Parting thoughts....

Well...we've almost come to the end of our lives as engineering students... A lots of thoughts and memories have been building up to provide a strong environment for our separation... A separation of two souls that co-existed and even nurtured each other for 4 years... NIE and AlumNIE...

These are the days my friend.... When every nostalgic song... (Happy days, I'm gonna miss my college days, Pal, yaaron dosti badi haseen hai...and so on...!!) simply makes u feel that these past 4 years weren't really long enough....! Or were they?

A motion is in progress...We're heading towards serious responsibilities.. What could sometimes be passed off for more fun work now will become a liability if neglected.. The coming year is going to herald an era of exponential growth... Where the skills that we've acquired these years (if any!) will but put to the test.. While it all seems real and unavoidable,it still feels like we're losing something valuable..

But we've felt this feeling before... When we left school and moved on to PU,and again,from PU to Engineering,when you gradually lose contact with close friends who once defined your life.. It's all like an erosion of life itself...slowly,but steadily eating away at our childhood...

The dawn of this new era is not going to be easy... There are changes to be made..LOTS OF THEM... Sacrifices.. Unfortunately,we're going to lose some friends again...The way I see it,we already have...

It seems trivial sometimes to talk about this,cause everyone faces this at some point of time...So deal!! This is probably the first major compromise we learn to make with life.. (I call it selling our souls....!!) We're trading in the most fun years of life for more serious ones...So how do we choose to make the best of this moment? To make sure,we fill our memories to the brim before the gushing torrents of fun dry up before our very eyes...?

The choice again is simple... You make a choice!!

We are only what we choose to be... The way we speak,the way we think, our behaviour with people.. It's all due to choices that we've made... We've chosen to walk this path and have treaded it so far.. Each critical phase brings us to new crossroads... And now,we have a path to take..We tread the paths we choose... Some with hesitation,some with denial,some wit ignorance of the path,and very rarely,we tread some paths with utmost self-belief... Yet,the choice is inevitable...

Suddenly, everything is getting clear...Unresolved issues are getting resolved... People I know are really becoming(or rather have become) the kinda person they will be for the next couple of years.. Truth is coming out into the open, people who would tolerate each other for the sake of some unseen,unfelt bond are now losing it's value...And probably coming to their senses... All the pain that the past few years have brought upon us has been put to a standstill...

So are we ready for the life that stares at us right now? This moment... The next... The coming month...Year... How will we end up? I honestly don't care.... Today is our day... Let's take it on by it's horns... and let tomorrow bring upon a new challenge...!! We're ready.... Am I right??? (say ahoo.... 300 style!)

All the best to all you guys... Hope you've enjoyed every moment of these four years as I have... and here's wishing you many more wonderful years ahead... God bless..! :)

Adding on to " How to choose the one?"

Had initially posted this as a comment, but am putting it up here as a post as suggested by author..

