I am sleepy. No more black coffee. At least for a couple of days

It's nearly 4 pm and I am very very very sleepy. There is a class which I love attending, but I don't think I will be up the whole time, because my eyes are already feeling heavy.
I will watch Kung-fu Panda when I get home. I am tired because I sat up like an idiotchanging the colour of fonts within a word in my powerpoint presentation slides. That went on til 4 am.
No wonder.

As I do when I sit up late, I asked Aunty for some coffee so that I could stay up. Drank the whole flask over the night and all that balck coffee is rumbling in my stomach. It's a burnt up feeling. Nothing left in the stomach. The Black Coffee washed it all away, away, away...

What a wonder. 12 hours ago I was sitting in front of a borrowed lap top working slides and 12 hours later, still in front of a computer.
I feel like having a coffee now.

Wonder why I even wrote this post.

Rock On : Some layers and their meaning

Image courtesy: http://rockon.bigadda.com/cast-crew.html

ROCK ON: My part of the movie

Last night I watched ‘Rock On’, a Hindi film on life surrounding music, how music figures in and out, in different lives and different circumstances.

I loved the part of the movie where Joe, the lead guitarist’s and his wife’s life. I still feel she a had a reason to be displeased with his choice to go back and practice with the band, when he had an offer to do something that would bring up the family from the tight financial state and give a future for their son. His wife had made compromises for ten years and he still did not have a proper job and I feel it was his responsibility to take up the job, which she had laboriously arranged. She had good reason to go and talk to Aditya, who was in a well off state and had nothing to lose whether they got back as a band to play or not.

But the catch comes when Rob, who’s wish is to have a bang back as a band together, with his quickly deteriorating state due to fore brain tumour looms large. But what about ten years of Joe’s wife’s life? Where’s his responsibility, Dharma, purpose? Does it altogether meet at some point?

The movie has a thread regarding making compromises in life, running throughout the movie. Who can compromise? Whose compromise is valued? Does someone’s compromise matter in front of your desires? Does family come first or ambition? Some might say both can go hand in hand. The question, then, would be whose hands they are. Because unlike in movies, real life need not make circumstances coincide with each other so easily. Each one has his own situation and circumstance. Each one is in a place where He/she has been put in. It’s up to you to do your best in that circumstances, in such a way that your everyone is able to compromise on some things and hold on to some things. How much of each of that, is something there is no set answer to. That needs to be figured out by the human beings, who have equal rights, involved.

To complicate it further, one could try to find out where love fits in to this. Can love wipe away all the things lost by compromise? Can the compromise be overcome/ shadowed by love? What about years of compromise? So what, then, are relationships all about? Which makes the compromise? How much should /can/ must each partner compromise? Can they decide it in/through love? Really? Or do you just let life take over and let it flow? Do I sense apathy there?

The movie is multi-layered and each aspect could generate thousands of questions and that is what I like about it.

Walking on faith, disappointment and anger in the crunch

When the world economy went on a crunch, surprisingly its reflected in my life too.
For over a month, I had no money of my own. The worst economic crunch that had hit me. Every single day was a walk of faith. No paani puri, not even coffee, because you would be functioning on borrowed money. There would be not single currency note in my wallet. The function of the wallet was redefined to be a holder of identity cards, a bus pass and and ATM card with no money in the account, besides the driving license which was grossly obese compared to its wallet mates.
I would walk praying to God asking if it was a punishment. I would pray for money to land from somewhere. Sometimes, he budged. But after that grace period, I slumped backed in to economic depression.
I stopped the occassional Guava outside the college though I would be hungry. I would not have a coffee in between the long boring hours of 'Assessment', because 4 bucks began to feel like luxuory.
Friends? Yes, Chinpol, was my lender but there was a limit to which I would ask her, and she is the only one I am comfortable to ask. Earlier it was my true friend Swati who's pursuing her management studies in an old Portuguese colony. She's not around. The point is that I don't like being in debt. But when it comes to photocopying notes and whole text books, which would cost a bomb in in actually buying the original book, money was needed and that's when I would turn to Chinpol. She would never act weird.
Yes, I have a huge discomfort when it comes to asking for money. Only because I don't want to be begging people.
And the last thing I want to hear at that moment would be: "You want cash? I'll give you. "
No thanks.
I haven't reached that stage yet. I will let you know when I start begging.

And these thoughts would sometimes invade my mind like the whites who invaded native Indian settlements in America. It would end up in a battle. These battles would be in the mind, while I'm in the class, or on my walks back home from the bus, or when somebody presses the wrong button during a conversation.

I don't want to go through this again. It is a painful. To me it is shameful.
And I don't like hidden favours. I hate them and they make me feel even more undignified and like a refugee in a foreign land.
Not to bad mouth my parents. There is a limit to which they can send every month. And when that is over and there are more legitimate and mostly unforeseen circumstances, this is the story. I don't want to tell them. Even if I did, I'll feel bad. Not like there was much to send. Just for the basic needs. Thank you, you guys. And I hate some aunties who press money into your hands when no one is looking, making me feel like dignified charity acceptance.

The things I learnt from the economic crunch are many:
1. Money plays quite a big role in my life. I'm surprised at how much I let that control me.
I learnt to keep money from going beyond the place it deserves in my life.
2. When you have absolutely no money, this time, and when you pray is when you don't get any diseases which would entail huge hospital bills; you don't meet with accidents; you don't have to pay for a burnt house or buy new clothes due to some disaster.
You just learn to live on faith and be happy with what you have.
3. Count your blessings. I am way better off than the children on the streets with food to eat and food available three times a day. What if I can't have a coffee? I have lunch packet, which most of them don't have. Now that's luxuorious. I'm feeling guilty already.
4. There are somethings in life you just can't tell people about, however close you are. It could be money or any such thing. I didn't feel like telling anyone except my brother (who shares the crunch with me) and God, that time. Now I'm out of it and that I have changed my perspectives, I can tell anyone.
It was hell of an experience. Literally.
5. You could have loads of books, a CD player, good shoes, plenty of clothes, three times food a day, great friends, close family, musical abilities, and still not have a single penny in your pocket, for weeks on end. Nobody will ever come to know.
I'm glad that no one did at that time, because I just didn't want to.
6. I've learn that the few coins one spends on stuff on the road once in a while can be a big amount at the end of the month.
7. Trust God. What he teaches you through experience is never learn by speaking, hearing, reading.
It's learnt only through living. He cares, He provides, He protects.
8. You cannot live without the help of others no matter how independent you want to be.

How many more of these lessons are left to learn in life?
I'd rather live them than read about them.



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Pic courtesy :
1. http://www.onelostcoin.org/coinimg/coin2.jpg
2. http://www.freefoto.com/images/04/28/04_28_22---One-Penny-Coin_web.jpg