INdependence

Never thought that Hyderabad could turn into such a crowded place one day. 15th August, while everybody else was enjoying their Independence with all their comforts, I was stuck in traffic for almost an hour. It was late in the evening and as the bus didn’t seem to move from its place, I quickly opened the window to take a glimpse of whatever remained of the beautiful nature amidst the choking buildings.

As soon as I opened the window, I saw this tall building. I saw this tall building with men in uniform guarding it. It was the Police Commissioner’s Office. It stood there from the time I was a tiny tot.

It was 15th august and as one would expect, the building looked completely different. The officers (most of them looked freshers) were decorating it with lights and flags all over. While the others among them were staring at the traffic outside from their compound wall, one of them came out like he owned the country and what followed next would be such a shame to describe. The officer, the so called guardian started singing and whistling at the gal who was in a dilemma of crossing the road.

I remembered those days…what a pride I took in waving at them with happiness when I was a kid. And now, every time I pass by them, I have my head bowed down in fear, anger and shame.

The bus started moving at a tortoise’s pace and when we moved a further centimeters, it halted again. This time when my eyes were searching for the beautiful mother nature once again, I came across a small shoe mending shop. The owner of the shop was training a kid on the shoe mending thing.

When the owner got busy conversing with a guy in the next shop, the kid immediately got up and sat on the table outside the shop with his legs folded. He sat there silently, gazing at the passers by and within few minutes he was swaying to the horns and sounds of engines of the vehicles. What sounds like noise to all of us, might have sounded like a lullaby to him, I thought.
His eyes half open, his head tilted and swaying, he was almost asleep. Just when I thought he would fall down from the table in that unconsciousness, there was a kick and a thud on his head. It was the owner waking up the kid from his sleep and asking him to get back to work. For once I forgot all my worries and was feeling so sorry for the kid.

There are thousands of them out there…working in hotels, in wine shops, selling goodies at the traffic signals, begging and bringing out all their marketing skills at such a young age. I wonder if they will ever get their freedom.

And this is to all of us who are proud to celebrate the Independence Day.

Do we actually understand why Aug 15th is celebrated as an independence day or we celebrate it considering it as just another festival and just coz we get a holiday on this day?
Do we understand the meaning of independence?

I wonder if the day would ever come when all those kids would celebrate their freedom and get to say:
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

P.S: The officer’s incident described above was not to blame or raise any questions on the police department. I apologize if it hurt someone. It was to say that just few wrong people in any department can bring a blot on the whole department.
Kudos to all our officers and jawans who sacrifice their lives to protect us. Jai Hind! 

FRIends

Hmm…I have been reading a lot of stuff on my company's internal blog, and I must admit that it has become my daily cup of coffee. More than reading the content of the blogs, I have been going through the comments posted by the other readers. 

There was this blog which I started reading recently as if it was not some blog but a novel which I had to finish by End of Day just to know the climax of the story. When I was done reading all the comments err posts of it, something surprised me. All the older posts of this one had as many comments as the recent ones. The only difference was this: The set of friends who commented on the older posts were completely different from those on the recent ones.  

Yes, I was wondering why the old FRIends for whatever reasons were nowhere to be seen in the recent posts; where did they disappear.Friendship! For me this is the only relation which ‘ends’ even before it begins. For me it has never been about the old or new.  

People come into my life as FRIends when I am least expecting them and just when I am beginning to like them, they suddenly disappear (not that I scare them away or something…) they leave me or I leave them? It doesn’t matter anymore. All I know is that they are never going to come back again. The only thing I wanted every time was for them to stay forever. But expecting in itself is a wrong thing I guess. Maybe this is the answer to the question which most of the people ask me: Nikki, How come no FRIends? 

Sometimes even little things and NOthings make a huge impact on us. Probably that’s why, despite getting so many forwards and messages from people wishing me Friendship day, I still have no FRIends. 

Even today I fear to befriend someone.  

While I ponder on what went wrong, you guys out there have a nice time with your FRIends and wishing them a Happy Friendship Day 

The Fountainhead

Hi there !  

I ‘ve been waiting to write about this book from the day I started reading it. Its called ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand. All of you might not get what I will be talking in this post..its mostly for people who have already read it. Happy reading! 

Finally i have finished reading the book and this is my say:Lets start from the starting  

  The characters of the book 

Catherine (Katie): 

This girl never showed me any signs of being in love with Peter Keating, though she kept on saying those special words to him whenever they met. At first I thought she was a fool to let him use her to his pleasure, and as the destresser of his lonely evenings. But one day she drops at Keating's place asking him to marry her right away, I thought 'Clever girl'. Why did this marriage thing come to her mind suddenly? At this point of time I knew that she was expecting more from him. Deep down inside her mind she knew that no other guy would care for her as Keating did (of course, he had his own reasons to do that). She realized that at any point of time Keating could ditch her for other woman for his selfish means and that's why she wanted a 'marriage'. Both of them knew that they didn't belong together. And that's why accidentally when she happens to meet him after he ran away from her twice, she had no complaints and no regrets. Both of them completely redefined the word 'Need'. They named it as 'Love' and made me understand what exactly it means when someone says: 'I NEED YOU'.

