A little bit of Cheese makes it all worthwhile...

A hurried breakfast.. Or a midnight snack.. Give yourself the pleasure of biting into a piece of bread with a slice of cheese on it - it immediately improves the mood!

And thus ended my few months of depression. You know the worst bit about depressions - you lose your appetite. You need food, trust me. The less you eat, the more depressed you tend to get. And so goes the cycle..

Until just about now.. I ate a piece of bread with a slice of cheese on it! And here I am, happily yapping about it. Actually, I perceived my mood improve. I am feeling like conquering the world right now! Well, that's an exaggeration, (and I am not high!) but yeah, I feel like I can tackle my M.Tech. project now. So that's almost like winning a war.

Believe me, when you need a snack before the day of your exams, or the night before your presentation, or any such shitty day.. Just snack onto a cheesy bit.. And soar all the way through. It improves your strength, lets your brain function better and what else do you need to win?

So always remember, it's cheese all the way!!!

বেদনা 

ঝড় উঠেছিল সেদিন রাতে -

নিভে গিয়েছিল শিয়রের কাছে জ্বেলে রাখা প্রদীপখানি। 

সেই নিকষ কালো অন্ধকারে অনুভব করেছিলেম 

তোমার আগমন;

ভেবেছিলেম তোমার ছোঁয়ায় 

কেটে যাবে রাতের বেদনা। 

বুঝিনি সেদিন প্রিয় 

সেই আঁধারের হাতছানিতে জেগে ছিল মোহ -

তোমার স্পর্শে হারিয়েছিলেম আমার স্বত্তাটুকু ,

সেই ঝড়ের দাপটে শুনিনি সেদিন 

তোমার চোখের বাণী। 

শুধু তোমার দুহাত্খানি 

কোন সে ব্যথা জাগিয়েছিল আমার পরাণ মাঝে;

আজ ফাগুন শেষের দীর্ঘশ্বাসে 

মিশে গেছে তারই মাঝে 

মোর জীবন-বেদনা। 

Happily Married... A Myth?

Cases of divorce are growing every day. It seems people do not believe in marriages any more! Why don't we look a bit closer into the whole scenario?

How come marriages sustained in the earlier times? What has changed over the past 50 years? There are several possible explanations. One being that lives are becoming more and more busy every passing day. There is a whole lot of competition out there, and everyone is trying to reach the top. Maybe because this is the age of information. We are so well informed about all the population of the world, how everyone around seems to be successful, that we try to achieve ourselves further than we ever thought possible. And in a way, this is a very good thing - making us push our limits. But what does it do to us in the personal front? It makes us irritable to trivialities. It takes our patience away when we face small everyday problems. We are too busy solving the bigger problems in life! This has a detrimental effect in our conjugal lives. If the partner cannot understand us, our needs and obviously expects too much from us, well, we do not have the time or patience to satisfy them.  So off goes the marriage.

Another way to analyze this problem is to look at how the society has changed. We have become more open-minded. Were there no marital problems 50 years back? Cases of divorce or break-ups were definitely less. But does that necessarily point to a shift in human nature? Or maybe it shows a change in the societal structure. Previously the society, especially the Indian society, did not allow for a divorce. The middle or the lower strata of the society did not have the mentality that if a marriage did not work out, you could always opt for a separation. Partners still lived together, acting as a happily married couple to the society at large. The possibility of actually breaking apart was not viable. The career options for women also had a part to play in this. Women were largely dependent on their husbands as bread-earners. If they left their husbands, where would they go? This scenario has changed. The society has become more aware of these issues. Women have come out of their homes and have been free to choose a different career path other than being a homemaker. Now they can be self-dependent. And hence if the marriage creates a lot of problems for them, they can choose the path of a break-up.

So, is divorce or separation the best solution if a marriage is not working out? Or was the previous state of the society better, when divorce was not accepted as an option? This is a debate which has no right answer. For, if you look at it in depth, there is no such thing as a happy marriage. No marriage can make a person perfectly happy. In fact, there is no relationship that serves perfect happiness. A sustained relationship calls for sacrifices, compromises. Sometimes it comes from both the parties involved, while at others there are discrepancies and even one-sidedness at times. It all depends on what you value more in your life - the problems the relationship is generating, or the relationship itself. It also depends on how far you are ready to compromise for that relationship. And yet again, there is no right answer. The situation varies from person to person. 

It is definitely better that the society has changed so that we, even the women, at least have a right to make the choice. The question comes finally, which option gives us a little more happiness, a little more peace? The choice is ours to make. 

But the concept of a happy marriage is a myth. There are daily problems involved in a marriage, as in every relationship. The situation is slightly more complicated in marriages, since you live with the person day-in and day-out. There are compromises involved, just in order to make it work. And when you compromise, there is a lack of happiness. Giving up something never makes a person happy! Maybe we can say that being in the marriage makes us relatively happier. It is better to be with the person than to be without him. There are complications such as human emotions, and the feeling of love. Not every decision we make is logical. But if we look deep enough, it is always a choice of what gives us a little more mental peace - a little more happiness.

