A strong wind.. Light drizzle. A handful of people on the street. The river was shining in the moonlight. As I walked by, at every junction, I looked over my right shoulder to see the river and the moon. It was beautiful.

I stretched my arms out to give the weather a hug. A slight smile on my lips. My mind racing across my entire life, trying to remember when I last felt like this.

Barely one sweater on me – I didn’t want any more ‘warm’ clothes to protect me. I could feel the chill touch my skin and stick to it. It was cold, and I felt warm with memories. Memories of all those days when I enjoyed nature like this – in its truest form.

Like the summer of ‘97, when I trekked to the foot of the Himalayas..

Or those days in the rainy season when I could sit on our sit out, with a hot cup of tea, a book I claimed to read, lost in thoughts about nothing significant..

& Those days on the Beach in Besant Nagar & Valmiki Nagar, when I was alone with my thoughts & the sea & the moon from 6 – 9pm..

Or Those days when I had just got my scooter, and I could go fast at almost 50 kms per hour, and I could feel the gush of wind on my face..

Those days, when I cycled to school, and was excited to try new routes everyday, playing games with myself..

& Those days when I was little, when mom made watermelon ice candies at home every weekend, and I could have Parle-G biscuits and Rose Milk & Cold chocolate Milk & Maggi Noodles..

Or That year when the rains were more like floods.. and dad sat right next to me and made me count the number of seconds between lightening & thunder, and how in fact, it was all very far away..

& Then, that stroll the other day, in Hoboken..

It was beautiful. Life is, at such times, isn’t it?

So, I was talking to my friend S.  Was meeting him after 6 months, and he sounded distraught on the phone, “A, I am going to say Goodbye this time.. Unfortunately”. That hardly struck me as ‘unfortunate’, so yuppy as I was to be meeting him, out of the blue, in the most ‘Come as you are’ fashion, it struck a chord in me, somwhere, about exactly how random am I?

Conversation meandered from this to that, and that to this. He laughed at my jokes, and me at his.

I think, since this is still my blog, I am entitled to think here.. and I think, everyone should be random! Yeah..! At least for 40% of their/your lives. I mean, what are you going to get by planning every second out anyway? You’ll be called ‘A great planner’? Whoopee!!

& I tell you, unless you live random for atleast a week in life, you don’t quite enjoy the view from the other side of the ocean..

I’ve done some major random things. My conversation on phone is random.. As you can see, I am experiencing inability in vocabulary, and that’s alright, coz this is well, bizarre in it’s own way!

So, point of this post is this: I am 10,000 visitors old! Woohoo! Isn’t that the same as ICE AGE? 10,000 B.C.? Only mine would be 10,000 V.C! Bah! Rambling.

I wikipedia-d ‘Theories on Randomnes’, and the closest I found was ‘Pattern recognition’! I think Wikipedia is also totally random, I mean, you try searching for something, and you find out about something completely tangent! Apparently, there is an ‘International Association for Pattern Recognition’!

Too many people in this world, I tell you. Everyone is part of some organization, somewhere, doing strange things that seem to make so much sense to them in their lives, me included!

I am growing old. I think I’ll color my hair grey. Hmmmmm…

P.S – There were 1,47,000 searches (only) for randomness on Google Images! Bah!

P.P.S – I spent more than 10 minutes looking for the ‘perfect’ random large sized .jpg that also had some humor to it! Pfffft!

P.P.P.S – Please see title of this post for ‘Disclaimer’

I look back at my life, and I realize I’ve always been running after something.. Money.. Safety.. Love.. Understanding.. Fun.. And here I am now, unsure if that’s what I really wanted all along?

The last 10 years have just whizzed by.. with me moving from one ‘logical’ step to another, and here I am now, unsure if I want that logic anymore?

I feel (at) peace and frustration..

I feel lost and caged..

I feel loved and misunderstood..

I feel hopeless, yet hopeful..

