and those were the bestest days of my life..

call it the 3 idiots effect or whatever, but right now i am nostalgic. friendship is the greatest treasure a man can have. dosti insaan ka sabse bada stan hai. :P yesterday i watched 3 idiots and went back 6 years in time. and today, absolutely coincidentally, i met 2 of my hostel buddies..and spent another memorable evening in the company of old friends.

DCE. 2003-2007. those were days. the days of sunlight and the days of rain. the nights of stars and the nights of pain (:P) how clearly i remember almost my whole college life. be it the dosas of my canteen or the photostats of roopali's notes. amit's samosa treats or lakhot's empty stomach. everything. almost everything. and to think its all over, is unthinkable!
i still remember my first day. my first sem. with romit, nitin and sushil. the 'leesure' days. when we all found each other.

my second sem. the days of playing volleyball and cricket. finding rivals and friends. amit's proposal and toilet stunts. the professor chasing us. and we losing our beloved volleyball!

the third sem at gaurav's room - BMH 116 (?). the days of studying graphics and the evenings of playing badminton. the times when i lived in the hostel for the first time (be it only for the nights!). the times when me amit and gaurav would lock ourselves in his room so that others could not find us. the times of fests. be it LH or miranda - we were everywhere! the times when nipun got a date and in that jaundice, i got a cellphone :P. the times when i screwed up my result for the first time.

my fourth sem when i posed as a model and walked the ramp with my college crush! the time when we went for an outstation trip to vaishno devi for the first time. the time when i became noticeable. and the time when i screwed up my result for the second time!

fifth sem. my association with sumit. the training at niscair. the fake projects. the time when i nearly topped my class (got a whopping 79%) and nearly gave romit a heart attack! (as they said, dost fail ho to bura lage..dost top kare to sala aur bhi bura lage!! :D) the times of csi revivals. when we gave csi a new life and still failed to elect a president from among ourselves. the times when i realised how divided we were. and the times when i was thrown out of a class report team by my own friends. (but ended up getting more marks than them :D).

the sixth sem. of hostel days, endless nights and countless bunks. when me and amit found aswal and his room. sleep wherever you find place, do whatever you want to, watch friends, movies, whatever..just DON'T go home! the nights of bits and bytes and b-plans. the nights of 1 bed, 3 people, 1000 mosquitos and a blood sucking lakhotia! the days of my training at TCIL. the days of cricket again. and the days when me nitin and shanti founded the R gang!

the seventh sem. the dreadful times of placements. the heartbreaks. the depressions. the failures. and more failures. the times when i smoked my first cigarette! and the times when i finally got my first job! and my first girlfriend. and then again, the times when i screwed up my result so bad for the third time!

and then the eighth sem. the time we went to simla. the trip which, till date, remains the most amazing trip of my life. the time when i literally stopped going to college. and the times when i screwed up the most important interview of my life. the time when i stopped realising what friendship is and the time when i stopped appearing in college photographs! and by the time i tried to make it up, it was too late. the time when everything started to make sense finally. and the time when i realised, that college was over! :(

UNACK mode!!!

the biggest disappointment in life is not failure. it is when you are not acknowledged. an acknowledgment only means an act of realizing something. it is not judgmental. when you acknowledge you only realise that something has happened. whether it is good or bad is not the concern. so when you acknowledge an act, it doesn't mean you praise or thank; its an "i see you" kind of a thing. like i know what ur doing or what ur upto. its more like an act of getting noticed.

so when u keep slogging your ass to pass that exam or to get that promotion or to get that girl even, a simple acknowledgment does wonders. atleast ur being noticed. who would want to dress up well in a jungle void of any people! its the same thing. who would want to slog if there is noone noticing.

and so it applies to you as well. start noticing. there are people around you doing things. start giving them the acknowledgment that is due!

sweet november

when i entered my second project and was allotted a seat at the new office, i was cursing the whole situation. i had already refused to go to the interview once before (one reason was the fear of yet another failure and second was the fear of stop using the company bus!). but i went and got selected. i had begun to hate my manager from the very first day and after similar experiences in previous project, i realised all managers are made of horse shit. later, though, i was to realise that this manager was a little different. he was made of some terrible mixture of pig, dog and horse shit, garnished with swine eggs. anyways, came Oct14 and i almost resigned. and i could not believe that i was doing it cz of this swine. i had always thought that noone could make you do anything unless u were willing urself. but i guess, the fear of setting things straight with my career and not screwing up unless i got my rating was making things hell for me. and then to make matters worse, lakhot resigned. man..how badly i wanted to follow in his footsteps and press that button only i know. but, i controlled. planned. timed.

exactly, 21 days later, i left. for a month.

and in that one month..i rediscovered myself. calmed down. re-planned. and to my utter surprise, for once, i became happy! i had simply forgotten what this word meant. 2 days after i left, i joined the Art of Living. another thing, i never expected myself to do. but all thanks to a pestering, i did. and boy, wasn't that the most delightful and amazing start to my break. it just changed me. the calm it brought me, the level of freedom it took me to, it was heavenly. for the first time, the world stopped mattering. i just couldn't care less! what followed in the next 3 weeks, were the effects of this operation i underwent.

i came closer to the people to whom i mattered. got involved in the affairs of those around me. and after a long time, instead of cribbing, i began talking..and how! and all this because i was far far away from the place i hated. and because i was finally finding time for my self. and i was enjoying every single bit of this not-doing-anything-ness. but yet, i was doing so much.

i'm back to the same old life now. the cribbing might slowly begin soon. or it might not ever. time and the degree of my transformation will tell. but i only wish to live that month again. me with only myself. and the sweet november of 2009.