Bacha hi acha tha

Puri school, college life mummy hi uthaya karti thi,

Breakfast mai jo chaho woh banaya krti thi,

Ab subah alarm se uthne ki koshish krta hun,

4 bar snooze dabake, meeting mai bina nahaye pahuncha krta hun.

Breakfast khaye hue arsa hogya h,

Lunch bhi 2-3 baje krta hun.

Meeting ke beech mai bhuk meetane ko chips khaya krta hun,

Tostitos se to blue wala lays hi acha tha,

Arey yaar kyun hi bada hua,

Bacha hi acha tha.

Bas test or homework ki tension hoti thi,

Ya friendship day pe bands pehnane ki,

Na early morning meeting ki dikkat thi,

Na perf rating badhane ki.

Cricket team ke captain hum the,

Puri koshish thi team ko jeetane ki.

Ab manager ko leadership dikhane ki koshish krta hun,

Impact ki mala japta hun.

Kuch bhi kaho,

Tab ka leader hi sacha tha.

Arey yaar kyun hi bada hua,

Bacha hi acha tha.

Teacher bhi tab ke sache the,

Burai muh pe krte the.

Dant-te the dil khol ke,

Par peeth piche tarif kiya krte the.

Ab corporate talk sab dete hain,

Kehte hai you are doing well,

Par section to improve mai

Lambe essay likh diya krte hain.

Ability se zada,

Lines of code ka har taraf charcha tha,

Arey yaar kyun hi bada hua,

Baccha hi achaa tha.

Drawing book se lekar,

Birthday cards tak,

Creativity har samay bahar ati thi.

Ab creativity ke liye,

Saal mai do hackathon hua krti hai.

Ise zada creative to tab tha,

Jab mai first year ka fuccha tha.

Arey yaar kyun hi bada hua,

Bachha hi acha tha.

Glass

I have touched lips,
May be far too many,
And yes I have quenched the thirst of people,
However useful, I am still a glass at end of the bar,
Waiting to be returned.

I have helped people forget their sorrows,
I partied with people from evenings till morrows,
I have filled many a solitude,
And made so many judgements a little skewed,
Yet I Am still a glass at the end of the bar,
Waiting to be returned.

Just like the people who drink from me,
I have been broken by people who loved me the most,
And then I have been joined back together,
I have seen death and sorrow,
I have seen eyes which are more addictive,
Then anything you can borrow.
I have seen all human emotions,
Seen many a happy people,
And some just going through the motions.
Yet I am still a glass at the end of the bar,
Waiting to be returned.

I will return,
All washed and new.
I will touch that one more lip,
I will make make one more difference,
To the life of some stranger.
But as of now,
I am still a glass at the end of the bar,
Waiting to be returned.
I am still a glass at the end of the bar,
Waiting to be returned.

Almost

What is your single least favorite word in the English Vocabulary?

There are a lot of contenders,

Words like regret, remorse, anger, murder, poverty, terrorism, racism,

Sexism, hatred, and may be a few more.

But if I had to pick one,

It would be “almost”.

Why almost? Why Indeed.

Almost represents failed potential.

It represents our ability to be just not good enough.

That we had come to the brink of something so beautiful, so magical,

But fell short of it so many times,

That we crafted a word for it.

Almost.

Almost.

Like when in 1999, sachin was 12 short of winning the game for india.

He was almost there. Single handedly navigate india into that position.

Yet he didn’t win it. He almost won it.

And he was in tears for the hours after the match.

That’s what almost does to people.

Like the time when,

In 6th grade I had a crush on this girl.

Her beauty was right out of your dream,

And her skin was like milk,

Her hairs were like silk.

For a chance to sit with her,

I would happily trade,

A cone of chocochip ice cream.

Over a period of years,

We became good friends,

I am almost confessed to her in my 10th grade.

But she was like a hurricane,

And I was, well a drizzle.

So I decided not to say anything,

In the fear of losing her.

Time passed and we lost touch.

Time carved a gulf between us,

That was to difficult to budge.

10 years later we met for coffee,

She was married now with a ring as big as

IPL trophy.

We got into chatting,

and she told me that she had a crush on me during school.

Oh what might have been,

I thought to myself.

I was almost on the brink of may be something life changing,

There is that word again.

The reason for most of our sorrows.

Almost.

Like the time when,

20 years later,

I almost proposed to my girlfriend.

I decided against it.

I thought it was too simple,

And needed to be something more romantic.

She met with the accident next day,

And suffered partial amnesia.

She didn’t remember me.

May be the ring would have reminded her of me,

May be the the accident wouldn’t have happened,

What would have been?

Who knows?

We were almost on the brink of something beautiful,

And we fell so far.

There is that word again.

Almost.

Almost. The bane of human existence.

Almost. The reason for our survival.

Musings of 25 year software engineer

So I was home this week after three months and had a period for reflection. A period of silent introspection.

“Life is tough.” That's our favorite phrase these days. Whenever we think about promotions, university admissions for PG courses, dating, love in general and everything else related to life, we conclude it’s tough. Not beautiful, not wonderful, not hopeful. But tough. Tough because we can't stop thinking about what's coming our way. Tough because we spent the past 2-3 years in denial, in denial that we are growing up. In denial that we want to make it big but don't know how. The confusing moments in our life soon became moments of denial. Those vague ideas about the "real" world are now so in-your-face that you've lost sight of the greatness you once dreamed of.

