Fall....

Fall is here. The temperatures are dipping. The sun seems to be getting shy and peeps out only once in a while. Very soon it will be honoring us with daylight only for 3 to 4 hours in a day. The temperature today is 6 degrees, and it has been progressively dipping to the dreaded zero and sub zero temperatures. The general climate is becoming dull, drab and morose. People are quieter, are more serious and have shifted back to wearing their grays and blacks. MBF with her pink gloves and scarf is the only refreshing change I find in this dull and drab European winter fashion trend.... she brings the only whiff of color in my life :). I wish the other Swedish girls would also follow the trend. People are becoming more focused on their jobs and work, and this will continue till late December till people start shifting to the Christmas mood. There are lesser and lesser things to do in town. The Desis have their own Durga Puja, Kali Puja and Diwali celebrations... but I am feeling more and more restless and impatient. I have loved Sweden and everything it has offered to me.. but I am getting kinda bugged of this whole weather thing. I have lived in cities with extreme weather conditions, Nagpur, Delhi and Kolkata... some of the hottest and most humid cities in India. But this is much worse than all of those. It is not just about the weather here, but it is also the overall mood which dips and becomes morose along with the weather, I dont know how to explain this.

Maybe the time has finally come to make a move. I have cribbed about being a vagabond and craving for a stable settled life in my post before, but a settled stable life still eludes me. Maybe its just me, my restlessness and my refusal to accept something as a permanent life and settle down with it contentedly. A close well wisher told me "You have the greatest job, awesome money, amazing brand name and an exotic foreign posting, dont be a fool and think of ever throwing it away". I agree to all that, but in the end its my happiness that matters. If the great job role, money, foreign posting and brand name has stopped giving me the thrill and excitement it used to give me, it is time to move on. I am not sad, not upset... not even bored... but I realized a few days back that I am missing the zing in my life. And its a familiar feeling. Like the feeling I had when I was in my first job, when I quit to go to business school. Or like when I was in engineering college, and decided to leave civil engineering after a year to join electronics engineering. Alas, it is time for a change again. I dread change, I detest and abhor it, and yet I cannot live without it. Such is life.

For those of you who asked me how the singing went, well, it was awesome :). The photos will appear on FB soon, for those of you who are on my FB. I was dressed in a traditional embroidered Kurta... and jeans (I know I am such a loser to be wearing jeans but I didnt have much of an option so dont groan). The crowd actually went "Once more, once more" and we were all completely taken aback.. we didnt know a crowd was allowed to say that kind of thing in a religious setting. LOL.

I am heading back to India for a month in December. And I am absolutely thrilled about it and am eagerly looking forward to it. Some very important decisions will be made while in India... I guess we need to make such decisions every once in a while :). My friends in India are fed up of me because I keep trying to make plans about where we will go and what we will do when I land there in December. As one guy said "Dude.. this is India... you plan what you want to the next day just one day before... we do not have the European way of planning a year in advance.. come over and we will have a blast.. without planning anything". SIGH! I guess he is right. But can I still just keep myself happy by thinking about some awesome late night bike rides and some early morning long drives into the highway? Some midnight pav bhaji after a late night movie and a trek to the nearest waterfall? And wearing a light jacket and zooming away on a bike in the middle of December! :)

I need to make up for my last nasty post :P. So here is something to make you feel better. A video that always cheers me up and makes me smile. And not just because Salman Khan is so cute, but because I find it extremely amusing to watch the blondes doing all the Indian dance steps so perfectly. I wonder what my European friends would have to say about it :)

Blogging Woes

I am in a bad mood. I really feel like lashing out. So please do not feel obligated to read on unless it amuses you to read the thoughts of a guy in a really bad mood.

If you are thinking I will now write down the reason of my bad mood, I am sorry to disappoint you. I do not know the reason. I have absolutely no clue. And before you label me as insane, I would say in my defense that there has been too much piling up and I guess it has all reached a point where its just brimming over.

