‘Second Chance : My entry for the Get Published contest’

The Idea :

“Second chance” is a story of a beautiful little accident that happened between two people at a place hidden in the Himalayas. The story revolves around two people from two neighbouring countries India and Nepal who meet as students of the same college and realise that life was never going to be the same again. Their love story starts as a fresh brew of morning coffee only to face the ruthless oppression of external forces. Dhiraj and Namita were never meant to be together and they always knew that. But they kept on eluding from this thought and lived their life as if there was no tomorrow. They could never stop discovering and exploring each others’ mysteries. But tomorrow did come and came very fast. Sacrifices were demanded but Namita could not make them. The story takes us through the journey they both undergo after they separate and how their lives change.

And eight years later destiny brings them together face to face. Things have changed and they both have changed a lot. But still the idea of a second chance looms high between them. What will they do?

What Makes This Story ‘Real’ :

The story investigates the relationship in a young couple just when they are about to start a new life and goes through the journey of reality. Realities of our narrow minded society and its power to crush strong ties. It also explores the same couple’s perspectives after they have grown and assumed important positions in life.

Extract :

It was a very eventful day in a long time for Dhiraj. He had just completed a book reading session at a book store, the reason why he was at Shimla. He strolled out in the evening from his hotel room just as the sky was turning into a beautiful crimson. He felt ecstatic as to how his entire day had turned up. And now he walked across the Shimla mall road towards the Cafe, when his eyes suddenly caught hold of someone. A woman in a beautiful blue sari stood outside a shoe store and looked intently at particular shoe while she struggled hard to control her long locks of hair that were blown into a mess by the evening breeze. He was amazed to see how her eyes were constantly fixed onto the shoes and gleamed with desire. And suddenly, like a strike of lightning he recognized the lady. He couldn’t believe his eyes. After all these years, was it really her? He thought for a while and made his way towards her.

This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

If you find this teaser interesting then please vote for me and help me get my story in print at

http://www.indiblogger.in/getpublished/idea/536

How Life Happened

Good morning readers. I write this on a bright december morning sitting on my couch down with a temperature of 102. Something inside me forces me to reflect on the days that are gone. Perhaps this fever is an opportunity to give me time with myself that I had been consciously avoiding till now. A fear, rather shame had been stopping me from talking to myself as I feared what “I” will think of “me”. What would I say to the series of failure that I attracted so spontaneously in my life?

My mind drifts to the moment I stepped into this land of southern celebration. A city so unknown and so bizarre that it gave an adventurer inside me, an instant high!!

A dejected form of me had just arrived here clueless as to what he was doing and most importantly “why” was he doing??

The hazards of being over ambitious were finally being made visible. The ambition had killed a lots of other essential things in my life. Things like feelings, a sense of comfort, a need for certainty, feelings of selflessness and ofcourse selfishness.

My existence here was a result of a series of mistakes driven by my recklessness and insensitivity. The feelings left in me was only of regret and anger. Anger on my attributes of ego and taking things for granted and unfortunately never learning from them that left me with only screwed up relationships. I was perpetually branded as the careless, feelingless “asshole”!!

But as they say “Life goes on”. Indulging in work was a soothing experience as I left the ghosts of my past to where they belonged and moved ahead, once again not learning from my mistakes. Once again building a city on my screwed up principles.

Until finally I met someone. I still do not know how it happened. How she entered and made her way into a very special space in my life. I still remember meeting her for the first time. Never in my wildest imagination did I think that life will never be the same again. And yes, life did change. We met, we talked and we kept meeting, totally unknown about the changes taking place inside us. I could never track when and how did I go so far. But how was I supposed to know? I was simply following the fresh breath of the evening breeze which accidently struck me. That evening breeze was Sarah.

