Her Son/Daughter. A woman dedicates half of her life for someone else’s cause. She always does. When she is young, she makes sacrifices for her boyfriend. When she gets married, its her husband. When she has kids, her life ends right there. She dedicates the rest of her life for the upbringing of not just her kids, but the family as a whole.

Yes we men go out and do the “hard” work. Yes we toil “15 hours” a day at times just so that we can make that extra buck to buy that one thing for our kids. But imagine, spending 20 hours a day keeping the house clean, making breakfast for everyone, taking the kids to school, Paying the bills. I’d rather work by the roadside picking up stones than do all of that. Sorry we just can’t do that. And if you think, nahh that’s all too easy, try carrying a baby in your fat belly for 9 months. Try eating for it, sleeping with it, taking extra care just for it. Dude, accept it, we can’t. I always find myself to be extremely “lucky” to be born as a man and not a woman because no matter how mentally strong we men are; only a woman can do that. Only she has the mental strength to go through the pain of labor, the pain of letting her husband be a dickhead, the pain of her kids growing up disrespecting her.Only she can put up with it with it whilst still not shying away from her so called “duties”.

You might wonder what the hell has gotten into me, but I had to make this very clear some or the other day. I had to elucidate when a few days ago I got into a petty argument with one of the girls on my friends list on Mark Zuckerberg’s revolution called Facebook which by the way provides so many opportunities for me to vent out my frustration at dickheads talking obscene politics and general gender specific gibberish. But after misunderstanding my joke, the argument went to a point where I had to explain the woman that I wasn’t a dick or a Male Chauvinist Pig as they love to call it. Anything but that. She got the point across successfully or not is another story but I there wasn’t enough place or privacy there on the status updates to explain her the real situation. I promised her a blog.

This is for all of those so called gents out there who think the world doesn’t go beyond their intelligence and to all those women out there who think Cinderella is real. Sorry people, Disney has fucked with your brains all too much for you to smell the real thing. Life isn’t all that much of a beautiful journey when it comes to relationships. As I have said it again, let me reiterate, there is no real love. Don’t be daft and throw names like Shane West, Mandy Moore, Gerard Butler, Hilary Swank etc on my face. Don’t take movies for real. Take inspiration from it, don’t enact it in real life. There is nothing more stupid than doing what a guy did on the teli for a cool million dollars. There is no selfless deed in this world. You love someone which you mistake for attraction. A guy loves a girl because she looks beautiful. A girl loves a guy because he looks beautiful. Let me tell you something, there is nothing good or beautiful in this world, a beauty of a thing lies in your ability to appreciate it. I might find a red rose beautiful while you might find a yellow one better. Does that mean the red one is less beautiful than the yellow one & vice-versa? No it isn’t. Our point of view differs. The point is, would you love the same rose when it dries up? When it has lost its charm? No You wouldn’t, you’d go for the next one or a new one. Explains a lot doesn’t it? This is how we humans think. I detest snakes while my friend loves it to the point where I doubt he has sex with it when no one’s around. Awful? Sounds so, but for me, not for him!

I had a friend or rather have a friend who I wouldn’t name here. He has a simple philosophy - to have sex with as many girls as he can. Whatever he gets in his plate, he’d bone it. Fair enough. Nothing new you might say. This is what we men are all about aren’t we? But then comes the real bolt from the blue. He says he would expect his wife to have never had sex before when she gets married to him. A virgin. Bummer? He says he’d not let his wife wear skimpy clothes or put on too much make up. He’d not let his wife to go out and party much. I bet he’d kill every guy his wife talks to. Bless his friends. So I questioned him about the fairness of this all and he had a simple answer too. He said offcourse we are men, we are allowed to fuck about but she’s a woman, she can’t do that. I didn’t feel like arguing about it as I felt there was no point in arguing with someone who has such clear thoughts about how things should be.

I met someone recently who said to me, to bed a girl you don’t need good looks or a lot of notes with the queens portrait on it. All you need, he expertly said, is a bottle of cheap champagne and “coke” worth a few quids. How magnificent! Or rather, how efficient. This is our attitude towards women. We weave such a stronghold around them that they get emotionally hooked onto it and don’t want to leave us ever again. We’re good at it. Not just us but women are not too far behind in this game of love. We always act all goody goody to the girl. Buy her expensive gifts, flowers, talk hollywoodish to get into her pants. Fast forward a few weeks/months and she is so emotionally involved that you are sure no matter what you’d do, at the most she’d be pissed for a few days but she won’t dump you. Acts eitherways but it’s the truth. Wouldn’t you rather have a guy who is as crystal clear (rude or not) to you from the beginning that the one who talks like Shah Rukh Khan initially and starts fading into Shakti Kapoor? Why would you feel embarrassed if a guy tells you a dirty joke. Don’t tell me girls don’t watch porn or read adult jokes. We are not in high school. I hate people who are pretentious. Of course there is a fine line between being filthy and being a sport but always acting like a princess is going to fetch you no-one but a guy who is good at being a knight in shining armour…till he beds you. Stop it don’t argue, but that is the truth. Not all men are like that you’d say. But try and find one who isn’t and lets see what is easier, finding a honest bloke or shooing away a wanker! I am not over-generalizing.