Then you find a diary from your school and college days, a diary which had about 12-13 poems that you had written and thought you will publish it some day. Then you read those poems, most of them written after your break up. The memories of the relationship seems too silly now. But the words, they punch you right in the face. It seems strange that you were so possessed about something. You had so much clarity and intent. You get inspired that you could feel so strongly about something that wasn’t a variable or class name (Software Engineers will get it.)

And then you realise that something went wrong. But what? Then you think of what you wanted to be back in school. You wanted to be a cricketer. Then you see IPL, you see Nitish rana. He was born two years after you. He is tonking sixes at will against the world’s best bowlers and you? You keep solving some bug that crops up every now and then. Right around 7th or 8th, when you were a silver medalist in gymnastics and a district level cricketer, You had a choice to either take up sports or get into studies and be a doctor/engineer. And you thought, there are like 5k people that get into IIT only 11 get into indian team, and by that time no Indian gymnast had been to olympics. Thanks to deepa it changed. But still the numbers were too low to take a decision that could potentially change my life for the better or worse. And being decently good at studies is a curse too. You had a choice, and being the analytic person that education had taught you to be, you decide to try and get into an IIT. In 10th you realise its a race, it’s a race that will destroy you irrespective of whether you come first or you come last. It will drain you mentally , but you participate anyway. You think you will make the world a better place with all that knowledge. That you will perhaps change the world. Fast forward a few years, you look back. You did decently well at the race. Didn’t finish first, I don’t know who does, but you did well. But then you get to it, are you changing the world? No. Probably not. Will you be able to change the world? Probably not. You did well in the race, but you still lost.

Maybe you were not meant to change the world. Maybe you were meant to sit on that half reclining chair solve bugs and ship features. Not that latter is not challenging, it is, but you aren’t changing the world for the better. Even if you do it’s too negligible for a child sitting in a village waiting for his mother to cook a meal for which she doesn’t have any resources or raw materials. Then you have a guilt trip, and you donate money in charity hoping it would help someone and then forget about it until the time you file tax, where any donation is not a taxable income.

You are 25, you want to change the world for the better, and you have no clue on how to go about it. Maybe you will figure it out in next 5 years. Maybe you won’t, but hopefully you will strive to change the world then as you want to do it now, as you wanted to do it 5 years earlier.

Life is not tough. In this rat race you tend to forget about how beautiful it is.  You don’t see the inherent good in people, you become harsh to others including yourself. You tend to forget the pristine beauty of life apart from the desk you have. The beauty in a mother’s eyes when she sees her baby for the first time. Or a the beauty on the face of an anxious groom standing at altar, waiting for his bride. And in the end we forget:

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. Beauty is power; a smile is its sword. The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.”

So smile and may be it will change someone else’s world :)

Why I don't fall in love?

I was supposed to write something else for work, but here I am writing a long poem on why I Dont fall in love.

Why I don’t fall in love?

A question that I have been asked a lot,

A question that has always hit a nerve,

Shashank, can you please tell me.

Why in god’s earth you don’t fall in love?

Why , Indeed, is the question that ask myself.

Is it because when girls say hi,

I mumble , look down at my shoes,

Say something totally incoherent,

And wished all she said was bye.

Or is it because,

Of the wounds that open up,

When someone says hi,

Fearing the impending goodbye.

Is it because of those probing eyes,

Or is because of that sunbathed smile,

Is it because she looks like the most beautiful girl on earth,

Even when she is ill,

And me, well, like a terrorist sent to kill.

When I was 17,

I took this girl on a date,

We were going out for three months now,

And everything was much better than great.

Her beauty was like that of the moon,

You envision in clearest of dreams,

And if her skin was like milk,

Her hair was like silk,

Smelling like strawberries dipped in cream,

Infact, whenever I was asked to described her,

It seemed less like a ballad,

And more like I was dating a fruit salad.

I was deeply engrossed in her eyes,

While she was gorging this chicken burger with french fries.

Once the eating was over,

We went to the counter for the meal,

That was too soon to be over.

Now this was the thing about which I was most weary,

The things printed in that bill seemed too scary.

I was self defensive,

Or a miser as you would call it,

Specially for a guy who had more dust,

Than money in his wallet.

Eight hundred rupees, the bill read,

I thought that I died a slow little death.

However, I thought I was in love,

And I was time I made a little exception.

And things as they go,

Two years later, I was single and heart-broken,

in a room watching inception.

10 years later,

I was sitting beside an hospital bed,

There she was lying around,

And fighting with her fate,

Life was anything,

But great.

I was silent at first,

But then got to talking,

She was still funny, charming and always joking.

She was like a sunshine, in the rain,

And inside me there was a storm brewing, an impending hurricane.

Soon the doctor came to room,

With a file in his hand,

Now this is the thing about which I was most weary,

The contents of the file were too scary.

There he was spelling out her fate,

The most exquisite ballad dancer,

Was suffering from a fourth stage terminal cancer.

My world came crashing down,

I thought I would just break in tension,

Then I found some courage inside me,

And thought,

She needed me, I need to make an exception.

After that, I visited the hospital rather frequently with her,

Taking her around this wheelchair.

Thinking why she can’t be mine,

While I made sure I was gentle,

So as to not hurt her chemical infused spine.

She died 2 months later,

I lost the love of my life,

And probably my future wife.

So when people ask me,

Shashank, why on god’s earth you don’t fall in love?

I tell them this,

And they soon turn silent,

Like that painting in the museum of that beautiful sun bathed dove.

Like the painting, they want to say a lot,

But then, I change the topic

And let my feelings rot

That is the answer my friend,

Of why I don’t fall in love.

Of why I don’t fall in love.