Have a Heart

                                             
Heart, when someone says that another person has the heart for the job, its easy to understand, but is hard to capture the exact meaning of the sentence in words. When someone says put your heart in it, its hard to define a meaning to it. The questions that I have for myself, which circle wildly in my mind frequently are way too personal to splatter all over the net, however it is something that's flirtingly close to the obvious "existential question" and after a lot of thinking, my head still wanders and wonders what the answer is but am sure that this 'Heart' has a lot to do with it. 
   I was reading Steve Jobs's autobiography and in it every fourth page speaks about the 'heart factor'. How he always truly believed in and could isolate the people who had the "heart factor". He wanted only a select few that he thought truly believed in and loved Apple and how he wanted only them in the company. Recently, I met this stranger in the bus who owns a company in Bangalore, we started talking and before I could stop myself, I was talking about these current thoughts that I have. A lot of our thoughts matched and we ended up talking till late night. He is 4 years elder to me, and he got into business coz of his father, who's a businessman himself.I knew he would have gone through the same thought process and he confirmed it himself later anyways. But he put in another factor that he called the "X-factor". That he called as something that is governed by Karma. I believe in it too. 
  The quote "what you do is what you get" rightly puts the thought. Here is how I believe it is. Every situation that you are made to go through results in you doing something, which can be divided into positive and negative at that particular time. And there is an account, of the positive and the negative that you've done. Now consider you have a 100 positives and 50 negatives, So the 100 positives and the 50 negatives that you did will happen to you, it might happen in tiny negatives or the whole positive in one shot, you never know. But they never cancel themselves out. 

                  He was of the thought that you are what you're surroundings make you and your surroundings are dependent on how your Karma "account" is! I believe this is another factor, the surroundings. And yeah it might be connected to the Karma "account" which I have so wrongly put :P.

                But I believe even if you are the daintiest person on the planet, for you to do something you should know what you want, i.e what you're heart wants. What pleases you and what makes you happy. Because ultimately its not money and its not social acceptance that makes you happy, but its this 'heart' that governs the life you lead. You might have the best job in the world but then if you're heart is not in it, you'll still be hungry. You might not have any problems with it , you might be happy doing it, but just that your heart is still hungry for something that which cannot be explained logically.
                       But I believe we are so accustomed to something called 'logic'  that the heart loses out on the race to the finish. We end up listening to the brain more that the heart.Our heart is only called upon when things like 'love' comes into a factor and sometimes maybe that too is decided by the brain. Either ways whatever we use frequently becomes stronger, but maybe for the world that we live in, it needs an intricate balance. We need to choose something that our heart wants and then pursue it with our brains. I believe that the heart should lead and the brain should follow. Am sure the brain says that this is not logical. But more often than not we end up awake watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S all night to realize sleepily tomorrow at office that it was illogical to do that :P
                    There comes a time when logically if you look at things, you have everything and even then you might want more. There comes a time when the heart stays hungry for something and the brain starts asking so many questions to logically solve the chaos and starts being restless about getting quick answers. Thats when you find yourself in a soup, you call it quarter life crisis, call it a phase or call it the "angry young man" phenomenon, either ways it's only a matter of the heart. Brain thinks about a problem and comes to a logical solution, but since the heart does not function by logic we have no clue as to why and when things happen. But as far as I've experienced when its the matter of the brain you're happy, but when its something of the heart, you're ecstatic. 

I BELIEVE THATS WHY SOMEONE RIGHTLY SAID "THE HEART WANTS WHAT THE HEART WANTS"

4 AM

I have been working in a refinery for 3 years now, and anyone who knows about a refinery will know what a shutdown means... anyways... for the remaining unrefined people, shutdowns are when we "switch off" all of the gazillion pumps,motors and gizmos and start fixing and servicing and adding more of them... and this is just a crude way to put it..The point is , basically we B.TeCHs end up working more than 12 hours :''(... Yeah i know.. Its too much..


