Archana Online.com

Prologue:

Recently, I saw this website, Letters of Note in my Google Reader. Then there was a tweet from Shashi Tharoor on World Literacy Day. Along with it, this post by Sanjukta about Twitter. The era of letters, posts, stamps, inland covers, flashed back onto me.  Mixed thoughts streamed into my mind and got squeezed out to form the final words currently being penned down.

Loss of Pen pal system

Long back, there were inland letter posts from aunts and friends to my mom, following the traditional way of keeping in touch. I never got one, except for greeting cards and one or two anonymous love letters. I was grown up in the telephonic era. Not the mobile, but the old faithful land line. The times when the 5-digit numbers were used instead of the current 8-digit phone numbers. Read the rest of this entry »

Why do we wanna fall in love?

This was a dialogue in the film, The Mirror Has Two Faces, recently aired in an English Movie channel. The thoughts about love, the science behind it, the hormones evolved, the feelings generated, are these the answers? Some say its complicated, but still they do not want the loneliness.

By love here, I did not meant the common notion of love. I would rather extend the question by changing it to,

“Why do we wanna be loved?”

Now, this type of love, can in be of any form. Close friends or confidante, best friends, co-workers, room mates, parents, siblings, spouse, children, or for that matter, any stranger. I recently heard on the “First Ladies” interview show, a definition of love, from our own SRK, that says, love comprises various ingredients in various proportions, the ratio which changes over time. I truly agree to it. Maybe this multiplicity factor complicates it more. Read the rest of this entry »

Every time in February, when this day arrives, i could hear mixed emotions from different people. Some say, why they need it, some cry that they are still single, and some other cherishes the special moments they weave up on that day.  I had already penned down my thoughts on the Valentine’s day long before and they remain still true for me.

With the recent protests and campaigns the spirit has got boosted, maybe people are making plans already. And if you haven’t I guess you should. Read the rest of this entry »

The month of October would have been a relief to all the people who stay out of home. There were more than holidays comprising of Pooja holidays and the Diwali holidays. The working professionals had to take leave maybe, but that’s worthful, considering the importance of festivals and also because there is almost 2 months before the next Christmas/New Year holidays. Again now its loneliness and boredom for coming weeks. Atleast that’s what you feel when you board the train/bus back, at the end of the holidays, unless you are not dating at your workplace!

The students who study in colleges out of home town won’t be that bored I suppose, because college/hostel life is entirely different from the bachelor life. There maybe similarities in the freedom, but you seldom feel lonely enough to brood over. You never think of the future life or your goals and there is mostly the protective shade of parents over you. Once you start earning on your own, you are considered a grown-up and left alone at most of the times. There are friends to go out with but everyone is left on their own at some point of the other. Or maybe, you even sometimes feel low enough to not respond to any of them and be on your own. So on weekends or extra holidays or during those times, when we are on our own, we are unsure what to do at home.

Girls mostly prefer being at home, watching TV, or doing cooking experiments for themselves (which is very rarely nowadays) or reading some magazines or books or sleeping most of the time(mostly this is what happens). I don’t know much about guys, but I guess, (if no internet), they would do mainly sleeping (with Pop songs on??) or read some book (rarely??) or (if online) keep browsing or playing games(again with English Rock, Hip Hop or Rap songs on? ), if they are not hanging out with friends and having a drink!! Even I have been at home similarly doing all these. But looking back now, I feel I could have done something else like the following:
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“Bye Meeta ”
Shivraj called out while moving towards the door. It was already nearing 9 o’clock in the morning and he was contemplating the morning traffic already built up on the road. He opened the door and turned to check whether she heard or not.

“Aa rahi hoon”
Meeta was hurrying up from the kitchen towards the main hall. She was swaying away her disaligned hair with the back of her hand, and removing the pallu end from her waist, which she had pinned up so that it did not disturbed her while washing the dishes.

Shivraj stepped out calling out to her, “ Darwaza bandh karo ok? Mein chaltha hoon.. bye”
By the time, Meeta reached the door, Shivraj was walking away towards the garage to get his vehicle. Meeta closed the door and latched it slowly. It was the starting of another day.

It was 12 in the afternoon, when the calling bell rang. Meeta had completed washing the dishes after her breakfast with Shivraj, which they never miss to have together. After taking bath, she was reading the newspaper. There was news of blasts here n there, and few robberies. The same old news which appears daily, but with different places and names. She had got bored and had turned on the TV. The re-telecasting of famous serials had started as the afternoon streak emerged. Bored from seeing the same old serials, she was browsing through various channels, and had settled for two minutes on the Discovery Channel’s programme, “Forensic Investigators”.

