SONGS FOR A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

It was 4’o clock in the morning and I was lying wide awake because GOD just granted my wish. I learnt a lesson from the sleepless night – be careful what you wish for as it might come true. I requested God to help me to wake up early in the morning; instead of that, I got blessed with a sleepless night. Next time, I would be more precise and more careful to choose my words. But, what’s done couldn’t be undone. So, instead of being angry on GOD, I chose to try – to sleep of course.

My experience says that it’s tough to pass a sleepless night, especially when you have restrictions on using your laptop or switching on the lights. The former kept me from watching movies and the latter prevented me from reading. But, I was saved by one thing which always comes to my aid when I need it the most – music. It was music that helped me to pass my long, boring night. Before that, I even tried to surf Internet through my simple Nokia feature-phone. But, it lacked the shimmering display of an iPad and I was soon beaten by boredom.

So, I went straight to my phone’s memory card which was stacked with around 80 songs. Not all of them proved to be effective, but fortunately, there were few tracks that at least helped me to keep my eyes shut for few minutes. I thought of listing down those tracks in case any of my readers faces a similar situation. You will find these tracks helpful until and unless, you are an insomniac. So, here goes my list.

1) Fireflies – Owl City

This song came to me through one of my colleagues and I’m really grateful to him for it. It has an amazing blend of soft beats and lyrics. Its soft notes shall surely soothe your ears. What attracts me most about this song is the voice of its singer – so different, so unique.

2) Cut – Plumb

I found the song from the first season of the Vampire Diaries and instantly fell for it. All those people who are truly, deeply and madly in love can pass their whole night by listening to this one. It does not have typical beats and has been composed on piano base. The beauty of this song has been augmented with heart-touching lyrics.

3) Good Life – OneRepublic

An empty mind is a devil’s workshop and worries have tendency to flood your mind when you are trying to sleep. But this song can keep those worries at bay; at least it worked for me. The song keeps on telling you about all the good things that can happen. I love the part of the song when it says, “Hopelessly, the hope is we have so much to feel good about.” This track can actually make you feel good.

4) Say It Right – Nelly Furtado

I have loved Nelly’s voice since her first song I’m like a bird. Nelly’s this song serves as an ideal one for sleepless nights because it is free from sudden screams and shrieks which are usually there in English songs. Lyrics, again, augments it and I can feel Nelly’s dilemma when she sings:

Oh, you don't mean nothing at all to me!

No, you don’t mean nothing at all to me!

Oh, you’ve got what it takes to set me free!

Oh, you could mean everything to me!

5) This Girl – Laza Morgan

I picked up this one from Step Up 3. There’s no special reason to fall in love with it as everything about this song is special – lyrics, rhythm, beats – everything. This one’s again a must have for all lovers, especially for guys who want to propose their lovely ladies. ;)

                                                                                             

6) Rude Boy – Rihanna

This is an odd one out, but being a huge fan of Rihanna, I had to have at least one track of hers. Now, you may ask why this one? And the answer is because I feel she screams a little less in it (no offense meant as I too am a great fan of hers). But, if you are looking for an alternative, then ‘Diamonds’ can be a good replacement.

Besides these six ones, other songs did a good job too but, these were the most effective ones. Also, if you have songs similar to these in your stock, then please suggest and share them.

P.S. – These tracks are mere suggestions, and they have the potential to bring your sleep back. But, if you still don’t fall asleep, then may GOD help you with your sleep. :P

AN UNUSUAL BEGINNING OF 2013

The first two months of 2013 are over and they have turned into memories. My memory bank has now some extra lockers where fresh memories are stacking up. Among those newly added lockers, there’s one that will always bring a smile on my face and that locker is of 01^st January, 2013 – the very first day of the year. For me, 2013 is passing rather quickly as compared to the last two years. I still remember the first day of 2012 that I had spent like a slothful snail. But this year, it was very much opposite. It just seems yesterday, when I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling on the night of 29^th December, 2012, trying to plan something interesting for 01^st Jan.

But, almost all my plans ended with one or the other flaw; so, I had to discard all my lucrative ways of welcoming the year. Had I been at home, this brainstorm wouldn’t have been necessary, but I wasn’t and hence, the plan. My very first idea of greeting the day was a lousy one (sleeping late till 11 am in the morning as my very generous office heads decided to grant a holiday on that day). So, I continued searching for better ideas. My next thought was to have tasty fried chickens, but for me, my Mom is the best person to prepare this dish and as I wasn’t at home, I immediately kicked out this idea.

The next one was to visit a decent restaurant that served extra-delicious food. Unfortunately, I was running on a low-budget scheme at that time, which meant that I couldn’t pay heavy load on my wallet; hence, this idea was formidable for my wallet. After checking and cross-checking the probabilities of all my ideas, I finally gave up on brainstorming and decided to embrace the day as it would turn out to be. But, I did ask one thing from God, which was a different and unique start to the year. My wish was granted as I did have the most unusual start to 2013. I spent the very first day of this year hunting the city for vampire fangs.