I feel empty, yet insightful..

I feel anger, yet calm..

I feel crushed, yet full of life..

I feel incomplete and yet so complete..

I feel it’s time to ask those tough questions.. and It’s time to answer them truthfully..

I feel it’s time to live without fear or anxiety.. and It’s time to just be..

I feel it’s time to fly away.. and fly as far away as I can..

I feel it’s time.. Yes! I feel it’s high time!

- A

‘Barney’ from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is a brilliant character. He is funny, a man of simple needs and few friends. He is like most of us, if you think about it.

Lessons I’ve learned from Barney:

• Life is about ‘Investments’..

• Work hard, but never talk about work..

• Planning is key.. to anything one wants in life

• It’s all about ‘First Impressions’, and if it goes wrong, well, there’s always Next Friday..!

• Travel, see the world, and take a friend like Ted along – he will either make you look good or will be on earth longer than you to spread the word about you..

• Life live ‘King size’

• Emotional Detachment is key to a good & healthy (singles) life..

• The internet has the answers to everyone’s secret lives – Be it ‘Ted’s’ porn film making career or Robin’s band..

• Always think about the future. All that the past has to offer are numbers..!

• On the ‘Hot – Crazy’ graph, I am Crazy!

• The answer to every Friday’s question across the world, “What do we do?” is – “SUIT UP!”

If you don’t know what I am talking about, you don’t want HIMYM enough!

Barney rulz! & So does Robin!! Ted is the ‘nice guy’..Lily is sweet..! Marshall is awesome (which explains why he is ‘taken’)..

I started the second quarter of my life about 2 years back (will be 3 years back soon, but what the hell), and it’s been interesting. The one thing I had wanted since I was 15, was to remain single until I was 25. At 25, I wanted to just remain single.

It’s something about growing up. I was talking to J, a good friend for over a decade now, he is one dude who has always understood me.

We were talking about how we met, and both of us were 16 at that time – just out of school, rebels and ‘wanting to do things differently’. More than a decade later, we haven’t changed much, but we have suppressed a little of that rebellious attitude, and tried to cope with the life’s ’struggles’ – picking up threads where we left them, nurturing lost relationships,  growing up, in a sense of the word.

J was always someone who always slipped into ‘Invisible’ mode, or was it me who lost track of where he was? I can’t seem to remember..

But then he said he saw me differently now – as a ‘confident’ girl, with ‘attitude’ and ‘like a woman’. He saw me as confident (now) was strange. I thought I was always the confident girl. I understood later that ‘confidence’ to him was about my vocabulary. I am using ‘big’ words now (must be all the Scrabble I’ve been playing on Facebook!)

It was the ‘attitude’ bit that got to me a tad. I’ve heard that one before, and one too many times to shrug it off. I’ve never fancied the word, and don’t like people throwing attitude, and have always concerned myself about it. Then again, the 3 who have said it to me have been a major part of me.

As we got talking though and walked out of Koshys, he then figured, “Nonsense! This girl is the same Monkey I knew when she was 16.. Once a monkey, always a monkey!”.That clarified things in a way.

Now, as I look at how my life is going to be shaped in the next quarter, I do see a lot of change – more so in the way people see me than in the way that I am. So much might change around me, but like J said,”I’ll always be that 16 year old Monkey inside me…fooling around, getting excited about the smallest things, and still hoping that people will take me seriously enough inspite of my external demeanor.”

To 50! Cheers!

Back in college, I had a huge number of friends. 3 – 4 sets from college – my bus mates (4 -5 of us i.e – who took the bus to college & back home together), my sports teams (10 – am talking good friends from all the teams I was a part of), we were 5 of us in BBA; then, I had another bunch of around 20 of us near my house – we were colony mates, and not to forget my school bunch of 5 of us.. Am excluding some sets of friends who I was not too close with.. So, that’s about 45..

