A flat tyre ...

I started out at 2 pm , it was hot outside and the sun was bright but my task could not be delayed , I was'nt sure how far my bike would reach .. it had a flat tyre , I saw it yesterday while I had started back from univ , but I was too happy to be able to reach home soon that day .. I decided to ride home with the damaged tube , wibbly wobbly all the way , hoping it would be good enough for repair today ...

I remembered a small shack near my home with some tyres hanging by a tree that I saw while crossing the industrial sector sometimes .. I was inclined to go there as I dreaded the crowd at the fuel stations , the last time I got my bike tyre repaired at a fuel station it took more than an hour ..

I found the place , but there was'nt quite much there .. there was a cycle repair shop next to it and I wondered if the cycle repairman had hung some tyres just like that ....then a man came running and asked me to park my bike nearby

As he was trying to get the tube out of the tyre , I studied the place .. the place had nothing but sand , a pile of tools covered by a cloth , kept in an old wooden box , a broken canister containing water and the shade of a small tree with tyres hanging on it .. it was next to the road

A group of 4 - 5 muslims suddenly gathered a few meters away , one seemed to be there from before , he was the oldest..around 70, one came in a motorbike with a big container welded at its back seat and parked it just next to my bike , another was riding a bicycle .. they laughed about something and continued chatting

A few coins suddenly fell on the road and caused a clinking noise that attracted my attention .. a man shouted "ruko bhaiya" (stop) .. he was with another man in a cycle-rickshaw and both of them seemed in their late twenties with good jobs .. I was surprised to see the man actually get off and run back to collect those coins .. it was only a few rupees ( 2 - 3 maybe ) .... I thought I would'nt have stopped to collect the coins if I was in the rickshaw ..

While he continued checking the tube for punctures by putting it inside water , I decided to give my friend a call , who was expecting me ( I had forgot to tell him that I had a flat tyre to repair before reaching univ ) .. I moved over to the muslim group while talking on the phone .. just as I finished , a man from the group suddenly reached for my hand .. I was a little shocked at first but he just wanted to know the time ..

I checked the progress of the repair .. the man was now in the sun working diligently at the tyre on the sand near my feet , trying to put the tube back inside it .. I saw his setup again and wondered how he could live off it ... I remembered the times when I was depressed about something and I wondered if anything was comparable to living a life like this .. where u don't have the luxury to aspire and improve .. most teenagers are depressed often .. I wondered if any of those reasons would justify itself , I looked at the man again .. he had a serene and peaceful expression , full of satisfaction .. one like I have never seen on the face largely 'successful' people or most people for that matter ..

"He sits here in the sun all day and the only work he does is help people with bike problems back on their way" I thought to myself " Is that the source of his satisfaction ?" A screeching noise tore through my contemplation .. it came from the crossing nearby , a call-center pickup van was speeding away ...

Two young men crossed the road from the other side and came towards me .. they wanted to know the time too . As he screwed the tyre back on my bike , a desire of helping him someway or the other overcame me , although his face said that he didnt need any .. maybe it was related to the guilt of something unclear and evasive coming all over me ..

I ended up asking him how much I needed to pay him .. "paitees rupye saab" (35 Rs) he replied , it was half the price of the lowest priced food item at any good resturant .. the amount of physical labor he put in deserved a lot more, and that was for two punctures ...

I really wanted to give a warm smile and a big thank-you to him , but he never looked up ... I sat on my bike and tried to push it backwards , but it was on a slope and it was quite difficult ... suddenly it became easier and I looked back to find him pulling it from behind .. I had my big chance and I gave him the big smile and the thank-you eagerly, he responded with a smile that made me feel good finally , a smile on his face was all I wanted to see at that time , I felt satisfied too .. I understood then

I'd say a flat tyre got me farther than a good tyre ever has ...

Life always comes full circle

Some of us believe in luck,some of us don't .. some like to ride on their good luck and others loathe their hard luck.

I for one , happen to belong to the school that doesnt .. I think that there is simply no place left for 'luck' (translating to unpredictable chaos or utopia) in the grand scheme of all that is in store for us ...

I believe all things start always the same for every person who is initiated into this world ... and that there is a cost for everything thats you choose to do henceforth.If 'cost' seems like a disturbing word to a friend just trying to exist out there ..you can refer to it as an 'action-reaction' plan for every action you take.

I believe,whatever you do,will come back to you,envelop you and finally define who you are as you evolve.We are born with the ability to do many grand things,but some of those things brings consequences that we try to hide from and yet others result in a feeling of satisfaction and completeness;there is a compliment to everything.

The tricky thing is .. the way the world works .. you dont always get to face the consequences when u want to , or at a predetermined time ... life simply throws them at you when the time is perfect and the time is always perfect when you least expect it.

So its no use to be prepared .. and if u plan to be prepared for something bad you're expecting all the time ,then you are already taking the punishment gradually in the form of your mental stress and even then have to bear the inevitable eventually ..and the same stress converts to hope in case you are expecting something good ..

Some people do not believe in this idea simply because they think that sometimes we get to face the consequences in 'other lives' , but there is also another school of thought that says : A man gets the fruits of his good and bad deeds in his present life only .. my personal experiences have always been consistent with the second school of thought ..

This most obviously does not mean that our lives consists only of our actions and consequences , they are just the most important part of it , our lives consists of other people too and our life spreads out through them ..
they are like vents from which we can both receive and send these 'consequences' .. in other words share whatever we have ..

So whatever happened to 'Luck' ?

