Ripples of my Reflections

I think, therefore I write

Year: 2014 (Page 4 of 11)

Life’s wheels

September 24, 2014 / / 12 Comments

I looked at Ria with worry as she sat at her desk isolating herself from the world. The head of the orphanage had warned us about her withdrawn nature. Ever since we adopted her, I have been trying to connect to her in some way but reached an impasse with every attempt I made.

I tiptoed behind her to check what she was doing and saw the painting she was working on, actually replicating the cannon I had sketched for the memorial museum. As I admired her intricate lines around the cannon’s wheel, I smiled at how life’s wheels had taken me to the bridge that’d connect me with her.

Until later 🙂

Linking this to the Five Sentence Fiction prompt ‘Wheels‘ @ Lillie McFerrin writes

To the idiots on the Bangalore roads

September 23, 2014 / / 8 Comments



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To the idiots on the Bangalore roads,

I have a bone to pick with you. In fact, given the nature of your actions on the roads I would like to break your bones but being the self-centered, concerned Indian that I am forced to be by my survival instincts, I would suffice myself with writing this post on my space and yelling at you on the roads when your actions irk me.

– What is with that inadvertent nature of driving a huge ass car for a single person on those narrow roads like you own the road? I can understand if you are picking up a few generations of your family from the airport but you drive your monstrous car even if you are the only person travelling to a few km away. What’s with that? You know that navigating the traffic in bangalore is like navigating through a hellhole for people? Even you must find it difficult to reach your place in time. So why contribute to it?

– Some nincompoops of your kind seem to think that roads are meant for practising their stunts with bikes. I saw one of your kinsmen doing a wheelie on the K.R.Puram bridge with a pillion rider. Roads are not for you to show off your skills. Practise in the playgrounds and break your head, who’s gonna care? Why do you need to do that in the middle of a heavily used bridge causing imminent danger to others?

– I don’t understand your aversion to indicators and attraction to horns. You don’t use the indicators but just cut in when ever you feel so but yell your lungs out if it results in a crash. Even if you use the indicators, you turn it into an amusement tactic where you switch the left indicator on and go right. Are you nuts? While you show this ignorance to indicators, you seem to have developed a love-hate relationship with the horn. Pressing the horn so hard while at a signal? DOES NOT WORK. It will only give you angry stares, which of course, you don’t care about.

– Barriers on the roads are meant to wake your brain up to the possibility that this route is not for heavy vehicles. There might be a million reasons for it, like for instance your vehicle might be too big for the road bends. Why not try respecting the barricades once instead of forcing your way in through them and blocking the entire road with you wedged in the middle? I could even understand if it gets you through faster. But you get stuck like a trapped monkey in the narrow bends of the narrower roads thus effectively rendering the entire road unusable and blocking hordes of smaller vehicles along with you.

– For gits who didn’t get an opportunity to perform in circus and so fulfill that desire by travelling with a wife on the pillion, 2 kids wedged in between and one baby on the head, read point #2. We don’t have time for your circus performances while rushing to work, so why don’t you put up a private show and we’ll visit. Deal?

– Idiots who drive with a cell phone in one hand, I have a variety of colorful names for you. I do serve them to the pleasure of your ears but you don’t care. We know you are good at multi-tasking, but there is no need to show off by texting with one hand and driving a bike with your wife and baby on the pillion. I so wish that I could super glue your hands to the steering/hand grips of your vehicle so that you wouldn’t attend a call or even worse text while driving.

– To those brainless existences who think there is a spitting competition on who spits the farthest, I wish I could sue you or rather sew your mouth shut so that you don’t treat the road like your private wash-basin.

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This list could really go on but I know not one of you will care. Still I couldn’t resist. So you continue your out-of-the-world antics that will one day really send you out of the world and orbiting into space and I will continue swearing at you and blaming God for forgetting to give you that thing called a brain.

Yours truly pissed off,
An Indian on the Bangalore roads.

Until later 🙂

P.S: Came across this in Google, maybe we all need it soon

And then it started raining

September 19, 2014 / / 10 Comments

She sat with her head bowed, a couple of daisies in her hand. The single tombstone stood ironically in the middle, united for both the graves. Of course, they were united even when they finished the journey. Always together. She wiped away the tears that started afresh, they wouldn’t want her to cry. They taught her to forget, to forgive, to love and live. Again. What she was before them was something she considered a dead past. It was the couple who rescued her from the clutches of such a life and had shown her there were ways to live. To live with a purpose. To make a difference in others’ lives.

