Moving On...

Today, I complete 20 years of age.

Today, I am officially (or rather theoretically) an adult.

Today, I cease to be a teenager.

I entered my teens like any other kid, unknowingly, unaware of what life had in store for me and the rest is, as they say, is history (at least for me).

The past 7 years have been full of struggle, of understanding and of new degrees of freedom. From the day that I travelled to coaching class alone (in a BEST bus) for the very first time to the day that I decided to pursue further studies in a field of my choice, it hasn't been a bed of roses but it is a journey worth remembering.

Mistakes have been committed, Choices have been made, some of which I have learnt to deal with, others I chose to forget and still others that I will regret for years to come. Yet if someone were to ask me - If you had that one chance to go back and live those years all over again, would you live them differently? - my answer would be No. I would love to exist in that period of my life once more but I wouldn't change any of it. For what has happened, has happened but what has happened has helped me become the person I am today and I don't regret it.

I have learnt in these years that the world is unfair and all the people in it aren't what you expect them to be. But that doesn't mean that I need to forget my conscience and my principles. Money and status isn't everything, at the end it is your satisfaction and your family that matter the most.

There are many people that deserve credit for all the 'good' part of me. My Mom and Dad, my teachers from Indian School, Muscat, my friend Yogesh (it is because of him that I know the exact meaning of friendship) and lots of others who have been a part of my life inconspicuously helping me and guiding me.

It's not like the journey ends here. There are many questions yet to be answered and many experiences yet to be had. And yet these years, I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Not a Confused Teenager anymore but still Confused!

This is a guest post by Ashish Gourav


Everything in this world is new as well as old. Sounds ambiguous? New and old are relative concepts and are quite fuzzy in nature. Though you may slam my first line saying that even the laptop on which I’m typing is either a brand new purchase or an old valued possession. Exactly! That is my point. When you buy any physical good it remains new to your perception for weeks or maybe months, especially if you are a gadget-freak and the thing talked about happens to be laptop, any hand-held device, and etc…confused? Read On!

[Image Courtesy]

However, explaining that all transcendental thoughts are new and old at the same time is quite easy. Better don’t get me started this time and figure out yourself.
Our life can be chronologically arranged in the order:

1.Infant stage…an oblivious sojourn.
2.Childhood…legal hooligan!
3.Childhood again…pregnant with confusion.
4.Onset of Teenage err puberty… priceless :P
5.Self-proclaimed matured Teenager…confused confused confused :(
6.Teenage over…early 20s…Confusion at peak.
7.Adulthood…No Idea!

With teenage comes great responsibility, not in the usual form but a responsibility to nurture the confusion and inquisitiveness about the world, people, every physical phenomena, emotions, relationships and etc… escalated by hormonal rage. The quantitative and qualitative level of confusion decides our achievements and failures in life. Confusion is a good emotion. The more you are confused, more doubts would be cleared.

Confusion drives us crazy in our teens. We choose our career, hobbies and other interests governed by our confusion. The reason most of the teenage romantic relationships break and (/or) are termed as “first-immature-crush and not love” is confusion and to an extent a combined effect of “testosterone, estrogen and progesterone”.

[Image Courtesy]

As we grow old and come out of our teenage phase, and enter into early 20s we experience new changes and confusions still remain unresolved. We lose our zeal to be inquisitive and the passion fades in a subtle manner to maturity. If we refuse to mature and if the confusion persists it fuels the burning fire to "follow our dreams". Most of the successful people are results of this confusion. The world betrays them while they appear confused. It never bothers them; to them their dream is more important. The passion with which they follow their dreams and try to seek an answer for their confusion is the only driving force in their case. When they become successful and powerful, people are awed by the sheer brilliance of their ideas, dedication, perseverance, talent and endless list of adjectives. We think now they have come out of their confused state but we are wrong, they are still confused!

For mango-persons (aam-aadmi) like you and me, confusion is not a virtue but we should think again. The baby we give birth to as confusion in our teenage should be nurtured and made a responsible, disciplined and honest means to expression of our thoughts.

