One For My Virtual Friends

Not so heroic as to save me from a burning train. Not so sweet as sugar always. Not always together to hang out with. Thousands of miles away, yet close to heart... close knitted through a common messenger... Yes, these are my "virtual" friends. Friends who probably hardly knew what I even looked like, but that did not matter to them. Here I count all of them who gave me the acceptance and the love I did not get from real friends {which I did not have}. The names may be in random order - though they are grouped. I will write all of you, with a note of thanks.

Starting with....

Real Virtual friends
Friends in Reality, as well as virtuosity!


Arpit : Best Friend, school time classmate, who met me back through orkut. Heard me out, advised me, gave me the support in difficult times, when the world seemed to fall apart, he just sent his messages and somehow it was all good again... :) have not met him in nine years, but feels like I just met him yesterday...

Nivedita : College besty, worldly wise and lawyer-ly. Has keyed in more advice on messenger than talked to me at college. Has comforted me like a sister... I think i should miss you *winks*. Loadsa people keep asking me if I do...

Tarak (sir =P) : Techie, geek, hacker and cracker. Friend, guide, senior, mentor... Thank you for being there. The finer points of My/SQL were impossible without your slight push.

Ashish Pal Singh : A great, charming, debonair guy, with all the good qualities. Met you at the conference, treasure you (and you sis, who deserves a post too) for life.

Isha Pal Singh : A young, sweet, colourful and extremely helpful gal, cute to her blood vessels. Knew you were my friend when you sat next to me at WSRCC without reason - just to give company!


First among equals.
Those who met me first and I believe will "last"...

Jitendra : The first person to add me as friend on yahoo messenger, my first window to the world. You are a great person!

Nikunj : NITian, one of my first friends, wished me on my real birthday, and now has by-hearted my official one too.. thoughtful of you buddy...

Pallav Dutta : Another NITian - I wonder what the connection is... a rhymer by heart, engineer by head, a great friend by all means... treasure you "sweets".. lol.


Only lonely's
The only children of their parents, not unlike me. Gave me some space to speak, albeit in their communities and scrapbooks and messenger windows!

Ashish Chaudhary : Loads of Ashish's actually =P. The guy, who, like me was an only child since time immemorial, gave me strength, made me laugh with his long tales of misadventures. Funny and caring. When was your last email?

Smitha : Another only child. Shared my illusions. Shared memories (though few) but there was enough relief that there was someone of my kind around.


Now! This is a post!
Dedication to those who made a strong foundation for Now! This is a Community! A community formed by friends, for friends. No amount of jest hurt anyone here. And that is a rule in fact. And yes, they made sure I never had to moderate a discussion.

Lia : My adopted Chinese sister! Sweet gal with an awesome energy! Love you *hugs*!

Dennis : Immensely talented with words and though comes up with blood-curdling scary stories, he always makes me yawn. Something only my teachers have managed to do! Thank you for your comfort at an odd moment, when I needed it most.

Kalpesh a.k.a. Virus : Cribs about me not talking to him. Is usually online. Witty, humorous and well surfed (if not well read)! Always remembers to send me an IM. Sorry that I couldnt reply to so many.. you deserve this post! Dun forget your "bachchi".

Simarjeet : The coffee guy with a food joint. Mature, friendly, good humoured. You make great company dude. You are among the coolest!

Vikram (Vix sir) : Self proclaimed "teacher" who would ask us to keep track of our own presence. Witty, humorous and fun, you have made a difference to our community.

Hina : My friendly village neighbour with whom I sneak out of Vix sir's (next persons) class and then off we go to have Ramu Kaka's "golas" he makes specially for us.

DRJ and Incubus : I don't know why I write these names together (and worse! Why I am not writing their real names at all!). The reason, least being the fact that they both are loyal members who joined around the same time! And thank you for reading my first post Incubus.


Scorpios Rock!
Yes that is true, other than being the name of a community. The place where I found friends I couldn't find ANY match for....

Ashu : My sweet "Twinsy" (because we share our birthdays) - chirpy and colourful, a sweetheart... love you sooooo much!! *Mwah*

Sharat : Irish Babu, Indian Spirit. Buggy and sweet, a great friend by all means...

Shivangi : Usually at the background, never talked much to whom, still she wished I would be there at our Scorpio Rocks meet. I really missed it :(.


Miscellaneous.
Sorry people, didn't get a better title, just that you don't fall in any so-called "categories". Doesn't mean I love you any less!