Hmmmmm.. and hmmmm again.. that sure was quite an intensive one.. and I must appreciate the analysis that must have gone into its making!! Well, I toatlly agree with the line "I don't know how a person can CHOOSE a girl to love...the whole idea seems opposite to the notion of love.."
Well, I live under this huge assumption ( atleast that is what I have always felt) that "love" gets way too mechanical (for want of a better word) when you go around looking for people who have the tags attached. What I mean to say is, no doubt it helps to have someone who understands you, whom you are comfy with, who is compassionate and has all the goody adjectives but then, literally "looking" for someone who fills in the slot by fulfilling the criteria is more like finding a life partner(whom you may not really love at all), but is that love? Call me impractical and insane but then isn't love all about getting to know a person and love him/her for what she/he is ( maybe the traits match your list) and inturn accept that person as your soulmate and your everything? Or is it just another of those pre-prepared lists of "what-I -look-for" that you carry about on invisible placards and view people as to whether they have them too? Would it be be love or just another quest for a partner? Agreed, that you will like ( love??) your partner but where is all that magic of oving when you have chosen the person based on what you felt makes you happy. I see it more as a self-appeasing drive. I mean, all you are doing is ensuring yourself some joy. Maybe I am making it sound bad, but then, I don't really think very highly of it ..love to me is what a mother shares with her child. Pure, simple with absolutely no prerequisites or constraints at all.Unconditional. A mother doesn't look for any trait. Maybe, you'd say that "that" is a different kind of love. But then, love isn't love when start categorizing it right? Ultimately the feeling is the same. You would do anything for the person you love. If love is what you feel when you meet people possessing most of the charateristics you are looking for, how does it explain failed "love marriages".. I mean, you were supposed to have "loved" the person, right? I don't know whether I have actually made any sense. Coz' I am like filled with words all at once :P We do hear the popular " Be practical.You think this is going to work?" and then you know it isn't exactly a very good question. You hardly think of all this when you fall in love. I agree that you have analysed and listed traits that usually have resulted in love but what I am trying to opine is that people don't necessarily rule out features in love. I mean, you just love a person. Every little thingy that goes in to their making, maybe. At times, you have people of totally opposite nature loving each other and staying content. And at times, you have people of very similar interests staying super happy with each other and still share the same love for each other. Love, I guess can never be defined. So much for all the above banter that made no sense, you'd say. And I still can't help loving these lines..

If I could have just one wish,
I would wish to wake up everyday
to the sound of your breath on my neck,
the warmth of your lips on my cheek,
the touch of your fingers on my skin,
and the feel of your heart beating with mine...
Knowing that I could never find that feeling
with anyone other than you.


Love , I guess, is like that..

How do I choose 'The One'?.... Part I

Well,this was a thread that started spooling in my head quite some time back in one of my earlier posts....
How does one know if she's 'the one'? What should I look for? How does one differentiate between a crush and love?

I've been pondering over these things for quite sometime now.... (I've nothing better to do!)... A friend of mine approached me with this problem of his.... Usually,I've got an advice for everything...! Pathetic, I know....! But his questions silenced me.... How does one find out if a girl he's been thinking about is worth the thought or not? If yes,what should he do about it?

Well... I don't know how a person can CHOOSE a girl to love...the whole idea seems opposite to the notion of love... But what I can try is set up parameters by which one can filter out the ones that he does not love...and the rest I think will automatically fall in place...

I maybe naive when I say this....but what a guy expects out of a girl is pretty much the same everywhere... At least among the people I know,I've found that their notions about an ideal mate is similar to each other... So here is a general idea...Do not sue me if I'm wrong....!

What does a guy expect out of a girl? A girl that he is attracted to....Physically,mentally, emotionally,spiritually(??).....two or more of the above criteria must hold....Only one? Then please forget it and move on...

Well I've kinda come up with a list...It's not exhaustive,but I guess it's sufficient.. Here's what a typical boy would expect from his would-be gal-

• She must continue to challenge him (Physically,mentally, emotionally,spiritually(??))... By this I mean that there are some qualities that he liked in her,these should hold for some time...
• She must make it comfortable for him to talk about personal issues without any awkwardness..
• She must be a likable person,not only for her close friends but her acquaintances as well... (This seems trivial but trust me it's important!)
• She must be ambitious to the extent of having a good life,for herself and her family... (call me chauvinistic,but guys aren't really drawn to overly ambitious girls...at least normal guys aren't) [I asked around...this was the general outlook]
  
• She must have a general happy approach to life and people... (This one's tricky coz I've never seen a gal who can hold on to this for long)
• She must have interests that are somewhat similar if not the same with those of the boy..
  

Some other qualities that can be found admirable in some but not all people are--

• Faith- Religious enough to respect necessary rituals
• Compassion- Not necessarily one who goes 'awww...!' on seeing a puppy on the road..
• Conversation- It get boring to talk to some people for even 5 mins... but some others can hold your rapt attention for hours.. Kinda helps in your old age if can have a low decibel conversation sometimes..
• Street smart/Worldly(as you'd like to put it!)- There must be a fair amount of understanding of the way the world functions.. It's kinda hard to live with one who has a 'rose-glasses' vision to everything..