Eragon took possession of my heart!

No, not the character really, but the book, and the experience it has brought me.

It all started a few years back, when I first started reading an e-book, and for the first time in my life, enjoyed reading an electronic book. The name was 'Eragon'. And it got me intrigued. Eragon is the only e-book I've completed, an achievement in itself. But then, I stopped and forgot all about it.. Until a few months back, when I again saw the book on Flipkart. It was a book containing both Eragon and Eldest, and since I had not read Eldest, I decided to buy it. Anyways I always wanted to possess the actual book. Reading from an e-book can be tiring at times.

So I read Eragon again, and proceeded to Eldest and then couldn't resist the need to buy Brisingr as well. I was spell-bound to the story, the many intricacies of it. I like stories of magic as such, but this is the best of the lot. It has the usual charm of magic and the unknown, but not just that. Not just could I visualize Alagaesia with all of its beauty and misery, but I also was mesmerized by the many facets of the story which brought forth new concepts and new imaginations. Say for example, the "ancient language" or "Gramarye", which expresses everything by its true name - a language in which one cannot tell a lie (though of course it can be twisted to fit one's purposes). It is an amazing concept, and somehow I believe in the idea. It seems plausible that such a language may well exist, but may be lost to us. Then the concept of meditation - to open one's mind to the world, so that one can hear and feel every living being around, from the smallest unicellular organisms to the biggest of creatures. It seems a true form of meditation, something that seems to me closely related to the Hindu scriptures. There lies a large number of such concepts and more. 

Another feature of the series is the characters. They are not perfect, not even Eragon himself. As the prime character, he is naturally endowed with almost all the great features needed in a man's character. However, he also has his shortcomings. He is, for example, sometimes very stubborn in his beliefs, as in case of the Urgals. Although it does not directly affect anything of importance, it is still a smudge in his character. Apart from Eragon, however, the other characters have their flaws. They have their fears, their weaknesses and sometimes are quite selfish to their own goals. True that a reader wants the very best in his heroes, but a character only seems real if it has all the facets - good and bad. A perfect character may be bestowed upon God Himself, but no one else can really possess it!

I have enjoyed my read and am eagerly waiting for my copy of 'Inheritance', where the journey ends. And for once, I am not unhappy that the adventure will come to an end. It seems only right that it should happen. This, like any other story should not continue so long that it loses its charm, as mostly happens. I will always have the books to revert to whenever I feel like, after all. 

I would recommend this book to everyone who has a knack for imaginations and fantasies. It is a read worth having in life. My thanks to Christopher Paolini for bringing this living magic to my life. Like many of the books I have read and loved, this book has also played a role in shaping my thoughts, imaginations and views in life. :)

Chasing Dreams

I saw him.. His back turned, walking down the dusty road, his hands in his pockets. He had a confident demeanor, his back straight, his head held high. He is one representative of the teeming millions set out to fulfill their dreams in life. He represents us, the youth.

I could envision myself in him. I could see the same sturdy posture, set out to conquer the earth itself! Racing with the others, trying to make the dreams come true - our own dreams and those of the others. After all, this is what we were born for.

But here I stop and ask myself, is this what we were sent to the earth for? To fulfill dreams we don't even fully understand? We are all running toward that goal, but can we really see the end of the line? Do we at least know what holds in wait for us when we make it to the end? Some of us do, a rare few. But ask most of us, we are just bothered with the short-term goals of life. I want to work in so-and-so company, I want to earn so-and-so much, my dream is to buy a really big apartment, I would like to buy a car in the next 3 years, and so on and so forth. Ok, we all want to do all these, but what about the real things that matter to us? You love painting, but you are working in a MNC just to fulfill your short-term needs. What happens in the long-run? We lose sight of our real purposes in life and are just bothered with short-term aspirations. 

Don't lose sight of who you are. Don't feel that you need to be like someone else. We have our place in this earth, and we can all excel if we do what we are best at. We actually can conquer the earth. If you like taking care of your family and are best at that, find someone you want to take care of, and take care of him / her. Don't waste your time and energy in doing something you don't like. Yes for short time spans, we all must do things that we don't like, but make sure that it remains for that short span of time only. Most important, friends, don't lose yourself in the great expectations of everyone around you. Do what you expect yourself to do instead. Expect from yourself, but don't let others' expectations bother you. Do your duties, but believe in yourself, in your abilities, and above all your dreams. For it is dreams that make us. Follow your dreams to the end of the world, and you'll be happy in the end. Finally, what matters but your own happiness and satisfaction!

Be happy and work hard to become what you want to be. But first and foremost, realize what it is you really want to be. That solves half the problem indeed!