Yes, you read it right – vampire fangs. This hunt was the outcome of the theme party suggestion which was offered to our HR by my mischievously innovative colleague, Gaganpreet who was accompanied in this task by the ultra-intelligent ME. :P What was more appreciable than the suggestion was the very thoughtful nature of our HR department to shoot the mail in the end of our last working day of 2012 which was 31^st December, which meant that we were left with just a single day for preparation.

Both Gagan and I were predetermined to be vampires for the day, but we felt that just two of us weren’t enough to scare people; so we included Hina in our team, and after office hours, we were on our way to become vampires. Wow! That was some preparation. Hina and me hunted the shops on the 31^st night (when we were supposed to be partying around) and Gagan and me spent the entire day of 01^st Jan to gather all the things (when, again, we should have been hanging around). What caused so much pain for us to find the teeth was the inappropriate time that we chose for teeth-patrolling.

When I opened my eyes on the pleasant morning of 01^st January, every artery and vein of my body was aware of the fact that I’ll have to go on hunting, even before I turned into a vampire. At 11:30 am, Gagan and I set out on our journey again. We knew that finding the ‘fangs’ was going to be an uphill struggle and so, just to have some encouragement, we first went to Gurudwara (a place of worship for Sikhs) to seek God’s blessings. After leaving the Gurudwara, we went straight to collect our lenses. Getting the lenses was less tedious as Hina and I completed that part of homework on the previous day. But, the teeth – they were the real cause of our trouble. It took us almost thirty shops (and all our energy and precious time of the precious day) before we could finally shout ‘Hurrah’.

However, all our efforts paid off on 02^nd January, when our colleagues were awed by our transformation. We were poured with appreciation from known as well as unknown colleagues. We even won the prize for the best costumes. That day, I came back to my room extremely pleased because we spent a quality time with our ‘vampire-selves’. At night, I sat down and looked back at the cascade of events of the past two days. There was no doubt at all that those days were hectic and back breaking, but I was happy that my wish my fulfilled and that I got to spend my new year as a pseudo active-vampire rather than a slothful snail. J

EAT, PRAY, LOVE..!!

Julia Roberts is a great actress, and I knew this right from the time when I watched her first movie. But, I was completely dazzled by her performance in Eat, Pray and Love. I know I’m not a critic and though I can’t give the minute details as a critic does, I can certainly keep my opinion and say that I liked the movie.

The literature freaks and the English movie geeks must know what I’m talking about, but if you do not belong to any of the category, then let me give you a brief on it. Eat, Pray, Love is an English movie, based on the novel of the same name written by Elizabeth Gilbert, and Julia Roberts is its protagonist. Coincidentally  whenever I watch a novel based movie, I always stumble upon the movie first and then catch the novel. It was the same for this one too.

The movie had a very simple (and common) theme, which showed a disturbed and confused woman trying to get her identity and her peace of mind back. What kept me glued to it was her stylish and impressive ways to do that. Julia, who portrays Elizabeth in the movie, is a successful woman married to her Mr. Right. In spite of this, after a few months, she finds the charm of her relationship fading away, and the reason was she had been desperately trying to fit herself in someone else’s life. After a long fight with her husband (who seems to be a wife fanatic), she finally gets a divorce. And during this fight, a theater guy, David, grabs her eyeballs.

But, her desperation to seek peace leads to another devastating relationship as she could not get along with David. The only good thing that happens to her in it is she comes to know about David’s Guru and her Ashram in India where he learned the power of prayer. After a broken marriage and a botched relationship, Julia once again finds herself tangled into life’s cobweb. It was during a conversation with her best friend in which she realizes that in an attempt to make her relationships work out, she has completely lost herself.

She used to have a good appetite, a taste for food, and most importantly, she used to love herself. So, finally, she decides to take a break and go on a year-long tour to Italy, India and Indonesia. Her visit to the three ‘I’ countries aids her in finding the ‘I’ within her and the break brings her back from her numbness and teaches her to EAT, PRAY and LOVE. The movie ended on a lived-happily-ever-after note. Of course, there’s more in the movie but I had better cut to the chase as I don’t want my readers to doze off.

What I want to point out is in today’s life, this has become a common problem. We study, we work and we do every possible thing to make our life stable, organized and meaningful. At the beginning, the intensity is on peak but, suddenly, a day comes when you find yourself lost. In the movie, Julia found this out after a troubled marriage but nowadays, marriage isn't required to make things complicated. This might not be the case with everyone but most of us do become a victim of this struggle.

