A mosquito blessed my life

Caution: This is going to be a really long blog. I assure you that you won't be missing much if you decide to give it a skip.

So to all busy people, I would advise do something more worthwhile, something which makes you happy, something which thrills you, rather than spending your precious free moments in reading this blog.

And all those vellas people, you can read on ;) .

Ever wondered how your life can change due to a mosquito bite?? (No, I am not discussing Nana Patekar's famous dialogue, "1 machchar saala aadmi ko *** bana deta hai". Though I liked this dialogue when I was a kid.)

AIM:
I was leading a normal life. And I like all others who live a normal life, I too hated my life. Same office, same work, same over-crowded metro, same work and same over-dose of sleep on weekends. I needed a change(and I had been saying so to my friends for over almost 6 months now), but I couldn't bring 1 in my life. So 1 day, a special mosquito (its identity is kept anonymous due to security reasons) decided to bless my life and following events changed my life.

APPARATUS REQUIRED:
You and mosquito.

THEORY:
There are 4 kinds of dengue mosquitoes. They are black and white in color. They bite during daytime and they can't fly high. (Thanks to all the people who gave me this info. and asked me when did mosquito bite me and where).
Patients blood platelet count falls significantly and it may be required to give him/her platelets if count falls beyond 25k( for normal people its 1.5-4 lac). And platelets count remain stable till patient has fever. Once fever goes away, platelets starts falling(as told by docs).
After falling, if it starts increasing that means patient is fine now. It doesn't falls again after it starts increasing(again told by docs).

Remedies:
1) Ramdev says, have papaya's leaves juice (had twice) for increasing platelet count.
2) Docs say take medicines and injections and drink lot of fluids(did this as well).

PROCEDURE (skip this, as we always did. we weren't required to write this in exam. I wrote for the sake of completeness):
Day 1 - People say I timed my illness very well. We had code-freeze at office same day. So all work done, no dependencies on me. I felt cold all day in office. When I came home checked my temperature. It was 102. I puked out all my dinner when I woke at 2 in night.
Day 2 - Morning temp. , still 102. I popped in 1 more crocin.(Not able to eat anything, vomiting rules). No effect till 11. Time to visit doctor. Temp 103, he says case of dengue maybe. Get admitted. No beds available in hospital, I am in queue after 40 other patients. My dad took me to another better-known hospital where he has some influence in management. I am lying in emergency on a stretcher at 2, shivering and having high headache. At 4, temp. is 104.6. Dad is trying to arrange a bed for me, my younger bro besides me. At 7, I get a bed and treatment starts with glucose drip inserted in my hand for the first time I can remember. I tell my mom, I think I won't survive.
Day 3: My blood is sucked so many times a day for all those blood tests. I hate everyone with a needle now. No relief, fever (104+) and headache continues.
Day 4 : Taken on wheelchair for a test to be done. Never thought I won't be able to walk myself someday. Seeing faces all around me(Some pretty faces as well). All of a sudden. I realize, may be I wont survive this( I felt like, "Mera dasvidaniya hone wala hai"). Tears welled up in my eyes. People who are in front of me can see my tears. I am trying to hide them from my dad standing behind the wheelchair. I am remembering the fun-filled times spent with friends(whom I may not to able see again). I remember times when I was rude with people(was feeling sorry for it).
Day 5 : Still in fever, started hated relatives by now. All would come with something to eat and drink and then would insist that I should have what they have brought (I can't eat anything people, please try to understand. And I am afraid of eating for the fear of puking).
Day 6: Still fever, but around 100 only. Too bored in hospital. Missing siblings and friends.(though both my parents were with me whole 8 days).
Day 7: Fever vanishes. Platelets starts to fall drastically. Came down to 35k. Still can't eat anything. Parents used to make me drink juices or coconut water forcibly.(And yeah that hospital soup too, I hate it so much).
Day 8: Platelet count still around 33k, was 50k for night sample. Started having food by myself. Had papaya's leaves juice too(I can drink anything after drinking that).
Day 9: Platelet count 65k. I ask parents to get me discharged. Take me home. I would be fine. They ask doc, he agrees. I come home finally.
Day 10-15: Drinking lots of juices, asking mom to cook different things different days. Ate heavy food sometimes mom allowed me to eat. Got bored at home.

