Lost Memories Of Childhood

Your childhood is the best time of your life and also the shortest one.
Those are the days of freedom and enjoyment of life to the fullest.
Those were the times when your aim's were as bold as becoming an astronaut to the plain stupid ones of becoming a taxi driver.
You could be stupid, foolish or even smart enough around the adults and still be admired.
You knew that you were loved and cared for.
But now all of it seems like a distant memory.
I can relate to it too, with the time I've spent playing with my nephew.
He finds fun in anything and everything.
Getting amazed at how the fan or light works, pointing out the birds in the sky, talking on the phone.
For us it may be a daily thing, but to him, each day is like discovering a new thing.
If I describe my childhood then I guess it would be in Delhi, at my nana and nani's garden.
That rectangular piece of land covered in grass, surrounded by trees on the right and plants on the left.
It was there where I would spend a good part of my summer holidays playing in the garden with my brother.
I couldn't wait for my school to end and go to Delhi with my family, travelling in the train and reaching there next day.
 Most of the time as I entered the house, I would throw my stuff in the room and dash straight to the garden.
My brother and I liked to play cricket over there with the plastic table as our stump and a brick or a stick at the bowler's end.
We already had our bat there and the balls were unwillingly donated to us by the kids playing in the neighboring park.
Sometimes I would get up early in the morning to see my mom drinking tea in the garden and reading the newspaper with nana and nani, the teacups on the same table that we used as our stump.
There were times when I would also water the plants in the garden and even go to the neighboring garden for a walk.
Later, I would continue our match with my brother and sometimes even dad would join in, though mostly as a spectator.
Nana would at times sit and watch us play; there was this one time when he dozed off and mom asked him if he would like to sleep inside, he said that he would watch us play then go to sleep and mom went back inside.
At times we would play for hours then tired and hungry we would go inside to watch the TV.
There were those times when it got really hot outside and we just sat inside the room, AC on and we would wrestle.
Now, if you have a younger or elder brother and have never ever wrestled with them when you were young, you missed out big time.
We would argue when playing cricket and at times the argument would turn into a brawl and then we would stop playing.
That would last for only a day and then next day we would be back playing again.
We loved to compete with each other and since my bro is good in cricket he would always win.
I have seen almost all types of weather in Delhi, I've seen it rain, hot days, cold days and even days when I didn't know whether to feel hot or cold.
Mom and dad would often take us to visit our relatives there but since that meant cutting down our playing time, I hated it.
I liked to have fun and run around, not sit in one place with people I hardly saw for an year.
I loved to be in the garden, with the big trees from which squirrels would run up and down, the tree with lemons as big as tangerines and the various plants with thorns in them.
I also loved the smell of the grass which sometimes smelt bad but only cause a stray had shat on the bushes.
I spent most of my time playing in the garden than inside the house.
But as time went on and I grew older, entered college, all these things soon came to a halt and the next thing I knew I started to spend more time inside the house than outside in the garden.
It showed that I had grown older and things like playing outside was just a nice part of my childhood.
Time went by and even my trips there started to shorten and  when my nana passed away and like my childhood he became a precious part of my memory, I just couldn't imagine that garden without him in it, sometimes drinking tea or watching us play.
 I didn't even knew when was the last time I stepped into the garden and noticed the small changes there.
Now that garden has more flowers than before and properly resembles a garden, not a playground where my brother and I would play, but a more colorful and vibrant looking one.
That garden is an important part of mine and many of my cousins and relatives childhood.
Though I doubt any have used it as extensively as my brother and I did.
But I know that when I close my eyes, trying to remember my childhood, it will always show an image of me playing with my brother in that garden.
I know that my childhood may be over and that kind of time will never come back, but it also shows that I had the best time of my life.
It may be over now, like how we stopped noticing the small things in our lives. 
The same things that could fascinate a child but we fail to notice, since we're older now and we gotta look at the big stuff and not care about those things anymore.
I do pity the kids today who mostly will never learn the joy of being outside because they are way too busy with their smartphones or tablets.
But you can always take a step back, go visit the park, slide down the slide even if it is too small for you or swing in the swings, swing as high as you can go, only to crash land when you come down.
Even if you get funny looks from people, it doesn't matter since it shows that you had a better childhood than them.
Be proud cause this is the only thing no one can take away from you.
Be proud of your childhood as one day it will all become a distant memory.