I never realised how I started to “feel” for the first time. Feelings that I was sure of never existed in me, started to show themselves. I was in a restless pursuit. Pursuit of a mystery named Sarah. God presented her to me in the most mysterious of ways. We kept coming closer but I was far from the end of the mystery. The closer I came, more the mystery deepened. But I didnt care. I just wanted to feel the feelings that I had discovered in myself. I always wanted to see her. I wanted to tell her how I felt and thought about her. About how I really felt her touch. And eventually she came to know everything and I could see similar things in her eyes. I forgot to mention a very key thing about Sarah’s mystery. Her eyes. It says a thousand words to me and yet I understand nothing. She punched me with the harsh reality, made me count the things that will forever act as barrier between us. She was realistic unlike me and dismissed this profound act of destiny as “impossible”.

I was angry and lost just thiking why did this happen to me. Why did I fall for Sarah of all the girls present in this world? I just wanted to go back in time and undo whatever was done. But Alas!!

I was lonely again, neck deep in a sea of questions until she came and took my hand and taught me the meaning of life, the meaning of relationships. She rejected the cliche form of the society present and gave her own originality in whatever she said. Her strength, her maturity, her care astounds me and fills me with gratitude. I now know that being together does not necessarily mean staying together. Because we both know that somwhere we are very much together and close to each other, and this feeling defies reality. I now know that I am lucky that she happened to me and introduced myself to a side of me that I never thought existed. I could have never explored myself had she never come. I could have never felt Love in its purest form. I would have never stopped taking things for granted. And here I emerge a totally different person thanks to an angel who transformed my life forever. We are friends now but I will never stop telling her how much I love her, not to hear it back as I dont need to hear it from her to know. Her eyes says much more!!!!:)

THE ENCOUNTER -I

It was the morning of 25^th December. The Christmas sun had just begun to shine in its full grandeur. I woke up in my hotel room. I had a long dream-less sleep for the past 8 hours, after I reached my hotel at Upparpet, Bangalore. The past week was frantic and fun as my friends and I were on the “Mysore-Ooty -Conoor” trip. Our South India tour was coming to an end and I was not feeling good about it. I wanted to be in a holiday here forever. It was a vacation that I had taken after a long time. I had expected a lot from it. I had foreseen something majestic to take place. Though the entire trip was good nothing magical happened. Well, being a realist I dismissed the thought . Magic is the most uncommon thing in a person’s life.

I had planned to go meet my cousin who was staying in the city. It was Christmas time and I was looking forward to enjoy the day with his family. I got out of bed, took a quick shower and braced myself for the day. As I got out of my hotel, I remembered that I got to buy a cake. It would seem so gauche to turn up at his doorstep without anything on this day of the year. So I started searching for good bakery stores around. But I was completely out of luck. All the Christmas cakes were already sold out in all the stores. But I kept on searching and finally got a store with stocks left. I bought a nice looking cake and was on my way to the Majestic bus stand. It was a huge bus stand just like its name “Majestic”. I was confused at first as to which buses went where. But then I saw that everything was organized and finally found the Volvo that would take me near Christ College, the place where my cousin stayed.

I went and sat inside the bus waiting for it to start. There was a person selling Bengaluru city maps inside the bus. I got a copy for ten bucks. I got immersed in the grid of roads in the map trying hard to locate my current position on it that I completely ignored the fact that a girl in a black salwar kameez was sitting right next to me. I suddenly heard a very hushed soft voice near my ear “May I help?”. I looked around to find one of the most beautiful eyes staring at me with naughtiness playing on her lips. I realized that I had stared at her for too long as she cleared her throat to break the spell that she had cast on me. I replied with a “Yes???”. She repeated “May I help you find your current location on the map?”. I thought “How the hell did she know what I was trying to do?” She said as if she could read my mind “Well, that’s what sane people do first before finding their destination. They try to know where they actually are!!”. I wondered that were we still talking about maps?? She leaned on to get a closer look as I slid the map towards her. There was an otherworldly feeling that I had near her. She was so simple, yet so beautiful. “Well here you are” she said pointing at a dot in the map “And where are you headed??”. “Christ’s College” I said. She had this strange sparkle in her eyes. “That’s where I am headed too” she said. I was glad.