This time, the shutdown was just around the corner and i was dreading the fact. I was supposed to get up at 4 am to reach office by 6 am tomorrow. And i was supposed to do it for 40 days! It was already 11 in the night and i was little too lazy to coax myself to have dinner. Finally my stomach literally "groaned" so i had to leave my comfortable chair to feed my grumblin stomach. By the time i finished the ritualistic good nights and sweet dreams on my cell phone, the hour hand of the clock was playing hide and seek... I sleepily set multiple alarms on my cell phone and my clock for 4 am and drifted off slowly into my dreams.
I woke up to look at the quiet clock as the hour hand was now at 7, PANIC!.. My head was sketching the various lies that i would weave at office that morning and my hands were working at maximum speed to get me ready as soon as possible. I was really busy brushing my teeth,wearing my shirt and searching for my socks, all at the same time when the bell rang... "WHO'S THERE??" I shouted. "Its me Praveen!" My boss's voice answered back. PANIC!!.. I opened the door and he started beeping...loudly! I woke up with a start and realized that my fourth alarm on the phone was ringing away like mad at 4:30 am. The other three i believe had failed in their assigned task.. I took some seconds to recuperate from the wierd dream...then groggily went about the daily morning necessities and with whatever blurry vision i had at that time, dressed up and left. I had to jump the short locked gate of my apartment to get out, which felt like a herculean task, which otherwise would just be a skip for the monkey  an active person like me..
 Now i was to wait for my Morning shift Office bus.The morning shift bus stops at any place where the driver recognizes the employee on its predefined route. Thanks to me being ME, that the driver knew me quite well. But the place where i wait for my bus is actually a pretty dark location, so i knew i'd have to maybe jump and wave for the driver to stop. Standing there at this ridiculous time.. i was feeling weird.. the road dwellers were sleeping in every angle and shape, like empty biscuit wrappers and shady people walking by, suspiciously looking at the sleepy engineer who had buttoned his shirt all wrong standing in the middle of nowhere... I was early to the bus stop i realized as ten long sleepy minutes had passed and the bus had not yet arrived. YAY! Ten more mins of sleep for tomorrow.. My head had made a noteworthy observation for the first time in the past hour.
After a while, i boarded the bus. My vision again seemed to be limited, i could not recognize anyone,half coz the driver had switched off the lights and half coz my eyes were half open anyways.. I sat and started dozing off. The driver was speeding away to glory. The red KSRTC bus that our company has so lovingly assigned for us is not VERY at all comfortable, i was struggling to fall asleep. Anyways, it was nice and cold i realized. But the bus driver seemed to have taken a different route and nobody was bording the bus at all. If you know me well, you'd know that I am not all that great with roads, so i dint think right to correct the driver. And it seemed as if it had become darker outside, and everything felt so comfortable.... and out of nowhere i felt someone poking my hand  "SIR?? SIR!! YOUR ID PLEASE..". I woke up to see the guard as a bus full of onlookers were waiting for me to show my ID. I had fallen asleep an hour back and the bus had reached the office gate, where they check everyone's ID and the guard had found me sleeping... By the time i realised all this, my bag had fallen down and i seemed to have forgotten where my ID was... but strangely the guard moved on to the next guy. It seemed like a great mystery to me as to why he dint wanna see my ID anymore. And my head was unable to come up with any explanations. I bent down to pick up my bag and my ID that was hanging from my neck hit the floor...
I knew it was a long day ahead of me, and I was right.. I was sleepy all day and i was wondering whats going to happen on the other 39 days! Life.. when you're up by 4 AM sure is different...


Whoa!! Its 11!! Damn! I gotta eat!

Night sky

As the darkness spreads
like a dark silk blanket,
I feel her sleeping
like a baby all scarlet

In me burns a flame
when i find her so close,
Then a quiver on her lips
like the winds on rose..

A smile so sweet spreads
across her face,
My heart skips a beat and
awes in amaze.

A gaze upon me,
with a twinkle in her eye,
There's so much to say
but all i do is sigh

An innocent playful strand
runs loose astray,
jealous as i am from
where restless i lay.

Touch her, i could,
coz she sleeps on my arm
wake her up, i might
with the touch of my palm.

The moonlit shine i see
on her smooth soft skin,
I slowly pull out the knot
held up by the pin

The feel of her slipping hair
so soft against my cheek,
The sweet scent of jasmine
makes me so meek.

Like a floating boat i feel
in the dark sweet scent
I drown into my sleep
with a feeling all spent!

The sweet lullaby

  Lemme sing a sweet lullaby,
to put you to sleep with a sweet memory,
For you are the spark i see,
That forces me to be...

Float,my darling in my fading noise,
for there's love beneath this caring voice,
Sleep my love for you arent well,
And coz am sleepy too in your intoxicating smell ;)

Break free.. finally :)

   The poet in me says silently,
  after all these years let me free,
  Let me loose and let me see,
  if i can solve the mystery.
  Of the love you have for that someone to be,
  And maybe you'll find her because of me! ;)

  I think i doubt your ability,
  On what you think is my destiny,
 
  I am but you and you are but me,
  Do you think i do not know thee?

  I thought i will start writing poetry,
  So this is my excuse as you all can see.