Karma Ain't Always A Bitch

One of the few things that I believe in this world is, karma.
Karma is the nature of actions of a person whose consequences can be good or bad.
People having good karma are the ones who do good for others and not only for themselves and later on are rewarded for it.
People who do bad to others and mean harm to them might have to watch out cause those same people they harmed might hurt them back, that's called bad karma.
In general, people have the wrong impression of what karma actually is,
Many people believe, that you do something wrong and then later something bad will happen to you.
It could be anything small or irrelevant.
It may not even be wrong in your eyes but to others it may be wrong.
That's not karma.
Karma doesn't affects the small things in our lives.
It takes our life as a whole and based on that it could be bad or good karma.
Let's put it this way:
A child, when it is born, its parents look after its every needs, from feeding to entertaining it and as times pass by and the parents are older, unable to look after themselves, its the child now a fully grown adult, is the one who looks after them.
This act of giving and receiving can also be termed as karma.
If your luck is bad or something bad happens to you, you can't blame karma on it.
It could possibly be your fault, unless you don't want to admit it.
Even I had to face times when things didn't work out the way I wanted to or that time when things were going so smoothly for me, it kinda made me wonder when something bad will happen.
That could be karma playing its part in my life.
Every religion has a different interpretation of karma and well, it still sounds the same.
But if you look at it realistically, the main purpose of karma is to make you aware of the fact that, if you do or think bad of others, something bad will befall you.
Even if you don't believe in it, you can feel it happening around you.
The main message that karma gives you, according to me, is that you got to think positively in any situation you are put in, no matter how bad or worse it is.
Think positive, don't blame someone else, accept your fate and when the time comes, you'll get the answer.
If I have to sum up karma, then I guess using Radiohead's song Karma Police will suit well.
The music video for that song starts with a car driving on a road, at night and the car was trying to mow down a man who was running ahead and avoid getting hit by the car, soon the man gives up and falls down, accepting his fate and gets up to see the car reversing, ready to mow him down, at that moment the man notices the petrol leaking from the car, without giving away his intentions, he lights a matchstick and throws it down, the car soon gets burned.
Now, since we don't have a clear picture whether the man did something wrong or it was the car's fault(they don't show the driver), we all assume that the role of the bad guy is being played by the car and at the end, it gets what it deserved.
That's called karma and at times it can be a real bitch.