She looked at the clock. “Who could be at this time at the door? Shiva never comes home for lunch.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Another birthday passing by.

Does it really matter to celebrate the birthdays?

I remember calling in the neighbour family to cut the cake n all, and singing “Happy Birthday to You” when I was young. I used to wear new “color dress” in school while others wore their school uniform. They sang the same song again, and I used to distribute the chocolates mostly “Eclairs” or “Lion King” carrying to each desk. I used to get fed up saying “Thank you” to each one of them.

Early that morning at dawn, when I wake up to mom’s call from Kitchen, its not any different. When she see me, she starts singing the wish song loud from the kitchen itself, while I brush my teeth!. As if proclaiming to the world and to the house, that its her daughter’s birthday. And then, in evening, when she comes from office at around 6- 6.30, we cut the cake and share it during the late tea session. If it comes on a holiday, “payasam” would be prepared.

In college, there was no color dress. But there was “new” dress. There was no group singing of “Happy Birthday”. Instead, it shortened to “treat”. Birthday treat. It started as Rs.5/- wala “munch” and “perk ” and went on to become lunch treats as we reached the graduation days. There were festive days combined with, mostly “Diwali” and “ThriKarthika”.

At office, the lunch treats, new dress, wishes continued along with the addition of gifts and birthday bumps. The only time my room mates could lift me up and kick my a** was last year. It was the first and I guess, the last time, I received them. At the end, I felt sorry for the huge effort by the kiddo’s to life the Gulliver’s sister!!! There were balloons, there was “payasam” again, the temple visits, birthday cards, dinners, and lots of gifts.

And now, as I hit the silver jubilee, I am at this home, trying to live the role of a housewife, sitting on the pc, holding in my hand, a plate of piece of cake, bought and cut yesterday night, and blogging with the other, replying to sms messages and attending calls, very few ones, wondering whether to get up and make the “payasam” for myself and being lazy, sitting back and recollecting the old memories…

I guess its a different kind of celebration….ain’t it?

..::.. Strange are those relations which are really apart though you remain virtually closer….And more strange are those relations which remain virtually closer to heart though really distant… My old friend came visiting yesterday at home. I was meeting her after more than a year. There were talks of getting married, and the emotional stress you go through. I was amazed at myself for surpassing those and wonderstruck at how I survived it and glad that its finally over… Maybe its the Rock On movie effect of re-living your dream, but the thoughts of relationships and their nature have got triggered in me again. But this time I am tired of thinking about them….

..::.. Nowadays I am online too much. As they say, I guess I got discomgooglation. I am disappointed at my inability to twitter or to write out my thoughts in the midst of something. Airtel GPRS is too costly sometimes to subscrbe when you have net at home as other alternative. I have wondered why I am twittering or blogging so much. I don’t think that I write out good content or shout out enough important links or site urls than anyone. Then why are we so glued to blogging or twittering(mini-blogging). There are people who are shy or introvert in real world, but can talk or write for long online. I guess I am one of those to shout to the world in the hope that some unknown is listening to my vents…

..::.. Lots of books to read are pending at the desk shelf. i don’t remember when I started to read, but now when I look back, I have been reading from childhood. Be it the children’s books of small picture stories to thrillers like Nancy drew and hardy boys to the current novels, I don’t know how I got wired to the world of words. Maybe its the effect of being at home alone, but until I moved out of my hometown and reached Chennai, I had never bought books. It had always been from the library. I remember the first book I bought. It was the Chetan Bhagat’s Five point someone. There started my tryst with IIT, which actually calls for a separate post. There were times of boredom when I couldn’t do anything but read, read and read. I didn’t mind spending huge amounts of money at those times to buy books from any bookstore nearby. Seeing my strange taste of books, rather than the thriller fiction, I have seen the strange look on my roomie’s face too. But then it was like that.. Recently to spent the gift voucher I received as marriage gift I was again forced to few books from Landmark. Not sure when I am gonna finish off all that…

..::.. Today was in really inspired mood to study new things. But alas, i couldn’t manage time. The ubiquity article and the Enso application inspired me again on various interfaces and brought me flashes of my college study topics reminding me of parsers, languages, interfacing and many other such things. The long browsing time has made me think of php, javascript, ajax, perl and other scripts, css, html, xml etc etc. What to do? Which way to go?