The Blue Bicycle

It’s a pleasant evening with the Sun going to its hideout and spreading the reddish pink hue in the sky as if the world’s greatest artist had done magic with the paintbrush on the canvas of those fluffy clouds. Calmly striding across the very familiar lane to get my regular ‘chai’ at one of those shops in LH more, I found myself affixed at one short sight of the blue bicycle beside the chai shop. It suddenly strung the chords of my childhood that kept me dangling onto the nostalgia for a couple of minutes. The arrival of “chai” broke the chain of thoughts only to bring me into reality and find the blue bicycle even more amazing with new tyres that’s just been changed in the repair shop.

Allow me to drop in a sleazy confession that I’m a novice in the art of riding a bicycle.

It was the Summer of 2005 when the bicycle bug bit my brother’s adventure nerve and made him go berserk for a new bicycle. After million attempts to convince our father for a new bicycle, we were granted permission just to ride that ‘legendary black HERO cycle’ which my dad thought could be passed on as a legacy; for that was a gift from my grandfather to my dad. But unfortunately the cycle’s rust was stronger that dad’s will that compelled to greet the arrival of our new Atlas cycle with its flashy blue paint.

I can still remember that day when my brother flaunted his cycle by riding in those familiar streets of our busy colony in the evening. It felt good when the kids of neighborhood were awed with the cycle and its brakes and gears. I was young and wanted to try my hands too.

Just to get my hands on those handles and although my tiny legs weren’t reaching the pedals when seated on the seat, I somehow sacrificed the comfort of sitting and reached those pedals only to feel the force of those pedals going up and down and the muscles thrusting them to move forward the vehicle. It was amazing. One moment I was on it, and the next, I was moving along with the cycle and my eyes looking forward filled with happiness with an ear to ear grin. With few rotations by the wheel, I lost my balance and suddenly …. BAM!

I fell on the ground, and as a result of this fall, my iron braces came off leading to a very angry parents and an industrious dentist who carefully worked to build my new braces.

That’s it. There went my first try to vain and since then I never tried for another 3 years with the fear of losing the braces again. Eventually, the bike got old, my brother went to college, and I went to one of those coaching classes where they expect you to study for 18 hours. Today I look at the bicycle and feel what I missed all along. It is one incomplete task and I got this innate feeling to finish it. I returned to my hostel thinking of asking the security guard to borrow his bicycle for a couple of minutes.

The Placement Mania

It was a pleasant morning until she got a call from one of those non-existing classmates about her selection in the 2nd round of Microsoft. "Shraddha! Jaldi aao.....the test will be starting any minute", called the voice on the other side of phone leaving her aghast and clueless for she never comprehended in seven heavens that her name would be listed for 2nd round!

The Placement season is HERE in NIT Durgapur and the buzz never stops about those lucky souls that got placed in MNCs or about the prospective people for the next rounds. Companies keep coming and the senior-junior relation just gets closer. "which company are you sitting for? what kind of job profile are you looking forward to?" are few of those conversation-starters among the janta of NIT-D whereas the rather avoidable question for everybody in final year is mostly regarding the status of their placement.

Meanwhile, Laasya is busy biting her nails whether her online test for a certain finance company has got her through or not......thus making herself and her friends' circle anxious about the result. And when the result is announced, she climbs upto 7th heaven and quickly returns back to reality to brace herself for the upcoming obstacles, the most venerable test being "Group-Discussion Round".

While there are most people who have no idea what to speak when the topic of GD round is announced, few flaunt of their soft-skills and eventually stumble out for being too flashy and over-communicative or jumpy in such rounds. Well, its a known fact that managerial skills are tested in such rounds and the last thing you would want to do is project yourself and only yourself on the screen leaving the group behind!

What to say of the dreaded H-R round which has had many a victim although they passed successfully through the first few rounds, the Technical, the Aptitude, the Reasoning test. But finally, you've got to have that one streak that no one has and wins you a ticket to the company placement! 

So, here am I, typing off the cliche details of the Placement season, finding bliss in typing on my friend's laptop( the keyboard is too god! Thanks a lot Sravani!), and relieving the so-called stress. I shall now end my opinion here, for i have a company placement test tomorrow!

Wish me luck guys! Hope i get the golden ticket!

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Cactus

Oh dear Cactus!

Nobody loves thee

With thorns adorned

Everything just flees.

Have you any friends?

I ponder for long

With a defence mechanism so strong

Have you any enemies?

Adapted to the adversity

Surviving as a sole species

And the flower you bloom

I salute your beauty.

