380 Days of xyzz

380 days of me.

Note: Inspired by 500 days of summer

 Day 1: Convocation-Begin with an ending.

Supposedly a day that marked the end of everything Indore (my other Alma mater, Thapar being the first one). End of two very emotion filled years. Friends, heart break(s), infinite parties, 81 days in Europe and 10 days of chicken pox, beautiful sunsets and campus jogs. My parents decided to skip the whole thing which gave me one more reason to party. The whole saying goodbyes was very difficult and along with that the feeling of embarking upon a new phase after the MBA campus life, with all friends scattered in itself felt dark and bleak.

Day 239: Coldplay

From their entry to exit, I was ecstatic, full of happiness, childlike joy, bouncing around with joy and tears of happiness. The moment they played The Scientist instant tears developed and the same happened when they played Everglow, paradise and fix you. We thought that the concert would be not more than 20 minutes but since it was Coldplay, we had to attend it and to our surprise they almost played for 2 hours.I am glad I attended this concert and even more glad to have shared this amazing experience with a man who loves Coldplay as much or even more, Kishore( wow rhyme moment :P). 

Day 61: The greatest beard

97 days of unkempt beard, raw in its truest form and definitely a head turner (people in Jodhpur are not used to such a beard). During my break between college and job I decided to keep that beard in memory of a friendship. Well now it doesn’t even matter but yeah this beard made one thing sure that I and it are inseparable, my current beard is 105 days old. A wise friend once said, you simply do not grow a beard, the beard grows you.

Day 204: Amreecan Express

During my stint at Amreecan(internal joke) express, I made a very good friend and then due to something very stupid we fell apart until one fine day, thanks to FB memories thing, we connected again and met on day 203 along with another amreecan express friend. It was a brilliant night that ended up in a flight journey worth narrating for a lifetime. <insert some keywords which cannot be said in public> made this flight awesome.

Day 331: The grand Punjabi Wedding

The man who made my Eurotrip possible, the man who hosts me whenever I am in Patiala and ever optimistic, got married on this day. The whole ceremony was so peaceful and left me with moist eyes. I had specifically kept a beard to look as much of a Sardar as possible and indeed I did look like one. I still cannot fathom that the guys who I grew with at Thapar are now old enough to get married, it scares me and at the same time makes me happy. I guess this is beginning of part 2 of this book of Life.

Days 242-275: the darkest timeline

One failure after the other, a combined effect of many made me completely lose all my positive energy. I literally fought with every friend close to me and distanced them for a while. I spent a bachelor’s trip not talking to one friend because I was so low and had fought with him for trying to be there for me. It was the lowest low and darkest dark. I hardly talked during this phase and became paranoid, but thanks to the Legion, the Christmas morning snow, I was back to normal by New Year '17.

Day 169: 3^rd Annual Bar run

Continuing the tradition which I and Angad started in 2013 inspired by Simon Pegg’s: The World’s end,We made a plan along with 3 other friends to do pub hopping in Bombay, but ended up covering just 2.5 pubs/bars and decided to go home and sleep(age catching up I guess). But yeah the whole effort to gather in Bombay and do it is why we do it. Sharing experiences, reliving memories and creating new moments. 

These are just some of the days of 380 days of highs and low, how highs/lows of past affects your future. There are people who make you and there are people who break you, and it might happen any fine day.

These days remind me of how alive I am, how involved I want to be with everything and everyone around me. I guess this is what living is, feeling is. No matter what awaits, lose or win, it will define you. 

Does this scare me, yes it does! Does this make me hold myself?, No, 

Go all in, feel it all. Go Live

For background score

Things to Do – Part 2

It is that time of the year when you would be bidding your farewell to a lot of people you spent time with. Some say First Impression matters, I say

"Last impression is the final impression"

MBA life has been very transaction oriented in nature, many people you met just needed something from you and you needed something from them, once the business was done the relationship ended or went dormant.  Amidst all this dirt and muck you must have come across a few crazy diamonds, crazy enough to call "friends". You might have a friend for everything else you do, foodie friend, social media friend,’ music and stuff’ friend and what not ; but this diamond person is someone who has just been there always and forever (after all diamonds are forever: P). Have you seen a diamond ring judge you? , no right!!, these diamonds / constants are the true gems of your life. They just stayed watching silently, like a secret guardian, like the Dark Knight. They probably have seen you cry, and deep down they just cried with you but on the outside wore a smile, they could see you make mistakes but just stood by to make you learn the hard way, they just let you be yourself, untouched and pure. They are rare, don’t let them fade away.

