Let's travel !!!

So you speak Hindi and I speak English. How do we communicate? Sign language.

Here's another situation: You speak English and I speak English. How do we communicate? In a version which is understood by both.

Days of sign language existed primarily in rural areas where foreigners went to explore 'real' India and faced language issues, apart from dust and clothing ones. With rural India becoming urban at a decent pace (yes, ours is a brilliant country, and we are embracing technology as fast as possible - yet with the size of our country and the uncommon platforms, decent is what we can muster in such a short span of time), foreigners are coming face-to-face with a new problem. How to converse in English.

What is known as British or American English has been adapted by people in India (for promoting tourism, or pocketing money for showing visitors around), but is vastly different from their rendition of it. The conversion wasn't such a good idea frankly. For the problem of visitors getting lost or confused in the maze of roads and people jostling and zero directions still holds true.

Sentences such as 'I show you' and 'Best price, you wait here I come soon' might be a thing left for movies and past images, yet the educated people who can make living and travel easier for visitors are busy interacting with important clients and globe-trotting. With this trickle down effect, what remains is the command over broken English which visitors have to wiggle their way around.

Let's turn some tables over here. The tourism industry, instead of claiming to build food joints for 'Americans' such that they can't get food poisoning, should teach people the art of talking to those who qualify as foreigners in our country.

This goes for taxi drivers, people at railway stations who are there for assistance at platforms (expecting all coolies to learn English will be stretching the band a bit too much), traffic police (yes, this is of utmost importance - their role is not restricted to collecting bribes or issuing senseless tickets in the name of law), and auto/rickshaw drivers. (Including manners and how-to-behave lessons is a separate issue, and will be covered some other time).

Our country has spare money that can be used to make a trip to India a hassle-free journey. Let's make it work. Communication is the key - we have the monuments, the heritage and the culture to back us up. It's time to make the travel memorable - one happy traveler will lead to many. And as the numbers grow, we will be the ones happy, and proud.

Quote 'un'quote

I have, so far, read at least 100 quotes related to love, and have come across more than 100 viewpoints, because each person who quotes something has at least 2 points to make - each contradictory to another. In the same sentence. And sometimes, these quotes run a paragraph long.
It's not that love is such a beautiful and painful topic, it's the simplest fact that EVERYONE wants to make their opinion heard - and love is a 'feeling' and requires no prior knowledge, so anyone can speak anything, and get away with it.
Most of the thoughts are repetitive by the way. Love binds us all, not for the beauty or pain of it, but for being the most sought after topic to comment on. We all love to comment and quote. Yes, we certainly do.
And it rules our lives.

Don’t say it doesn't - have you seen the amount of time you have wasted crying in heartbreak or feeling lonely? And this includes listening to songs that remind you of the person, or those feelings that are now memories.
All a waste. I'm one of the 'in love' people on the planet. So this is not a mockery session out here. I'm all for 'eternal love' and 'may you live happily ever after' love. But there appear those rare times when this beautiful unmeasured feeling called 'love' is not welcomed in my life.
I wonder what people will talk about the day the entire human species is asked 'not' to talk about love (this includes staying away from songs and cute messages and gazing dreamy-eyed at photos). Maybe we will get a great, fat purpose in life. A purpose that goes beyond feeling low or high or sweet.

It will enable us to have 'focus' - in work, in life, in society. Thoughts related to our living, our health, our achievements will be brought in front of our eyes. Love is what I call as the biggest chain reaction. It sparks off an intense overdose of feelings that would otherwise be wrapped up in the cocoon of our hearts.

One day away from love will also bring focus to something else - Ourselves. It's a very normal case that we end up feeling emotions (negative or positive) for the 'other' person, not necessarily 'special someone' anymore. But where are we in this entire ball of love?
Love is a huge emotion, but the power it has on men and women alike is maddening, to say the least. Drawing oneself away from love can actually help one get a grip.
And more than anything else, it helps you 'get a life' when everything around you seems to be shattered to pieces.

The Time Traveller

The time traveller is someone who is thought about at times, is used as an expression when boredom sets in, gets a look of wonder on the faces that are lost in the journey of one.

Oh, what it would be like, to be a time traveller. To travel along paths unknown, bending around rising peaks, crawling along silent streams, unevenly branched out around lush forests, slipping on windy sand dunes; and all but a travel of mystery and depth.

A time traveller conjures varying images, from a poor boy that travels miles to seek fortune, to wisps of air that look like thin long strands of thread as it rushes past you to travel through ages unseen - spinning from history to future in a blur, in a moment which is unthinkable.

It is a fantasy to be the time traveller we dream to be. Be it travelling through time, or travelling along with time on your side, there is something dreamy about being a traveller. It represents motion, action, excitement, passion in times when life seems to revolve around beautiful yet all-too-simple facts and figures of hours ticking by.