The reason why I can say it with such firmness is because I've been a victim of it. I’m 25 years old young lady with a Bachelor’s degree and a coincidentally landed job of a content writer with an in-between-low-to-moderate-salary that’s enough to support me. My parents aren't satisfied with my job, but I can understand their problem and they understand mine, and hence, our mutual understanding removes all conflicts between us. But, what I've always found difficult is to adjust myself with total strangers. Though most of the times I've succeeded in doing so, I had also encountered troubles. Right from the day when I left home and stepped into my first hostel, I've been trying to fit into places where I found no space for myself.

After staying eight years away from home, all my true colors blended to create a very strong, strange color that I had never known or seen before. Coincidentally  I too found out about this strange color during my conversation with one of my roommates in my last PG. I realized that I've become a chameleon. I realized that I camouflaged so wonderfully with others’ colors that I've succeeded in losing my own ones. However, I was very fortunate to find few true friends who helped me to keep up my basic values.

What saved me from turning completely insane were my short vacations to my Home Sweet Home, and these vacations helped me to restore my sanity and get my Zen back. When I’m at home, I eat well, I work, I read, I sing, I dance, I cry and I even get to enjoy the bliss of solitude. I even fight with my ever loving parents – arguing with my Dad on inter-caste marriage (which always leaves him suspicious :P), sulking when my dearest Mom scolds me and banging plates with my Sis when I’m hungry. I revived my colors for short time and then lost them again, and I grew tired of it. So, during my last vacation to home, I decided to shed off my chameleon characters and transform completely into ‘ME’ again.

This wasn't easy at all as I had to give up my extra politeness and the habit of nodding my head to avoid conflicts. So, I mastered the word ‘NO’ and I learned how to speak this word bluntly on one’s face. Here also, books helped me a lot. Surprisingly, the day I decided to do this, things started working my way. I started caring less for others and more for me, even if it meant that I was a bad girl for someone, I didn't give a damn to it. This year, I missed home a lot but cried a little less because I enjoyed being myself.

While watching Eat, Pray, Love, I found myself connected with the story because my life had some similarities with it. But, THANK GOD, I didn't have to travel to different places because my home acts as my rehabilitation center. After the movie ended, I returned from my flashback, but I got the moral, which clearly stated that every now and then, you must boost your morale to live your life the way you want to live and for this, the most important thing is to be in touch with yourself.

So, I would suggest every person to watch Eat, Pray, Love at least once (especially if you’re not very patient with books).

P.S.: That’s just a suggestion. So, if you yawn during the movie, I’m not to be blamed. ;)

A LAZY KICKOFF TO 2012

I left my blog with a final take on 2011. So, I decided to embark on my journey with a review on beginning of 2012. Although, it had been only five months (rather five long months :-/), my life has always been on skates. Ironically, 2012 knocked my door with a dull mood.


1st January, 2012, was a Sunday, and had I been in my hometown, I would have welcomed the year with delicious Bengali cuisines and a freestyle dance with my sister and cousins. But, there I was, lying sluggishly on my bed. The only commendable thing was an elevated temperature (around 12 degrees C) that let me enjoy the first day of 'Apocalypse Year' (according to Mayan calendar and so many theories) without teeth-chattering chill. I would have been disappointed to be the only sluggish snail but, my roomies were my partner-in-boredom, and this came as consolation for me.


We woke up around 11 am, gathered in the common room and lay there like lethargic reptiles. Eventually, we got bored of lying there as human snails and decided to chill-in (we were still lethargic to chill-out). We kicked off the day with a good, hearty laugh at videos of old hindi songs. After that, we showed our expert sides on culinary arts and prepared the best Indian cuisines(an all time favorite chawaal, dal or sabzi). We were all filled up with fuel, and finally, got ready to have a glimpse of the city. All of us were in our best bib and tucker, and our buddies were waiting eagerly.


Then came the next phase and the damn irritating one. Before stepping out of PG, I totally forgot that the day had a perfect combination of Sunday & 1st January AND Ahmedabad runs out of food hubs on Sunday. My friend and me were hoping against hope to find a food hub where we would have to wait for minimum time (which was at least 1 hour :P).


Alas! After circling the whole city, we came back to Shambhu's, the hang out place of high-class lukkhaas, and had our usual Cheese Chatni grilled sandwich with hot coffee. When I got back to PG, once again, we all gathered in the common room and cursed the city for being overcrowded with foodies. I came to find out that, coincidentally, none of us got to munch on anything yummy. But, we had had enough of cursing and blaming, and hence, we decided to wrap up the day on a good note. Once again, we switched on the television, and Dev Sahab popped up with his famous and fitting-in-the-situation song,
Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya,
Har fiqr ko dhuen mein udata chala gaya.....