So there I was sitting beside this wonderful girl, hoping that the bus would go very slow so that I could spend a little more time talking to her. I saw her clutching on to a fat book “Tripwire” by Lee Child. I had already read that book. “So, you a Jack Reacher fan?” I asked. She glanced at me and then to the book and then back at me and gave this wide smile “Yup. Love Lee Child thrillers. Have you read him?”. “Yeah” I said “I am into thrillers big time, but you don’t look like someone who would read thrillers”. “Why? Because I am a girl?” she asked. I said “Not only because you are a girl but you know, you look like those delicate pretty girls who would hold on to literary books like “Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre!”. She looked at me with intensity for a while and said “I am an English literature student and my favorite book happens to be Wuthering heights but….”.She stopped. For the first time I saw a tiny bit of ambiguity in her eyes. I asked “But what?”. “Well, I like taking temporary asylum in these action books sometimes” she announced. I had understood but wanted to confirm so I asked “You mean asylum from all these emotional stuffs that you keep reading in literature?”. She paused for a while and replied “Exactly, Mr. Sherlock Holmes” and then her million dollar smile was back on her face.

After that the discussion was mainly on books and authors. It was strange how we talked as if we knew each other for ages. I had never felt so comfortable with any girl before. Whereas I had met her only a few minutes back. In due time we reached our destination and we both got down from the bus together. We stood there for a while in the December sun without speaking a word. Both of us had felt a connection there in the bus. But there was no way that I was going to ask for her number. It was a good moment we shared and I had no plans for ruining it by sounding too desperate. “So, Mr. Stanger” she started “why don’t you come say hi to my friends?”. I was taken aback and said “Your friends?”. “Yes” she replied “They are at bookstore nearby. They stay there inside the store. Come, you would love them!!”. I wondered what kinds of friends stayed inside a book store, but I was not going to let an opportunity, of spending a little time with her, go wasted. “Sure” I heard myself saying “Lets go meet them”. So there we were crossing the streets and heading over to an underground fancy bookstore.

It was a very nice collection, glass walls and very neat rows. There was a different section for the respective genres of books. She told me to wait there and went away somewhere inside. After a minute or so, she came back holding a couple of cute little puppies in her arms. They were really beautiful dogs. She handed over one of them to me “This is Aldo and this is Alexia”. “Hi Aldo” I said and immediately regretted my statement. I must have sounded very stupid. But she was glad. That’s what mattered right then. So now I understood the concept of “friends living in the book-store”. We played a little with those doggies there and then looked around some books together. An hour passed right there. I couldn’t believe what I was doing there but I was feeling very happy. This girl not only looked different but she was indeed different. It was late afternoon and I realized that I had completely forgotten about my cousin whom I was supposed to meet, the plastic containing the cake still dangling from my hand. But I didn’t care. I was having the time of my life.

As we walked out of the bookstore, I didn’t waste a single second before asking “Why don’t we go have coffee somewhere? I have lots of things to talk with you, yet”. She looked at me with those mesmerizing eyes, smiled and nodded. “There’s a very nice coffee place at Brigade Road called Matteo” she said “Lets go there”. I was up for it. So we boarded a bus and started for Brigade Road.

Matteo was indeed a great place. It was like one of those French Cafes where the coffee tables ended till the road. She walked past me into the café and I followed “obediently”. We occupied a nice little table at the corner and sat facing each other. “So Mr. Stranger” she started “What’s your name?”. I suddenly realized that we didn’t know each other’s names even after so long. “I am Ambar” I said “And you would be?”. “Isha” she replied and we shook hands. We laughed at our stupidity for a while and just stared at each other. She looked nervous. I couldn’t believe how unique she looked in her different moods. “So” she started with her usual style “girlfriend?”. “No” I replied. “Ex-girlfriends?” she asked. “Ex-girlfriend. Yes” I replied. “Why ex??” she went on “Why do people break up if they got together in the first place”. It was such an innocent question. “Well” I said “We get together in the first place as we think we have the magic in our company and everything seems so romantic but gradually we tend to look at the other person’s shortcomings and negative traits. Either we become possessive or we start expecting a lot. These things screws and Ms. Isha, this is what happened with me” I ended with a smile. She gave this understanding nod as if she completely understood what I meant. “That’s the same thing that I faced” she confessed without me asking her anything. I could see the thought looming in her eyes long after she had completed and suddenly she takes up the menu and ordered us two cups of coffee. “Romance should be in the moments” she finally said “Not in promises and commitments”. I just nodded knowing that she had not completed yet. “When two people fall in love for the first time, they don’t have these promises and expectations” she went on “changing this attitude leads to all the problems. It should always be like it used to be. We should never change certain things. Romance lies in the moments” she finally concluded. It was indeed a great thought. I was astounded by her maturity and innocence. This girl was so getting into my head. We kept on talking there for a long time. A queue of empty coffee cups had formed on our table. I told her about my trip that I have been having here with my friends and how we decide to end it on 1^st January at Pondicherry. She also told me that she was here at Bengaluru with her friend for a short while to give her exams. She was originally from Lucknow which I had guessed long before judging by her sexy Lucknowi nasal accent. We kept on talking for what felt like eternity when suddenly we saw the time. It was 8p.m. She had to go a long way home and I had to meet my cousin.