Towards the end of college, a very good friend of mine – Nutty, left for Hyderabad. There was a farewell for her – all her college mates and we – her school buddies threw her a lame farewell bash, ‘coz it was the first for all of us, and well, I guess, at the back of our heads, we knew or hoped that Nutty would come back in a year or so after studying.. 

That was it. She was the only friend, whose farewell I attended. Since then, I have always left the city before all my other friends.. Since then, it was me leaving and my friends getting together to say ‘Goodbye’..Its a very strange coincidence.

Off the remaining 44, 2 are left in the city, and I have not bade farewell to the 42! If I take into count, a few friends I made while in Midas (2) & TCS (7 in all) , I left before they could leave the city. So, it was always me saying ‘Goodybye’.

So, that makes it a total of 54 friends.. Isn’t that strange? & none of this was planned!

Most of them left after I left for my TCS job at Trivandrum. My TCS friends left Trivandrum after I left for Kolkata. My Kol friend left after I left for Mumbai. My only friend from Mumbai left after me and he is in Pune now. 

The last of my younger brother’s friends is leaving today – is on the flight to Auzzie land to study. He has stuck by my brother since standard 8, and they are all very thick friends. I’ve seen them grow up together… They would rag me, crack the most poor jokes of all times to which I would laugh hysterically, and by the time I got back to Chennai, these kids had learned to drive and they would take me out in the car.. Gosh! I will miss him so much! 

I think its very difficult to handle a friend leaving the city (Unless that friend is you)..It may be the best thing for him / her.. and in time, you will move on with your life.. But, to say Goodbye has never been my cup of tea.. also, coz I have just not been around to say such a Goodbye, you know?

Quantum Immortality is the converse of Quantum Suicide. If one theory applies, then the other doesn’t. Simple? No? Well, it’s not supposed to be.  Niels Bohr, the founder of modern quantum theory said, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it”, and he didn’t know about the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI).

For more info on the articles, check them out here: Quantum Immortality and Quantum Suicide. There is a lot more out there, which you could check out, at will.

My post is about the concept of Parallel Universe itself. Rewind to your childhood. You are playing your favourite game in your backyard, then watch TV and do your homework. Now, let’s go into space, and you would see a billion other children doing the same, irrespective of which country and city – childhood is more or less the same phenomenon – of innocence, pranks, games, TV and friends.

Today, as a grown up, you are you. Working on the computer, reading books, TV, playing pranks, playing games, a few friends.. You see the person sitting next to you – it’s the same story. You see your boss’s son / daughter – same story. There is confusion in some – “Am I in the right field?” and for some others, its total clarity. Some people our age (or younger) are celebrities, some are businessmen/women, some are studying, some are in jobs.. 

Now, step outside of yourself and have a look. You see yourself typing these words in the screen, you see yourself thinking all the thoughts that you are thinking, you see yourself talking to your dad, you see yourself as a child, you see everything very clearly, on a 70mm screen, like a movie.

You’ve reached a point of grave confusion. Who is the real you? The one who has stepped out of yourself or the one who is doing all those things? 

If you understand all that I am saying, you have no doubt reached or passed 26 (mentally or physically). For more info on what this post was originally supposed to be about, check out 1 and 2

I have honestly never understood it. What does it mean, “Love is Blind”??? I am quite a literal person, and to me, this phrase just doesn’t make sense!

Does it mean the two people in Love can’t see each other? Then yes, they would be Blind, literally.

Does it mean they can’t see each other’s faults? Then yes, they must be Blind, Deaf & Mute! 

Does it mean it is not based on how one looks? Whoever said, Love was only about looking good? I know so many good looking people who are still Single! (All the Single bloggers will vouch on this point), and anyway,” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” & “Beauty is only skin deep”, so, what really is the issue here? & Just for the sake of argument, I’m sure we have all seen good looking people with not so good looking people as a couple!! So, there!! 

I do not understand.. Please.. Explain madi.. What does the phrase:

“Love is Blind” mean?