Go back in time a couple of years and just remember the good times and bad times(specially the bad times because only when it is dark enough , the stars show up ) and some faces will appear who were just stuck in your thoughts and in everything else,who were there every time you needed them to be ; these faces  are the diamonds/constants of your life. Remember all the quality time you have spent with them , hold them close , tell them how much they mean to you and thank them for every single instance they stuck out and you will come across a smile so warm and heart melting that you might even cry(you can thank me later) .

I remember how after chicken pox a person (won’t name you ) offered to go that extra mile to help me , I remember that person who would just listen to all the cribbing I had to do and just give the best advice. I remember that person who partied with me when nobody would, I remember that person who with a smile would make my day, I remember that person who would just offer me to teach guitar and be my punching bag, I remember that person who even after all the personal troubles would always smile and give me the best advice. I remember those persons who made Scandi happening, I remember that person who literally saved me in Germany and that person who kept me fed in Europe. Most of all I remember that #one single person who didn’t and couldn’t let me go, even when the odds were against.

In a nutshell, go break your precious bubble and let go of any reason holding you back, do what is just and right(be a little less selfish) and spend whatever time is left with these constants because frankly speaking nothing else matters and it’s time to polish those diamonds. Somewhere down the line I did forget and made a lot of my friends unhappy, so here I am doing the one single thing I should have done a long time ago #JustLive

For all other non-serious stuff read this other entry I wrote during the final days of BTech.
Things to Do - Part 1

Enjoy this wonderful Coldplay song which goes perfectly with the theme of the post

The Lists

In December Coldplay announced their final closing album; this event not only triggered a series of sad emotions, Coldplay videos on loop but an insight as well. Visiting a Coldplay concert along with other items is one of the top items in my bucket list. Talking about lists, one’s life(not you Neo Anderson)  is full of lists ,some independent and some dependent on other lists. Right from inception till death, there are lists. As a child list of do’s and don’ts, list of your favorite toys, list of items one is allowed to eat. With time as life goes on and gets so heavy more lists come into picture, list of favorite people, crushes, friends, songs, and more songs. The lists are dynamic and keep on growing in size and number ; list of fantasies ; list of favorite  games ; list of football fantasy teams , the bucket list ,list of things to do when bored in class , list of pick-up lines and lists lists lists. Almost everything one like’s or does is an item in some list. One particular list of interest is of who one perceives to be his/her friends , this list is of vital importance and should be taken care of with utmost importance , though there are jumpers who get in and out of this list , one should keep track of this single most important list he/she is gonna make

In one of the marketing lectures I attended , it was explained that in general humans make mental lists in their minds of things they like and at most remember the first three entries in it , the point that I am trying to make is that given so many lists one has , a person remembers only the top entries , rest all are more or less not important. All one has to do is get the lists right , coz there is so much to do in such less time. Go ponder who and what belongs to which list , and start crossing items in your lists. 

PS – Here is one of the greatest Coldplay song and a gateway to the rest

The journey to The Strobe

Note:This post is written from a perspective of a Deadmau5(pronounced - Dead-mouse) fan , Please move along if you are not in a mood to hear or read about Strobe , the one song i have talked about constantly through many posts

Prologue:
There are a few songs which you feel you will never get tired of , and Strobe is that one song for me. The song is playing on repeat as i write this post. This song or i shall name it the life song because it is composed in such a manner that you can use it for narrating your life story or some important story or a person in a staggering 10:37 minutes , a build up (slow and steady ), a rise, and bamm! some mind boggling beats. First introduced to me by Angad , he suggested a way similar to what i just described to savor the life song in his blog or maybe at his house.