OBSERVATIONS:
1) If you are hospitalized, you get to meet all your relatives and they all bring you something to eat and drink. They also bore you by asking the details. How it happened, What treatment is going on, How many days would it take etc.
2) You get highly bored, you would even watch cartoon network on hospital bed(I think under the effect of medicines, your mind can comprehend that only. Thanks to ICL too, got to watch some cricket).
3) You don't like being not able to walk and see the world. That's the worse feeling.
4) Thinking about not surviving, brings all your good and bad memories back(Life flashbacks very fast).
5) You start loving your normal life. Doing normal things. Going for walk, watching TV, talking to friends, your daily food.
6) You miss your work and workplace. (I was missing seeing codes written in C/C++ so much when I was resting at home).

RESULT:
I met my relatives. Talked to friends on phone. Didn't go to office for 2 whole weeks. I got the much needed change in life. I have a "new found respect for life". Life has changed for sure(dunno for how much time, but I am loving my present). I love all ordinary things. I love my work, my workplace, being able to walk, eating spicy food, metro rides. On Sunday night, when I had to re-join office, I couldn't sleep till 3:30 at night. I don't remember when I was so excited about anything earlier in my life. The next day was so good. I felt that I am seeing the world for the first time. Everything was so much better. But there are still some effects of illness. After physical strain, I feel like I am in dream world, its not reality. And I feel euphoric at that time. I hope this dream continues and the state of euphoria as well.
Thank you Mr.Mosquito for blessing my life.
Dasvidaniya!!!

Aimless Days and Dreamless Nights

After a longtime I have written something. This time a poem. My first poem in English language(language which has proved to be my nemesis). Being an immature(in fact a beginner), you may find its a banal piece of work. Some of you may find it depressing (like first two readers who happen to be my very good friends and who worried after reading that I am depressed). But honestly, I am not depressed and I think this is an effect of listening some rock music lately. Anyways I have added last para for people who like happy ending (believe me...all of us like happy endings :) ).


Aimless days and dreamless nights,
trying to fathom what's right.
Here-there everywhere, wherever I seek
only empty spaces are there, "the void" reaching its peak.
Aimless days and dreamless nights,
truth seems to evade my sight.

Seconds,minutes,hours and days flying past-by
is it rain or tears are falling down the sky?
Here I am trying to answer "the question" of my life,
still searching for things which maybe I would like.
Not a single thing in the world seems alright,
But still here I am, holding my spirits tight.
Aimless days and dreamless nights,
endless days and sleepless nights.

Sometime I feel like run-away and find my own paradise.
But that's not my way, its just an act of cowardice.
Yeah right, I am beaten, shattered to earth.
But m gonna fight back, I would never die.
Aimless days and dreamless nights,
I am not going to quit, I would give a tough fight.

Aimless days and dreamless nights,
go away, make way, I can see the light.
Its the mark of what lies ahead, future seems bright
Wonderful days and peaceful nights...
Wonderful days and peaceful nights...

Hunters on prowl...

By the time I completed writing my last post, I had some incidents for this post. For a while, I was confused with which incident to start with(believe me, there are many...after all, we were out-standing students of our class... ;) ...so situation like earlier kept coming to us again and again).

I was having evening snacks at office(courtesy: my current employers...Right...they are generous enough to provide us evening snacks in recession time ;) ). While sipping Guava nectar(xyz juice company's product, not naming the juice company and advertise their product without getting paid... :D ), I got the idea to start with this incident.

As we both were quiet naughty and always planned some mischief or the other. Troubles kept hounding us. Sometimes we were punished moderately, sometimes severely and sometimes we had lucky escapes. This incident was one where we had a narrow escape.


Misadventure:

This happened when we were in 5th(no 6th...nah 5th...somewhere between the 2). Our school had a senior wing and a junior wing. The senior wing was in the heart of a residential area. For some reasons, residents opposed shuttling of school buses through their area. While the junior wing was on outskirts of same residential area. So after school, student had to catch the school bus from junior wing's ground. And Baggasur's home happened to be near junior wing as well. So generally, we both walked back to junior wing together.

After school, we usually bought something to eat from the vendors outside the school(we used to carry Re.1 or sometimes 2 at that time and that was enough to buy something for both of us and then fight over eachother's share). But that day, we both had no money to buy anything.

We both were walking towards the junior wing. Walking, chatting and mocking others. All at the same time. On our way, we came across the house with the Guava tree. And we decided to pluck some fruits from the tree. I was good at climbing walls. So I climbed the wall while he used his height to help me climb the wall. Now, I could have plucked as many as I wanted but all of them were small in size. I managed to pluck two guavas of biggest size which were within my reach while standing on the wall.

I hopped down with the two prized possession. And I fought for the bigger one, as I did all the hard work. He acquiesced after some arguing. When we took a bite in those guavas. They weren't ripe and were very hard(we could have broken our teeth if we had took a harder bite). I was disheartened about all my effort going in vain.