We rose up and walked out of the café silently. We were walking side by side without talking, towards the auto stand. We both were thinking the same thing. It was an end to a great day and we would never see each other again. I was stuck to my decision of not asking for her phone number and I knew she also would not ask. We stood there at the stand for a long time and then she gave me a hug. It was as if time had been frozen at that instant. She let go of me. I thought that I would ask for her number now when she said as if reading my mind “Lets not exchange any information. I don’t want it to be ordinary. Today was great”. I knew she was right but felt very sad, when suddenly she said “I’ll meet you at Pondicherry on 31^st December”. I felt as if I was dreaming. I said “What?”. I just wanted to hear it again. She just replied “I’ll meet you at Pondicherry city beach. Be there on 31^st”. Saying this, she was gone. She got inside an auto and took off. I must have stood there for a full fifteen minutes before turning back and boarding an auto for my cousin’s place, the cake still dangling in my hand.

ARE WE EQUAL

          Hi Guys. This is yet another one of my posts to talk about one of the areas that have crippled the minds of our nation.

          Well, the other day, I was at this bar at Park Street holding a glass filled with “100 Pipers”. There were two empty glasses lying next to it which I had emptied a while ago. It was beginning to intoxicate my mind a little. I was a bit exhausted by the day’s work and was just beginning to relax. My mind went into a myriad of thoughts involving events that took place during the day. There was a tap on my back and I turned around to find Sagar. Sagar Arora was my school mate whom I had not seen for 2 years. I was shocked to meet him so unexpectedly. The following is the conversation I had with him.

Me: Sagar!!! Man. What are you doing here? So nice to see you after so long.

Sagar:  Buddy, how are you? I am posted here in the city for a project for my client. What are YOU doing here all alone?

Me: Well, just a little drink after a very grueling day. Where are you staying here?

Sagar: I got a flat here at Ballygunge.

Me: So how is everything? How is Pooja?

Sagar: Dude, I broke up with her.

Me: What??? You were serious. I thought you guys must have been married by now.

[A LONG PAUSE]

Me: What happened bro??

Sagar: Shit happens man.

Me: But shit like what?? You were one of the best couples man!!

Sagar: Yaar, I found something about her.

Me: Like?

Sagar: She confessed something.

Me: I am sorry yaar, but was she cheating on you?

Sagar: No!! but she confessed that she was….

Me: What??

Sagar: That she was not a virgin.

Me: And??

Sagar: And what??

Me: And what else did she confess that made you break up with her??

Sagar: This is it. Isn’t it enough??

Me: Enough for what, friend? Breaking up with her? I don’t think so.

Sagar: How could I tolerate the fact that she had slept with guys before me?

Me: Hadn’t YOU slept with girls before you met Pooja??

Sagar: Yes. A couple of girls. But that’s different.

Me: How is it different?

Sagar: Well, I am a guy and I had the ABILITY to flatter a few girls. They became my girlfriends and things happened. But those were before Pooja.

Me: And Pooja’s affairs were before you? Right?

Sagar: But…..

Me: But????

