W - F - Ts !!!

So, we have all heard about the ‘wannabe’ types. Wannabe actresses, wannabe models, wannabe page 3ites! But, have you come across the ‘Wannabe Fit Types’. I am sure we all would have come across such people; it’s just that they have not been coined with this word called ‘Wannabe Fit Types’. Here are a few characteristics to see if any of the people around you or you yourself fall under this new age category called the ‘Wannabe Fit Types’

The Wannabe Fit Types or the WFTs (be careful while reading coz it’s not WTF)  :P  Anyways, so these WFTs are the people who have been taunted by their friends for their protruding bellies and expanding waistlines or have been inspired by the success stories of some other WFTs or have heard and read about the benefits of being healthy and are ready to join the bandwagon and I am definitely one of them for sure. ;)

The Wannabe Fit Types are the ones who decide to start taking care of their health and the first thing that comes to their mind is to start jogging early morning. They would be all bucked up for the same wherein the night before they would keep an alarm for waking up on time, buy good jogging shoes, keep their sports-wear in place and would have probably told their family about their plans of starting the routine. They might even get their family members into joining them.

A few of the WFTs may even get themselves registered for the nearby gym or yoga classes. Their day becomes worthwhile if they have been on schedule for their exercise. And God forbid, if they happen to miss out on a few exercise sessions in a row, they start getting anxious and cranky and if you happen to be around them, do not dare to console them by saying ‘it happens’ or else be ready to be lectured on healthy habits.

The next on their target list is food. After all, haven’t we all heard that fitness is a combination of workout and proper diet :P (Alright, I know I am sounding like those fitness magazines; call it the side effects of being a WFT) Now, these WFTs would start instructing their wives or mothers to cook healthier dishes, switch to

healthier oil options blah blah blah. They would twitch their noses if they see oil floating in the subzis of others tiffin boxes at office and wouldn’t dare take a bite of it. Take them to a restaurant and you can see them making a mental note of calories they would be taking. They would always order paranthas without butter or oil. Some would even go to the extent of asking the waiters if they could arrange for a pizza with less cheese. All the while during their stay at the restaurant, they would keep on counting the amount of hours they would have to jog to burn the calories they are having. Offer them an orange cream biscuit at evening tea session in the office and they would happily bring out a fresh orange from their bags as a substitute! :D :D

If you catch them at some party, their plates would be filled with a variety of salads, and if somebody asks them the reason, they would beam speaking about their newly acquired health regime and the positive effects it is having on them.

You can easily catch them reading the nutrition values and calories of items in supermarket whilst looking for ‘high fibre’ and ‘high protein’ stuff. Their shopping cart would invariably have a packet of green tea and high fibre oats. Any new advertisement of ‘healthy’ eatables or exercise machines in the magazines or television sets would inadvertently have their attention.

We live in the age of technology and smart phones and App-makers seem to be well aware of the WFTs and hence a host of fitness apps flood the market today. If you happen to get hold on the mobile phones of the WFTs, you would certainly come across a few calories counter and jogging apps. A weighing machine would have definitely found its way under their beds and all hell breaks loose if the poor needle in the weighing scale slips on the higher side.

The WFTs would always be on the hunt for articles related to healthy habits and would even send across some beneficial ones to friends around. Their subscription would have easily shifted from Femina or Maxim to some health magazines.

A few of the WFTs become success stories inspiring others while majority others keep on running this vicious cycle of virtue. Still, this is one ‘wannabe’ category which isn't negative in any way and I don’t mind being a part of it ;) ;)

A Rickety Ride & Some Interesting Characters

Being a 'poor' service class employee whose office is 30 kms away from home, I have the privilege of travelling in crowded, noisy and worn out public transport buses which have completed their lives long ago. The buses run from every nook and corner of the city and are mostly filled with everyday travelers who are subjected to the torment of travelling to work.

I happen to be travelling on one such bus and have come across some interesting characters and incidences which I would like to share here.

It is human tendency to get possessive about things. But this possessiveness reaches new heights when the passengers of these buses get possessive not only towards their respective buses but also for the seats they choose to sit on.  The moment you dare to sit on any of the ‘reserved’ seats of these few passengers, you get nasty stares from them which would almost frighten you to death. You are looked upon at as if you have stolen their most prized possessions or have stomped on their birth right of sitting on ‘their’ seats.