With so many piercing needles

Still with a delicacy hidden

That flower you grow 

Once in a while

Shows your uniqueness

For your harshness can

Never be its hindrance.

Friends, Enemies maynot matter anymore

For you know how to live

Inspite of misery,severity and draught

Lots to learn from you dear Cactus

Henceforth you shall have a friend in me.

Mindless Meanderings, Worthless Wordings!

A plethora of thoughts
Waiting to take shape
Urging to be real
Trying to convince me
That everything is possible
As i stare at those
Clouds that float
Which look like
Fires in the Sky!

Slowly time rolls
And now a blank mind,
Trying to decipher
Why the hell its gone mute
Without any musings
Is it because it has to write?
Or that the written should be read?
Slowly urging my lethargic companion
Whom i dearly call my 'other self'
I start typing.

Life goes just like that
Some good,some bad, some ugly days
Yet we fail to realise
At the moment that
There's always going to be
A beautiful Tomorrow
And a new battle to win
Until you don't give up!

P.S. I really dunno why i wrote that! But yeah, i would really love to hear what you readers think of the above lines!
Adios.

Dear Blog.....

Dear blog,

I've always written what i felt in this space. Its great to know there is some space on internet where you can write and maybe occasionally somebody reads,might as well like it and once in a blue moon somebody takes the pain of mentioning my work and appreciating it. It feels like oasis in a desert, like the first rain of monsoon, like the correct answers you give to the teacher when you get caught doing a mischief in your classroom and she asks you a question!  Its a great feeling indeed.

Call me a non-socializing person and some freak who needs to vent out on this blog every now and then or some great writer-to-be, but i'm still the one who seeks for appreciation/criticism for every single piece i write..however stupid the idea might sound. Naive/Narcissist you may think, every writer who writes admits that its not their best piece of work, for they always want to improve. They might say "yeah!that's the story i love among all the ones i've written..." or "i loved working for that article"...but a writer who is honestly into it never says "that's the best piece of my writing", for they know they can do better. And so do i.

I am proud of you,my blog. Its the one place all my writings (most of them...) are accumulated and the one URL which inspires me. Every now and then, just like any other human, i feel low about what i am, i question my worthiness, my flair for writing, and to answer all those questions you were always there saying "You dear!are kidding about not-so-worthy. Don't give a shit as who says what about your writing, don't give a damn about appreciation, don't give twopence for publicity, you alone know all the struggle you've been through and the feeling of content after you finish writing a blogpost and 'Publish' it. Go through all those posts from the past  and you can be quite amused how far you've come and how better you can be. Just be yourself and write another article. Keep me alive. as a memoir, as a proof, as an inspiration, as a guidance, as a friend for you to come back to me when nothing is motivating you. Just write!"

Publicity, appreciation, criticism, rewards-everything is secondary. The moment you start writing, only completing it remains the sole aim, delivering the idea which got initiated in your brain so randomly and the urge it made you feel to write stands as the prime thing. Well, i do edit it for making it presentable.

"Art not to please others, but to evoke a response. To share something essential with others that must not go unspoken, unheard."

So, thank you dear blog, for holding my writings, keeping me motivated, inspired and giving me the strength to keep on going.

Yours never-leaving-you-alone-and-always-loving,

Kavya.

Image Courtesy: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

When love & ego clash, who is the loser? | 6 Pointer vs 9 Pointer - Roma...

Stupid Bird

A beautiful morning dawned
As the sun rays cut through the clouds
And the little birds took to their wings
Happily wandering and flying around.

But one was left all alone
Busy pecking at the glass door
Amused I was to see it trying
To break the invincible glass and fly in.

I looked at the Stupid Bird
Strange that it chose to fight
That tough battle which seemed pointless
Instead of flying with the flock.

As i proceed to the industry shop floor
With big unyielding steps through the door
I see another Stupid Bird
Flying around the goblet of smoke

Strange that it made its home here
Amidst the bulky oily machines
And the dark dust that contradicted its color
Yet so cheerful and happy for itself.

As i fall into the pit of my thoughts
Taken aback with the peculiarity of these Stupid Birds
Slowly did it strike to my grey cells
That i too am a Stupid Bird.

Oh dear! I was bewitched with your magic
I find myself drowned in your love
Like a stupid bird fighting with the outer world
And I made your heart my homestead.

Then did I realize that these birds
Exhibited passion and not mere pettiness
And found happiness in weirdest of environs
Just because they belong there; like I, to you my dear!