Some say if you count the number of times i have heard this song , you will be astounded. It is called the Strobe


:prologue ends:

So plug in your earphones and read on

It all started with Sunburn announcing a Deadmau5 concert in India and i was like f*** yeah. I was more excited than anything ever before , like a child is when he rides a bicycle for the first time or maybe a person's first kiss. The day it was announced , i made a few calls asking the members of The Legion to join me in this experience of a lifetime. Many of my friends chose not to go to the concert saying one song is not worth attending a concert . I was disheartened and wished that Angad was here , because if he had been here he would have agreed in a heartbeat. The first respite came from Alam who showed interest in coming but said it would depend on his office whether they will allow him to take a leave on 14th March.
During a course of 2-3 months i kept asking other friends again and again to come to the concert , and failed every single time but that didn't demotivate me and I kept trying. One fine day when the concert tickets were available for sale , Alam said he would not be able to join because his office won't allow him to take a leave on a Friday( He lives in Surat and to attend the concert he had to take a leave ).Frankly speaking i was infuriated that day and demotivated and decided not to go myself , but still kept bugging people to attend the concert ( i don't know why i was so persistent). Luckily the tickets were available and on 7th March , with the hope that someone will say yes , i asked Alam that the tickets are still available and he should talk to his supervisor about taking a leave and fortunately his boss agreed and he said yes book the tickets , and like a child i ran around in my office premises excited and happy. I quickly booked the tickets and waited impatiently for the D day. In all this there was this moment when i decided that i might attend this concert alone.

14th March(events in chronological order, timelines may be approximate)
0600 hrs : Alam leaves for Mumbai
1030 hrs : I am playing Assassin's Creed-Revelations
1130 hrs : I write to my supervisor saying i am ill and cannot come to work
1230 hrs : I constantly WhatsAppin Alam and asking him to share his location , like a 10 minute reconnaissance
1326 hrs : I meet Alam at a mall
1400 hrs : The true details of the even cannot be disclosed : Highly confidential
1446 hrs : Still Highly confidential
1500 hrs : We set sail for Mahalakshmi Race Course(sunburn arena) with a bar of Bournville

And thus starts the journey to Deadmau5 , It was a hot day and i could see the Bournville in my hand melting , soon it was like that Cadbury Silk advertisement . After savoring the chocolate bar , and riding the auto for almost an hour we reached our destination and on our way we talked about Deadmau5 and women.

1645 hrs : Lined up in a queue for the passes
1715 hrs : Collect the passes
1815 hrs : Enter the arena , look for a good spot
1845 hrs : Rehab starts performing

I and Alam were standing at a location very close to a set of hanging speakers and when Rehab stepped up on the stage and played the first bass beat , both of us were literally blown away by it's sound waves. We decided not to leave that spot until the concert was over. After approximately 90 minutes of Rehab's music Deadmau5 took over the stage and he was wearing a Kurta. After a few minutes he played 'Tunak Tunak-Deadmau5 style' and the crowd went totally bonkers. One thing about the crowd , it was too young and i could see people who probably didn't even know how to pronounce Deadmau5 but none the less it didn't matter. He played Ghosts n Stuff and i went totally nuts when he did so , and soon after he played the very best - Strobe , complete 10 minutes and i was almost in tears , tears of joy.
I felt that my life was complete now and i can die in peace. It was a beautiful concert and i will remember it for a very long long time.

Thank you Deadmau5 for making Strobe and for coming to India

PS- If you still haven't heard this song , you can die
PPS - Deadmau5 is a person named Joel Thomas Zimmerman

Time Travel

No , i haven't created a singularity nor was exposed to one nor have i created a time machine, what i have done is simply discovered a way to take my mind to a memory in the past.(future, sorry to disappoint you )

Just a few days back i was listening to A R Rahman , i came across this song


and instantly i reached the assembly area of my school in II standard . (you read it right , II standard) , i didn't even know that i had this memory. I remember it was that time of the year when all junior grades were preparing for the annual function. This song was used by the IVth graders and i saw them perform with their hands waving in the air in a synchronous manner , the teachers trying to correct the ones like me(zero dancing skills).The students stood in a rectangular formation consisting of several rows and there was a teacher with a whistle trying to synchronize the steps. Every whistle blow resulted in the next step of the dance sequence.
The venue of the annual function was a cricket stadium (Barkatullah Khan Stadium) in Jodhpur and  gosh that feeling of dancing in the center of the stadium , simply amazing.
All this came to my mind , and it felt like i was literally there while listening to this song.

