Adrenaline Rush of a lifetime

This had been one of the longest wait for me. It was last year that my room-mate came back home and described the sky dive that he had done. That fueled my desire to take the leap from 13000 feet above the air. Of-course that was with the help of an instructor, but still I was waiting to feel the free fall. It was a pretty long wait at the academy where the tandem jump takes place. The wait was adorned with the usual pre-jump banter among the five of us who had gone for the jump. Finally the respective instructors came to the preparation area and finally we were ready to head for the sky.
The flight up was more frightening as compared to the thought of plunging into the open sky 13000 feet above the ground. It was this rickety old plane which was held together by tapes with all kinds of wires hanging out from the ceiling. Certainly not a very comforting sight while going up for a sky dive. Nevertheless after an eternity of loud brain damaging engine noise, I was pretty sure that we had reached the desired altitude. That was when my instructor pointed out that we had reached 7000 feet which was just half the way up.
Finally the long awaited moment had arrived. At 13000 feet above the ground the door was opened and the jumpers were going overboard one after the other. The first thing that I can remember when the door was opened, was a jumper being thrown out by two instructors. It was a pretty nasty sight when you see a guy being thrown off ( literally ). Well after this point everything that happened was like a blur. I had no idea when it was my turn to jump, ( obviously with the instructor attached to my back ). The last thing that I remember before jumping was the instructor firing away instructions into my ear. I am pretty sure they were pretty simple to follow as I had no idea what I was doing once we jumped off.
The jump by itself was the ultimate zenith of adrenaline pumping in me. It was almost a whole minute of free fall. For a minute I really felt that I could fly. As they say all good things come to an end, the free fall was over as soon as it had started. The instructor pulled the parachute and we glided down to solid ground ( though landing on my rear end was not that cool ). The instructor was actually telling that we would do a standing skate landing, which did sound pretty amazing. But it was not the case to be. I really wish that the fall would have lasted for a bit more longer. I am hoping that the next jump would be from 16000 feet.

P.S- Had this post as a draft for a really really long time. Just managed to stitch some words together to get this post published.

Mindlessnes

Is it not a mystery
the working of a curious mind
which never ceases to wander
Is it not a wonder
how the mind thinks yonder
Trust it to make time squander

The mind alone knows
what goes on within itself
Gives you happiness in abundance
but clings on to the sorrows as well

Makes you dream with open eyes
sometimes which none can surmise
Takes you on a high so high
makes you feel like you can fly

Even as you blink
and even as I ink
it never ceases to think.

Useless Observations

P.S ( Pre-script ) - Might start of to be a little high funda kind of a post, but ends up as a silly rambling from my end. So this is a fore-warning to not waste time by reading this.

As I kept staring at this editor for what seemed like an eternity, there was not a single substantial topic in mind which I could pen down. Recollecting my past few weeks I realized that I have had a few topics to write here and there but none were good enough to actually write something about. In the end this was pretty much what I could come up with to publish / post.

I am sure there are many people who have wondered about their appearance to the outside world. There is a certain effect or an aura that reflects from every individual that we come across in life. These are some of the very insignificant details that most of us fail to notice. Be it the extremely hearty and cheerful attitude a receptionist having to go through the same routine day after day or be it the grumpy reflections of the overworking software engineer whose never-ending lines of codes end up rare and 'unknown' errors that nobody can debug. 

Let me not be too high funda with this and digress from the main reason why I started with this post. I do not know how much of this holds good, but the main intention of writing this post was to put forth my observation. There are a few things really buzzing around in my head like a disoriented bee trying to find its way out of a closed box. One of the things thats in my head is that does it really matter how people around you feel or think? As in should you give a crap as to what effect your actions have on the others?  Or is it just that only the sensitive people seem to catch on to this crazy thing, while others do not give a rat's ass.

I just seem to wonder how some times the silliest of matters seems to tick you off. I have started noticing that people eat with their mouths open or make some sort of noise while chewing on their food. It is said that its quite in-appropriate to chew with one's mouth open or to talk with food in mouth. But is it really wise spread and followed by all? Generally I would not give this too much of a thought, but suddenly I started wondering if I do the same thing and the others think in the same direction. 

Everyone is not perfect, I know all that 'blah blah blah' kind of statements that people come up with when such things are pointed out. But talking with food in mouth, drinking with a slurping sound and chewing with mouth open counts as being an etiquette fail. These things sound funny and can be passed of as stupidity till a certain age. But beyond that it just sounds plain disgusting. The worst part is that its stupid to even point such things out. I wonder if I put forth such an image to the outside world. Well I may have my own shortcomings which I have not realized it just yet. But I do hope that at some point of time I reach a position where I can actually manage to say 'It is quite difficult to improve upon Perfection' ( stolen dialog from Dil Chahta Hai movie ) , and actually mean it.

Note: This was just an observation on what might be a silly thing, which lead to writing a silly post on a silly issue.

Let M-e-go

It is said that the portion of the psyche or the portion of the self that refers to itself or in simple words refers to 'I' is called as the ego. It was by chance that I got to read about ego, a word which is thrown around here and there in recent times describing certain behaviors which cannot be rationalized. To put it in plain layman terms Ego could be defined as 'who you think you are'. Makes a lot of sense if one takes out time just to analyse and reflect upon the past events occurred in which he/she was involved.
There was one particular mail which was forwarded by a very good friend of mine. The mail had a small but simple story which goes on something like this:
A group of 4-5 women were sitting in a restaurant and chit-chatting when all of a sudden a flying roach sits on one of the lady's hand. On seeing the roach the lady immediately freaked out and started to yell and jumped out of her skin bringing down the roof. The roach then went on to jump to the nearby lady who was just glad and willing to continue on the drama started by her friend. The nearby waiter who went to the rescue somehow got entangled and the roach finally jumped on him. The waiter remained unperturbed. Watched the movements of the roach for a few moments and calmly picked it up and threw it out.