Sanjeev : The try-hard flirto, who'd give anything to "patao" a gal.. :P. But you are quite sweet, wishing you all the very best.. for you know what!

Peyush : Looks like he has brains for everything, and mostly, a desire to communicate that. Your blog was insightful.

Sunil : The "Marathhi Mulga" in my friendlist, or the only such virtual friend. Keep sending those awesome emails, like all, you too have enriched life a lot!

Indrajit Guha : Ah well, what to say about him, is mostly "Under water". But has kept in touch. Like real virtual friends!

Ghatti chulbuli : Baby baby! What shall I say?? Funny to say the least, sweet and most innocent by far...

Purvang Zinzuwadia : Awesome name (last name - I really liked it since the mention of a Doctor Zinzuwadia on Radio Mirchi), a scorpio like me, has always admired my talent for stealing collecting images.


Journalists Incarnate
Unusual to find in real life, these "real-life" specimens needed a special mention... so do their blogs! Of course I have to thank orkut.

Rohan Dua : I wish you would have grown up a bit. You are still as naughty as a kid. Or are all journalist like this?? I think it is a part of your "journo-giri".

Robin Bansal a.k.a. Hector Incarnate : Didnt know journos could do some real life poetry... and lots of fun too!


Concluding, shortly!!
You people have, knowingly or unknowingly, affected me deep down, have changed my outlook towards life and shared much bottled up feelings... Love you all so very much!!

Special Mention
So people deserving the "real" attention of this post end.
There are still two names I would give a special mention to. Not so much of my friends though, they have taught me some vital lessons, albeit the hard way around. Too bad, it actually turned for the worse. Wish it would have ended in a better way, or better still - not ended at all....

Vaibhav : Who taught me it is not so bad after all to lose your gal... and....

Serjesh : Who taught me taught me to appreciate the fact better, that there is a real persona sitting beyond the virtual terminal through which he/she is keying in the words....


Indeed, these were people about whom I didn't write much, but deserve praise beyond words. I guess there are some concluding sentences to this post... Of course these friendships were not possible without an internet messenger. Thank you Yahoo! Gmail and Rediff. and of course a "platform" called "orkut". To their creators I bow... respect overflowing. And well, behind all this, one inanimate friend kept working for hours, beyond resource hungry processes, disk accesses and network transfers.. My PC. Love you too, wish you could see this and celebrate with me.

And lastly, I cannot end with saying, this post was slightly "late" in coming. Reasons are many, not the least being that Mr. Void published his before I did.. plagiarism is his copyright. Meet me someday, i'll fill up that void with lots of punches! *JK*

And ah.. this was a long post... i'm stretching out now... *yawn*

Fare Well!!

A Straight Face

Living now for the twenty first time
Another year left behin'
Family and friends, enemies, allies
Trophies of achievements, countless follies
Smiles sorrows, laughter 'n' grace
I look at them with a straight face...

Devoid of emotions, Empty of light
No soul to befriend, no foe to fight
No touch of love, no warmth of fire
Twist and toil, drag and tire
Yet i live in a rats race
Never running, always walking.. sensation less..
With a straight face

Bits of life, fly away
The wind that comes with fierce sway
I blink my eyes, I fold my hands
I walk away.. to my own errands
Life frowns, I return its gaze
She's surprised, I have a straight face!

I walk on thorns, eternal twilight, dead grass
as I walk past - the mirror cracks - shattering glass
it falls at my feet, my true face revealed
dead grey skin, you might as well have squealed....
but my lifeless image blinks... I stay unfazed
'Cause life has now left me forever..... straight faced :-|

Eight facts of life...

Imagine you log in to your favourite messenger one cool December morning expecting offliners from that guy you have a crush on.. this old school friend of yours whom you met yesterday on facebook, or a morning wish from your brother who's online after an age.. and you are stared in the face by a really cryptic IM.. "Hey! You're tagged!" You fumble for a meaning.. "What exactly does that mean?" you ask yourself.. and when you fail to decrypt the message you ask your friend who broke that joyous news to you..

Uff!! You don't even know that it was a joyous news, which he seemed to have conveyed so excitedly to you.. Till he tells you what exactly that means, you run a search through your brain for all the instances registered for "tag" or "tagged". Your brain gives you a google trace of the search term. "Tag" was what you removed from the (then) new Jeans you bought from Big Bazaar last month, Tag Heuer was the watch you felt like stealing at the same mall.. You are a geek and you even know all the HTML tags, and you, thus, also know that Tagged.com is a social networking site affiliated to Yahoo! But you have not received another such jeans, the Tag watch nor have you got an award from the W3C for your HTML shenanigans nor a tagged.com invitation.. So what exactly has happened?! While you are scratching your head (assuming that its actually your brain you are scratching, running another google for "tags") your friend comes up with this - "Arey, look at my post!" He says.