Mangalooru :)

Sitting in the bus to Mangalore i remember wondering if i am going to get bored to death here! I mean from how much i have seen my native (Kasargod) which is some 2 hours from Mangalore.. I was ready to face the water problems, electricity shortage, transportation problems of the place.. And here i am now sitting in a four bedroom flat, My balcony facing the girls hostel of KMC... and my door facing a popular pub in Mangalore.. well.. what more can i ask for ;) ?


Mangalore is like this hidden city of the teens with the beach just 20mins drive away and with good looking babes in every corner...;) The city has everything a teen asks for.. Dosa camp for the guy group to go and hang out and have a lite snack.. and the pubs where they can really "hang out"! :) and innumerable eat outs... lotsa stories flying around..like the other day i overheard a gal talking about her jumping off her hostel gates to meet her boyfriend only to find her lecturers romancing just outside the college premises.. :D And I thought Mangalore was not a "happening" place! :D


Now after i reached here i somehow find this place more "happening" than Bangalore itself, yeah.. a hard-core Bangalorean in me retaliates by saying that i have not been to pubs there (:O ? i know.. ) but the 'sly' smiles from gals and the 'subtle' taunts from guys are ironically more pronounced here and enjoyed by both the sexes.. at least i liked it! :D . The other day when i was getting off my office bus.. the receptionist from the place where i took my bike 6 months back smiled at me and i had a smile plastered on my face the whole evening ;).. and stuff like this keeps happening i have some more "experiences" but i don't wanna drone on and brag about the "encounters" if you really want me to brag please do call up! :D


Speaking about bikes, Mangalore is valley,with straight roads in the form of sine waves :) going up and down and the curves that a biker would love to be on..! Smooth tar roads and hard cement roads ..you name it you have it!.. Its a delight when there's an engine roaring below you. :) Then again it is not just the perfect place for motorists.. thanks to the maniac bus drivers!! The bus service here is handled by private buses with each driver trying to outdo the other by driving like run away convicts! twisting and turning around the vehicles in the road and honking just when they are right behind your ass and like my boss says " making you jump outta your skin!!". Not only for the motorists outside even for the people sitting in the bus its a nuisance !


In my first ride from Mangalore to Surathkal i sat in the last seat and my butt remembers traveling the whole journey mid air! . But the silver lining is even at 12 in the night you will get a bus between major areas and the auto dudes wont cheat you.. They will take the shortest route and they will be the ones who will tell you the short cuts! I know this because all the short cuts here that i know are from the auto drivers.. Just before i got the bike, we were going to the automobile shop to look at a car for my friend.. and we were just 4 months old in the city.. The auto driver obviously knew that we did not know where to go.. and he did not know the place that we were blabbering about.. But then i was surprised by what he did.. he told got down in a garage himself to inquire about the "shortest" route to the place (this i could make out because of the tulu that i can understand).. I was impressed.. when we reached.. because i am a good guy :D i offered him 10 rupees more than the actual fare..and he looked at me, gave a stare which said "so.. you are an engineer and you don't know how to count!! :O" and gave back the 10 rupees and left without a word!


Coming to truck drivers... strangely enough here the truckers seem to have taken the back seat in driving rashly, now that the bus drivers have taken over that job here.. Here you will see the truckers showing hand signals and waving and sometimes smiling and letting you pass too!


There are a whole lotta places that you can visit here. The city has a horde of temples spread everywhere. The ancient ones with stories and the new ones with 'storeys' :) You name it and you have it here..beaches, forts, goa everything is in travellable distance here.. you can plan a trip for a day, keep a decent budget and actually have fun and come back! hire a car from here, coz they know most of the places close by.., Obvously i would suggest a bike because the roads are just awesome when you get a little away from the city .. but then there is this problem of rain and sweat.. being a coastal area, its sweats a lot even if you are just lazing around in the beach and you never know when it will start raining here.. you might be surprised how fast a sunny day can turn gloomy... !


But as the sun goes to sleep and the moon starts to peer out of the sky.. The city starts to sleep.. except for the 'hep' places like pubs, high end restaurants or ccd's the other places close down before 8.. sometimes i have found general stores closed at 8 in the night... It looks like the sellers are not interested in making money or anything.. its just that they have no other thing to do at home so they stay at the shop until they like and leave.. One of my colleague was actually politely told to leave when he was selecting a TV for himself saying that it is 7:30 and they have to close the shop ! He was telling me the other day.. "they would stay back till 10 in chennai if you wanted to buy a pin!".. I guess that's true for Bangalore too.. they would call you names after you left the shop but they sure would wait! In the night there is a decent breeze which will let you sleep comfortably and music from the girls hostel which will sometimes make you wonder what the hell is going on there at 2 in the night.. but anyways.. some questions and answers are best kept to yourself i guess ;) ..