She knew that they had long wanted her to give the nod to Arjun, a gentleman in all aspects. But how much ever she changed herself, she couldn’t trust anyone else to hand over her life to again. Her foster parents gave her the space and freedom, never forcing her once. Arjun was no less, he has kept his word since that day, “I love you. I want to be with you forever. But only if you want to. Else let’s forget this ever happened and be the best of friends as ever”. He had not shown any sign of his feelings after that breezy evening when he opened his heart for her. Even when her parents left the world together as always, he stood as a rock by her side, taking care of everything but never taking advantage.

She knew her heart wanted to accept him. But can she love again? More importantly, can she trust again? She had not let anyone than her parents to enter her shell till date. Can she break that self-imposed cage? She looked at the tombstone and read “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.” She wiped her eyes and asked herself, “Does she want someone to grow old along with her?” Her heart screamed “Yes”. She placed the daisies at the tombstone and got up. To start towards her togetherness. To go and get her share of love and to give her share of trust. And then it started raining.

Until later 🙂

Linking this write-up to The Light and Shade Challenge prompt to write a 500 words or less post based on the picture and/or the phrase.

Picture: Image courtesy of Janssenfrank and taken from Wiki Commons

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Quote: Grow old along with me the best is yet to be.

Book Review: Private India

September 15, 2014 / / 6 Comments

What made me to click that sign up button for reviewing Private India was the thrill it promised and I would say it delivered most of it. However, while doing that, the book lost out on a lot of other basics. That being my short review, let me get straight to my take on the book.

privateindia

What kept me reading?

– The plot that was slowly built up keeping the readers’ interest intact. The build up ends in the fitting climax that comes as quite a surprise. Unlike most suspense novels, where you can kind of guess where it is going, this book doesn’t allow you to break it’s suspense.

– The alternate perspective lines, one chapter on the events and one chapter from the killer’s thoughts. This style comes in handy because if you are getting irritated with how a chapter is framed, you need not be irritated for long. The change in scene helps in distracting your mind to something else.

– The entangled mysteries, the sub-plot concept. It keeps you guessing about what the book is about. You frame a story based on the main plot in your mind as you read and then there is another plot line which will give you something to think about. This helps in keeping the question “What’s next?” alive in the reader’s mind.

What made me go “Awww, man, you shouldn’t have done that!” ?

– The main put off for me was the mixed styles. Whether this was due to the fact that the book was authored by two people or something else, I don’t know. Throughout the book, you can clearly feel two people talking to you about the story. The language, the style, the presentation, everything appeared to me in twos as if I was having a bad hangover. It disturbed my imagination as I read the book.

– The thought patterns of Santosh Wagh, one of the leads, as he thinks about the killer’s motive are funny. Yes, funny! Questions like “Why Lara Omprakash was your fifth victim?” and “What are you thinking?” made me feel like I am watching a bad episode of those CID types TV shows.

– The lack of class. For example, the killer’s thoughts. We are nowadays used to classy villains (The expectation keeps in pace given that James Patterson is one of the authors). However, the killer is portrayed as kid who was denied a lollipop, in places where the killer is upset because the police is avoiding revealing details about the murders, thereby taking away his publicity.

– This book could have done better with compressing, removing unnecessary descriptions here and thereby ending up in a 50-100 lesser pages.

I would not say this book is a bad read because it has some very good foundation as plot, holding the readers’ interest, an open ending for it to evolve. But there are certain things that fly around your head like that irritating bee with the buzz that you want to slap off. Especially when the book feels like a bad mocktail which has two things that shouldn’t be mixed.

My final verdict for the readers is you can pick this book for a engaging read on a train journey but not for satisfying a craving for an excellent read. So here’s how my rating goes : 3/5

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Until later 🙂

P.S: I have not described or even used the character names and behaviours except for making my point because if I give you glimpses of them ahead, I might just deprive you of the thrill/suspense associated.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Are you a water person?

September 11, 2014 / / 10 Comments
swimmingImage Source: favimages.net

Do you know swimming and enjoy it? Then you will get this post, totally! You don’t know swimming or you have never felt that swimming is fun? I hope this post makes you interested enough to learn. I have never been a record athlete. I was a decent table tennis player (I hope I can regain my decency if I am given a chance to practice enough) and a good runner as a result of the summer camps my dad sent me to. When I was at school,I had a good stamina and even beat the class record holder in running once. I was a good swimmer(again with practice, I can gain more stamina and better at it).