Sagar: But she’s a girl dammit!!! Someone else USED her. I couldn’t accept that.

Me: Used????Did you guys love each other??

Sagar: Of course we did. But that’s not as important. Cant you see the point I am making here??

Me: Alright. I get your point. This is not important that you guys loved each other or not. What’s important, is that did she get “USED” before she even met you. What about you getting “USED” before you met her???huh??

Sagar: Man, I didn’t get used. I am a guy. I used them. I never got used!!

Me: So what about the girls, whom you “used”??? What would happen to them, if they got a LOSER like you after you were done with them?? They wouldn’t accept them because a loser once “used” them. Just look at the cycle brother.

Sagar: How come you call me a loser???

[ I already had enough and was beginning to feel sick of the discussion. I put down my glass of the unfinished scotch that I was clutching on to the whole while, and paid the bill]

Sagar: Where are you going??

Me: I feel like puking and trust me, its not because of the alcohol!!!!

           I was out in the streets in no time. I just had one of the most sickening conversations in my life. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t expect this coming from Sagar Arora, one of the finest boys from school. Well, that’s what I thought before this chat of ours. But, now I realized he also became quarry to this epidemic of narrow-mindedness that had bound this country. I had come to realize it soon enough in the bar, that whatever I say could never change his mentality, which is why I chose to walk out immediately. This is what we have become. A bunch of hypocrites, so prejudiced that we cant respect other’s self-rights. I couldn’t believe this was the same land, which during the Rig Veda, used to be called the land of “Men-Women Equality”. What have we come to be? Where are we headed towards? We all talk about Men –Women Equality but are we really that broad-minded?

          Chew on this people, as I write my next blog post!!!

P.S.- I did not for once feel sorry for the girl, Pooja. In fact, I felt she was lucky that she got rid of a loser. 🙂

 

THE LIFE TREK

 

It was a bright morning, the day I got up and woke up my buddies to remind them of the plan for trekking. I was diligently waiting for this day to come because my friends had finally agreed to join me in climbing the peak which rose next to the river Teesta at the vicinity of our college. It really took a great deal of persuasion from my side though. But I never expected what this day was going to bring in my life. I predicted it to be a day, well spent with friends in nature, doing what I like doing the most-ADVENTURE. Well that day I learnt that small and ordinary things can have very large ramifications.

It started out in good humor and joyfulness. We were 7 people, all in good shape. Well that’s what I felt. None of us were fat or diseased hence having no reason to get intimidated by the towering peak in front of us. So we set out stopping by at the departmental store to fill our bags with water, food and cold drinks. “Deeghal’sgonna pay for all the nourishments as we all are joining his noble cause of climbing” announced Shaurya and everyone supported him in unison. I paid the bill humbled by their “enthusiasm”. And then we moved towards our climbing base crossing the hanging bridge over the Teesta.

A brisk 10 minutes walk and we were at the immediate base of the peak which we had to scale in a few hours. As I stood there looking at the topmost towers of the peak which were hardly visible, I could envisage the thoughts that were going about in the minds of my friends. They were cursing me mentally for making them believe this seemingly impossible task to be so easy. “Are you out of your mind, Deeghal” protested Amit “You said it was a small climb, look at the height man, there’s no path also that we can see. How do you plan to scale it?”. Before anyone could complaint more, Sumeet, my room-mate and best friend, popped in “Come on guys, there’s no harm trying. We can easily find a path. I can see some huts up there in between. So there must be some way up.” Here he was, Sumeet, always sorting out mammoth problems in a few sentences. No one said anything further. He had used the word “trying” after all.

