In-retrospect or Re-introspect

Time to introspect, or is it called retrospect? Anyways, I leave that to the english gurus. ( I am a bit poor in english as you can see)

Intospect means to reflect on one's own thoughts and feelings

Retrospect means to look or refer back to; to reflect on

 So, I will now look back and refer to my thoughts and feelings.

Let's call it in-retrospect shall we

or maybe re-introspect .

 (Cut the english crap)

 Last week was pretty eventful, it saw Mr. Bush bid farewell to Iraq, and show his quick reflexes, which should put our Indian cricketers to shame. I wonder if he got an image boost.

Btw, our cricket team was on a high last week too. 

 Last week also saw me turn 21 

(Yes, 21 yrs. To all my friends who missed it, 

A big……

Thankyou!

Four of my friends did wish me though, and I am glad that there were only four. Makes me feel younger)

Anyways, birthdays don't really hold much significance to me.

I get a lecture from my mom saying, 

"Ab badhe ho gaye, samaghdaari aajana, 

You must be more responsible, ...........

................."

I don't know why, but there is a notion that each birthday is like a milestone you’ve crossed. So, one feels compelled to look back on his life and assess it, as if it was an income tax return. And unless you are someone like Nadal, who won Grand Slams in his teens, or Prince William, who doesn’t need to win anything and, you feel compelled to pose yourself questions such as: what have I achieved in life. And of all the days in your life, it is on your birthday that you are supposed to be having the ‘maximum’ fun. 

Well, I did look back in life, Realised that I have only spent my life studying to pass some exams, (underline studying to pass )

I picked up a piece of paper, a pencil. and decided to figure out, how much time I did devote to perhaps the only seemingly meaningful activity, i.e. Study.

I plotted a graph,  (avg. hours of study vs stages of life) and it didnt really turn out pretty. 

Here's how it was..

(Click to enlarge)

Turns out, I haven't spent time studying at all. Perhaps, my tenure at Narayana Jr Coll is a face save, but thats all there is to show.

The Petronas Towers and the Mariana Trenches in the past 4 years, seem amusing though. You have to be an engineering student to understand those

Life at Saudi was bliss, I am sure nobody is as lucky as I have been, in spending a childhood the way I have.

 I realise that more than 90% of my time is unaccounted for, (I wonder if it resembles the budget of Bangladesh)

Maybe TV, orkut, computer games would make up a major chunk.

 Of course, not to mention if there were a Forbes/TIME magazine list of the laziest and careless persons on the planet, I might well be in the top 50 

(Note:- I didn't mention top 10 cos I am modest, though I very well know I will be in the top 10)

Perhaps, an e.g. of my world will make things clearer.

 An e.g. as to how lazy I am 

The wall calendar in my room shows January 2008. I have been too lazy to even flip it, once a month. And the only reason why it shows 2008, is because my brother bought a new one and put it up a year ago. I trust he will do the same, in 2009 too.

 And an e.g. of how callous I am would be,

I was to attempt (ATTEMPT) an exam called GATE, it starts at 10:00 am and my center was quite far, I woke up at 9:30, looked at the alarm clock, then at the wall clock and then went back to sleep,

another e.g. would be what happened just yesterday for SNAP, reporting time was 1:30, and I was at McDonalds having lunch till 1:40, not to mention I didnt carry a pen to mark the answers with.

I could quote dozens of other such examples, but keeping in line with my humble nature I shall not.

Now, coming back to my re-introspection or was it in-retrospection,  whatver

 I realise that I have spent a life of easiness, peace, bliss and hardly faced any hardships or indecurities. I would like to thank the Almighty for that.

 I also know life can't be a bed of roses forever. It wouldn't be fair considering the hardhips that people around the world suffer, for my life to be a bed of roses forever.

So. I am ready for things to change.

I am ready for my life to shift from a bed of roses to

a bed of lilies, tulips, violets, etc.

 Am i selfish?

Maybe, I am. 

 A bit of serious introspection now,

I am 21 years old, and I still have no idea what I want to do. I am not talking about long term goals, being pretty shortsighted I never think that far. I don't even know what I will do or want to do 6 months from now. Most of my peers are pretty clear on what they want to do after graduation, and what they want to become. They know their interests and are ready to pursue them, even my juniors are oncourse, I on the otherhand have no idea about my interests, neither am I making an effort to know them. So, far I have just been moving with the flow of the stream of life, never making an effort to swim sideways, let alone against the current. 

I might have crossed all limits of callousness, which any creature on the planet was set with.

I realize it's now time to change, if I were in Swaziland or Zimbabwe it would have meant that I have exhausted 2/3 rd of my life. Pretty scary!!

It does seem a long journey though, from weighing 800 grams, 21 years ago, to 65 kg now. That is 81.25 times in 21 years, or an increase by 8025%. 

I fear I might become a dharti pe bhoj like the already 6 billion others

No, I don't mean to sound that I am overweight ( joke) ; it's just that I wonder if I have only grown in size but not any wise.

Now, to rescue my future, I will be coming up with a bailout plan, have a few rough ideas to include, I might post the entire plan as soon as I make it.

1)It would include, a cut on my time spent infront of screens, i.e. onscreen and offscreen, Oops!, no I mean infront of the tv screen and monitor screen.

2)That would mean a cut in orkutting, chatting, pretending to be busy.

3) A cut in daydreaming, I dream during the day more than anyone might at night, all my castles, palaces, in the air would put royals like the Sultan of Brunei to shame.

Now, coming to a few other incidents last week, 

Something that came into picture was the criticsing of the various bureaucracies in the Indian administration, the various approvals that need to be granted for an change to take place. There are the bodies or ministries of finance, judiciary, legislature, etc etc. all these bottle up any new changes.

One thing which crossed my mind, with my turning 21 last week, 

Now, everyone believes 18 years is the most eventful, since one gets to vote, drive, open a bank account and all.

 But, for me turning 21 is important too. Since, now according to Indian law, I can get married.

 I felt things at my Home Ministry, (my home) are pretty analogous to the above quoted bureaucracies , I too have to get past various ministries and their stringent laws/conditions to get things done. Virtually, run form pillar to post. The ministries are those of my dad, my mom and my brother.

Here are what conditions I have to fill if I am to get married, according to the Home Ministry

 1) My dad, he says that I can get married only after I start earning well,  and manage to save a good amount.

2) My mom says, for me to get married it's not me who will choose a girl, but the girl will have to choose me.

3) My elder bro says "Tum kidhar, pehle meri to hone do".

 

Now, according to my plans, points 1 and 3 should be taken care of in 3-4 years.

The only problem seems to be point 2????

 I wonder when that will happen???? Perhaps you might help me answer that.

Anyways, on that light note, I will terminate this post, 

Now, I will go back to what I do best, orkutting, chatting.

Oops! I just made resolutions to cut down on the above

Oh! well, just a little won't hurt.

The resolutions can wait another day

 or perhaps

 

another birthday...

 (I apologise this post was a bore, but then, perhaps I might read it a few years from now and introspect or retrospect or re-introspect.....whatver.

Kindly put in your comments to help me out with my introspection)