Lets not blame it on the guy though, unfortunately we lot are ruled by our testosterones most of the times than the neurons. We see a hot girl, we’re going to look at her. Doesn’t matter if we’re married or single, with a woman or not. What matters is how we react after it. Dropping the jaw and lusting your tongue out when you’re with your girlfriend/wife is not going to score you any good points. But at the same time, just because he looked and appreciated her beauty doesn’t mean he’s a total disaster either. Nature is weird, we can’t help it.

So all I am saying to you women and men out there is stop being stupid and be a sport. Its that simple. Flirting and boning isn’t the answer to every question.

Btw Lets clear up the Cinderella Story while we are at it for all you women out there:

Cinderella: The Real Story.

Cinderella is forced by her bitchy stepmother to clean the house from stem to stern every day. The only thing that prevents her from swallowing a bottle of pain killers is her belief that someday her dreams will come true.

One day Cinderella plans to attend a ball thrown by the prince, but the fact that she has a cutthroat bitch for a stepmother completely slipped her mind. She is forbidden from going.

Luckily, it turns out Cinderella has a fairy godmother, who uses her magic to hook Cinderella up with a ride, a beautiful outfit and a pair of what would seem like grossly impractical glass heels. In the whole fucking kingdom, none had the same shoe size as Cinderella's. But anyway, at the ball Cinderella uses her innate flirting skills and rocks the prince's world, to the point that the next day the prince whisks her away to be his princess.

The Supposed Message: Dreams do come true!

The Actual Message: If you wait around long enough, the universe will practically hand stuff to you.

"Could you fix my credit score while you're at it?"

Explanation: No one is denying the fact that Cinderella's life was one big shit stain. But in her state of mind, she actually thought that her dreams would just sort of happen if she sat around being miserable long enough. It never occurred to her that she had the ability to just tell her stepmother to go fuck herself.

Instead she kept scrubbing floors and believing that, if she continued to wish very hard and take absolutely no action, everything would fall into place. And what do you know, the bitch gets a fucking kingdom out of it.

So don't worry, girls. Some kind of "Fairy Godmother" will sweep into your life at any moment, and find you a man to take care of everything. Just keep wishing!

PS. I’d appreciate your honesty in the comments section. If you are too incensed with it or argue over it, you may wish to email me and vent it all out. Cheers! ;)

Aal iz Well

Aal Iz Well

So, here we are, finally re-boarding the blogging flight which I left adrift a while ago.

When you least expect it, things happen. Karma’s a bitch. A good one in a sense. It left me with a bittersweet feeling over the happenings of the past few days. Hauled me back a little on the path of the supreme experience called Faith and Belief. No I am not out of my senses or thinking with a glass in my hand. I just felt the uncontrollable urge to share this one. I had to.

Let’s roll back a little. People who read this blog know what had ensued in my life over the past 9 odd years so I would let you off the emotionally-drained hook. I resembled a boat losing its anchor overnight drifting unattended in the sea with no direction. I had lost faith and hope and only prayed because I was scared. A god fearing person one might say. I never thought I’d get it back. But after this Thai excursion, I might say I did, I really really did.

Thailand: Prelude

I had come to India this time after merely 4 months since my last trip for the only intention of going to Thailand. But ever since I arrived, things just couldn’t work out. Someone had an exam, someone’s parents won’t let them go and some had a job they just couldn’t get a break from while some numb nuts didn’t even have a passport. After a lot of pleading to my earthly friends, I finally managed to sell the idea to 2 people. But eventually due to some really wild uncontainable circumstances, Sagar dropped out at the last minute and Me and Sanket embarked upon this journey by ourselves.

After the dropout of Sagar, we left for Mumbai late in the night and reached Mumbai at around 1 am on the 4^th. The moment we landed there and the driver left us, I realised I had forgotten my photos for the Thailand Visa. I enquired a few places at the Airport and was informed that there was no photo booth in the airport or anywhere close by. We called the driver back again and went on a mad hunt to see if there was any photo studio open at that godforsaken hour. After checking with so many different people unsuccessfully I decided to take a chance and returned back to the Airport hoping to see if we could get something done at the Kolkata Airport where we had a 2 hour stop.

When we reached Kolkata, I enquired at the Kingfisher office and was bluntly told that they had no clue as to what one could do if one doesn’t have a photo for the visa and had no idea what so ever as to the whereabouts of a nearby photo studio. So we ran and grabbed a taxi driver who assured us that he would bring us back in less than 40 mins to the airport with our photos. We took the chance.