We took a deep breath and started the hike. There was a small spring which we had to cross and then we started on the rocky trail upwards. The sun was blazing overhead and we were perspiring like anything. The slope was getting steeper and steeper and the path more rockier. We stopped once in a while to drink water and give rest to our so rusted lungs. All of us were panting with only a few minutes of climbing. Well except for Sumeet who was a basket -ball player with a well-built stamina. Regardless of that, we were still climbing. We didn’t have any map of the area and there was no specific path. We just had the view of the top and climbed in that direction. We were at a good height by now as we could see the place where we started down below. But by now we could easily hear the sounds of despair from the tired people. “This is ridiculous yaar” said Amit “I am drained out of all my energy bro. I really don’t wanna continue anymore”. Now it was Shaurya’s turn. “I have a better idea guys. Why don’t we go down by the river and grab some chilled beer? A lot of time is not wasted. We still have time to save the day”. I was so weary myself but I somehow controlled my expressions as that would be the blow in the plan finally. I said “We have been having beer once in a while. This thing is different. We have come such a long way up. Lets try man!”.Amit was infuriated “That’s what we were doing for so long. Look above.Be realistic for once. We have not even covered a fraction of what we need to cover to get at the top. Sorry guys, I don’t have time nor energy for any more of this. I am going down. Shaurya, you wanna join me for the beer?”.Shaurya gave a confused look but we all knew that he was not confused. He was exhausted and wanted to abandon this stupid idea. “Sorry friends, I think I’ll join Amit on the way down”.

And so we had only 5 people left with us on our way above. So once again we started on the trail upwards. This time the way got even worse. There were bushes all over and thorns but somehow we kept on moving hitting the bushes with the stick. My legs had given up hope and my lungs were about to burst but I could not complaint as I feared the embarrassment that I would face as the whole thing was my idea. So I just kept silent and struggled upwards. Sumeet saw my red face once and asked out of concern “You okay?”. I paused a bit and replied “Never been better”. And then we broke into peals of laughter as we realized how insane we were. Then suddenly Tushar let out a cry of pain. He was there lying on the ground, totally out of breath and Rohit slumped next to him. Before they said anything we already knew that we were down by two more people from there onwards.

So three out of seven of us were there, unaware of our location, weary, hungry and out of breath. I so regretted my smoking habit at that time. Damn!! But regretting was not what we could afford at that moment. We had a peak to scale!!!.Sumeet, Vj and me wandered along the woods upwards till we found a source of natural water flowing in the wild. We didn’t delay even a second to fill our empty bottles and drink to our heart’s full. And then we started again. We were now at a great height. We could see the Teestariver bending far below us. It was indeed exhilarating. But now it was only the responsibility of my decision which was driving me forward as I had practically no energy left to climb this steep terrain.I was insisting on stopping every few minutes to gather my breath. We all were very exhausted.

“Sumeet, this climb is killing me” I let out finally with humiliation in my voice. “I know” said Sumeet, he himself very tired “but we are here to do it, aint we??”. “We knew it wont be easy” said he “but we still made it this far. Lets do it”. I looked down and saw Vj desperately trying to climb up, struggling with his legs. He was the one who looked the weakest of the lot, but did not let a single cry come out of his mouth, the whole time. A feeling of respect surged in my head which gave me the power to stroll ahead. So we continued without any exchange of words as speaking would exhaust us further. We couldn’t afford that. An hour passed like this, with a lot of thoughts going about in my head. So many times I did have this urge to give up. It was so easy and prospective to give up at this time. We had already climbed this high, already seen a beautiful view below. We could easily stop here and go down and have good food in the warmth of our room and cherish the memories of the sight we saw. We could lie to those losers, who left us midway, that we did reach the top. They had no way to find out. I suddenly felt so ashamed of my thoughts. I realized that I did not decide to climb this peak to prove to anyone. It was for myself, for my adventure.

I looked up and saw the sight of a flat terrain above. It was still a long way up. So I made a mental estimation of a point halfway in the middle, and decided to reach that point in sometime, take rest and then move on to the flat surface. In a struggling half hour, we were at the level surface. We could now see the towers above to be very close. But we still had a lot of soil to cover to be there. We rested there for what seemed like a lot of time and then started our journey again.

