A place called home...

Driving back from college some days ago, lost amidst the songs playing on the stereo, a sudden sight arrested my attention. I have no idea why it did, I guess it wouldn't have on any other day.

A small house, with a light on in one of the rooms. A woman standing in the balcony chatting with (I guess) a neighbor, and two kids playing in the small park right underneath. I suppose it just reminded me of my childhood, of maybe about 10-12 years ago. We also used to live in a small(er) apartment near JLN stadium. Lots of friends (read children of the same age group), and a couple of rather special ones as well. I still remember the way we kids used to rush off to the stadium grounds every evening in the summer months, buy our customary lick-lolly from our old ice-cream waale uncle. Then rush off into the fields and just roll down the slopes, play hide-and-seek, chain-chain and u know, basically have the time of our lives. Our mothers standing in the balcony just like that woman, chatting with the friendly neighbors talking about all and sundry. Dad coming home in the evening in the rain, with my sis worried ki the car would get wet (she was arnd 3-4 and sooooooooo cute..!!).

Ohhh, how i wish those days would return. Those uncomplicated days. No mad rush, with the life so peaceful. And john, irrespective of whatever u might think, i really do wish that we were born some 50 years ago or so... Just think of it. In the hills of Darjeeling, romancing with the love of ur life, meeting in the evenings in the cloud-covered dales. Peace all around, no tension of getting home early to be able to mail back some stuff to ur boss/colleague/professor. Just being able to spend some real quality time with the people u like.

I digress. So as I was saying, this sight really did move me. I was forced to pull over and stop. Another thing that shook me was how a small piece of land could so easily turn into such a special place. A place called home. Do you also get the amazing satisfaction/enigmatic feeling , when u return home after a trip, even if you had been out with your entire family..?? Is this home-sickness as well?? Or house-sickness?? I don't know.


But, such things do put everything else in perspective. That night, at danny's place, when we were all talking about our regrets/satisfying moments/learnings from our 4 years of college, I did mention something about not taking the ones close to you for granted, especially your family. I don't know as to how many of you actually paid attention to what I said. But I say it again yaar. There's nothing like home, nothing like family. I guess nothing, and nobody in this whole wide world is worth neglecting your family for. Not even the special 'one'. But obviously that is not to say that you forget your friends, which brings me to my last point.

We all are going our own diff ways now. John and maddy off to meet uncle sam. Danny would most probably do so too in a couple of years. Deepak off to bangalore, (i guess for quite a long time..). So just Gauri and me here.. We will all be making new friends. But please please let's not forget each other as well. I have the ugly tendency to indulge a bit to much in/with anything new that I get/find. But not this time, not with friends. So, milate rehana yaar. Please. I am extremely lucky to have so many great friends at one go. Now I don't want to lose all of them at one go as well.

So, here's to us, the geeky gang..!!! :D

Random thoughts...

Getting bored.. so sat down to write...

Lots of interesting stuff happening rt now.. England on the verge of defeating Austraila in the second final in the Commonwealth Bank series..(YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!), Ganguly scoring another well-made half-century (echo previous sentiments..), non-stop rain in delhi for 2 days now (awesome weather yaar!!), neelu agreeing to see us, some people from techtribe coming to college to give a talk on entrepeneurship, danish attending william darlymple's talk (huh...???), I got my offer letter from atrenta, the moksha quiz also coimg up, plus two projects to finish and last but not the least, me finally taking part in a topcoder match and sucking big time...(atlst thts not a surprise..)!!

So, as u see, am pretty occupied with all this. In between there is a little bit(okay, more than a little) of book-reading, movie-watching, music-listening, sketching, coding, making web pages, orkutting and blogging :D

Coming back to the weather, man.. really awesome weather.. Does grow on you, though it grew too much on danish. That man went for a 250 km long drive coz he liked the weather!! Wish I cud be as reckless as he (is)... But, seriously, weather's nice. It had me making plans for movie marathons, till I realised that watching movies all day doesn't give you much of a chance to enjoy the weather.. hehe.. So, junked the plan (or pseudo-plan, whatever..) and am going for a drive myself. Though not far, just to the neighbourhood market, to buy some books.. (divide danny's trip's distance by 50 and you get the idea..)

Apart from that, all is hunky dory. Well, almost all. Just that teh stupid Adobe ppl aren't calling me for a written exam or interview.. phew.. been waiting for so long now..(sigh!!) Hmm, what else.. Yeah, have been reading Bhagwad Gita of late.. nice funde there.. A pretty logical outlook towards life, wish I had the determination to follow the principles laid out there.. But, fat chance! So, u guys are stuck with me. for the time being.

And yeah, going to HPCA tomorrow.. It's some school for handicapped kids, let's see if we could do something meaningful for those unfortunate kids. They really are in a pitiful state yaar.. I don't men the kids at HPCA. I haven't even met them. Rather, generally. Those kids suffer so much. So much discrimination, and no real help from most of us. I remember the countless times I have seen some guy in our college, who goes around in a wheelchair, being carried up (or down)the staircases, especially the one leading to the canteen.. Heart-wrenching scene that. I really wish we could do something for them..

So, on this cheerful note, would say tata, and as john said/requested/threatened, WRITE!!!