Subhajit

अपनी मंज़िल पे पहुँचना भी खड़े रहना भी , कितना मुश्किल है बड़े हो के बड़े रहना भी   - शकील आज़मी A last goodbye is always required. Yet the final goodbye is not easy. This dilemma is eternal. How much ever time you spend with someone, it falls short when they depart. You wish you could have spent some more time with them, you could have told them more about your dreams in life, listen some more stories from them. We might have spent years with them, yet the departures are difficult. You may term it as bonding, relationships and what not. The fact is, deep inside us, we are all attached to someone, to something. Whether we accept or not, humans are weak, much more than they think are. It has been 10 years I have been staying far from parents. They have come to this karmabhoomi of mine umpteen number of times, but each time they pack their bags I break from inside, many times over. I told myself that now I have grown up and should not break down anymore,...

(Image Courtesy : Blog at Wordpress) When I sit down to write, few times I have some abstract thoughts recollected from a local train or an auto ride or may be a second day of full moon. But rest of the times, it is just blank. The feeling of a blank mind does have two good reasons to drive me: it challenges my creative reservoir and it makes me feel like a no one. The second feeling is quite scary, more on that some other time. I received a copy of the newsletter from a bank that my f ather served for 35 years. And immediately glanced (almost proof-read it) at it thanks to my joblessness these days. And I was taken aback by the sheer amount of casual attitude towards a publication that represents a public sector bank. The layout was haywire, the editing was plain absent, the photographs are photo-shopped and looking artificial. I immediately remembered the two Newsletters that my team & I edited in my last organization. We used to take 3 different perspectives on the conten...

I have often been accused of being arrogant. Quite frankly, I never thought that about myself. But the ‘perceptions’ of people around you, about you, can be intimidating enough to feed into your personality, more than what you can imagine. During my graduation, most of my fellow batch mates thought that I am arrogant for I opted for an Honors subject, which was niche, and different from other typical subjects, in more than one way. Some even thought I d idn’t want to mingle around. To me it was a simple decision, as I didn't think that I was a fit in the Science stream, so I opted for the Arts & Humanities – subject of particular interest being ‘English literature’. MBA was no different. Some thought that I stay aloof because I am ‘Arrogant’, whereas I had been taking my time to adjust myself in a different city, around different people, and in a different culture as such. Eventually as time passed, I became comfortable and even created a small world for myself with a selected...

11 years is not a small time and when it comes to politics, it is really a long long time. Rivals change, so are the friends. But then all the national and regional parties in India are united in one thing: bashing Narendra Modi for what happened in 2002 . Yes, mistakes were made, some grave ones. But is Congress the right watchdog to raise the voice after the 1980 /Moradabad, 1984 /Bhiwandi, 1985 /Gujarat etc. during their rule. Here is a complete list of our disgusting achievements of past and how many riots have happened under their rule to make things clear.  But at the same time, the same Gujarat people have voted Mr. Modi back to power thrice (twice post riots). At the same time, Gujarat has developed the most under his leadership (I am not endorsing the over-hyped "Gujarat-Model"). At the same time, he has been garnering interest from a large portion of the country. Now all these amounts to a phobia that had caught on to the opposition party. And BJP knows i...

You have great roads, well designed fly-overs, metro rail and now a super terminal in the airport. All the basic infrastructure is in place, there are still few things to improve, but it is still far better than other metro-cities. Delhi, or Delhi – NCR, has ‘almost’ got everything that will merit this city to be as India’s capital. When I visited this city, after a gap of a decade, I went with a lot of apprehension. And the apprehension was built over the same last decade where the crime rate in our capital city has gone up several notches up. Today, it is a known fact that a girl cannot step outside her house after 7 in the evening alone. What has happened to a city like this that the situation has reached IGI Airport such a point! During my last visit before this, around 2003 – 2004, it was only the taxi & auto drivers along with the shopkeepers were unruly and rude. The number of species has now grown manifold to an extent wherein you will start suspecting every person yo...

When it rains, it does not decide where to go. It does not belong to anyone, yet it is for everyone. Sometimes the sheer noise of the raindrops make you go blank. All you hear is that sound. Nothing distracts you, you start concentrating amidst the noise. These are facts of nature we must understand, for they don’t come with sponsored posts on social networks. The number of events, people and situations around us are enough to divert our attention, or are they? The truth, if we start exploring, will come out simple: if we like what we are doing, nothing can distract us. I never realized the umpteen number of times my father told me the same thing; assuming that how in the world it is possible to concentrate with Tendulkar playing those signature straight drives, Mom cooking those delicious fries, Mr. Vajpayee giving those speeches, those landline ringing during those odd-hours, friends calling for evening Cricket match with the life on stake. With each year, I realized how critic...

7.5 years in Mumbai. 6.5 years at blog. 5.5 at work. And the sum of all right and wrong choices made in life stands at 28.5. While I want the span of the first three to go further, I want the last one to shrink. But life only moves in one direction: 'forward'. There is no 'pause' button to hold back and the 'stop' button is not under our control. The 'play' button is on auto-mode since birth. So all these tells us that there is no break, until the final one. When I came to Mumbai, my life was wandering in many directions. The priorities were slightly different. Today, there are still directions and priorities, but the definition of terms itself has changed. The perspective of looking at life has taken many turns, while it has matured, it has become more restrictive as well. I seek answers, for I believe that asking right questions are so important. Else, we should not be repentant about the outcomes. I remained silent for the majority part of my...

Today when I open the newspaper or switch on to a news channel, I do not get surprised by the reporting of the crime that is happening every single day. But what saddens to the core is the quantum and the way of committing them. We are not only degrading as a society, but at the same time we are putting ourselves in the dock where we will be questioned about our morality and our ethics. And we are same country which boasts of culture, ethics and values of 5000 years old. I used to be uncomfortable in my growing years reading about rapes and then I became ashamed of such cases. Today, I am simply tired with repeated anguish. Such incidents started questioning the law and order that we have in place, it questioned the judiciary system we have but more than anything else, it questioned my belief in my fellow countrymen.  The next thing that we discuss is the self-protection tools for women. They should carry chilly powder, a knife, a gun, get trained in Karate and what not. And the...

I  always thought that we all have got name attached to us for an unique identity. Well, I do understand that it also has got the love & affection (and what not!) of the parents. The exercise that has gone into it. The amount of time spent on finding & thinking about it. Then the process of shortlisting, final rounds of filtering and then zeroing in on ‘the’ one. We are so very meticulous in handling this particular exercise. B ut then starts the real humour, the moment we start calling a new born by the given (read ‘assigned’) name, people start moulding it their convenience. For example, a certain Rajeev becomes ‘Raj’ or ‘Raju’ or may be just ‘Ra’. By the time the same person becomes a complete grown up, he does not even care about the relevance of his name, forget about the effort (however nonsensical it is). And then it all boils down to the same old thing:  What’s there in a name! B ut all over the world, especially in our parts of it, we do not find the ...