But we weren't someone who were going to let their effort go in vain. Mr.Bagga got this great idea. He pointed towards a guy from our school, standing with his friends, about 25-30m from us. And challenged me, "lets see, who can hit that guy with this guava!".

Choosing that guy as our prey over others was an easy decision for him. That guy was one year senior to us. He had some feminine qualities. He would play and talk with girls only. And at that time too, he was standing with girls.

I accepted Bagga's challenge to hit that guy. I knew I was bad at throwing things towards the target. So I invited him to try first. (Because if he would have hit, we were going to run away from the spot. And as I don't take my chance. So I won't loose. And if he would miss, I still would have a chance to win the challenge.)

He took his chance, threw his guava and missed. Then it was my turn. I was sure, I am going to miss it. But my fate was something else. I took the aim and threw my guava towards him. To my surprise, it was going right on target. Going...going.... and BANG. I had hit him and won the challenge. I felt ecstatic for a moment. Then suddenly, Bagga reminded me, "Run. Don't stand here. Just run". We both ran hard. We evaded from that spot as fast as we could. After reaching a comfortable distance away from the scene, we were ensured that no one spotted us. We laughed over the incident and life was same again until the next day.

Next day, when we both were going towards the junior wing. We got summoned by our transport in-charge teacher to come and meet her. We didn't knew why she had called both of us. She wasn't a very strict teacher. We went to see her without any hesitation. We saw the same guy standing besides her. The odd thing about him was, a big bump on his forehead due to swelling.

She asked us, "Did you threw a stone at him yesterday?".
We lied,"No ma'am, we don't know anything about it".
I added,"Ma'am, we didn't even saw him yesterday".
She threatened us,"Some students have seen you throwing stone at him. Now accept your mistake quietly or I will call P.T. instructor".
We knew that now we are caught. And if P.T. instructor would be called, he would give us a solid bashing for sure. So we accepted our charges.
I said, "Ma'am, it wasn't a stone. It was a guava actually and I didn't aimed it at him. I just threw it in the air and it hit him by chance".
She asked,"Why did you ran away from scene then?".
We lied, "Ma'am, we were terrified, that he would beat us".
She gave us a good scolding and warned us against any further mischiefs. We apologized and were pardoned.

We were lucky that the guy didn't complained to the P.T. instructor straight away.
I still wonder, how did I managed to hit him that day. I usually missed the stumps while fielding in cricket. As they say, "Great players(hunters) save their best for the Big Day". :P

You started it..

This is 1 of the most hilarious incidents of my life. I still love it for the craziness I had in those days, when each day was full of excitement. Each day brought new missions, new challenges and more punishments and beatings from the teachers and sometimes even friends(Yeah friends, we used to fight a lot but at the end of day, we were still friends).


This dates back to when I was in 7th or 8th class(I don't remember exactly).The main characters of this incident are: me(off course), Siddarth Bagga (was fondly called Baggasur by me and Sumit) and our Ved-Path teacher,Mr.Shastri ji(they used to teach us Ved-Path as a subject at DAV).

A brief about the characters:
Shastri ji : A Gandhi-follower,non-violence was his mantra. He never beated any student ever.
Siddarth(or Baggasur) : He was named after Danasur(dinosaur). And he used to get annoyed whenever we called him "Baggasur". He was a trouble-maker everywhere he went. You cant find yourself out of trouble, when you are with him. Fortunately, he was my friend. And I also got rubbed by curse of getting into troubles.
Me(Nitesh) : The most innocent guy you would ever meet(kidding...hehe). I was naughty at heart and just needed a friend who had to tap the inner-potential I had of getting into trouble. Though Baggasur was a friend, I had grudge against him. He was bigger than me in size and used it to his advantage whenever we had any fights.


The Story:

A regular subject teacher was absent that day. So Shastri ji was taking an arrangement period of our class. We usually made too noise in arrangement periods, so teachers usually didn't taught us in those. That day too, Shastri ji wasn't teaching but he told us to keep the level of our voices low.

But I and Baggasur?? How can we be quiet or not causing trouble to others even after knowing that Shastriji wont beat us. So we were at our best, troubling the guys sitting on desk ahead of ours. They complained to Shastri ji(really such big cowards ,cant handle guys of their age themselves ). So Shastri ji asked us, "Dushto, kyu pareshaan kar rahe ho inko?". We both had great quality to blame it on the other person whenever we got caught.
So a blame-game started between us.
"Sir, not me, I was sitting quietly. Actually he is troubling them".
"Sir, he is lying. I don't have anything to do with it. He is troubling them."