You check out his post and find out that he has written a post called "8 facts of my life" and has gone about explaining that he had been "tagged" to write that post. So tagging someone means that a poor soul gets a tag around his (in case such as mine - her) neck to post on her blog THE eight facts of life she deems are public-private enough to appear on her blog... until the tag does not really become the noose they show in Hindi movies.

Huh?! You swear.. why exactly am I supposed to do that? Especially when your boss at the company you are having this training programme is pushing you for the wire frame of the website, you Mom wants you to renounce blogging, your ASP teacher has asked you to submit 3 super sized programs the next day (you in fact realize that it IS the day you are supposed to submit the programs - its twelve already), and last but not the least you must get an earthen pot for your sweetheart Aloe Vera plant your Dad is going to get you... You try swearing at the guy who wanted to noose tag you.. but aww he's so ________ cute! The blank is left here on purpose, you can substitute a word of your choice here.. which may (incidentally) be a curse... so that is solved.. but then swearing does not exactly excuse you from the tag.. you pick up the courage to refuse using a really cliched "pick up" (of course the pun is intended) line "What if I don't?" but you notice the grey dot on the chat window that pulls your collar and screams that he's offline.. with that there's an IM.. "Im going away for three weeks.. vacation" - now is when you are really jealous of his vacations... Now you cannot really know what happens if you don't really write that...

Its like a thunderbolt out of the blue.. "BOOM! You've been tagged!" that misses your chair by inches, where you had been sitting long.. the good news is you at least lifted your bum up to rush down to your PC and open blogger.. The persons who came here to see THE eight facts probably will scroll down all these lines and see those facts outright.. (You didn't did you?) Okay no finger pointing.. On with the eight facts

1. I am a girl.
Anyone who does not agree with that will have a REAL noose in their necks! A sub fact is that I am kidding (not about my Girl status OK?). Call me a young lady if you will, or an old frump if you wish, I still am a Girl.

2. Being a Girl, I feel strongly about Women's issues.
Whether its social, health or other, I feel women who are not aware need the proper guidance about them - from those who are and be empowered to be independent.

3. I am only 90% feminist.
Yes I feel about women's issues, but that does not make me a complete feminist - it does not make me a feminist at all in fact. And if you were wondering about the 10% instead of the relation of women's issues and being a feminist, the reason is that I love playing Tomb Raider.. and thus do not agree with the Feminist's ire on TR.. my favourite PC game. And the real reason is that rest 10% of my nature is lost in giving boys their much needed attention ..huh..? what are you thinking? I am totally into gender equality! Oops another fact!

4. I believe in following traffic laws.
Yes, I having a vehicle in a totally chaotic city.. Ahmedabad, try being unlike the rest of the public. By the way, if you haven't been anywhere close to Patchez' vicinity - I feel encouraged to tell you that there are only 2 ways of survival in Ahmedabad on the streets.. Follow all the rules.. or none.. Sometimes you want your conscience to get the worse of you :(
Therefore I do not cross the red light till it turns green, I wear a helmet and follow my speed limits.

5. I am only 0.5% geek and 100% nerd.
Unfortunately - geeks are usually considered Hackers and Nerds, are boring. I'm 0.5% intelligent, and 100% boring.

6. I hate speaking rudely.
But then again that's not what I do. Meaning not speaking rudely!

7. I love Dogs!
Yes, I really do, and dearly wish to keep a pet doggy, but the chances that Mom will stay in the same house (or it will remain the same house after this new family member [Mom's step child] arrives) are close to nil..

8. And finally this was my first Tag, and those who tag me will really receive a similar noose around their neck! BEWARE!

P.S. : I really adore this guy who tagged me and by the way.. I just spun a tale with my footloose tendencies.. hey Zed.. don't feel bad. The truth is that I really enjoyed writing this post! :P
P.P.S. Would anyone like to be tagged.. by me??


~ Fare Well!