25 mins later, only 100 meters in our journey to the so called magic photo booth, stuck in the noon Kolkata traffic, I gave up. My hope diminished and I thought of going to Thailand without the prerequisites of a Visa Photo and take my chances ONCE again.

The whole journey was miserably spent wondering and calculating the damage that I would have to suffer financially and emotionally if the Thai happened to kick my ass back to India for not coming along with the right documentation. But it wasn’t all the bad after all.

In Thailand, the immigration process wasn’t all that arduous and right next to the Immigration Desk was a photo booth nicely situated with a very helpful young lady offering us better conversion rates than the Money Exchange Counter right next to her. I got my photos and the whole misery was lifted off my mind like luggage off a knackered donkey.

I wouldn’t go deep into what happened over in Thailand over the next three days but I’d jump straight to the day of the departure.

Thailand: Revelation

Until we boarded the flight from Kolkata to Mumbai, everything went quite straightforward.
The real fun started when we left for Mumbai. I have a serious problem of sleeping in means of transport. No matter how tired I am, I can hardly ever manage even a quick nap in a Bus, Car, Train or even the comforts of a Plane. But that day I somehow managed it. I have serious flying phobia. I hate flying from the bottom of my heart. And even after that being my 22^nd flight, things weren’t any easier.

After somehow managing to go to sleep, the plane shook vigorously. Lights flickered, bags bumped and people gasped. The scene was right out of a Hollywood flick. There was no immediate visible panic but I could sense the tension. The shaking of the flight didn’t stop and it went on and on as if I was sitting in a suspensionless car driving on a really bad road. The turbulence was immense and I just couldn’t take my eye off the Air hostess who looked entirely out of her senses. The striking face which looked so admirable not more than an hour ago looked horrifying because of the fret it protruded. The flight bent left and right and just wouldn’t stay straight. It was like an arrogant crying kid who wouldn’t budge if he wasn’t given a candy. I was scared to bits. There was no announcement of any sorts.

30 minutes into the ordeal and way past our expected landing time, we were still in the air experiencing mindless turbulence and no communication of any sorts at all from either the cabin crew or the pilot. I was curiously checking the news before that and it showed of two breaking news. 1 Two Planes colliding midair killing all 3 in Colorado, USA; & 2. A possibility of Terrorists on a Dubai bound flight from Mumbai. Both news shook me as the flight’s interactive map on screen kept on showing the expected time to destination change from 19 minutes to 16minutes and again back to 24 minutes, 19 minutes, 16 minutes and back on to 25 minutes. The Flight kept on circulating in random circles for a while fluctuating the times on screen. The entire experience had me reeling.

And then, at one such vigorous wobble, everything stood still. I thought it was all over. It made me nauseas. I felt this was meant to be. It all made sense. Flickering lights, running airhostesses, panicked fellow travellers, turbulent flight, everything was just right. And then it happened. Time Froze. My entire sad little life passed in front of my eyes. A well projected long film that had a running time of 25 years but finely edited into those acutely small seconds. It was like a time warp. A quick flash! It didn’t portray me that entire well. So many things that never crossed my mind, which I had forgotten, which I had locked into that small little box and hidden it in the deepest bottom of my mind had unlocked and sprayed its ugly truth onto me. Times I failed to live up to expectations when I really should have. Things I did which I shouldn’t have done. Shameful little secrets I kept. Everything that was supposed to be dealt with that I didn’t bother with crept out like an ugly creature out of the Jungle. Nothing was fake or false. It was as if someone reminded me of all the things that had happened in my life. Everything started going in kind of a slow motion with both childhood and adult memories I had not thought of rushed through my head. I knew I was going to be a dead duck in a few minutes time.

But then somehow we just kept going onwards. After a while the overtly gorgeous Yana Gupta eventually showed up on the screen informing us of the landing procedures. When we finally touched down, I felt a sense of calm like never before. I spoke to the airhostess while disembarking and she said she had never felt anything like that before and it was probably terrible weather. I further pushed her on about not informing us regarding the delay in landing and she just said, don’t worry Sir, All is well!

I know people say your life flashes in front of your eyes just before you are going to die. But I feel this was Gods way of enlightening me of what was meant to be done and how serious I have to get about all these unfinished businesses of mine. I feel gutted at being a failure but also glad at being safe and sound and going through the experience of being awakened to the realities of life. Karma or no Karma, God is omnipresent. It is just up to you to feel him. Talk to him. Sense him. I need him with me for the rest of my life.

I woke up the next day, went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror reminding myself to the famous quote: Today is the first day of the rest of my life!

God is great. And I am utterly sorry if I ever doubted his Presence.

My flights wayward journey.