From the naughty smile we had on our faces any idiot would have known that we were partners in crime. We thought as always Shastri ji would forgive us. But he had different idea of doing justice that day. He summoned, "You both slap each other 5 times".

We thought, he was kidding. So we didn't slapped each other. Then he said "Start". We both thought its less than usual punishments we get and moreover it was different(how many times would we get the chance to beat each other equally). So we didn't hesitated anymore.

One of us started slapping. It was a mere pat on the face. Then the other one slapped. So we slapped each other one by one. Whole class was counting the number of slaps. With each slap, intensity of slap was increasing. Till 3rd slap, they were really slaps. And intensity further increased. We both had motto, that last slap would be the tightest.

So there came the 5th slap on my face. And then the last nice tight-one from me on his face. And I was feeling good about it. Then suddenly, 1 more slap came from him, more harder. I was shocked, how could he hit me 6th one. So I reciprocated back, with a more harder slap.
He slapped me back.
I slapped him back.
He slapped me back.
I slapped me back.
...
....
Whole class were counting slaps and were in fits of laughter. And we both were enjoying as well.
Count went on...5..6...7...8...9...10..11..

When it was time for 12th Shastri ji got terrified. He said, "Stop it. Stop now. Its too much".

We didn't listened. And 1 more round of slaps followed. In this while, he came running towards us. He held our hands and said "Bas karo ab". And we both were looking at each other with angry eyes. And a feeling of satisfaction was also there on seeing cherry-red face of the other one.

We both didn't talked with each other that day until lunch break. At then we both were eating our lunch alone. This made me uncomfortable(as Baggasur used to eat my lunch as well, on usual days) and I asked him, "Why did you slapped me after 5th slap?".
His reply was, "You started slapping".
I said, "No, you started it".
He said, "You started it".(In high pitch)

I was about to say, "You started it...". But I didn't wanted 1 more round of slapping(I had 2 reasons for it. Firstly, I wanted to patch-up. Secondly, I knew, with no teacher around he would beat hell out of me this time). So I said, "lets leave it" and we were friends again.

Till today, I really don't know who started it. But those were the best days of my life. I cherish each memory of my naughty childhood with much more naughtier friends.

Dasvidaniya....

P.S: For more of mine and Baggasur's misadventures wait for the next posts.

A Perfect morning and a retrospection...

There was knocking at the door. I knew it would be our maid. I waited for my flatmate to open the door(I am the one,lazier of the 2). But he didn't. She knocked again. Again we both waited for other one to open the door. She knocked again(very intense this time). So I finally replied,"coming...wait...".

So finally, I woke 1 more morning with my back stiff. Wanted to sleep more but made my mind against it(As sleeping again would have been of no use with pain in my stiffened back). So fetched the newspaper from balcony-cum-terrace. After the maid went. Thought about a little bit of exercising to relieve my back pain.

So the day started with some exercising involving stretching, paranayms and some yogic exercises for back. Then got my flatmate's guitar to practice "What we learnt yesternight " and played it for around 20-25mins. Followed it with some more newspaper reading. And then brought milk and made milkshake for both of us. Improving my vocabulary from "Word Power Made Easy" followed it. Followed by washing my floaters. In all, a perfect morning for me.

In the day, I was retrospecting about the things I did in past(even retrospected about the earlier blog, I wrote). What would I be doing if I wasn't doing these things to impress girls? And I was surprised to know that I still would be doing same things if it wasn't about impressing girls. Because those were the things I would really enjoy doing. It was just that my motive was wrong, so I never enjoyed those things that much. And since now my only motive is self-development so I would be enjoying doing these things even more.

I don't think many people have read my previous blog yet. So didn't had any comments from people. I just reviewed what I wrote and found that blog was very boring(everything written there was about me and my thinking). But hey, its my blog. It would contain things about me only. I really think I need to accept myself, my thinking and mistakes I made. Doesn't even matters if people get wrong impression of me. What matters to me is having right impression about myself.

In last post, I mentioned my 3 wishes in life(was really a pessimistic thought of dieing in few days). Now being a bit optimistic, I would like to write down my long-term goals in life(so that I don't forget these in the busy-ness of life) . I always had an ambition to become a farmer. I want to retire at 40 from this fast paced life. And then I would move to some village and start farming to live a slow-paced,calm life. But before that I want to reach at an annual salary package of Rs.3.65 crores. And how I reached that figure. Thanks to 1 more of my friends, who quoted, "You can spend Rs.1lac in a day.".

P.S.: People who have made effort to read my blogs till now. Be assured for some fun ahead. Some of my childhood misadventures in store for you.