Special Kind Of Stupid

They say stupidity is contagious, it spreads faster than a viral disease.
It's like monkey see, monkey do.
Everyone is stupid and does something stupid from time to time even if they won't admit it.
Even I admit that some of my actions or judgments are stupid.
But there exists a certain kind of stupidity which can be found in some people.
They might not even realize it, but everyone can admit that what they just did or said was stupid.
We call those people a special kind of stupid.
For example take politicians, almost all of them are stupid but there are some gems in that group whose words or actions might make you question their ability to run the country.
Imagine an ordinary classroom where the teacher is telling the students to mark all the necessary stuff that is going to come in the exam and study from it.
He even writes it on the board specifying what is important and what's not.
Once he's done, there will always be one, that one student who'll ask the teacher about the rest that's not marked important.
The teacher dumbfounded will ask him to repeat what he said and once realizing that he's just trying to act smart, make a straight face and explain it to that student once again.
Now since I mentioned that the student is only trying to act smart, will not get it and again ask the teacher.
This time not only the teacher but even the students would become aware of his stupidity and start mocking him, 
Meanwhile the teacher leaves the classroom in the hope that the next class doesn't contain an idiot like that student.
That student is another example of special kind of stupid and you can find more like him/her in almost every class.
This thing happens even as you drive, the fellow ahead of you is a fine example of a good driver.
He follows all the traffic rules while driving in the highway until he comes to a halt at the traffic light.
That's when he'll show you his true colors. 
He stops his car at lane going to the right and as the signal turns green he turns to the left.
He could have easily changed the lane and entered the one where he needed to turn.
That person's stupidity is unique and thus he's what we call a special kind of stupid.
Now let's change the scenario to a fast food joint.
People love to pig out at McD's or KFC and then comes the stupid people demanding healthy food from them.
Why don't they get it?
It's a fast food joint, the owners don't give a damn about the customer's health but are only concerned with customer's shelling out a lot of money each time they go there to eat.
But the special kind of stupid, they are the ones who don't care about all that, they will go there and they will eat healthy, so what if it's a fast food joint, they can always order a salad burger and a diet coke to go with it.
People if you do that, please don't, not only are your reasons stupid you'll look stupid as well.
As we've entered the golden age of internet, facebook, twitter, youtube etc. stupidity has evolved to the digital media.
I love to read the comments that are posted on the social media.
Firstly, if you are new to the internet there a few things that you should be aware of, trolls and photoshop.
Trolling is an art where someone posts a fake story about something and watches as a horde of netizens fall into their trap believing that the story is real.
Photoshop helps the trolls as the best tool to morph images to look real but are way too fake to resemble the actual image.
But people still believe it to be true and are offended or made fun of all the time.
Trolls live in the presence of stupid people as they know that these are the only one's who'd fall for their tricks.
The best example for it is the posts on facebook where if you share or write a certain comment on the post then something will happen, trust me nothing happens.
People will fall for those tricks but lets take it to another level.
The special kind one, they not only believe it to be true but even share it with others and try to convince them.
That's when you know that you are dealing with are really special kind of stupid person.
Comedians have it way worse than other regular people.
For comedians, the worst part of their act is when they have to explain a joke to someone.
It makes them think that their joke wasn't funny.
The problem is definitely not the joke but the person questioning it,
The person just doesn't gets it and he'll keep questioning him sometimes even about things unrelated to the joke.
At that point the comedian has only two options, either he give in to that persons query and answer it or he just goes ahead and makes fun of that fella.
The obvious choice is number two but sometimes newbies might given in and choose number one.
Well, as the saying goes, "Stupid is as stupid does", we'll never run out of these people.
You'll definitely meet them a lot of times and don't be confused or amazed at their stupidity, just shrug it off and tell them this,
"You're a special kind of stupid, aren't ya!"

Trust You Must

I'm someone who doesn't trust people that easily and it's not like that I think people may back-stab me, it's just that I do have a lot of trust issues.
How do I deal with it?
I don't really do anything like coming in terms with it, cause I've yet to figure out what caused it in the first place.
From time to time I keep meeting different people, like relatives or friends or just people in general.
I've never initiated a conversation with them since I don't really talk too much.
It's something that has been a part of me for a quite a long period of time.
The reason being is simple.
My mind is always preoccupied with stuff unrelated to the things happening at present and at times it's more interesting to be lost in my thoughts than bother to take part in the conversations of my peers.
The conversations that they all have are interesting too and since I don't know much about the stuff they talk about I usually end up listening to their conversations instead of taking part in it.
The same thing happens with my family, though the difference being is that they all talk about stuff that I'm least interested in and obviously talk about stuff that's happening in their lives.
I don't care about what goes on in the life of my relatives and even be bothered to care, what I don't like is the same pestering questions they ask, ranging from getting a job to what's going on in my life.
As if I'd want to answer any of that.
I'm someone who loves to live in solitude with sometimes accompanied with my friends or peers and laugh at their conversations sharing a drink or two, sometimes four.
That kind of atmosphere is pretty hard to capture with my relatives, siblings aside.
Since I've been brought up in an atmosphere where I was for the most period of time surrounded by my relatives, provided with everything that I wanted without having to pester them too much, that's why  I hardly knew things that kids my age did.
That had a lot of impact in me when I was growing up and wanting to trusting others.
I was really amazed whenever I'd encounter someone who could start up a conversation with a person they didn't knew at all, I thought to myself that I really should try doing that and well I've never succeeded as I would chicken out in the last minute.
Another thing that bothered me was the way my family behaved around me when I finally entered adulthood.
It's like the whole childhood that I lived was a lie.
Their presumptions that I'm someone who has no clue how the world outside my home functions or how hard it is to get by when you don't have enough to support your family or yourself, that you don't have the skills to do things most people can do so easily.
It really is stupid as I know way more than any of them could and I definitely don't need them telling me all the time how this society functions.
In their eyes I may be still a kid, maybe cause I'm not that tall, but I do have a mental age that's much mature and way better than any of them.
I am not someone who thinks that I know everything, I do like to learn about new things as days pass by but what I hate is that attitude of theirs towards me.
This is something that I have to overcome if I want to get over my trust of others.
It's also not that I don't respect them, I do, but I would love it if they would at least leave me be cause I'm at my best when I'm by myself.
The trust issues that I have, the me that is yet to open up to others and take my own stand will only happen when I do realize that in all this mess the fault in not speaking up, opening up to others, this fault lies alone with me and yes that day will come when I will change for good, till then I'll probably chill  and live my life on my own terms.

