!! The Usual !!

Was just wondering… what a significant role does ‘the routine’ play in our lives. Quite important is my answer!

Everyone has their favorite times for certain actions. Be it going to the loo or reading the newspaper, be it having a bath or calling up home, taking a walk or sleeping. Everything we do, the routine permeates it all. Some things we just get used to and never get out of. There may be no logic, no rationale, but we do it because we do it. Take that!

For example, just this evening, post dinner… walking down the hill with Parvez, I reached out to call up mom. Precision down almost to the very second… the phone rung. And it was mom. Talked as usual about the same old topics. The same ‘had food’, ‘had classes’, ‘slept late’ routine. But that phone conv is a part of the walk now. Seems I can’t go to sleep without that chat.

I’m not complaining though. Life is comfortable because it is familiar. Change may be permanent, but routine is all-pervasive. Continuity… stability… sameness… life gets anchored in itself.

An extension… everyone I know (and of course everyone you know) has a pair of tattered old jeans that he/she absolutely adores. A pair of sandals that is so worn out, but oh so comfortable. A five year old Tee-shirt that would not last another round of spin-dry. But seriously, you are so used to (in love is the word, they tell me) them that you just can’t do without them. Even today, a thousand denims and a million Tees later, when you wanna get down and dirty… that faded old denim and the almost torn Tee is what u’d choose. Haina?

My NOKIA is something like that. It is old. It is heavy. No color screen. No polyphonic ringtone. But ask me if I like it and my answer will be a resounding YESS! Actually NO! It is more like I love it! It is just the same old usualness and familiarity that I love about the phone. The menu, the keypad, the screen, the way it fits into my palm! Everything is uh-so purrfect. Won’t change this in a hurry, will I.

Friends… friends is something that falls in the similar routine category. They are there coz they are there. When u are happy, when u are sad. When u have news to share, when u need support… the same old friends are the ones you think of. Instinctively your hand reaches out for that NOKIA and you call the same numbers yet again.

PS – For contrast, there are some things that you never get used to, and u constantly look to change em. But that in some other post! J

The CAT is here again

As another CAT <CAT 2005> approaches, I find out from God knows where a mail I wrote to Sid and Harsh sometime just before the last CAT <CAT 2004> about the CAT we guys took <CAT 2003>. I’ve already read it like five times today. Makes me nostalgic every time I read. Makes me long for the good ol’ days. I’m sure Doc would say that I am getting way too senti these days, and equally sure that Sid would dismiss it with his customary nonchalance and a wave of the hand and a Bakk! Never mind.

< To Sid n Doc; November 2004>

<From Me>

The CAT is here, and after having had such a profound effect on us the last year, this year it seems almost unannounced, unknown, unseen… atleast to me.

Come to think of it, it was the CAT and the desire to get to a premier B School that got us that as close to each other as we got. The endless stream of MOCKs, on centre or off-centre as they might have been, the paper analysis, the GD practice, the discussions, the arguments, the fights, the taking sides, the Sid’s ‘Hum sone ja rahe hain’, the Doc’s ‘Lets not deviate, lets not digress… Concentrate guys’… and my usual ‘Kuch bhi chalega… Kabhi padhai, kabhi masti.. aur hamesha TV…’. Those were the days.

The walks, the hikes (Remember rock garden?), the drives (CL, CF and PT - Harsh and Sid picking up bleary eyed me for CL, meeting at PT, or CF), and the last day movies (Paap and Khakee)… we’ve been there-done that. Adding to the usual CAT chatter was the usual, everyday banter on bathing habits (of Harsh that is, Sid n Me didn’t have a bathing habit worth talking about), about driving skills (again, Sid n Harsh) or the lack of it (Me). And the evergreen topics (BJP vs Congress, Kritika, Economy, GDP, P****, Oil prices, M*****, M**, Stock markets, Religion, God… the list is endless.) Come to think of it, the CAT was not just an exam… not just a day… it was a way of life. It was a dream, a goal and a destination…

Pank

PS – All the best for tomorrow, Sid. Just do it.

First strike on the new blog

Welcome !

This is my first post here. Had set up this blog smtime ago with the intention of shifting to it en masse from the rediffblog. And finally today, sleepless for almost 24 hours now, I did get down to doin it.

First I did some juggling with html code to add some links to the template. That had been my biggest grouse with rediff… so few link placeholders. Didn’t know that I could D-I-Y it so easily. Now added a blogs section, a planet-I section and a timepass section. Am am quite pleased with the effort… Now plan to import (copy-paste) the entries from there. The old comments won’t make it abhi… Might make it some day when a stroke of inspiration strikes me out.

Another thing I did with the old rediffblog was to put in auto-redirect code there. The work of a genius. And as I said, I haven’t slept in the past 24 hours now, so the achievement becomes even more news-worthy. My wrists are paining and the fingers are dying for the want of a good massage. Any volunteers?

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