The face of terror

September 11, 2001 - a tribute

George Bush (Address to the Nation), 9-11-2001, 8.40 pm.
Good Evening,
Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.
The victims were in airplanes or in their offices -- secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors.
Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.
The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger.
These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.
Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.
America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.
Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of America, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, D.C., to help with local rescue efforts.
Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.
The functions of our government continue without interruption. Federal agencies in Washington which had to be evacuated today are reopening for essential personnel tonight and will be open for business tomorrow.
Our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business as well.
The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
I appreciate so very much the members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance.
America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world and we stand together to win the war against terrorism.
Tonight I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me."
This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time.
None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.
Thank you. Good night and God bless America.

Three things

If you're not a thinker, you're lucky.

I drive myself mad thinking about things - things that are probably absurd, totally out of context, yet at the end of it, I feel yet a little bit more enlightened than before I thought about it.

It happens to me every now and then. Ever wondered what would happen to you - your mind - if you thought deeper into things than you actually 'should'? Deeper than 'normal'?

You'd be me. You'd be abnormal, just like me. I am not like you. I look like you, just a little quiet, sometimes a little sad, mostly alone, but I ain't like you.

Maybe that's why I'm a writer, not a great writer, I know, but still, I am a writer.

I think... about things that might have nothing to do with you or me, at least on the cover, but deep down, what I eventually think out is the truth - a truth that most of us never cares about. And you shoulnd't actually. It doesn't really matter. Not to you.

But someone's gotta do it. Someone's gotta make it easy for you. Everyone, after all, can't think.

But it's a catch 22 situation... for me, a solution to which I might have found.

I think about stuff that's divine, stuff that could make me go insane when I relate it with something. But most of the times, my originality, or clarity in thought comes only when I'm high. I have no problems with that.

I totally believe to think crazy, you need to be on the other side. The fuck up, however, is that I think because I drink, and I forget because I get drunk.

Yesterday, I started to write down what I think. If I could count how many plots, how many ideas for books might have surfaced in my mind while drinking or smoking up during my life and eventually drowned in the high as well, I woulnd't be able to.

I dream of writing a book one day, every word of which will be written while I'm stoned. I just wanna see what comes out of it.

I've been getting a lot of mails - people telling me that my blog has changed. Some say the passion is lost, some say it's become very "different" than before, some say it's become "thoughtful", and it's almost certain my blog has lost quite a bit of it's traffic.

Most of the reason for it is that I can't access my office computer after midnight. Midnight is when I'm high, midnight is when my mind's at its best. I can write what I think.

I write so I can learn what I think.

I think as a kid I was stupid. I was strange. I did strange things. When I'd be bored, I'd walk into the kitchen, switch on the gas stove, and i'd pick up all the ants roaming around somewhere and then burn them alive!!!

I saw a small tiny little thing walking around on the bar counter yesterday. Really small.

As an instant reaction, just like probably anyone would do, I picked up the glass kept on the side to put it on top of that thing so as to crush it.

I stopped.

I wondered, what the hell is it doing to me? It's breathing, right. It may have somewhere to go, some things to do, right? It's a life after all.

Maybe I'm overreacting to the life of an ant, but how do you kill something you see walking around, for no rhyme or reason? Just because it's not supposed to be there?

How do you take away life? I don't think anyone has the right to. No law, no court, no judge should have the right to take away someone's right to breathe.

What's the idea of giving someone death penalty, that he isn't alive to commit the crime again. That in fact is the entire concept of law, to prevent crime.

What if the person, who's been sentenced to death for a crime, truly repented? What if it was the last murder he ever committed?

You want to punish him? Sure. Lock him up in a room for his entire life, give him basic things though, like a television, a nice bed, neat food, a neat toilet, and never let him come out of there.

That's quite a punishment.

But let the guy breathe for cryin out loud. Let him die a natural death.

Why do things enjoy killing other things?

Why did I enjoy killing those ants?

Noor?