It seems queer to me sometimes that I'm writing posts like these... Why? why? why? And then a counter question... Why not?? After all,this isn't something that hasn't crossed someone else's mind.... I'd bet that a lot of people do wonder about these issues... Of course there are some remarkably rare, exceptional people who can keep themselves aloof from such issues concerning love..

What I would like from you is...(Yes YOU!.. the one who's reading this now...) a feedback in the form of a comment or another post by the co-authors.. Anything to augment this view of soul-mate searching... Although the post here was a restricted view with only a guy's perspective,it would really be awesome if I could get a girls point of view on this post and also, on the qualities they seek in their ideal mate...

hmm...and like i said this list isn't exhaustive... I wrote a large portion of this post a long time back... Then I made some omissions,some changes from my observations in the recent past and also, some helpful feedback from my friends... Thanks for sparing the time to read this...

How do I choose 'The One'?.... Part II

I found this article while looking for a different view of my article... It's simple but quite satisfactory...

"My Ideal Mate"

I could come up with a very long list of qualities and attributes that I would like for my ideal mate to possess. First of all, I would like for him to have a great personality and sense of humor. He should be kind, loyal, honest, loving, sincere, affectionate, and caring.

He should also possess the qualities of maturity, integrity, and generosity. He must have good morals and values and be a non-smoker and non-drinker.

I would like for my ideal man to be handsome and attractive in his appearance. He would need to be open to the ideas of commitment, marriage, and starting a family someday, because that is very important to me.

My ideal mate would be a wonderful husband and father. He should be able to openly communicate his thoughts and feelings and share everything that is important to him with me. I would like for our relationship to be the kind of loving, trusting relationship that everyone aspires to have. He and I will share many common interests and aspire to achieve the same goals in life together.
We will have such a strong bond that nothing will ever be able to tear us apart.

Finally, what is most important to me is that my ideal mate will be a man who loves me for who I am completely and unconditionally. I will also love him with all of my heart and be completely devoted to him. He and I will share a lifetime of happiness together.

Also, one of my friends has posted her views on this topic in her blog... It was a really interesting read and I thought it would make for a complete roundup of this topic if others could read that as well....

This link will direct you there:

Rachana's blog post

The Pretenders_A Guest article

piyu said...

Hmmmm....that's a neat flow of thoughts and you've certainly made your point out there!
well, this is just what I feel about pretense. Honestly, some find it to be foolishly optimistic ( yea, they use that term) though I agree to totally disagree. Why not see it this way? An act of pretense or even a veil that hides your personality is exciting at times and makes life lively. I am making a very controversial statament but I still am hoping you'd see what I mean.
For starters, like you said, none of us have any right to talk of someon else being a pretender coz' each of us is one. We never ever really show our true self at all points.Or do we? Coz' if we did so, I cannot imagine the consequences. Going by the definition of the wword "pretence/pretense" , I'd just add " an act a human does every single day" in the dictionary. How many times do we follow rules and regulations without wanting to, thus portraying an unreal-we though we are busy muttering something else all along?
Pretense/ce is what we show in our daily life. Maybe coz' we are humans.And since this is trite, we tend to pass of these and cling onto those acts which seem to have affected us only.Human again,maybe.
And isn't it a wonderful mask we have? The human-mask.Any blunder we commit is followed by a realization, a sheepish grin with that much cliched "I'm only human". Maybe we need to use this when we are pointing at others too.And then , we even assign degrees to pretense/ce where a few are within forgivable limits and some not. It is like this perception of good/bad , you know. All subjective out there and none knows what's really right. Phew! I'm right now amidts an ocean of thoughts and am afraid of putting up a post here.
Am still amazed as to why we never really get an image of "we" when we talk of pretense/ce and busily rummage thru' the persons-in-my-life list. Human, maybe. But sure makes life interesting :)
Too long a comment. Apologies. Am human, after all :P