A LAST LOOK AT 2011

I’m visiting my blog exactly after a year and that too at the very last day and at the very last moment. During the last 365 days, I made up my mind a number of times to put a post, but it seemed that the universe conspired to keep me away from it, and at last it helped me to find few minutes today.

It would be very wrong in my part to blame it all upon the ‘Celestial bodies’ because throughout the year, now and then, my body was dominated by ‘lethargic feel’. On the other hand, my curious mind asked me to wait for more interesting incidents (as if the ‘Arab Spring’, Japan’s Tsunami and Osama’s death wasn’t enough to jolt the mind). Whenever I sat with pen and paper, another breaking news broke my heart. The earth is undergoing changes. In the history of evolution, it isn't a new phenomenon. Millions of years ago, the earth underwent geographical changes but, today the changes are less geographical and more anthropogenic.


Today, on 31st December 2011, when the world is cheering the dawn of another year, people are busy in summing up their lives; my mind seems to be preoccupied with the changes that have thrown a strong global impact. Every month of 2011 added extra pages to the history. There wasn’t a single month that was spared from accidents or incidents. Nature’s fury, once again, poured on Japan. The tsunami lasted for few minutes but, left blemishes on the land of the world’s one of the most advanced countries.


I felt bad for Japan, but more than feeling bad, I felt sad and scared; scared because we are so vulnerable, especially in front of natural forces. When nature strikes, all we could do are sit back and watch people die. July 7, 2011, became another historic date as one more technological progress showed up. World’s first artificial organ transplant took place on that date. I would better restrain myself because one post is not enough for enclosing all the incidents. But, for me, it’s not a full stop.


So, here I am and this is me, and I’m all set to frame my views into words, and put up the picture in front of all of you through my posts. As I always say, your opinions and views are most welcome. After reading this post, do leave your views.

GETTING WORKAHOLIC....

I was watching Wake Up Sid (I have lost the count of numbers of watching this movie) when suddenly writing about my work and interests hit my mind. There comes a time in life when you finally realize what you are really good at. There may be many things on which you can get a good grip but rather than becoming "JACK OF ALL TRADES" it's better to be "THE MASTER OF ONE". It's important to have the knack of something in yourself that will help you in the long run to make and mend things up for you. At times when the day doesn't finish off as you want it to, when things don't go your way, when everything seems messed up; your work or interest can actually calm things down for you.

Sharing my personal experience, it's my passion for reading books and writing that has supported me at times when things were hard. I was still a teenager when I left my comfort zone and came out in the open to face things on my own. 2011 is going to be the seventh consecutive year of my stay away from home. Frankly speaking, it wasn't easy at all to live away from my Family but my books and my diary made it a lot easier for me. 

I was enthralled when I got my job as a content writer. This was something that I had been wanting to do from a long time. It was that very moment which made me realize my love for writing. It was that moment when my interests got redefined and I finally knew what I wanted from my life and what I have to give to the world.

My work reminds me of a famous quote which, I guess, goes like this - "When you start loving your work, your work becomes fun" and this is what has exactly happened with me. I'm very much content to work as a 'Content Writer'. With the passage of time I can actually feel the ' Alcohol of Work ' getting on me. In short, I'm becoming WORKOHOLIC. I don't know how long it's going to be with me but I hope that it stays with me forever so that I would be able to be in my senses to work and perform better each day.

WHO AM I?

It's amazing how words come spontaneously to us when we are asked to describe others. Starting from their name to every minute details; as if we are the ones who carved them out . I won't go into much elaboration as 'how to describe others' nor would I go into my classification details in the animal kingdom (trust me.. you feel like pulling your hair remembering all those chewing names). Right now I'm delving to describe myself. Okay, so let's start with the most basic information, my name. My name and a few general related information is already there on my profile. After all you must know whose blogs are you reading.

 

So I'm moving ahead. Speaking about my nature I can only say that it's a dish made out of some of the most common yet special ingredients of simplicity, complexity, humor, emotions and honesty (which is exclusively used in my case). Whether it tastes good or not is up to you to decide. As far as my judgment is concerned, you can only expect me to say that ' I AM THE BEST '. Well on this note you may think that I'm too boastful or over-confident but that's just difference of opinion. My logic behind writing this is that personally I feel that each and every person on this earth is best in something or the other and is special in his or her own way. I'm no exception and therefore I say, " I'M THE BEST ". 

My purpose of being here is to present as well as share my views and opinions on whatever I feel I should write about. Criticism, appreciation, comments as well as compliments are most welcome. One sincere request to all my friends; if you have clicked the follow button then please do follow the blogs. I'm not writing here just for myself. In that case, it's better for me to maintain a diary. It'll also be vice versa, i.e., I'll also be following your blogs. After all that is why we all are here for, exchange of views and ideas to give a better overview for a topic.

So, hope the journey of writing and following starts off well and goes long. HAPPY BLOGGING..   :)