Confessions

All alone

Negative

It could have been the people I met. It could have been the country I landed in and stayed on, when every inch of me was screaming out to me to run.
Or it just could be me. Unlikely though.
I am certain, it's the people I met - Man... God... Abso-fucking-lute losers. I swear.
And I won't blame them if they think the same about me. For a mad man, the sane are as mad as the sane think about the mad man.
But there was something about them - the people in this country I met - they were so unlike... my kind. As if they never really grew up. Never really took any chances in their lives.
Something about them, that I could never really get attached to them. Something about them, that I never found them funny, or fun. I hung out with them, hoping that maybe a few days later, I'll become like them, and this alien country would turn out to be a little more than just lonely.
I have no qualms about saying, that the people I met had absolutely no idea about life.
They think like Qatar - like most people here. Maybe I'm just being a little too harsh on them.
But it's quite fair to say, it's because of them I've just started hating everything. Every single thing has begun to piss me off. The way people talk, the way people think, the stuff they do thinking they're doing to to enjoy themselves...
It's just so turning off.
There was this girl I met, besides several other people, who was stunned that I had no particular ambition. She's an Indian, but born and brought up in Doha. Exactly the type, that would probably bore someone like me to death in a matter of minutes.
She's someone for who I am probably demented to not have a goal in mind. She's never met anyone like me. I am an alien to her. Same old crap, "let's go dutch", "oh I want to make a lot of money", "I nam going to watch F1 in Bahrain".
Grrrrrrrrrr.
You know what I mean?
Same old normal shit.
What some people, who usually bitch about her to me, don't realise is that they're exactly like her. Absolutely normal.
Normal's good? Normal sounds pretty normal. Yeah, normal's good. But normal's just so friggin boring.
Flight stewards, and air hostesses. Well, I don't have a problem with them. They make your journey on flights quite worth it actually. But with all due respect, they spend their entire youth in a job, which requires absolutely no brains.
They might be potentially intelligent, maybe, but their job's such that it probably turns them into brain-dead human beings. Their job pays them alot, without making their brain itch for a second. So obviously they stop using their brain, and iti eventually becomes disfunctional.
More than half of the people I met were cabin crew! The rest were the ones who enjoyed hanging out with those brain-dead people, coz maybe somewhere they knew it gave them some sort of sense of superiority hanging out with some people who you could make your point in seconds and they'd consider you... wohaaaaa... he's good man!
Pathetic.
But I'm sure there are some people out here who're just like me. But what to do now, I've just started disliking everything. Be it going out, be it the taste of beer, be it the gorgeous looking woman beside me at the bar who said, "I like your hair."
I was like.... "oh shut the fuck up."

Get the point man? I'm refusing to open up to anybody now, because I am almost certain they're gonna turn out to be stupid losers, who're totally shit scared of everything and live in absolute denial.

I'd rather be alone than be with people I just can't connect with.

Those people need to travel.

Qatar is fun for a while, but it's not a place where you can stay forever. You need to get out. You need to let go.

Rohit, FIGHT!

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will.

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill.

When the funds are low and the debts are high.

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.

When care is pressing you down a bit...

Rest if you must, but DO NOT quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

as every one of us sometime learns.

And many of you and I... turn about,

just when we might have won... had we fuckin stuck it out.

DO NOT give up... though the pace seems slow,

you just might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up... when he might have captured the victor's cup;

And he learned too late when the night came down... how close he was to the golden crown!

Success is nothing... but failure... turned inside out.

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt...

And you never can tell how close you are...

It may be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fuckin fight when you're hardest hit...

IT'S WHEN THINGS SEEM WORST THAT YOU MUST NOT QUIT.

FIGHT YOUR FUCKIN ASS OFF.

FIGHT!

FIGHT ROHIT, FIGHT!

You are still the same man that was born at 9.05 am, 13th of October, 1980.

10 months down

It's been 10 months, here, in Qatar. The country, well, good or bad, has grown on me.

Somewhat.

