Ambivalent

Maybe you weren’t the one for me,
but deep down I wanted you to be. 🙂

Tweeting: @thebrokenspecss

Pursuit

If you live in India or have ever traveled to India in the second decade of 21st century, you would have found a lot of places having fancy street foods, specially, in the metropolitan cities like, New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

If you exclude the posh areas of New Delhi and NCR(National Capital Region), and then walk on a very normal street/roads which connects welfare housing societies, you are likely to easily spot the following roadside options like, Ice-Cream tricycles, Open roof stalls of Sugarcane Juice, roasted corn and maybe the push-truck(thela) tickiwala(also called, Chaatwala).

An addition to this group is the roadside “Gol-Gappe”(also called PaniPuri). Now, what’s PaniPuri? It consists of a round, hollow puri, fried crisp and filled with a mixture of flavored water (known as imli pani), tamarind chutney, chili, chaat masala, potato, onion or chickpeas. The complete setup on which Gol-Gappe, Pani and other spices are placed is very easy to carry and move, and also can be quickly placed anywhere and can start selling it back. Now you are thinking, why I am writing about all this stuff? Here’s why.

Every evening when I am traveling back home from work, in the last part of the transit I have to make a 20 minutes walk to get to my apartment. In these 20 minutes, starting from getting down from the auto, finding the Panwari(guy who sells Paan, which is made up of betel leaf with areca nut) and cigarettes(which is sold more than the paan these days), interestingly, his wife also sits during late hours to keep the business up. Some 200 steps ahead, I find the Ice-Cream tricycles from Vadilal, Kwality Walls, Creambell and newly famous Havmor, which is expensive to my pocket. 😛

After 5 minutes, I find a little boy selling Gol-Gappe at the corner of the right turn of the road. I walk towards him, and ask for the rates. He replies, “4 pieces for 10 bucks”. I said, “Can I have it?”, he offers me a dona(which is a paper bowl). The Panipuri tasted amazing!! 😀

Yesterday evening, I left early from work and while getting back home, I met the boy again. He is 3/4 of my height, considering I am not tall, so he looks short. He should be around 10-12 years of age. I asked him, “What’s your name?”. He replies with a smile, “Vansh Gupta”. I asked him if he goes to school, he replies “Yes, I go to school”. With a thought on how he gets time to study, I asked “When you study or do your homework?”, he says “during night, after having dinner”.

I asked him if I can take his picture which I will share on internet with my writing. He shakes his head with a smile. 🙂 I said “Okay, can I take picture of your setup?” And he says “Yes” this time. I also checked with him, “So, where are you from and who else are you in your family?”, to which he replies, “I am Mirzapur(in Uttar Pradesh), and here I have my father and brother who also sell Gol-Gappe, whereas my mother lives in hometown(Mirzapur)”.

He has friends of same age. They also sell Gol-Gappe. One is Rajkumar and another is Komal. I have ate Panipuri from them too. 🙂 Komal is the smart one, like a leader among these boys. I think he likes momos because I have found him eating momos a couple of times. Whereas, Vansh is the good-looking one. But they all are very simple and happy going boys. 🙂

At the age of 12, helping family to earn enough so as to get one time meal is really unbelievably appreciable. Just think about the sacrifices they have been making, like missing their mother, not playing outside in evening so that they help their father and surely not able to spend enough time to learn and study so that in future they don’t need to sell Panipuri.

The least you can offer is a Smile 🙂 to them, do not see them as someone lesser than you and just be good and motivate everyone around you. Life is not easy for everyone.

Tweeting: @thebrokenspecss

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A Day Without Spectacles

Thursday, July 2, 08:43,

After travelling for around 1 hours 25 minutes I had reached the place where I had to spend the next 8 hours. It was another routine affair of travelling the same distance and resuming my project work. After deboarding from the bus, I took a walk from the bus stand in the way of public transit and reach the center within 15 minutes of time. I decided to go to cafeteria & take something to eat. As it was slightly hot outside, I ended up taking a cold coffee to drink. 😛

With sipping the freeze coffee that tasted great, I reach the upper floor using the staircases. I occupied my workstation and kept my belongings at the place. I took the water bottle out from my bag, and then searched for the specs box that I couldn’t find. After searching in all the zips of the bag I got to know that I have forgot to bring my specs. I stood up from the seat and told a close by colleague that I forgot my friend back home. 😛 In laugh she said, ‘What??’ I added, I forgot my glasses. 😦 😥 Calmly she said, not a problem it happens at times. And with that I spent my half of the Thursday without any vision correctness. Normally, I don’t wear my glasses when I am travelling, it has been a habit. I always keep my specs within the box and place it in a specific spot of my bag. And on that very day it didn’t happened where it used to be. 😐

I am really not blind, – 2.25 prescription only. I worked in the similar environment I was working for over past 15 days. I was aware of the paths to travel on the floor.
From the past 5 years I am wearing glasses and it was second time this had happened. The last time it was okay because I was not doing anything that needed accurate sight. But this time it was about a lot, where did I put my keys? Is that a bug or just a dot? How do I know I’m not stepping on a nail?

The oddest part for me, though, was not being able to see anybody’s face as I walked around the floor. As I mentioned, I knew where I needed to go without having to pay attention to the markings. But when it came to people I would walk past and see them and their body language, but their face was a complete blur. Many questions emerged in my mind, are they looking at me? Are they smiling? Frowning? Are they talking to me??

As I previously stated, I don’t wear my glasses while travelling. An incident that occurred with me when travelling in a rapid metro. I was seated in front of a group of girls who all appeared to be friends. I was listening to music and feeling sleepy. 😛 When you’re not able to see clearly, you tend to look in a direction with strange looks and blinking eyes, and without any reason I was directed towards the group of the girls. One of the girl from the group waved her hands in front of me and indicated in a questioning way! I signed her to wait and I put my glasses on, she started laughing and said I thought you were gazing at me but you’re myopic. 😀 😛

Having no idea was really weird. I knew that I was looking at them, but could not tell if they were looking back (I assume I freaked a few people out by staring). It made me feel completely disconnected. 😛

If you wear glasses, perhaps try it for few hours. 😉

Short Story

Here’s a short story,

A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face she inquired, “How heavy is this glass of water?” The answer called out ranged from 8 oz to 20 oz. She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, its not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”
She continued, “The stress and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them for a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.” Always remember to put the glass down.

Don’t play a war in your mind, just let it go. 😉

Age is just a number.. isn’t it?

Age, a number, a division or a calculated digits of how old are you in years, or months, or weeks, or days, or minutes, or even seconds. As per me I think age is just a Label which is attached to every human being.

What I am finding out is that, while age may be just be a number, it is also a label. It labels me as part of a group.

I’m a child. I’m a teenager. I’m an adolescent. I’m a young adult. I’m middle aged. I’m a senior citizen.

My age categorizes and classifies me as something. But is that really what I am? Is that all I am?

Okay, so based upon my age, I actually am a “Young Adult.” But what does that tell you about who I am? What I believe? How I’m supposed to behave?

Sometime you express your views in comments and your comment is so deep that the other person guesses that you must be experienced and old guy. And at times your comment is so funny that people think of you as a teenager with bared thoughts. But what you have expressed is a sudden reaction of what you feel for it, which you have put into words.

Its rightly said that some people are old at 18 and some are still young at 90.

Go and try to do what you really like, as age is nothing but just a number.. 🙂