So this is how i re lived something which was there somewhere in my mind ( similar to  Assassin's Creed , using Animus to re live memories , Desmund-Altair-Ezio). This has happened multiple times with multiple songs and it is possible that you might have experienced it too(happens if the repeating interval of the song is large)

Each song has a memory associated and many times a person as well.
Keep your minds open and let the song be your guide


PS - Do watch the video

This is Kartik Jhanwar

It has been really long since i have written something so here it goes

Prologue : The title of this post is inspired by the ST- 'This is Clark Kent' , and is not my factual description.
and is definitely not linked to 300 - this is Sparta scene.



10:25 am : the usual time i start walking towards my office but today i decided to plug in my earphones and play the latest masterpiece by Hans Zimmer
Man of Steel OST.
Selected the song - 'This is Clark Kent'
and started walking towards the office and as the piano played i felt a rush , i felt as if it was the background music of my life. Instantly it brought up a scene from the movie where the boy Clark is playing with a dog and is wearing a red cape sort of thing( a towel perhaps).
As i continued walking thinking about the scene it occurred to me that i am also destined to something great.
Whether i do it or not is another question but this composition made me feel so
Try playing this soundtrack while you are going to your office , i am sure you will also feel something.

10:15 pm(co incidentally ,almost 12 hours after i played it in the morining) - I started playing the song again and i was instantly reminded of my childhood , in particular one class room session in 5th standard .
The substitute Social Sciences  teacher decided not to teach and gave us a free period(those days a free period meant a lot- equivalent to a your boss saying go home , take a day off).
She was our substitute teacher for almost a month and i kind of had a crush on her. I can't recall her name but she was very nice.
It was her last day as our teacher and also in the school.It was an era of scrapbooks and
I decided to ask her to make an entry. I walked to her and presented my school diary to her to write  something(many other students also did). She asked in her soothing voice , Kartik
what do you want to become when you grow up and i said  an Astronaut.
As a child i used to visit my maternal home a lot and it is in Bikaner and the nights
there were very cool (thanks to the surrounding sands) We used to sometimes sleep on the roof and i used to love watching stars , sometimes even tried to count them. I was fascinated by the sky and hence the astronaut thing
She then wrote something and wished me luck.I think what she wrote was may you become an astronaut or something like that and signed it
I remember how happy I was and at the same time very sad coz of the fact that she was leaving. I am not very good with goodbyes

So coming back to the present - This song is pretty amazing and brought back a memory where in i thought i will become an astronaut and do something great.
Although i cannot be an astronaut now but maybe I am destined to do something great.

Go search your memory , go do something great
Thank you Hans Zimmer , thank you Man of Steel

Random II

This is a complete random piece of work with just one outlying message. It will be conveyed while you read

Thousands of thought are generated by the normal human mind in a single day(About 60,000 of which about 56,400 are about our own needs, wants ans concerns). Out of these thoughts, some are related to an individual or a group of individuals. These individuals are in someway influencing your lives. Some due to recent interactions and some due to your constant exposure to them(it sounds like some reaction) 

Now what i want you to do is just start your day with the following thought in mind - Keep a count of how many times a person(S)(lets call him/her a person , individual sounds too formal) comes to your mind and try to relate the recent events in your life with that person. This way you can figure out why you are having thoughts about that person. It may be because of separation , infatuation , admiration or just pure friendship. Whatever be the reason these individuals are there in your mind,fiddling with it, your dreams so why not figure out why they are there( i am pretty sure many of you have it all figured out , but just try doing this...you will get some certainty in this otherwise uncertain life)

Coming to why i wrote this post
The following lucid dream made me think and whatever you see is the result of the following 

Scene I 

It was a rainy day and she was all drenched. Her wet long locks were brushing her back and the almost white color of her skin contrasted with the navy blue colored top of hers. I could see her trying to dry herself and she saw me peeping through. As she caught a glimpse of me trying to catch a glimpse of her she jumped to reach me and then she would kiss my face over and over again, with her silky wet hair, moistening it with the perfume of an inexplicable fragrance.( line courtesy- Abhinav Mathur). 