Here I am, with my future in the palms of my hands. I can either hold on to it. Or let it slip away, and carry on living, life, like it was a game, an easy, tough, game.

I can stay on, save my ass off, and secure my life ahead. Build my dreams of one day owning a beach shack in Goa, from a beach shack to a night club in Delhi, from Delhi to Mumbai, probably die a filthy rich man.

It's right here, upto me.

You know how everyone starts their careers off, at a pay of say 5000 (Indian Rs.) bucks, then they go up to 10,000 and then 25k a month. You wonder then, fuck, 25 is less dude.

You look back at your first job, how happy you were getting those 5 grand. Man... they were enough.

Then 10k seems less, then even 25k, and you just want more and more. It's never enough.

Coz, "If you ain't enough without a Gold medal, you're never gonna be enough with it."

everyone gets a chance in their lives to become rich. It's my belief, everyone. We all wonder, hell, how the hell am I ever gonna buy my own car, or build my own house, earn enough to send my kids to school, like my father did, how will I ever earn enough to have a family, and live a decent happy life.

It seems almost impossible. Everyone goes through this. And I so did. I never thought, I'd ever earn enough.

But then, what is enough? That, though, is totally besides the point.

And suddenly, somewhere in your life, something, some sort a miracle, when you least least least expect it, you see standing in front of you, staring right at your face.

You know, that's your chance. Your chance to cash in. But it's scary, coz if you mess up, and you don't cash in on that chance, you got no one else to blame but you. No destiny, no fate, no hard life. It's you and no one else, it's now, or never.

Life becomes easy after that. It becomes a little monotonous too. You've saved, probably invested, secured your entire family's future, without even knowing the girl you're probably gonna marry, without knowing if you're ever gonna get married. You've just secured their lives and yours.

You're safely away from the cliff, the edge of which you once were infactuated with.

Here I am, 10 months in Qatar, planning my holidays to Australia, to Chicago in December, almost convinced, I'm here to stay. Here in Qatar, a country, which I had to search for on the map before I was about to land in.

Maybe I secure my future beginning now. It's scary though. If I do it, what will I ever be bothered about in my life? What will scare me? What will keep me going?

The Search? The Search for love? I'm somewhat tired of that search. My search has become more into a girl's search for me... waiting like a helpless eunuch for the girl to find me, if at all there is a girl who's gonna be mine forever.

I'm tired. I'm scared. I'm worried.

I'm becoming normal, with age. I'm worried about saving money. I'm no more fun. I'm no more a bungee jumper.

I'm no more, me.

I feel like losing it. I mean it. I feel like being mentally abnormal. I just hope I already am.

I learn the hard way, my way

I had never used a credit card in my life, till about a month ago. Lots of people told me lots of (negative) things about having a credit card in your wallet.

One of them was, "Ro, a credit card is not meant for a person like you. You'll fuck up, when you can't even manage yourself in your salary."

It made sense to me, when in the next 15 days I had blown up double my salary on my credit card.

But it didn't scare me.

It's bullshit when they say credit cards are meant for disciplined people. Mega Crap!

Credit cards are meant for totally indisciplined people, like me. Those that are disciplined will never need any credit cards anyway. They should manage rather well in whatever they earn.

That plastic was meant for me. For me to learn.

Learn the hard way. It's taught me.

Whenever people, including my parents, or my well wishers, my friends would tell me something, I'd never bother listening to them. I still don't. That's just me. It's something I really can't help. Even if I could, I woulnd't really help it.

I learn things in my own sweet time. I learn them from my own experiences, from things I see and feel rather than from what I hear or what another person has to say.

Why should I do something, someone else, who's probably lived a few extra years on the planet than I have, is telling me. How he thinks is different, what he does is different, what he wants from life is completely different from how I think, do, and want.

I'd rather fall while walking on the wrong path, get up and trudge back to the right path after I am totally dead sure that the path I am trudging on is wrong, instead of doing what someone else thought was right, maybe it was, but I'd always wonder... what if I had taken that path.