My Comic-al life. Alternatively, My Life in Comics

Alright, folks. You have always wanted to read my story, isn't it? By my story, I do not mean the worthless stories I write, I mean, my story. And my story means My Story :)

Heh, did you think I say you are interested in my story because I'm some wildly [in?]famous person? Luxuries like so are affordable only by people like Dawood and Osama, and their children's weddings :D

Well anyway so I say you want to learn about my story because you are curious. Curiosity is a very human trait. If you aren't human, do let me know ;) [alternatively, don't tell me you didn't want to read, you have to choice to press the close button on the browser title bar - hey, hey, hey, I'm not sulking, I have known people reading my blog. Its just that I would like to see someone close the browser by just the looks of my blog and pledge not to read it again]


Let's start with my childhood.

So here's my story - as told by minus.


I was a little, harmless kid, but nobody liked me.. *sob*

but then, I had this new, magical friend!


In my school, students would bully a timid me... I didn't raise a single squeak against them



But excuse me folks, minus and me have only a little difference, I had long hair when I was a kid.. she did not, I would look something like this way back then...



I would have said my childhood wasn't too worth living, but here's what they tell women "Your childhood may not be worth living but you must realize that it is now gone."


Alright, I did not want to sound too "emo" here. Let us see if there are other comic characters who agree to speak my life?


Here's why I like Garfield :)
He's lazy, he's cuddly, he's witty. He has no work to do but to eat sleep and meow. Life in a slow lane is exactly what I love to have.


I'm usually a laid back, quiet person at home and the only worthwhile work I do is Energy Conservation



But I can be a fatal trouble if I wish



Sometimes I can be creative, but the world doesn't like me too much



But that does not stop me from having fun.



Not that it always works out :(



A lover of sleep more than anything else



Sarcastic? Oh, definitely!



But that doesn't mean I don't have a heart....



I am as unlucky as the Murphy's laws predict!



Yet I am dignified!



Nerd, at times.



But that doesn't mean there aren't people worse than me... (Bonus Garfield and Ed Series!)



Sometimes an experience with someone else's tragic lives can leave you deeply moved!






No wait, they are only better



Here's another beautiful comic I love - Who else, Winne the Pooh and Friends!

Helpful and cheerful like Tigger..



Optimist


A little grumpy, but witty at the same time


I have a very interesting voice!


And I'll lift up your spirits, dear friend.. even if it means I'll have to act stupid.



Sure I can be emo at times


Well, not quite this emo



And...
There are things I have learned the hard way in life, courtesy of Little Dog, Lost (Because I identify with the last word specially.. not sure about the first two)


Some people sulk.



And...


Need I say anything...




Hope you folks had a laugh. I could have said that was all about me. Except for these parting words.

I shall remain a loner forever



Finally


I shall put a smile on the face of every person I meet, but I shall be gone from the face of this earth soon and never claim any credit for that.

Fare you well, my friend. Fare you well, my foe!

Fare you well, dear visitor!

Something Amiss

Lush greens,


A fantasy book in my lap,


the feel of the wild winds on my face, playing with my hair..


The air of those high hills,


The acrid salty ocean


The gentle shade of trees,


The sand in my toes,


Soil all over my clothes,


The many-hued plump clouds,


The black enveloping night,


A million stars never seen.


Tales from the jungles


Conversations with myself..


The songs in my heart


A million fluttering dreams...

Old Paper. Old Drawing.

Somebody asked me if this was my self portrait. It might be, but I'm not sure which side I am on.

I left drawing a long time back now. I do not know if I will ever draw again. You were probably the last witness of this, dear friend. Now you do not remain either.



This work is dedicated to the Public Domain.


However the request remains : Please do not modify this work at all to offend and/or threaten and/or hurt someone. It is not necessary to give a link back to my blog it would make me happy if you do.

Rain dance...

Grey skies, heavens silent
Lightning, thunder, cloudy torrent.
Seeping cool, spreading winds,
A pitter-patter, lightly sings.

Tickly drops, glistening earth
A warm scent, a cold hearth
A palm I spread, to let the drops
Drizzle past me, as all sound stops

My weathered griefs, my old woes
Despondence deep, dark sorrows,

Oh mighty rain, wash me clean,
Rinse me off my memories harsh
Let me blossom, unfurling petals,
Lotus of a mucky marsh!

Wash me clean of fading hopes
Of world's confines, stifling ropes

Lift me high, drowned in trance
Dreams alight, thoughts prance
Wash me off my weathered self,
A free woman, in a Wild dance...
A free woman, in a Wild dance...


Just the sort of thoughts the Rain brings in :-)