My lungs had never felt so heavy in my life before and I had this strong feeling of nausea due to the lack of oxygen at this altitude. I could see Sumeet, who was the fittest of all of us, crying out in despair. It was a strange situation. We knew we were so high above but we did not have even a scrap of vigor left in us. We had no idea how much above, our destination was as we were at that part of the cliff where, due to the angle of the hill, we could not see the top anymore. And finally it happened. We just fell on our backs. All three of us. And we could not rise. We had far stretched our capabilities and had over saturated our bodies. There was no chance that we could climb ten more meters, and we had absolutely no idea how far above, the top was. “I guess this is it” I said “I am not being able to move”. “Neither me” said Sumeet, and Vj nodded to state his same condition. There was a long silence which was interrupted by me as I said “Alright then guys, lets move down, downhill wont be a problem”. Both of them agreed and we rose and started downhill when suddenly we saw the entire mountain below us and we stopped. We had come along an enormous height. We were closest now to getting to the top than we would ever be. This vast scaling would be meaningless if we did not reach the top. Strangely all of us realized this at the same time as we turned around and started walking upwards without speaking a single word.

It had been hardly ten minutes before we reached the to

OUT OF YOUR MIND

Mind is a very powerful and complex thing in any human being. Its power is so large and so infinite that it is beyond any one’s imagination. It can make you the most powerful person in the world as well as crush you completely from the inside. I have been suffering a lot lately because of the way my mind works. I knew that certain things were beyond my control and despite that I lost hundreds of hours thinking about them and suffered heavily. The most undesirable thing that can happen to a human being was happening to me. My mind was controlling me instead of me controlling my mind. This leads to disaster. And this was the thing that was not happening to me alone but to a majority of people in my time. However much I tried I kept losing myself. But then out of this pursuit of relief I stumbled upon an exercise which changed everything. Simply everything. Slowly and slowly I started to take control over my mind. I will share the exact exercise with you people but before that lets understand what makes people lose their mind. It is the “TRASH”. We got a lot of trash stored in our mind which keeps us from thinking and doing what we are meant to do. It is the trash from the past and the future. We regret our past or we live in its glory and also we are worried about the future. We are so sure that if we achieve what we wanna achieve, we can be the happiest people around. And in this process we lose our present worrying “what if I cant??”. And even if we do achieve somehow, we ask “What now??” or “Was it worth all the worry??”.

So the right thing to do is “stay out of your mind”. Simply come out of it. You can visualize your mind as a T.V. set always playing something or the other. Your happiness, your bad times, your deep dark secrets are always being played on the screen. And you are just looking. So what you gotta do is don’t look at the screen inside your head. Look at the screen outside of it. That is through your eyes, into the world, around you. Be fully aware of your environment, of all the movements around you and all the sounds. Try to grasp every detail through your eyes and ears and nose and skin. Just try this out and you will realize that a lot of activity is going on in this world each and every second. No moment is ordinary and lifeless. The trash in our mind makes it look like that. The nature is filled with activity.

So what did I do when I realized this? I went out of my room at around 9:00p.m.and started walking on the road. At first I was filled with the thoughts I was engaging in and then consciously and forcibly I started to look around for details. I tried to guess the speed of a passing bicycle and smelled the fragrance from a nearby dhaba. I tried to hear each and every sound in the area. The blowing of taxi horns to the hiss noise created by lowering the noodles into the oil and the distant barking of dogs. I felt like I was aware of every sound coming to my ears and every movement in the span of my eyes. Then suddenly I tried to feel the wind on my skin. I tried to guess its direction. So there I was clutching every detail from my environment all at once. I then saw the beauty in so ordinary things. How the red street poster was inclined, the pavement broken in a very strange way, a cloth at the top of a building fluttering in the breeze, the boy holding on to his girl as if nothing else mattered, the auto-wallahs counting the collection of the day. Everything was so extra-ordinary. I felt so stupid as I had never realized this beauty before. And after around so much time had passed while I was doing this, I realized that I was not thinking anything during that time. I was not concerned about anything, neither the past nor the present. I was living that very moment in “the very moment”. It was a heavenly experience. I experienced happiness in its true form after years. I was literally “out of my mind”. I was in nature. This was meditation. Meditation in its easiest form. You are aware of everything without any iota of worry or ambition or revenge or fear or attachments or addiction. You are there LIVING.

I wish I can live my life this way always and I wish the same thing for all of you because now you all must have realized that the journey is much more important than the destination!!!!