At least my way, the hard way, where making mistakes is not a crime, I am sure of both ways. These are my experiences.

Today, my indiscipline, taught me a whole lotta things. It made me go back straight home for three straight days instead of a bar. I'm peacefully watching TV, DVDs, sipping coke, eating chips, and waking up early in the morning fresh, sans a hangover.

How did this seemingly impossible thing begin to happen. Who taught me? When did I learn?

I learnt when I was supposed to learn. I learnt because of the mistakes I was supposed to make for me to learn. Eventually, I always do.

But I enjoy making mistakes. It makes me feel very human.

I am an extremist. Until I reach the peak of anything I do, I don't stop. Be it a song, which I would listen to over and over till I can't listen to it anymore, or it's love, or it's alcohol, or work...

It's living life the hard way. It's living on the edge. And (according to me) if you aren't living on the edge you're grabbing way too much space.

Life's really easy, sometimes terribly boring, sitting safely away from the cliff.

I like being near the cliff because I believe in my destiny. I believe in fate. I surrender to God's will. If I must fall, I will.

Yes, that's easier than the easy way - blame everything on God's will. But what the heck! The ride's still on.

I am just a pencil in God's hand. It is He who writes.

Watch me now save money, finally!

PS: Comments from now on have been disabled on The Qatar Diary. I don't need you anymore.

Heal the world

The world is waiting. Waiting for one child; Black, white , yellow, no one knows... but a child that will grow up and turn tears to laughter, hate to love, war to peace and everyone to everyone's neighbour, and misery and suffering will be words to be forgotten forever.
It's all a dream and illusion now, it must come true sometime soon somehow.

I want to be a champion

Don't cry about today.
I'm not crying. I never cry.
Well you should. So I can tell you not to. Nadia, the tragedy isn't that you fell. It's that you were the best there and you didn't live up to it. You're not serious about gymnastics.
Yes I am.
No you're not. You're just playing.
No.
Did you ever see anyone as bad as you were today?
No.
Well then. Go back to the schoolyard if you just want to turn cartwheels and play.
No. I want to be a champion.
----------
Ooh...
Papa...
You think it is possible for a little girl to fly?
I'll never quit...
Nobody's here today...

It was good, wasn't it?

Don't let us down...

Nadia, concentrate. Forget everything but the exercise.

----------

Today, I'm sharing with the world, our (me and my sister's) inspiration as kids. As aspiring sportspersons, dreaming, training... to be world champions.

Before each and every of my cricket match, before each and every of her swimming competition, after our father had pepped us up, motivated us to the peak, we'd sit down and watch Nadia...

These two clips that you're about to see are enough to pump fire into any sportsman.

It was about the time, when Cricket and Swimming were the lifeline of the Wadhwaney family. Everything that happened inside our home was
solely dependant on our performances on the green circular field, and the rectangular pool full of blue water.

This is the clip of the Games in which Nadia Comaneci won the first ever Perfect 10 in the history of the Modern Olympic Games.

And this, one of her final performances in the Games in 1984, while she was injured and Romania needed 9.9 to win.

Nadia stood up and said: I'm competing.

No you can't...

How much do we need to win?

9.9.

Tell the judges I'm competing.

------------

Both of us somewhere... lost the fire that was burning within us.

Or maybe the fire was so strong that it burnt us out. I'm not sure.

Sorry papa.

Holi

I just found out. It's today - my favorite festival... Holi.

And I ain't there. Where I am, it's a normal day.

Where I wish I were, people are freakin out - soaked in colour, wet, high on Bhang, sitting under the hot sun, drying themselves up, hogging at sweets.

Holi... just a holi. The first one I ever missed.

It's a price you gotta pay for being away from where you spent three-fourths of your youth. It's a price you gotta pay for wanting to earn more money than you actually require. A price you gotta pay for being an escapist.

Well done, Rohit!