One such lady who always ‘prefers’ to sit on first row window seat carries such pathetic frown on her face day in and day out, you wonder what is it that troubles her so much to be carrying such frown every damn day. She is always frowning and always complaining about something or the other. The only thing she likes doing is flaunting her jewelry to her fellow women passengers. Women, as you know, love jewelry. But, if that shiny piece belongs to somebody else, you can very well hear a few of them mutter under their breaths - ‘huh, always flaunting’.

Another lady always perched on her side has the weirdest dressing sense I have ever come across. I see her everyday wearing three completely different pieces of clothing where none matches the other. So it is a sheer golden dupatta matched with a parrot green coloured kurta and purple salwar on one day and three completely different sets the other day. She seems to be following the ‘mismatch trend’ way too seriously.

Then, there is this old lady who sleeps like a log during the travel. Well, I do not have any problem with her getting her beauty sleep, but the only problem she creates is for the nearby passenger by falling completely on him/her while she sleeps merrily. If some poor male passengers happen to sit beside her, then they get embarrassed/angry all the while shifting uncomfortably in their seats while this woman sleeps comfortably on their broad shoulders.

Moving on, another co-passenger is this man in his thirties who is an ardent ‘Modi’ fan. Wait, fan would be a small word for him. Let’s say, he worships Mr. Narendra Modi, always has some or the other anecdotes to share about his ‘saheb’ and is most fiercely geared up to put up a huge fight with anybody who dares speak a word against his ‘saheb’. Mr. Modi sure has an ardent follower! Basically, he is a nice and helpful person who loves his ‘saheb’ and is most candid about it.

Women never really grow old. Isn’t it? This principle is quite literally followed by one of the women in her late fifties who always wears two Ponytails. Yes, you read it right. She wears two ponytails to work everyday, and I mean every single day. Most of the fellow passengers do not know her name and is usually referred to as ‘2 chotlaa wali ben’ (Lady with 2 ponytails). This peculiarity is also seen in one of the men. Don’t laugh. I am not saying that the man carries two ponytails, what I mean here is that the adage that ‘age is just a number’ is also not believed by this particular gentleman. It seems he is quite fond of clothes that youngsters wear today and since he never got a chance to wear them in his youth, he fulfills his wishes now. Most of the times, this gentleman nearing his retirement is dressed in skin tight jeans and t-shirts which he seems to be borrowing from his grand children, I guess. Trust me; I almost fell of my seat when I saw him dressed in a skin tight pink t-shirt and slim fit black denims. Metrosexual, eh!

The bus also has a few women who take the quote of ‘dressing to the hilt’ a tad too seriously and are all decked up with overdone makeup, loud hairclips and jewelry as if they are out for a party and not office.

Now, government offices are generally divided into various categories in terms of designations and these designations are flaunted whenever needed. But this particular woman in the bus seems to take her ‘Class II Officer’ tag very seriously. This brash young woman, who never smiles, had dragged the entire bus to a Police Station on having a fight with a fellow passenger regarding keeping or not keeping the window open. And all during the verbal volley with that passenger, she threw ‘I am a Class II Officer’ title so many times; it felt as if she is the sole ‘Class II Officer’ on the surface of earth.

And there are people like my friend who is the biggest chatter box on earth and has made me one. She has stories to tell, she has gossips to feed and she has complains to be made. The chatter goes all the way right from work to friends, to colleagues and their affairs to politics in the office, from beauty to makeup to families, to movies and books, to spirituality to mythology. Phewww…

Travelling in these amazingly comfortable buses sucks big time, and had it not been for these interesting characters and incidents, my one and half hour journey to work would have been totally bland and boring.  

L-I-F-E

L-I-F-E… A mystery, an enigma;

You cannot solve, you won’t understand;

You cannot offend, you just defend !!

A new twist, a new turn, brings fun;

Or sometimes, anger & disgust making insides burn..

The more you try to explore, the more you are lost;

Coz, at times, you forget that it's You who is the guest and Life is your Host..