 

Henry Cameron:

This old guy tried real hard to explain it to Roark that traveling on 'The Road Not Taken' is not that easy and pleaded him to back out. He didn't wanted Roark to live a life that he was living now. He played a role of a good teacher. I liked the way he supported Roark and taught him all the things he could.

 

Ellsworth Toohey:

Toohey, a man who could read ppl's mind. He made them believe what they wanted to, told them what they wanted to hear, used his skills to play with their minds and knew everything about them. For a moment he reminded me of MR. Khan, our family doctor and best surgeon of his times (I never believed in his medications though which cured me miraculously).The touch of his hands always gave a soothing effect to me. One day I gave him a silly reason when he asked me why I wasn't having a sound sleep at nights.Thats when he said: I have been into this profession from years my dear, there is something that's going on in your mind again and again which is not letting you sleep. And that was the only day when I was afraid of him for the first time. It was as if he could read something in my mind that I didn't wanted to share with anybody.

 

Peter Keating:

Keating always knew what he wanted from life and did every possible thing to achieve it. The riches and fame that he wanted came to him in such a huge quantity that he got bored of it. Now that he had all that he ever wanted, he didn't know what to do next and that's when he becomes unhappy.

 

Howard Roark:

The supposed and the ideal hero of the book. The only difference between Roark and Keating was: Roark waited for things to happen his way while Keating made things happen for himself. Roark wanted things to do his way and never cared if ppl approved of it (this is what he says initially). For whom was he designing the buildings, if he didn't care about those for whom it was to be built? Had it not been Dominique (grabbing ppl's attention to his work), Austen Heller ( who got him the customers) and the economically poor customers who had no option but to choose Roark, he would have been stayed in the Quarry forever. Roark knew that his work was going to bring a 'change' in the world of architecture. But how you present this change in front of ppl becomes more important, coz initially almost all of them are reluctant to welcome it. They fear 'change' even today. But instead of doing that he became indifferent to their thinking and thought they would never understand him.

 

He says: 'A truly selfish man cannot be affected by approval of others. He doesn't need it'. Yes, that's what he was, a 'selfish bastard'.I thought at least he would spare the woman he loved of his selfishness, But instead of protecting her, he left her for all those men out there. I found him no different from Keating. If he didn't care for ppl, why does he have to open his mouth in his last trial (which sadly went in his favor), to explain himself to ppl.Ideal or not ideal, I feel as long as you are not the only being existing in the world, you cannot ignore the fact that in things that you do (if not everything) you need to present yourself before ppl in the way they want you to. You cannot be indifferent to what they think of you. It's like 'Love them, hate them, you cannot ignore them'.

 

Gail Wynand:

 

Now this guy, was completely a surprise package for me. He did every wrong thing just to gain power. But when he tried to use it for himself, ppl reminded him that he had no rights to use the thing for his own purpose which they had given him. He marries Dominique, knowing the fact that she would leave him anyways one day. He gives her everything that she should have expected from the man she loved. He kept her like a precious pearl and treated her like a queen. I loved the way he addressed her every time with the word 'Dearest'. For once I wanted Dominique to love this man as she loved Roark. (Of course she showed all her love and respect for him in her own way). She remained there with him untouched by this dirty world.

 

Dominique:

 

Don't know what to say about her. Could relate most of her things to myself. I loved every bit of her. She was always there for everybody whenever she knew they needed her the most. She kept killing herself everyday, just to protect the man she loved. For me she was the hero. By any chance if I meet that stinky mouthed English lecturer, I will throw this book at his face to tell him that even a girl can be a center of attention in a story. (He always used to tell me that a girl can never be a center of attention in any story, even if that story is written by a woman).

 The Writer 

Ayn Rand:

The subject to me was completely unknown when I started reading the book. She framed known facts of life and its dirty truths in a very brilliant manner. The way she describes the erotic scenes, I never felt like skipping those pages (which I did religiously while reading other novels. Ex: Sydney Sheldon's: Are you afraid of Dark. No wonder the vulgarity was there while describing those scenes, maybe coz it was written by a man. Only recently I came to know that Sydney Sheldon is a man.) coz they were presented in a clean and neat way 

All the characters were fountainheads in their own ways.

After finishing the book I wondered why I have been avoiding reading from years. I realized that I get involved in them and start thinking about them too much. And may be that's why I have never touched 'Tuesdays with Morris' after reading the first few pages of it.