Of all the sports I ever participated in, swimming is one thing that refreshes me like anything. If I have a good swim, I feel like I am reborn. I was introduced to swimming in 2nd grade and I learnt it for around 5 years every summer. After that, there was no stopping as it rejuvenated me like no other activity. I learnt all the common styles and even attempted the dives in swimming except for the butterfly diving which made too much enter my head and made me miss subsequent swimming sessions. But I never tried to excel as an athlete in swimming. Of course, I won all the local competitions and races but never once did I think about making it professional. The reason being I was having too much fun swimming to care.

I hate the routines – the warm-up, the strokes and then the rigorously planned laps. Once I take that cleansing bath before entering the pool and reach the pool, all restraint and responsibility breaks free for me. I dive straight into the deeper end of the pool without bothering to warm-up and do what I feel like doing on the fly. My coach tried to restrict me for a while but gave up after seeing how much fun I had in breaking the rules of this sport. The pool I practised was the deepest in our district with the maximum depth at the diving end being 22 ft. There were different levels of diving boards for swimmers at different stages of learning. The first time I attempted diving, I went straight to the top and jumped. Yes, it hurt! Like hell! It hurt because, in the excitement, I missed my coach’s advice to stick my hands close to my body. That was my first encounter with the fact that water has so much force and would hurt you if you are careless.

I learnt by experience and followed only 2 rules – 1. Never underestimate the force of water. 2. Running water is different from still water. If you want to experience wildness, go to the highest diving board and dive with my eyes closed. The rush as you tear through the air and break the water surface is enough to give anyone a high. Ever felt what it is to be truly tranquil? Try floating on your back spread-eagled with eyes closed, letting go of every weight in your mind and body. Just float! I call this water meditation and you can even sleep in this position. Are you a control freak? The inverted position in water is for you, i.e, Reaching the depth where you can stand comfortably and bend down to stand on your hands with feet above the water. Your nose and ears will protest until you master them. If you want the force of water to challenge you, walk against the water as you would walk on the ground. Something as simple as that would show you how much force water holds. If you want to experience out of world serenity, reach your comfortable depth and exert your weight downwards and sit cross-legged on the pool folder holding your breath as long as you’re comfortable.

These are just some of the experiments I learnt from my coach and enjoyed it to the core. I have tried swimming in a river and in the ocean when I went for a catamaran ride (with supervision). Swimming in running waters is nothing like swimming in a pool. If you think what I experiment in pools is wild, then swimming in running water is just out-of-words kind of wild. So I don’t play break-the-rules there and instead be an obedient child. I wish I had a private pool but yeah I am practical about how much it would cost and how much water it would use. So I take every opportunity I get to swim, hoping the opportunities would increase once we move to our own apartment. Seeing how much I enjoy swimming, some of friends wanted to learn and I taught them a bit too. Also I never play when I teach others, I know how play can turn wrong and I don’t want to be there.I experiment on my own because I know what I am doing and I don’t dare nature. So I guess I can consider a hobby as a coach in the future if people are interested.

Water is such a chiller for me that any time anywhere I see a swimming pool or prospective water body for swimming, I want to jump in impulsively. I feel that water is the best teacher there is, it teaches you to play, it teaches you to follow rules and then break them, it teaches you to let go and it teaches you to hold on where needed, it teaches you to survive, to battle and overcome the downs, to enjoy the ups. In short, water teaches you to live.

Until later 🙂

P.S: One more common lesson for swimmers out there, if ever you are trying to save a drowning person or someone who thinks they are drowning, never approach them from the front and save them by catching hold of them from behind or by giving them something to hold on to. Once when the coach was trying to teach my younger bro to forget his fear, he made me stand in the water nearby so as to reassure him. As soon as he was into the water, the moron thought he was going to drown even though he was perfectly safe, so I held out my hands to assure him and you know what he did? He pulled at me, kept one hand on my head, pushed me down and tried to stand on my head to save himself!!! Yes, fear does that to you. Thank god, I was quick enough to realize my folly and get a grip on him and get him out of the pool.

P.P.S: If I had been Archimedes, Eureka would have never happened. I would have just enjoyed an awesome bath in my tub without bothering about mundane stuff like Maths 😛

DISCLAIMER: Every attempt/experiment I have mentioned here, I learnt it properly from a qualified coach and improvised. I don’t advise anyone who hasn’t learnt swimming well to try this. Nor do I recommend anyone, even if they know swimming, to attempt anything I have said without learning it from a qualified swimming coach. The fun lasts only as long you are safe!

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