Perx describes a typical teenager as bored, frustrated, confused and angry. Agreed!

The anger, frustration and confusion should be channelised for pursuing our dreams.

“Sometimes I'm confused by what I think is really obvious. But what I think is really obvious obviously isn't obvious...”
- Michael Stipe

PS: ARJuna turns 20 today!
PS: Happy Birthday ARJuna
PS: Thanks for inviting me to write a post in your blog.
PS: Readers can visit my blog from here.

A Footprint Of Service

A quote from February 1st issue of TOI;

"Gates has slammed Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for wasting money on hair transplants instead of helping the starved... Gates told the newspaper 'Suddeutsche Zeitung' rich people spend a lot more money on their own problems - like baldness - than they do to fight malaria."

This set me thinking, irrespective of how rich we are, how many of us think about the underprivileged?

A sad fact - I don't. I am sure most of my batchmates from college or youth belonging to my age group don't think about such stuff either (a select few do and I do not deny that) almost all of them are busy nurturing their own ambitions.

The reason is simple enough. We are trying so hard, to establish our own identity in the society, to make sure that we can eke out a living after we pass out of college, trying to swim towards the elusive 'Indian Dream', that in this struggle we tend to block out every aspect of the society that is beyond our sphere and utility. But this reason isn't good enough!

Why don't we consider social entrepreneurship as a career or volunteer for NGO's in the social service sector.

Maybe it's time we kept aside our dreams of hefty paychecks, big houses and flashy cars aside for some while and looked beyond our own ambitions. It's time we stopped complaining how unfair life can be. It's time we do something to really help those in need of a better life.

Dheel De...

The strong wind, blowing through the hair

All the terraces peppered with men, women and (especially) children.

The fluid motion of kite up in the sky.

The manja tugging at the fingers.

The shouts, screams, catcalls and jeers of the victorious party and the elegant fall of the vanquished kite in the jungle of cement and concrete.

And the joy of finding a fallen kite.

That sums up the festival of Sankranti in Ahmedabad. A beautiful experience for a metro guy like me, who flew a kite for the very first time in his life!!!

Yes, I'm Very Much Alive...

And after defying the murderous exams and recovering from the post exam hangover I am back to blogging.

I'll start by wishing all of you a very Happy New Year. There couldn't be a better start-of-the-year than this for me. Why? Because the new year itself is reason enough to blog, and this time the cause of blogging was strengthened by the 'idiotic' controversy!!!

The only comment I would make would be

1. The overall story of the film is completely different from the book (claims that 70% of the story from the book has been lifted directly is, according to me, baseless)
2. The timing of the controversy only makes it clear that Chetan Bhagat knows how to get his book sold, if you know what I mean!
3. Vidhu Vinod Chopra needs to join an anger management program and Bhagat needs a better lawyer (and a magnifying glass to read the fine print).

And yes, I have read the book and seen the movie.

Though I have nothing against the author, I do feel a person like him, who speaks about a principles and reforms (in his columns), shouldn't have resorted to such publicity tactics.

Moving on, time for some shameless self promotion.

Please remember you are always welcome to send me a mail about anything you wish to express - suggestions, complaints, requests - regarding the blog, to arjblogger@yahoo.com

You can subscribe to the blog feeds by clicking on posts/comments in the Subscribe To side bar or if you are a Blogger member then you can follow this blog by clicking on the Follow button in the Followers side bar.

My 140 or less words of wisdom are now available on my twitter page which you can follow by clicking on the Follow Me button in the Twitter side bar.

Remember, your opinion counts!

With that, this is ARJuna, your friendly neighbourhood blogger signing off.

P.S. Did I mention that this is my 50th post. Sigh! It's great to be back.

Just Think And Answer: An Experiment

What would you do if, for one complete day, you were confined to your home and did not have the two most important luxuries to entertain/engross you: the TV and the PC???

Now just think, improvise and provide your answer in as much detail as you can (no dull responses like - I would play indoor games, go for a stroll, work on the broken tap, etc.).

