Aman's Blog….ANYTHING goes here!

Mixed Emotions…. October 21, 2012

I haven’t written anything since last couple of days and it wasn’t because there wasn’t anything to tell but because, I just couldn’t find myself strong enough to share things. Today, I finally have gathered myself and decided to write this post. Its Sunday and there is nothing much for me to do, at least not for today.

I am not sure that how many of you did remember that this is that unfortunate month, October in which last year, I lost my dad. That date, 9th October is now marked on my heart and I can’t even begin to explain how much tough this time is for me and for my family. This was the first death anniversary of my dad. How crazy are the names of the days? A day when I lost my best friend, a pillar of my strength, got broken into hundred of pieces inside which would never be able to put together,that damn day is considered as anniversary! And my mother, she is just been sad and broken, far more than me and my sister too I believe. She didn’t cry much-actually me and my sister didn’t let her cry much! And it was because she is not strong enough, neither physically nor emotionally to handle the tears and pain anymore. Since last year, she is just crying, on every moment when anyone mentions about dad, when she recalls him , when my sister talks about him. And me, I just don’t talk about dad with her, with anyone.Why? Because I don’t want her to see how lonely , scared I feel now when dad is not there. How tough I find this that now, I go out and find that there is no one who would stand for me , there is no one who would hug me when I come back from my sessions, there is no one who would go to drop me at the bus stand, whose feet I can touch, take blessings, give him a tight hug and he would say to me, don’t worry son, just go for your work, I am there to take care of your mom, to take care of everything! There is no one whom I can call or who would call me “Yaar” like my dad used to say to me! None of this would ever happen anymore EVER now and no one, NO ONE would ever be able to take his place too! There is nothing more that I can do except to make sure that all the rituals that are now required to be done must be completed with as much as possible perfection possible. That’s what I tried to do on this 9th October as well. Since this was the first time ever , the prayers and the rituals were quite a lot in number and I tried to do it all with my best possible strength. I can’t say that it was perfect because I forgot some things still and I just so hate myself for it. May god it happens that next year, this mistake won’t get repeated and I shall be able to get the prayers and the rituals done in a far more bigger and proper manner than this year and I shall be capable enough to make it happen all the years in as much proper manner as possible. Once the morning prayers were done, We went in the evening to distribute few blankets and fruits to those who are not blessed enough to buy it themselves. Hope whoever got it, would be able to use it in the coming winters and my dad would be happy seeing it happening from the heaven.

Once we got the rituals done, it was time to do some shopping for my sister’s fast of Karva Chauth. It’s her second actually but since last year, when it was actually supposed to be the first one and was about to get celebrated in a grand manner, my dad left us –just a week before it. This year, we decided to give all those things to my sister. She went with me to the market to select whatever she wanted to get for herself. Rest all was okay and we were able to get some dresses for her. She also wanted to get some bangles and some stuff for me and she told me that we shall go to those shops only where dad and she used to go all the time. When we went to the first shop , from where she wanted to buy bangles and other such stuff, she found the guy who used to attend her and dad and gave her reference of dad. He didn’t recollect anything. I could see on her face that she was so sad to see that the guy didn’t recollect her or dad at all. Yes, I know what you are going to say that its okay, the shopkeepers meet a lot of people and they don’t remember most of them, they don’t need to! But think about a gal who was so sure that the damn shopkeeper would remember our dad and how she would had felt when she found that he didn’t even come close to it. Anyway, she was done from there and then we went to the other shop. Same thing happened there as well as the second shopkeeper also didn’t recollect anything about dad. She even showed dad’s pic to the bloody shopkeeper but he didn’t buzz. We stepped out after we got what we were looking for and while stepping out, my sister said, when dad used to come with me, all were so nice and now no one even remembers neither him nor me. Tell you what, my heart just sanked and I felt a big lump in my throat. I just gave her a hug and we started our way back to home. I didn’t speak at all about what she said and why I didn’t say anything about it on the way. No, I am not a heartless,stone hearted person but the reason I didn’t say anything was because nothing that I could say would had made her feel any good and to be honest, I myself was just feeling the same while walking into that market as it was the same market where my dad used to bring me and my sister to get tons of stuff for us. We would come with him some time walking, some times sitting on the rear seat of his scooter. When we were kids, he wouldn’t let us walk and would pull the scooter by himself while making us seated on it all the time. That very night when we came, I cried so much thinking about dad, what my sister said, remembering my dad and above all missing him more than I can ever explain to anyone. I did say somewhere above that I don’t talk about dad with anyone and the sole reason is this for doing that because I don’t want anyone to know that this pain is killing me so much inside and I am just trying to keep me going for the sake of my family. How much scared I feel now for my mom, I can’t even begin to say. Till the time, I hadn’t seen and experienced how it feels when someone you love and care so much dies and goes so far away that you can’t even hear his voice, I didn’t know how strong is the blow of this trauma but now, I know it , I really really know it and that has made me so scared now and I don’t have the strength to go through the same pain again now. Yes, we all know that death is a sheer truth but let me tell you that as long as we haven’t faced the pain caused by it , we don’t even come close to realize that how much this truth breaks you , makes you feel so helpless for your loved ones and doesn’t matter how eagerly you wish, you don’t ever come to know where are your loved ones now , are they alright or not , happy or not , do they miss you too as badly as you do them or not! Just nothing is what you can do about anything doesn’t matter how hard you try. I did try though I was far away from my home but god didn’t even give us a minute to save dad and just grabbed him from our hands despite of all our prayers and cries. And now, I just feel so scared to think about my mom. She is the source, the only source of my strength, my happiness and the sole reason that I am able to move on and I so wish that god keeps her healthy and fine all the time. But I am scared, scared so much now! Thinking all this made me cry so much that night. I try to control as much as possible my tears but what am I supposed to do? I am also just another human being, a normal guy who can’t keep up the strength all the time. I am sorry dad, I can’t , I do try my level best all the time but at times, I just break down! I really wish I don’t but it still happens! I miss you so much dad! I just feel so alone now, so scared and restless! Without you, every moment is so hard for us to pass through , its just so tough!

