Dharti Ka Bojh

For sometime now, I've been too undisciplined - waking up till late night, getting up even later, too much surfing on net, and too less of work. I was always known as very sincere at work and the earliest rising guy in the dorm / class etc. In fact, when I was at ICC, I used to wake up at 5:30 and get ready by 7:00.

However, I am not very worried about my sleeping or waking schedules. At the moment, what concerns me the most is breaking the 'Barrier'. I casually went to the gym at IIMA with a friend and even more casually, stood on the weighing scale and whoooosshhhhh thud clunk dhadaaaaaaammmmm!!! Within a nanosecond, my entire life flashed before my eyes. Well, not really. Just that I descended the scale quickly, smiled sheepishly, and ran away from the scene as soon as I could with all that bulge.

Yes! For the first time in my life, I burdened mother Earth with more than 70 kg (71.6, to be precise) and I was feeling every bit of that. My BMI (Body Mass Index) was knocking on the doors of fat from fit. I mean such uncountable bulges - I feared the fat guy described by Woody Allen was not far from me and soon, just like his, my eyes will also be fat.

So scared was I that I've already started living off more fruits and less of mess and canteen oil-dipped supplies. Then three days ago, I made a brief morning time-table on the white board in my room and that reads something like this:

0700 wake-up
0700-0730 room clean and brush
0730-0800 exercise and yog
0800-0830 mail check
0830-0900 breakfast
0900-0930 bath and get ready for studies

And I gladly announce that for the first time in my life, a time table has not been broken for two consecutive days. Yes! To my own utter amazement, I've followed it for two days now. Let's see how long I carry on with my whims and those bulges of fat but for the time being, I am trying to reduce the 'Dharti ka bojh'.

P.S. - And yes, it is important coz I want that achchha sa, disciplined bachcha back and more importantly, I'm yet to get married and fat before marriage is Bad. What? After that? Who cares ;)

Devdas (and also Amarkant Verma and Meursault)

I first read the magnum opus by Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay on Friday, January 1, 1999. Since then, I've had an admiration for that impatient arrogant escapist self-pitying loser, the protagonist of the novel 'Devdas'. In fact, at one level, I identify with him. Yes, I do... just like I identify with the reluctant detached truthful Meursault of Camus' L'Etranger or with the passionate Amarkant Verma of Maniratnam's Dil Se.

I just realized that all the three characters die at the end of the story - Devdas in a drunk state, outside his beloved's house; Meursault was hanged to death, and; Amarkant Verma was blown away with his beloved suicide bomber.

Yes, there are a lot of more famous, more admired, and more admirable heroes in reality and in fiction and I love them too but I love these more. Perhaps because there is something in all of these three that I wanted to but couldn't be. I never could be so unfeigned like Meursault or so persistent like Amarkant Verma. And most of all, like Devdas - I was never so brave (or coward) to refuse to move on and to sink the life in a glass of memories. Yet, I left a part of myself back there, forever.

Feels good

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My Library

This February, a stock taking of my library revealed that there are some 1,050 listed books now. What started as a small column in my study shelf, when I was in class 3 or so, has grown into this. After meticulously indexing them all over so many years, now I've plans for computerized indexing and some better system of classification. After all, I'm aspiring to read and collect many more such thousands.
So here is a peep at my collection back home only - there is a tip of this iceberg in my dorm-room also :D

This is the First Shelf, with literature for children - my childhood book collection, poetry books (in the front row), literary magazines, and some general knowledge books. Since my high-school, this shelf has seen very low movement except for the front row.

Next is the shelf of Hindi literature - full of classics, contemporary literature, pocket books, and Hindi translations of other language books as well. This shelf has been on a slow growth path since my graduation.

And the third shelf has noted highest inflow in the past few years. This one houses English literature - Classics, contemporary, Indian authors, translated ones, and some periodicals.

And here is a full view of the three shelves in my room at home - space crunched with multiple rows and arrangements, waiting for another shelf, or may be, a full library and reading room in my soon-to-be new home.


And every single piece of this collection carries a stamp that reads this -->