Right now

Right now, people are having unprotected sex

Right now, opportunity is passing you by

Right now, justice is being perverted… in a court of law

Right now, Blacks and Whites don’t eat together very much

Right now, you could be outside

Right now, the light from a star in M-5 is heading towards Earth

Right now, light that left M-5 a thousand years ago is getting to your house

Right now, God is killing Moms and dogs… because he has to

Right now, guilt is turning someone inside out

Right now, there’s a bomb factory hard at work

Right now, you’re sitting too close… for comfort

Right now, somebody’s got the wrong idea

Right now, oil companies and old men are in control

Right now, it’s business as usual in the woods

Right now, nothing is more expensive than regret

Right now, people who can’t read are bumming

Right now is just a space between Ice Ages

Right now, youth is king

Right now, the truth is being obscured

Right now, science is building a better… tomato

Right now, pigs are becoming… lunch

Right now, someone is working too hard for minimum wage

Right now, a convenience store is open

Right now, your parents miss you

Right now, oysters are being robbed of their sole possession

Right now, no one is safe from loneliness

Right now, it’s cold where someone you love is

Right now, it’s nicer in Cabo

Right now, a mad man is wandering the streets of the town you live in

Right now, a tired man with a wounded heart is sitting in a coach seat on an east-bound transatlantic flight looking out of the window wondering how to say ‘dog’ ‘howl’ and ‘moon’ in French just in case it comes up

Right now, she is going on with her life

Right now, time is having its way with you

Right now, forces are aligning against you

Right now, someone is walking on to the nude beach for the first time

Right now, our government is doing things we think only other countries do

Right now, you aren’t doing what you most wish you were

Right now, is harder than it looks

Right now, your memory is getting longer while your life is getting shorter

Right now, dogs have it good

Right now is not the fault of the Japanese

Right now, there is no cure

Right now, people are doing it for money

Right now, a bowl of soup would be nice

Right now, keeps happening.

Bllllleeeyuuuck!

Blogging SUCKS!

My Page SUCKS!

The commentors SUCK!

What I write is totally unlike who I am... when I read it, I laugh. Because it's just a whole load of mega crap.

It pisses me off everytime I log on to The Qatar Diary.

EEEEYYYYUUUCK!

What a fuckin waste of time...

Aaah... time, that's what I wanted to blog about. But why blog? It's in my head. I know it. Why the hell do I have to write it down like I am in the 2nd standard and I'll forget if I don't note it down.

Yeah man.... this thing... it SUCKS bigtime. Most other bloggers suck as well, but they just don't think so.

Yeah man... you all SUCK!

..........................................................

I'm a writer

It's strange how nervous I get before I am about to start writing. Not this blog. But when I am about to write... for professional reasons. A feature for my newspaper, mostly.

Why, I wonder.

It isn't like I won't be able to write. I always manage to end a story I begin. I always have. It's but natural you will.

But I just get so tensed. William Zinsser said a writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing. Makes so much sense. It is scary.

Scary, because once it's not begun you don't know how it will turn out to be.

I get scared.

When I was younger though, working for newspapers as a reporter in my oen country, writing a news story was like a piece of cake. I could generate three or four stories in a matter of one hour, and I could do it blindfolded.

Not a thought about what to write, how to form a story. Just write the damn thing as if I were copying it from somewhere and just typing it out. That fast.

It was always an almost-clean copy. There was never no nervousness.

But now I want to raise my bar, all the time. Write, to prove a point to myself, all the time. I just know, if I like it, chances are other people will as well. It's how I feel.

It's just so emotionally exhausting. To write.

I go into a trance when I write. Like I was the only one on the planet. What's happening around, who's saying what... it's all just a haze.

It's just the screen in front of me, the keyboard below my fingers, my eyes glued to the half-written sentence in front. Not even a blink.

I'm scared, all the time, to go into that trance. Because then, the outer world around me has disappeared.

I get lonely. There's no one around me. I'm deaf. I'm lost... in a world i'm creating with my fingers.

It's scary.

But I'm a writer. It's what I do.