At times, it’s beautiful, every moment you live;

You are happy, though your prized possessions to others you might give..

Sometimes it’s an ordeal making you feel attacked;

And you want to snatch everything you've given back..

Life takes you at the crossroads, you do not know where to go;

Unable to make choices, swinging from options to and fro..

Receiving support from your loved ones and friends;

You hope that they continue to walk alongside a road that never ends..

Yet this life, one day would come to an end;

And then, You no longer have to fight, you no longer have to defend !!

My First Blogpost :) :) :)

Wow, the title itself sounds so fascinating to me. My first blog post. It just feels so heavenly to have something in your own name. After writing scores of articles as a ‘ghost writer’ for websites ranging right from selling prom dresses in some other continent to writing about places to take your girlfriend for valentine’s day dinner to talking about the pristine love of Radha and Krishna, writing articles that appeared on some websites and the worst part of having to see those articles getting pasted with other people’s names at the end, Finally, Finally, finally (with some pushing by some great friends) I mustered up courage to have a blog in my name. So here it is. My blog. My place. Trust me; I am on cloud nine. I know, mere opening of a blog doesn’t account for partying, but I still am. The thrill of seeing your name below any article or blog is something only a writer would understand.

From quite some time now, I have been thinking about having my own blog, then writing a novel, becoming a successful and a popular writer, then signing a multi-crore deal for portraying my novels on celluloid .. ok I know I am going overboard, but hey.. this is my blog and I can blabber about things I want to blabber about. Ofcourse, hoping that my blabbering should not be taken as blabbering and people reading my blabber should take my blabber as something more insightful than just a blabber. Okay ! enough of it.

Anyways, while I thought of having a blog all the time, things like what kind of topics would I like to write, will somebody be interested to read what I write, should I be generating some great revolutionary ideas etc. etc. churned inside my brain. I talked with some friends about starting up a blog. While discussing the idea with a friend, I told him that I have a beautiful collection of poems written by me which I thought I would put up on my blog. But then, I was sure, it would get stolen from my blog and it wouldn’t belong to me anymore and it would out there in the open for anyone to copy and paste it wherever they wanted to. This is what I was replied: “Okay, so you are thinking that your film might get pirated even before you have the story in your hand. You first have to have a story, get a cast, make the film, work on the music, market your film and then, then worry about stopping it from getting pirated.” I was stumped for sure. He was right. I mean, I was thinking that the World was just waiting to steal my (into inverted commas, capital letters) amazing posts just when I would put them on the blog and then I will have to start fighting the battle against the piracy of my poems and ideas and thoughts. Whatevahhh !!! But let me tell you, if that's the case, I am ready to fight the ‘Great battle of Piracy’ of my poems and ideas and thoughts if they are stolen from my blog. I told you, I am a big time dreamer !! :D :D

Meanwhile, I became an avid reader of scores of blogs trying to gauge their writing style and the topics they wrote about. And in the process, while I came across some amazing blogs and writing styles (more about that later), I also hit a few blogs from people who wrote their posts in such pathetic English and made such sick grammatical errors, I felt like robbing them of their ‘License to write’ (if something like this exists) and declare ‘sazaa-e-kalapani’ of not allowing them to write for the next seven lives. Okay, you got it. I AM one of those who are finicky about grammatical errors and bad English.

Then there were thoughts about what would I name my blog. Trust me, all the beautiful names that I wanted to have for my blog are already out there. And then suddenly one day, after eating mentos, the batti of my dimaag lit up and I had this (into inverted commas & capital letters) super amazing idea of naming my blog as ‘Dreams and Dimensions’. I mean, that’s what I am going to do here. Scribble my dreams, my thoughts, my ideas, my way of life!!!  Scribble about whatever strongly or lightly I feel about. Scribble in my own writing style. Scribble about what I am. And the umpteen number of dimensions; me as a person has!

Well, lastly, I just feel overwhelmed at the idea of having my own blog. I just hope to keep going with this blog and much more in coming times.. Okay, I am NOT crying. So this post is about the beginning of my journey into the world of blogging. Hope you would have liked my first blabber and would continue coming back here for some more of it. Ciao.. :)