Dasvidaniya

Was thinking (yeah, "thinking", that's what I, being an introvert, do all the time) about starting a blog for quite sometime now. I am an ambivert like normal people. But my introvert personality takes over most of the times (preferring 1 to 1 bonding over bonding with many people at a time, keeping my thoughts to myself, a longing for being liked by people and whatever I do , I do think , would people like it or not).

Different people's lives are driven differently. Some people's life is friend's driven, some1's enemy driven and some people's life is self-driven. And my life??? Its driven by girls(at least for last 5-6 years). I just realized this a while back(thanks to 1 of my friend, who quoted "teri har baat ghoom fir ke , ladkiyo ko impress karne pe kyu aake rukti hai"). Was quite a tough question for me , made me think(yeah, thinking... again). But before answering that question, I wondered "IS THIS TRUE ???". And to my disappointment ,the answer to this was "YES".

When I thought, I would start a blog. The whole idea was to impress girls, but was first waiting to improve my English skills (by the way, that didn't happen, as I realised some more things and started this blog) before getting started. When I joined gym at college time or even now, that too to impress girls. Preparation for CAT this year, joining guitar lessons and many more choices I made were to impress girls.

DASVIDANIYA , a Russian word, means "bye". The word just struck me, when I realised what's driving my life, for 2 main reasons. First, I want to say "dasvidaniya" to life driven by others. I can't let my life remote-handled. I have to get back control of my life. Second, while searching for the answer "What's controlling my life?" and "What do I want to do?", I realised my wishlist is majorly governed by things I would do to impress girls. But at that time, I remembered 1 more wishlist I made after I watched bollywood movie "Dasvidaniya".

Dasvidaniya -the movie was about a man who comes to know that he has only 3 more months to live. He makes a wishlist of 10 things , he always wanted to do before he dies. And he accomplishes all of those 10 things before he dies. A happy (like all bollywod movies) but not so happy ending (at last ,they are making some realistic bollywood movies with common man as central character). But movie made me think( yeah ... again ... the "thinking"... an inseparable part of me) of the 10 things , I would like to do before I die. That day, I was thinking and thinking hard, but I cant come up with a single wish. I swear, you wont want to impress anybody, when you know, you are to die in few days. So many things, I wanted to do in life, went out of the frame that very moment. I thought and thought hard. And this is the wishlist, I came up with:

1) A holiday package to Kerala for my parents
When I was reading the newspaper in last year of college(was already placed), I was mesmerised by some Kerala Holidays pics in an advertisement. My "mummy"(yeah..m old-fashioned...I call my mother.."mummy" and father.."papa") saw me and commented "nice place..isn't it?". And my response was, "mummy I would gift you a package of Kerala on your 25th anniversary next year". Though I made all the arrangements, it didn't happen. But its still there in my list for maybe next anniversary.

2) A new car for my family
When my father bought a car in 2004, I didn't wanted it to be a Maruti Omni. I wanted some other small family car but due to business reasons ,we have to settle for that. The previous car, that too Omni, used to be my pride when I was a kid in school. But after some years, I was even ashamed of telling my friends when asked "Which car do you have?". My answer would be "we don't own a car" or "we have maruti 800". So a new small family car is my 2nd wish(a wagonR or an i10 or a swift would be nice).

3) Adopting a Girl Child
I always wanted to make a difference in life of at least 1 person. I consider adopting an orphan is a very good idea. Provide them good education and good upbringing. And you have made a good citizen, who may in future make other good citizens. So adopting a child is always what I wanted. And I would prefer being called "papa" by a girl rather than a boy. So girl child would be ultimate wish for me. At least 1 or maybe 2 depends on future.

That's it.
Seemed a stupid wishlist to me, especially when I was making it keeping in mind that I would die in few days. So, I tried to make it sound sane. As life is not a bollywood movie, happy ending isn't guaranteed. What if I died before doing these things??? I persuaded my parents that I would go for life insurance policies for tax-savings rather than mutual deposits. Though my motive was different.

A few of my close friends , already know about this list of mine. And I have talked them into, that they would tell about this to my parents, if something happens to me. And maybe 1 of you, who are reading this blog can remind my friends ,in case they forget to tell about this to my parents.

This is how I want my insurance money to be spent.
1) My parents would go to a holiday to kerala on their next anniversary. I know they wont want to do this, but tell them they have to do this for me.
2) Buy a new car.
3)Donate the remaining money to some orphanage for a girl child. And visit regularly, to ensure she is taken care-off well and her studies got funded.(Though I would prefer if they could adopt a girl child themselves and use that money for her upbringing. But I cant have such big expectations from my parents who are growing older day after day.)


Dasvidaniya.