This is the small dream i had and it explains multiple things

First of all the female character , newly found friend , 

Rain - All because of the rains in Mumbai 

Perfume- the lady is fond of perfumes

All i want to say is that there is some hidden meaning in our thoughts , try to observe them , try to correlate and fit them into the bigger picture.

Poke

Note to the reader: I am not a Facebook promoter so after reading this don't change your mind.

From the very beginning of our life , we have been doing IT and will continue to do it in the future as well. As kids we did it physically maybe in the classroom , while playing or even while bullying another kid(poke in the eyes ; if u were a bully). It might hurt people(eg. Raina Kaur; yea u can now kill me :P)
That was physical poking , coming to the other kind (the more severe kind) the non-physical.Poking your nose(whatsoever size and shape) in others business. Yes reader you have been doing it whether you admit it or not.Some people find it irritating.This was all about the classic poke thing. Now coming to what this post is about.

Zuckerberg in 2004 started something which is now a part of every modern human being's life, Facebook and with it the Poke. Its the most subtle form of virtual contact known to mankind(i just made that up). For me its the one thing that keeps me from not leaving Facebook(just exaggerating :P).
Poke does all the things which a Classic Poke does(except the physical thing).
Its a subtle way of reaching out a person(if u are afraid to send a friend request; though i don't believe in this)
For new friendships it is a conversation starter.
You can't always keep in touch with everyone , not even your closest one's but you will log on to FB for sure , and with that single poke it's like a modern way of showing that you are there. A poke from someone is a sign of the above and the best part of it is , it's just a click away(for you lazy ass's out there)


Poke from someone is something which reminds you that yea that person is as Vella as you are,you haven't been forgotten and you will never be(if in a poke war). Sometimes pokes are lost , like friendships in real life are but this is where you re-poke and forget the past and move on. Yes all this with a single poke.

At one point of time poke will be the only point of 'contact' between you and your friend.
Its a pressure reliever and its engaging ,trust me it kills boredom ,it makes your boring meetings(when in office ,in a conference call) interesting and it is simple(a click away).
I am not sales pitching here , just sharing what i feel about Poke and Poke Wars. If you could relate to anything , you are probably ready to poke someone.
Go for it and with time you will realize i was right.
Let the War begin......

True That

Well we often learn most of the things the hard way , this is the way life is and it might seem unfair but i am pretty sure what goes comes around. The world after all is a small place.

This post might offend people i know and it's a short one

Friend is like a brother from another mother with whom u share almost every aspect of life but lately the concept has changed , this concept holds true only till the friend whom u call a friend doesn't have a love interest. When she/he comes into the picture the whole scenario changes (EXCEPT for a few in my case).
You become the second priority and you are being referred to only when you are needed much like Amitabh's character in the movie Baghbhan , a heart touching story but it holds true here

You are like the cast of a fractured bone , if the friend is hurt or needs you , you support him/her but once the job is complete the cast is thrown away so are you . This cycle is endless, one friend to other and to other. Coming to the good part of it , it acts as a filter to distinguish good friend from a friend.

This song might help set the mood

Don’t let it be

It has been so long, long enough for one to live all he can. What did i ever do to deserve this, everyone says just let it be, just let it be but i say why?. Why have u changed so much , why have u become so numb so cold(colder than you were when i knew you ) .You are  not the one i knew, i HAD a crush on and i was friends with ,why have u changed. Why have you cocooned yourself, have circumstances been so bad??.

Why can’t we just talk it over and start afresh. In you i saw the spark of that promising friendship, a friendship that we could have cherished for a lifetime. Why did it happen? They say that things happen for good but i see no good in this. They say one should not think about past and what’s done is done, but can’t it be undone. I know we never talked about it but i think i deserved an explanation .It’s unfair. I know it hard to find good people (really hard) but it’s worth the try. Leave all this for a second, are you the same person you were 3 years back , are you ?.

Just think about it and don’t let it be!