Here is what I think of luck .. when a person gets lucky , he gets more than his share .. thats what he likes to think,but if he chooses not to accept the extra share then he can still remain not lucky after being offered luck .. It is like an investment .. not ours though , but an investment life makes in us ... when we accept more than we deserve by our own account we also accept it to be taken away from us whenever life desires ... now by the time that happens , people often forget the extra share they had held close to themselves all that time and speak of the unfairness of life ..

But what about the time when a person gets less than his share .. either it is because of some previous 'good-luck' or if you truly believe that is not the case then I believe that you will get back what you never got , with a good interest and in this life itself .. at a time when it is most useful to you .. but people often just become disheartened and start doing things that eventually put them in a position where they dont quite deserve anything .. and this becomes a vicious cycle :(

So why do all this in the first place .. maybe to nessecitate some events I guess .. anyways that's just me :)
All this talk about the life of men , I belive to be true .. about women , I know not a thing :)

We hacked the exam today !

Today I had an exam . And it was no ordinary exam .. in more than one way ..

The subject 'Graph algorithms' is supposedly the most difficult paper in the final year of engineering .. The teacher had literally told us that he didn't expect us to attempt more than one question out of the three that were going to come .. The first one was about applying what he had taught (which no one had understood) and the next two were about proposing our own algorithms and analyzing them ..time and space complexity ..phew

But what happened today changed the way I ll ever give an exam again ..

I had tried to study whatever was taught by him in the lectures two days back and since then , having discussed and taught the same to like 50 odd people I was quite confident in the first question of the paper .. but still I felt uneasy as I relied only on the 1st question and assumed no one is going to do the rest correctly as prophecised , and that just makes u feel uneasy !

So here is what I did today .. I sat down with my friend in his room , locked the door , and started researching ..

Not on the subject content , but on the question paper .. we reviewed a whole bunch of questions , traced out our professor's undergrad university , looked for the subjects he studied and the questions he got ! .. and finally we narrowed down our choice to 3 questions we thought would 'most probably' be asked in the exam 3 hours later . finding the answers was not easy , but after 3 hours we had 4 - 5 pages of solutions thanks to google .. I love google , I do !

After 3 hrs of hard research work , we fancied our chances .. and we celebrated as if we had figured out the most difficult paper we were going to give in univ, just for fun..

What happened a few mins later when the exam started is .. yeah u guessed right .. we got them ! we got them ALL !! The first quesion was 30 marks application and most people should have done that one .. but the next two ( 35 marks each ) were the top 2 candidate questions from our list of 3 !!!

I just couldnt believe my luck .. the last question had really difficult and hard to find solutions on the net , and I found out the history of the problem from one of the research papers .. and I wrote down the first solution provided to that problem and for messing with the teacher I even wrote down the name of the person who proposed it along with the year in my answer :D

I was the first one to come out of the exam hall .. and I couldnt wait to celebrate with my friend and accomplice :P .. it was a wonderful end to a hectic day !

Shock of my life !

Today I got the shock of my life,yes quite literally I did.

It all started when my mom requested me (rather sternly) to check the electrical connections in her 'puja room'.the lights in one of the mandir's was not workin and it had to be repaired today coz of Janmashthami.

I decided to check the connectors first ..one of the wires in the plug seemed to have burned out so I fixed it but the lights still didnt work so I had to check it from inside the Mandir.

Now that Mandir , although it s biggest of the three , is really dark inside and uncomfortable to work with . As I unscrewed the holder out of place I saw that one of the wires had burned out there too .. now it was really uncomfortable to cut the wire in there with no extra length and no lights and holding the thing in a way that hurt me,without a wire cutter .. after shortening the wire with my attempts I was finally able to get some copper off of it after which came the most difficult part of actually screwing in two wires into a holder at most uncomfortable position in darkness ..

when everything was about to be done , my mom came to check and help with the progress.I told her that I should have been given a wire cutter .. and then she started telling me how useless I have become and I should take care of everything myself .. and then it happened ..

As my mom kept rambling things I decided to plug it in and show her that it works now .. but because of my mom's lovely speech I couldn't really focus on what i was doing and I did sth I would have never done in my right mind .. I took the naked wires and plugged them in while the power point was live .. I was not wearing slippers as I was in the prayer room and the floor was cold .. I got the most powerful electric shock in my life .. I was one with the wall and the floor .. it was a feeling undescribable by any words and not even recollectable .. I just felt everything inside me come to a standstill and the only two places i could feel in my body were my fingertips touching that wire and my feet at the cold floor .. and they felt almost like being a part of the wall and the floor itself .. everything else was numbed out ..

I dont know how it stopped but after a moment my numbness decreased and I heard my mom again .. she asked me what have I done .. and then told me that I am really amazing and other boys of my age can do this electrical-fixy-things very well . She had put her hand on her forehead "Your hands have become incapable of doing anything other that controlling that mouse" she said.

I walked out of the 'Puja room'..it was all too much for me..I'm just glad my hair is fine..

Birth of a Blog

Today my blog is born . After a day's hard work of toiling through blogger's html code and running out of my hard disk's photoshop scratch disks several times , after a lot of overclocked thinking , I am satisfied with the results . There may still be many bugs to fix considering the fact that I turned a template upside down before stuffing in my creativity ...

I am eager to start expressing myself through my very own blog .. my thoughts , ideas and experiences that Id like to share with everyone .

More than anything else , I think it is the relief derived from of liberation of unexpressed thoughts and emotions caught within us , due to busy lifestyles and uncomfortable enviroments that drives more than 60 million bloggers in the world today .. I think blogging will help me in relieving stress and expressing happiness , enjoying and evlolving ideas and most importantly it would prod me to think about everything worth thinking about in my life .. or sth like that !