The histrionic behavior of the ladies was elicited by the roach?
But then why was the waiter so unperturbed and calm. It was the same roach that jumped on him that jumped on the ladies as well. It was merely the inability of the ladies to react to such a situation that resulted in such a comical event. One should realize that most of the problems arises because of their inability to react to the situation.The stark realization of the fact that it is the individual's inability to react to any particular situation is what is more disturbing and hurtful than the situation itself. This is where the ego comes in. Rationalizing a situation and responding to it will always be the best course of action. The waiter in this case responded where as the ladies reacted. Reactions are instinctive where as response is always intellectual.
 The brief pause in thinking and responding to a situation more often than not leads to the elimination of ego. I may be sounding a little too philosophical or spiritual but more one lets go of the ego or more one lets go of 'I' the more peaceful the individual is from within.
 Bottom line of the story though - An intelligent person responds where as fools react.

P.S- No pun intended towards any of the characters described above. The article is actually written by a certain Deepak Shinde. I have just posted pretty much the same thing here. Though have managed to link it to ego.

Off Late

It was one of those days that took me a little down memory lane. From the time I landed in US, I ended up having three bank accounts. Not that I had so much money that I could fill up those accounts, but because of different situations I had three accounts to my name. One of the reasons was solely to acquire the free i-pod that they were giving away. I accept it, the 'desi buddhi' in me will never die. Finally today I decided upon closing the two unused accounts for good. Standing there in front of the teller, the stark realization hit me that it has been almost two years since I had landed here. It was quite a strangely nostalgic feeling that I was going through standing there in the bank. Time really flies, I must admit.

Well as I said time flies, I really dint have to be down the nostalgia lane for a long time. Reality hit me right on my face as I realized that I had a meeting with my professor. I was a little worried, because I had not gotten around to finishing up the work that he had assigned to me and on top of that I had gone ahead and told him that I was going on a road trip and will not be working for an entire week. That reminds me, Spring break I had gone for a road trip to California with a bunch of my friends. It really was one of the best drives of my life. Imagine winding roads and hillocks on your left and the Pacific Ocean to your right. It was a sight to behold.

I had been to a live concert the other night. Megadeth concert was something which I had never expected that I would be going to. It was a quite an enjoyable concert. Ok to be frank it was a really really good show. I could see the band about 30 or 40 feet in front of me, and the atmosphere was well like a thrash metal concert should have been with a lot of head banging, pushing (read as shoving/throwing) and loud ( read as ear splitting ) music. The highlight of the show for me was when I caught a Dave Mustaine ( lead guitarist/vocalist ) pick that he threw out to the audience ( crowd to be more precise ).

I keep reminding myself that I will come up with a post that has a significantly less number of 'I's in them. But off late this blog has turned into more of an autobiography/day to day diary (accounted every 3 months) kind of thing. Definitely do have a few ideas in mind but just not finding the spark or the enthusiasm to dish it out in words. Will do it someday............

Of Cliff dwellings and Canyons

Finally I get down to penning some thoughts about a road trip. This would probably be my 5th or 6th attempt. The previous few attempts having been discarded because of lack of interest and a sudden drying up of my vocabulary. Nevertheless, as they say its better late then never.

After a whole lot of speculation of "will we's" and "wont we's", we finally headed out for a 2 day trip. First stop was Montezuma Castle. I really dont know whats so castle like in this monument. Honestly it was no bigger than our apartment. Right that was a little too much of an exaggeration I know, but still....

It was a wonder to see a building built right up there on the walls of a cliff, though. The only accessible point of entry to this monument is a ladder which could be pulled up to cut off the entry. Well that was when people used to access the monument. There is restriction on the entry currently because of the extensive damage caused to the ruins. I wish we were allowed to go inside and see though. It was not all that bad but then one of my friends aptly termed the place to be 'bakwaas'.

Next stop was the Montezuma Well. Honestly it wasnt all that a wonder. The people around the monuments described the history and the importance of the place as though there was nothing in this world to beat the beauty and the significance of the place. That was when I realized how rich India is and how sometimes we neglect the importance of the profound heritage that we have. The incredible thing about the well was that there was a constant supply of water, and no-one supposedly knows how deep the water went. Some of the flora around the well was creepy and in a way strangely attractive. Though some part of the well looked nothing more than a ditch to me. Speaking of which my friend had a gala time trying to click an incredible number of pictures of what looked like sewage water ( No offense buddy, but had to take that out somewhere ).

Moving on we, went to Walnut Canyon where we trekked a small little trail and saw quite a few cave dwellings which were in ruins. They were small enough for a dwarf ( probably 4 ft )to fit in. It was actually amazing to see such crude and old developments of such habitats which had neat demarcations of a storage room and a living room. The trek was really good, and the company made it even more better. There were crazy pictures taken at probably every step of the trek, from crazy angles with people doing all kinds of crazy actions.

Finally we ended up in Grand Canyon which looked very different from the last time when I had seen it. It was speckled with snow all over and looked really good. The view from the rim is really grand. Again after another session of a thousand clicks and a session of free, unwanted skating ( because of the slippery iced ground ) we headed back to the motel.

The final day was real good fun. We went skiing!!!!!!

All of us who tried our hands at skiing fell at least a thousand times. Well some of us even managed to fall like a million times. Bottom line is that skiing is not as easy as it looks. But if you manage to get through the initial learning stages it is insanely good. At the end of the day all of us remember 'GO GO GO' and 'Wedge Wedge Wedge'!!!!!!!