No, the act of writing is not fun. Typing that full stop after your last word of your work, however, is ecstatic - a feeling I cannot possibly describe.

As if you weren't breathing all this while, and suddenly after that full stop, you breathe out. Relief.

For that feeling, I'm ready to go into that scary trance again and again.

It's what I do.

The obvious!

'Terming the twin bomb blasts in Varanasi as a "terrorist act", Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav hinted at the role of a Pakistan- based terror outfit behind them and said the state government would work together with the Centre to solve the case.
Addressing a crowded press conference at the Circuit house, Yadav said Tuesday's blasts were "definitely an act of terrorism".'

Oh really! An act of terrorism, is it?! And look at us, we fools, we were thinking a 13-year-old kid, went to the supermarket, bought what he thought were firecrackers, and left them around the city.

And then yesterday, a Times of India story read: 'Indian PM Manmohan Singh has condemned the bomb blasts.'

Aaah! Let's give him an award for condemning the blasts.

And Indian journalists are such fucking fools to even write this. Of course he'll condemn it you chutes. That's what PMs are for! It's a freakin bomb blast in the country he heads!

What do you expect him to say? "Oh no, it's cool. It's just a bomb blast. Chill out guys. Where the hell's my beer?"

Bloody idiots.

Lord, check this out!

Me Me

Through the eyes and fingers of a very pretty artist - Frozen Fingers!MeMe
Hahaha...

This one just takes the cake. Sitting all the way back in India, she could sniff out the narcissism!

Fingers, Shukran Jazeelan! It's really sweet.

Read it, carefully

A Chicago Tribune column that changed my life

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young

June 1, 1997

By Mary Schmich

Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.
I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97, wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Think, and that's it. It's gone.

I am impulsive. I ain't saying that because scores of people have told me that. It's like I keep talking about ugly people who think they're not ugly but in fact good looking.

Everyone knows what they truly are, unless they're blind.

Likewise, I know exactly what and who I am. What I behave like. That I am sometimes rude even though it's not my intention to be. That most people bore me to death. That I am not very adjusting. That I contradict myself more often than not.

That, yes, I am extremely imulsive. I don't think before I act. It comes naturally to me. Once the words are out of my mouth only then do I hear them and realise how I truly feel, unless of course I'm drunk senseless. Then most of whatever I say, might be true, is certainly not what I mean.

For example, I barely knew this guy, who's party I went to a few months ago. And I barely know his girlfriend. I mean I might have met her just once before for a very brief time. I was drunk. Super drunk. And I told him (apparently), "Dude, look at you. And look at her. She's a chute."

I mean I coulnd't have possibly meant it. I didn't even know her.

There is some stuff I've said impulsively, which I've regretted. But that was in the past. Those were people who I lost because I said what I truly felt. I sometimes wished I didn't. They were some really good looking girls.

I don't really care about the guy friends I lose. I eventually end up telling myself they deserved it. But I swear some of the guy friends I've made are just so intolerable now. They're exactly who I do not wanna hang around with.

I have no control over my tongue, my mind, my heart... nothing. What comes out when, where... no one, including me, has a clue.

This is my eighth job. I'm 25 years old. Except for Times of India, where I was sacked, I've quit all the other six jobs. Just... one fine day. Got pissed off, wrote my resignation, and walked out. Finished.

And somehow, everytime, sometimes a month later, sometimes the very next day, I always got another job. All the times on a higher pay than the previos job. You can't remain jobless for the rest of your life, and I always knew, worst comes to worse I know I ain't gonna be sleeping hungry. I'll somehow manage food.

Do you think I would have left those jobs had I thought it over, like my Dad used to say all the time? I mean everyday when I'd be back from work, Dad, sitting near the bar in the drawing room would ask me, "You haven't quit, have you?"