A Day In The Life (Shorts)

Every day the man wakes up early and leaves for work, sometimes ignoring the breakfast his wife made him.
He has to deal with the daily morning traffic as he drives his car on the busy highway to the office.
Though he hasn't violated any traffic rules, he has twice came close to breaking them.
On both occasions the cause was the same, late for the meeting which were never held at the office but at a location where you couldn't avoid the heavy traffic.
He  never gets angry at his juniors or office staff but that case is different when he encounters other motorists on the highway.
As he reaches his office he begins his days being greeted and greeting whoever he meets on the lift of his office building.
He has a spacious room, almost at the top floor of his office where he works.
This position of his costed him the love of his life but he has no regrets since he now has a good family to take care of, though he occasionally dreams of what his life could have been had he not left her.
He had such expectations of the current position he is in such as, getting a secretary, which he thought would be a woman in her late 20's, wearing glasses and hair bound neatly in a bun and always wearing a short skirt.
All he got was a middle-aged person, that too a man, which, when he first met destroyed his fantasy of getting a secretary.
Though he does crack really good jokes from time to time, it is perhaps the only reason he has kept him.
Lunch break is the time when he heads down to the canteen to eat with the other employees, a thing he does so that he could get to know the new employees and other workers better.
In reality though, the canteen guy serves him an extra side dish whenever he orders lunch which makes him come for more.
His juniors and staff workers have quite an opinion of him and do make snide comments whenever he passes by.
They range from comments about his receding hairline to the fat bulge in his stomach which once stored his abs now looks as if they never existed. 
He let's it all pass as he is aware of the fact that they don't even make half of his paycheck.
Once his lunch break is over he has a conversation on his phone with his kids, he likes to listen to whatever demands they have, like getting new toys or some gadgets to play with, they probably don't know how much pressured he is during work and still doesn't mind since listening to the voice of his children is what gets him through the day.
At evening he takes a short break to smoke a cigarette or two, the habit which he got from the love of his life, still stuck to this day and successfully hidden from his wife, who probably is aware of it but hasn't mentioned it yet to him.
This is the only time of solace when he doesn't pick up any calls or calls anyone.
He ends his day an hour late caused mostly by trying to rectify the mistakes of his juniors and scolding them or as he likes to call it 'guiding' them.
The drive back home is the repeat of what happens in the morning with the addition of a clueless traffic cop whose original duty is to lessen the traffic but does the exact opposite.
By 10 O'clock he's home, greeting his children with a hug and giving them a small present which he took the time to buy while still busy with office work, then proceeding on to kissing the cheeks of his wife in hope that something good is for dinner.
That look of disappointment on his face is the sign that it's the same bland food he's been eating the rest of his life, which is funny since when they were newlyweds she cooked the most amazing food he had ever eaten in his life.
'Marriage and children do change the food that you eat', he thought to himself as he began to eat what looked like curry and sadly in his mind missing the taste of that canteen food.
After his kids have fallen asleep, he goes in to his room, changed into his pajamas and watches the news for few minutes as he prepares to go to sleep.
He has noticed the changes in his wife as well, being married for 15 years he remembers as he lays next to her, that when they were newlyweds both of them felt pretty awkward sleeping next to each other and now it's like sleeping next to his brother and not his wife.
With that thought in mind he goes to sleep, lost in his fantasies and a world without worries only to be woken up by the sound of the alarm next day.
The only words he mentions as he is getting up is the same that he's been repeating for the last 20 years.
'Same shit, different day'