The idea is, your answers should be interesting, creative and yet close enough to the reality, so that we can have a peek into your twisted little minds... Muaahaahaa!

Why I came up with this crazy post??? The reason is, me and my family are just recuperating from a eleven hour power cut! I will not deny the possibility that the lack of electronic entertainment may have affected my brain, but as the title suggests this is only an experiment.

I would sincerely appreciate if all of my readers would participate and respond with gusto (even suggestions and complaints are welcome). Your response will determine if I should continue with the 'Just Think And Answer' initiative.

If I Were A Baby Again

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 4; the fourth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

It happened to be the other day,

that I was passing by memory lane,

just then, across my mind, flashed a thought; a stray,

What if I were a baby again.

A voice from somewhere within nudged me to walk through the lane. It wouldn't be that easy I said to myself; sweet memories will rekindle the lamps of joy and old wounds will be reopened. I could lose myself in the labyrinthine passages and by-lanes.

"Are you afraid to face your past?", the voice asked.

"No!", I said

"Then make up your mind!"

“I’ll do it.”, I answered after a moments reflection.

“After you, sir” said the gentleman inside me.

As I made my way through the little galli, I heard more voices, this time from the outside, as I trudged further houses began to appear on either side. The voices weren’t just voices any longer, they belonged to the human forms that I spotted from afar, whose hazy outlines became increasingly solid as I approached.

As I approached the crowd of milling ‘human forms’ I was taken aback, these weren’t just any humans, these were people whom I had known or still knew since my childhood. Many of them were the ones with whom I had lost contact along the way. I suddenly felt guilty. I couldn’t make eye contact, not that it mattered - to them, I was invisible. They just walked past me or saw right through me, I dunno why but this made me feel even more guilty.

Trying hard to ignore the ignorance of the ones I had forgotten until now, I trudged ahead. I turned my attention to the houses. I had passed dozens of them but it was only now that I really noticed the strong waves of emotions emanating from every door, window and even every crack. I went near one, there were sounds of squealing laughter and commotion, I looked through the window to receive another shock, it was my childhood home and there I was celebrating my 5th birthday with loads of friends.As I stood there I smiled, laughed and jumped with joy as my 5 year old self cut the cake.

From there I ran to every window, each window showed me, in reverse order, the most important moments of my childhood life. Some happy, some sad, some that made me learn the most important lessons in life.

Finally I came to the very last window of the very last house on Memory Lane. I peeked in to see a tiny form wrapped in cloth sleeping beside it’s mother in what seemed to be a recuperating room of a maternity hospital. I could see the joy twinkle in the mother’s eyes…in my mother’s eyes. As I looked away from that window I realized I was crying as well.

Wiping away my tears, I stared at the dead end, there was a small fountain near the high wall marking the end of the lane.

The voice inside me asked “So now you have a choice, you can choose to be a baby again and relive or even change your moments of childhood or just walk back along the path you came and go on living the rest of your life, what will it be?”.

I thought for just a moment and firmly replied “No.”

Why, you would ask? Well if my childhood had not been the way it had turned out to be I would not be the person I am. Today, I may not be perfect but I am happy with the life that I am living and the people with whom I am associated. I would not want to change it for anything in the world.

That does not mean I did not learn anything from my trip down memory lane. I now, would certainly try to get in touch with the people whom I had lost contact with. I would apologize to those whom I had disheartened or let down in the past and thank those who helped or shared joy and happiness with me along the way.

At last, my steps I decided to retrace,

After witnessing the years gone by.

The past I had refused to embrace,

for childhood's rightful place was in my mind's eye.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Diary Of A Woman

It started out as a doodle but the end result is much more than just that.

I am not an artist nor an art connoisseur, I try to reflect on paper, be it in writing or through sketches, what I feel about the world around me.

I will not bore you with details like what I felt while creating this masterpiece (!!!), What it symbolises, the various 'metaphors' involved, the medium I used (it's just a pencil sketch on a page from an exercise book, duhh!!!) like the other artists do.

Rather, I am interested in knowing what you understand or perceive from this sketch and what does it tell you???