You can't quit your job when you think it over. It's not how it's done. Trust me, I've done PhD in quitting jobs. I assure you, it's scary to quit your job, without another job in hand, no matter how confident you are of getting another one. But trust me, if you think it over, you're gonna be shitting bricks. Once you've quit, the fear vanishes very very soon. Then you know, you've quit. Now whatever must happen, will happen.

But you start thinking it over, and you're gonna get to all the "what ifs" in the world and screw yourself up. Eventually, you'll find yourself trying to enjoy that same very job, which you probably hate from the bottom of your heart.

I keep saying this one thing - Sometimes you gotta take the leap and build your wings on the way down. Take your chances.

I am not saying be impulsive like me. You'll end up all alone most of the time.

All I am saying is...

If there's something you want to do this moment, like for example, go and talk to a girl standing near the bar, or quit your job, or whatever... do it... without thinking it over. Because that's the particular moment the fire's the strongest in your belly. You think, and the moment will go. The fire will die down.

Think, and chances are you ain't gonna do it. And if you do, you're gonna mess it up.

Jump, if you want to jump. But jump now, don't think if you'll survive or not. If you do, you ain't gonna jump.

Open your eyes

How can I set free anyone who dosen't have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom? I think it's a lie - people claim they want to be free - everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most, the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that's bullshit! People are terrified to be set free - they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their security...

I think people resist freedom because they're afraid of the unknown.

The only solution is to confront yourself with the greatest fear imaginable. Expose yourself to yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power, and fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your senses for an act. You give up your ability to feel and in exchange, put on a mask.

Some people surrender their freedom willingly--but others are are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents; they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you are born with.

Teachers, religious leaders - even friends, or so-called friends -- take over where the parents leave off. They demand that we feel the only feelings they want and expect from us. They demand all the time that we preform feelings for them. We're like actors-turned loose in this world to wander in search of a phantom ... endlessly searching for a half-forgotten shadow of our lost reality. When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder ... the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.

A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is ... Most people love you for who you pretend to be ... To keep their love, you keep pretending - preforming. You get to love your pretense ... It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image - they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forgot all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it - they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.

Hahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Woooohooooooo...

Friends!

- "You know Rohit. Everyone can't be like you, who always lives for the moment. This life of a backpacker."

Hahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha!

Blogging's become an obligation

It's become just like everyday work. An obligation. That's what what started out as passion has turned into.

I am almost sure, I am not the only one who feels this. There are some bloggers I know who blog every fucking day. Those are one of the most irritating blogs I find. And if you see their pictures, I mean the bloggers' pictures, you'll understand why they feel the need to blog everyday.

Yuck!

I used to blog everyday.

I don't know why. It was a high. The awareness of the fact that I don't need an editor to approve or disapprove what I write. That I don't need quotes. That I don't need confirmation. That I am being read.

It was a jounralist's vent. A toy I played with.

Exxagurated.

Pissed people off, with my honesty. It's normal for people to hate what they can't have. Don't blame them.

I used to have a really long list of blogs that I visted as links on my blog. Gradually the list shortened out. One day I looked at that long list and I wondered, do I really like these blogs? Do I really ever like clicking on them? Are they there on my page just to make my page look fuller?

Yes, they were there without a reason.

Now I visit blogs, one of the first things I see is how often do they post...

If the posts are daily, I am almost sure, they're ugly to look at - the bloggers. This might sound stupid. But believe me, it's true. It's because those people have absolutely nothing to do. They'll tell you posting a blog takes just ten minutes, but they won't tell you how many hours after that do they keep clicking on the comments section to see who's commented, and then they'll reply back to each.

They have nobody. They're basically repulsive.

I could name a few but that would be downright insulting. I still have some manners left with me.

I hate ugly people. Dislike, rather. They're just so creepy.

Digressing.

Blogging's started feeling like an obligation. Something I must do... in most probability to re-assure myself if I want I can still attract a crowd, just like I used to.

It's no more about me. It's no more about what I truly feel.

It's all because of others. It sucks.

???

There is a massive possibility I might very well be in love and not have a clue about it!

So...

When exactly does the lightning strike?