Once the rituals and the prayers were over, I got busy in preparing a presentation of mine which is for the annual Oracle India users group conference. This year, there were about 120 abstracts which did come and I am lucky that I am one of those selected few whose paper got accepted. It took a lot more work than I anticipated to finish the presentation and since there was  a deadline to meet-19th October, it was a lot of pressure to get it done and submit on time. Fortunately, I managed to meet the deadline and got it submitted. I haven’t written about the event and my session in it so far but if you are reading this, are an Oracle product user and are going to come to attend the conference , feel free to come and say Hi to me. I shall be easy to spot as I shall be the only guy with the shortest hair cut possible!

That’s not all!

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time to send some things. It took some effort to find the right things but its all very well worth as its for my brothers! I managed to finish the task of sending the things through the courier also last night and its in process now. Hope it reaches to them soon and they would be happy looking at all the things. Let’s see what happens?

And in the last, I am scheduled to fly for a very tough session at a very far away place. Details would come soon here.

Its Sunday so I shall take catch some afternoon sleep before getting back to work. I want to go for a long drive but its not really a good thing to do when your mind is not at peace.

It’s Tough When…. October 1, 2012

You are having fever , you are faarr away from your home and have to work. That’s pretty much the state of mine at the moment.

I reached India the other day after finishing the two sessions on a good note. I was hopeful that I shall be able to pull through this current tour of mine as well but it seems that it won’t be a very smooth sailing to pass it through. The traveling itself was very tough and in some ways, scary and just when I thought, all is over, I fell sick.

If you know me personally or from this blog, you must be aware that I travel a lot for my work. And if you are reading this, it certainly means that I am still alive :=) . But this time, the flight experience was not so good. The first shock came from the Bangkok Airways. It was not a very long flight and it started of well too. But just when the flight was about to land and started the descend , there came a spine chilling feeling. The pilot, for god-knows-only reason was not making the flight descend by lifting up the nose as it should have been done. In fact, the flight was coming down with the nose being pulled down and to a very steep level and he did keep the aircraft in the same position for about 5 minutes. After that, not sure how but he did reverse the position of the flight and finally made it the way it should had been i.e. the nose being up. But the bad experience was not just over yet. While going to land, the tail of the plane was completely shaking and it was just few feet down there remaining before the flight would do the touch-down. Somehow, he did land the plane and all the passengers finally could breathe . There were three guys sitting in the row behind me and when the crew said all that usual words like thanks for choosing us and all that, they did dig out on them saying that thank you for training our trainee pilot. Funny but not it was when I was in the flight experiencing the whole damn thing. This was about the flight, the next thing was about the food.

As I was going to start my travel on Friday and had a long stay(for 12 hours) on the Bangkok airport, I thought that I shall be able to have my lunch in the afternoon after the session and it should be able to keep me going just fine till the mid night. But as they say that only if you are destined for something, it happens not otherwise. I used to go to an Indian food joint for my lunch. I planned to go there on that very day as well but just in the morning at about 10am, it started raining and not just raining but like a cats and dogs kind of rain. I expected(prayed) that it would stop so that I could go and have my lunch but it didn’t , at least the usual lunch time there-12pm. It finally became a little slow at about 1:30pm, an hour before I had to leave for the airport and I decided to go and have my lunch quickyl and come back. I took a ride on the two-wheeler ride that’s offered in Cambodia . On the way it self, the rain got heavy again. I asked the guy that would he wait for me while I have my lunch and he said, no its raining so he can’t. Guess what, I asked him to take me back right in front of that food joint and drop me back to the office. By that time I reached there, it was already a very heavy rain-fall which started. I spent $2USD but it went just down the drain. It was about time to leave for the airport and there is nothing on that airport which is actually filling. After finishing the check-in and other things, I bought a Latte and a veg sandwich and was trying to convince myself that it would be okay because there are a lot of food joinnts on the Bagnkok airport and I can go there and have my favourite pasta and coffee over there. But again, destiny had something else in store for me.

When I came two weeks back from the same airport, it was all fine. But in the meantime, the airport decided to revamp the entire food joints over there, which are usually having lots of options for eating and this time, when I reached there looking for them, they were all closed. The only option I had to pick something from Subway and have a coffee at Starbucks and that’s what I did twice in  a long wait of 12 hours that I spent over the airport , without sleeping even for a minute even! Finally, it was 8:40am local time and I was all set to get back to home. Not sure that this was the long stay of mine with lack of sleep and food that caused me fever or the sneezing airhostess who was constantly coughing and sneezing all the time in the flight but whatever it may be was, the end result is that now, I am having fever and a really bad cold and headache and that’s killing me at the moment.

Its just a blessing only that tomorrow is a national holiday here at India so I would get some rest. I have to prepare for the module though that I am handling at the moment but still, a day without taking and going to the session when having fever, cold, cough is just so good, trust me!