Dreams Unlimited

I was reading Shantaram, wherein Karla, the female protagonist, asked everyone on the table @ Cafe Leopold, what according to them was the best thing in the world. Some of the answers were- power, money and freedom. Each person talked about the thing that they valued the most.I thought about it a lot and a zillion things came to my mind- I couldn't pinpoint one single thing that I really desired and valued. After analysing my thoughts I realised that, for me, sleep is the best thing in the world. Sleep has been glorified in many mythological tales and fairy tales too. In Ramayana, Ravana's brother, Kumbhakarana, slept for half the year and was awake for the remaining half. This was because, he was so gigantic, that the Gods feared that if he would be awake for the entire year, he might just eat up all the livestock, food supply and may be even human beings! And even though he may have not liked the fact that he was sleeping for half his life, it was a boon to everyone else arou

I grabbed a frappe at Churchgate station in the scorching heat of Mumbai and headed to board the local to Santacruz. After I was done with my coffee, I looked for a dustbin at Churchgate station, but sadly, I couldn’t find one. I then held on to the paper glass, resolving to put it in the bin after alighting at Santacruz. There was no waste paper basket in sight in Santacruz station either. Don’t worry, I told myself, there is a long stretch of skywalk to negotiate on the way to the main road, it will most definitely have a series of dustbins lined up. And I distinctively remembered the innumerable campaigns undertaken by the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation to promote the idea of a clean city. Satisfied, I started towards the skywalk. If you call heaps of garbage garnished with the distinct red paan spit a dustbin, both the sides of the skywalk were by default dustbins. At least that’s what the common man had assumed. I was very frustrated by then and lost all hope from the skywalk

Was just flipping channels when I came across Cartoon Network, the channel that has been highly neglected ever since I entered my teens. But it looked just the same as far as I could remember and Tom and Jerry was on - Tom still chasing Jerry and Jerry trying to outwit Tom- nothing had changed from the looks of it. At the end of the episode when Jerry frustrated Tom to the point when Tom decided to leave the place, Jerry too realized that he would not enjoy without Tom and left. As a child, I would have taken all this with a pinch of salt. But, now I started drawing analogies with real people. There are some people whom we love to hate and it almost becomes a passion for us. I read Kane and Abel, a long time back in which both were arch nemesis and whose life's only aim was to destroy each other. In the end, you'll realise that they actually had deep care, affection and respect for each other- but they chose to show it in different ways. Sometimes your rival is all you have and

I diligently follow Roadies every year. I have recently gone through a gruelling placement process at my college and I couldn't help but draw comparisons between the two. The most difficult part is getting in. There are many candidates. You have to prove your worth. There usually is a group discussion followed by a round or two of personal interviews. Sometimes the interview is a stress interview sometimes it is relaxing. The same panel can take either interview depending on the person they are interviewing. Then finally, based on certain internal parameters, a few candidates are selected, which is usually a very small proportion of those applied. Once you are in, it is not like the end of the road. You have to prove yourself every single time. In a company its a performance appraisal whereas in Roadies it is a vote out that keeps you on your toes. And in both cases, it is not just your effort ,that counts-you have to be well networked, you must have a lot of friends at the right p

I was coming home from my hostel when I got stuck in a horrendous traffic jam! Well, one might feel that traffic jams are an integral part of life in Mumbai. But interestingly, the traffic jam was not due to the traffic but due to a traffic police officer. That's right, the person responsible for managing traffic was causing a great deal of agony to many on the road. For one, he refused to let us pass, despite there being a green signal at his own whims. He did this not once, not twice, but five times- five full times. Then he finally decided to show some mercy and let us go. In addition to this arbitrary behavior, he was extremely mean to other vehicle drivers, actually, mean is an understatement for his behavior. He made some drivers go straight despite them wanting to take a right just because they attempted to overtake another vehicle, and was abusing people for no apparent reason.It sure frustrated me and made me think. This is the state of our system. Anyone and everyone with

Modern science considers people having multiple personalities to be suffering from 'Dissociative Identity Disorder' and urges one to get help from the psychiatrist. But human beings are too complex to just be the same person all the time. In fact over time, we might undergo so many transformations that the future us cannot recognize the present us and the present us cannot relate to the past us. To borrow Ted's language from HIMYM, we all become doppelgangers of ourselves as we evolve. Even if we discount the time factor, we behave differently with different people and in different circumstances. How much ever people may claim to be what they are, the truth is we are ultimately human and we mirror the actions and behavior of the person we are interacting with. A lot also depends on the comfort level we share with others, our own mood swings, the vibes we get from a person and a host of other factors. Then it brings to focus a pertinent question, "Who really are we?&quo

In India we have a rich tradition of treating our elders with the highest degree of reverence- we seek their blessings before embarking on an important mission and take their advice on all important matters. But somehow in this age where a nuclear family is the norm rather than an exception this tradition seems to be losing its foothold. The growing number of old age homes and the rising cases of harassment and domestic violence against senior citizens bears testament to the fact that they are treated as a burden to society. I got an opportunity to visit an old age home in Khadavali as a part of the Social Cell initiative in SIMSR. We left for the place early morning from Ghatkopar station. The entire journey took around 1.5 hours after which we took a rickshaw to the place. It is a beautiful place overlooking a river which is very clean. The home is unlike the tall rises in Mumbai-it has small blocks scattered in the compound.There are separate blocks for the ladies, the gentlemen and

I was deeply saddened when I heard that the 'rape law' for the Shia family has been legalised by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. Even before the law was enacted, women were ill treated in Afghanistan (by using the word ill treated, I'm grossly under stating the facts), but now they will be tormented by people who will believe that it is their legal right to do so and will actually take pride in all this. Islam is a beautiful, pure religion. It treats everybody with a lot of love and respect. The Quran does not advice men to take on many wives and treat them as sex objects. Many teachings are taken out of context and manipulated for personal gain. There are innumerable examples of non Muslims converting so that they can take a second wife. But there are many who have converted to Islam because of their sheer faith and belief like Muhammad Ali(previously known as Cassius Clay), the world renowned boxer and back home, A.R. Rehman, the music genius. Every individual needs t

A couple of months back, while watching 'The Moment of Truth' in my living room, I confidently declared that this is one show that will never be customised for the Indian audience as however much we might swear by our morality and uprightness, there are many skeletons in our closet that we would never want revealed, and especially not on national TV. But I had to eat my words when 'Sach ka Saamna' was launched. Note to self: Never say 'NEVER'. Actually about a month before the show was launched, I received a call from Star Plus inquiring if I would be interested to be a contestant on the show. I thought that it would be a way of making some quick money as I didn't have much to hide. But after questioning me on my life for about five minutes, they must have also guessed the same thing. They would get back to me, but they never did. So it wouldn't be far fetched on my part to say that they were specifically looking for something scandalous, something that

There are always loopholes in each and every system. Ragging is banned by law. But that does not mean that our seniors did not rag us. Instead they formulated a two week long event to rag us in a formal and systematic fashion. Thus, IMPRESSIONS’09 was born. WEEK 1:- We were all given the task of searching for our ‘buddy’(person who had the same roll no. last year) and doing whatever assignments would be given by the ‘buddy’. The searching part was simple. We just got hold of last year’s attendance sheet. The assignment part was a little tedious for some. While some took extra interest and did it with the same dedication that they would if it were their final exam, others did it half heartedly , secretly cursing the whole idea. Luckily, my buddy turned out to be super chilled. WEEK 2:-We were required to find out inside information about some of our seniors and make a presentation on them and also prepare either a dance, fashion show or musical skit. The finale was in the auditorium in