I am kind of disillusioned with blogging. I know, I know, you all told me so. But it was fun till it lasted. And I know most of my close friends have already gone through this phase (yes Iya, SG et al).. the phase of finding the joys of blogging, reaching peaks, having blog fans and then finding that the blog is not able to justify the freedom of expression. That there is too much pressure to write something or not to write something. Or that the comfort level with known people reading the blog is not good. So I have reached the last phase. I can either shut down the blog, or make it limited to people who are really close and who live in the real world. People who accept me for what I am. People who dont have weird expectations from me. I am sorry but I cannot blog about Obama winning the Noble Peace prize because I have some more real life concerns to take care of. No.. this is not meant as an insult to all the people writing about serious world issues. I write about generic stuff too... but not when my own life is kinda all tangled up and needs straightening up. Sigh! I told you.. this will be more of a venting post.

So there are a lot of other things about blogging that has been bothering me. Maybe this is the most unpopular thing anyone ever said on any blog post ever... but the motive behind me blogging wasnt exactly popularity so I shall say it anyway. I do not believe in Blog Awards. I respect all those who do, but I dont. To the extent that when someone gives me an award, I do not post it on my blog. And this has resulted in lost blog friends and lost blog followers. I do not mean to provocate you into a pointless debate, but my point of view is that my blog is for me to express my views irrespective of who likes it and who doesn't. I appreciate appreciation, however self created or passed on jpeg images titled with some fancy names to be put up on my blog template as awards is going a bit too far. I am not against fancy things or aesthetics, and would put them up for the heck of it, but my objection is on the principle that when you give an award to someone and refrain from giving it to someone else, in effect you are saying that one blog is better than the other. It is crazy. How can you compare blogs? It is like comparing apples with pears. So here was one blogger who was a regular reader of my blog. He/She gave me a very generous award.. I was honored, however did not think that I could put it up and declare my blog to be better than others and hence I went and thanked him/her on the comments section and then did not put up the award on any of my posts. The person in question stopped following my blog henceforth. I also heard of bloggers not getting awards and getting disappointed and not talking to the person giving the award. Also heard of bloggers changing their writing style/template/content to be more popular. Well.. this whole concept beats me. Seems to do more damage than good, and seems to serve no purpose. We are all mature people in blogosphere, so if I really appreciate someones blog, why cant I just go and comment on his/her post and let him/her know how much I liked the post or the blog? Why do I need to compare someones blog with someone elses and give an award to one person and not give it to someone else? Who am I to decide what is good and what is not? If a blog has received tonnes of awards does it really mean that it is better than others.... or even that it is really good? If not then what is the point in the awards at all? If it is just a meaningless fun thing then why do I see it causing more harm than good to all my fellow bloggers? I honestly do not think that my writing is worthy of any awards, and I do not think I am great enough to decide if someone else should get an award. Hence, ladies and gentlemen, I shalt take a polite bow and back out of the awards section. And if by doing this I offend someone, then my sincere and humble apologies to the person. For all those who do believe in awards, I respect your belief and do not intend to offend you. This is just my stated opinion, so kindly keep me out of the award circle :).

I have a feeling this post is going to make me very unpopular. And maybe I will not have to shut down my blog... I will be labeled as a crazy person and left alone with zero readership :). I love my blog followers from the bottom of my heart, but when they expect pressurize me to behave and write in a certain way, I feel that the whole purpose of blogging is being lost.

Bear with me. I have been down with flu and working on the escalation with high fever. And have had friends ignoring me... And the work escalation just seems never ending. It seems so impossible when the client and my own company super senior execs are on call and debating on a topic which is simply not relevant to the escalation. Now I know, there IS something called being TOO high up on the corporate ladder. SIGH!

Hopefully will write a more calm and "happy" post soon. Till then let me go spoil some friendships and get back at all the people who have been ignoring me! :). I am in a wicked mood.