The power associated with being a time traveller is unusual and gripping. There are no boundaries or rules, and life is an adventure without any plane tickets or visa hassles. It’s a journey where one chooses a destination and is transported to the land in a matter of milliseconds. It satisfies the curiosity of a past we only manage to read in politically correct textbooks. It shows us the world we all seek to know yet only manage to console ourselves with blinding headlines and exaggerated reports - the Truth.

The world is your oyster explains the mystical nature that comes alive with being a time taveller. Everything is defined in our lives. From searching on Google for all and sundry information, to 'genres' that help us classify music and data, to 'departments' where companies and universities can manage their work load better and avoid confusion of mixing everything up under one roof. We live by the rules, play by them (abiding by them is a different issue altogether) and define our moral stands and ways of living by them. Yet, our happiness is there when there is a sense of charge, purpose and energy in life. And this is an aspect which cannot be governed by rules or terms and conditions.

Gone are the days when sailing like Vasco da Gama was normal. The eternal purpose of filling our curious minds with answers and journeys has diminished or subsided, with the age of technology answering whatever possible question a human mind can think of. 

Setting off to unknown destinations is declared as 'madness' and one is expected (and required) to attend dinners and live their lives as indicated by social norms. Yes, our lives aren't our own anymore, no matter how much we claim our 'individuality' as our own. Maybe it's the safe shell in which we live - boring yet safe, or maybe it's a pattern we were meant to and longed to follow all these centuries. 

But we are still the way we really are - restless. With Google and other websites at your feet to serve every possible whim of your mind, we are still curious. What is the world truly like? Are we put on this planet to only drive that one way home, what is the life beyond what we see?

Books can explain civilizations, activities can help us understand the joy of living in different era, yet the feeling of 'being' in one is truly satisfied when one is present there. And this is where our wonder for time travellers arises. When you visit a chocolate factory, you see chocolate being made - the joy and amazement when you see that process is beyond words. And it isn't even remotely close to the novels that (try to) explain the mechanism by posting pictures of fancy plants and boilers.  When we come face-to-face with an object, it stays with us, unlike an image that barely registers in our mind while flipping through descriptive magazines.

All of us, at some stage, have wondered or wanted, to be a time traveller - to live that life when time is all we have, when the world is all we see, when words and voices are incomparable to action and drama seen live, when facts are defied by experience of seeing the world the way it existed, when knowledge takes a whole new meaning in observant eyes.

The world is your oyster, my time traveller. It is a mystical journey, a dream we might achieve when human beings cease to exist. It is a fantasy beyond the realm of technology. It is, The Time Traveller.

Comparison!

Comparison is the world's biggest nightmare. Honestly. It harrows the mind, weakens the heart, and makes you believe you are crawling on the ground while everybody else is sprinting ahead of you.

It is that fact, and notion which helps you see the light of negativity in yourself. Failure, Unhappiness, Jealousy - all stemming from comparing oneself and one's life to another human being's. Is there any end to it? No, I don't think so - its a plain vicious cycle, and never ending too.
Relationships - Worse than our own dissatisfaction about the relationship we are in, its the idea of our friends/partner's friends/ cousins having a gala time, better than our own experience. 
Please don't think I am making fun of the human mind out here - of course, I am not. But even the strongest person with will power stored to the brim does get influenced by the way things evolve (or fall) around him. No man is alienated in this world. And consciously, or subconsciously, we start comparing and seeing the shortfalls of our lives, our partners based on what we see around us.
And that's when the bridge starts shaking. The foundation you might have built steadily with someone, starts to crumble under the pressure. 

Another aspect of Comparisons is Money - This society is harrowed by the abundance of money everywhere. I repeat, 'abundance' of money. You must be thinking - oh, she is wrong; there is 'lack' of money!
Well, I ask you a question - these divisions in the society, the unwritten barriers that exist - is this because we are poor? No, not at all.
Someone is born in the river of money, while ther are some whose lives are only about that one bedroom shelter. The only difference? Where they are born. 
I have seen, in my own school, teenagers and even kids, forming cold boundaries, excluding those who don't fit there, or 'belong' with them. 
If everyone was poor, there would exist no demarkations. There would be no snobbery, or arrogance - for everyone is the same out here, on the street. A person driving an Aston Martin DBS Coupe will be the same as a person driving a Maruti 800. All are same. All are equal.

In this race (or madness of life, as I call it); its important to simply step out of your life and view it. Step out of your own shoes, and observe the path you are walking on.
Is it the path you want for your life? Is this the comfort you want to surround yourself with? Always remember one thing in life - its your CHOICE. Always. Every single minute of your life.