An Unearthly Ride.

This is not a true story.
Being a huge horror fan I thought why not write a story of my own.This is a small attempt.The setting of the story is true and this trip did take place in Chhattisgarh last year.But none of this supernatural stuff happened.But there are a few things true.

                                                                           Part 1

How did I get myself into this? That was the question swirling in my mind as I was drinking a coke sitting in a ramshackle shop in a small village in Chhattisgarh. The sun was just above the horizon slowly making its way down. Even then my shirt was already wet with perspiration and was sticking onto my body making me feel very uncomfortable.But more than that the thought of the journey ahead was worrying me.I was on a bike ride from Bilaspur, a city, to Tamnar, a remote village which is where I worked in a Power plant.

Now there were two ways I could get from Bilaspur to Tamnar. One was the main road which took a longer route and was used by many. The other was a remote route which passed through the jungles of Korba. These jungles had a reputation of being infested with elephants and bears.I had heard many stories about people encountering elephants and bears.Some people were lucky, they just got only a glimpse of the animals while they were crossing the road but others not so much.There are cases where people have even died.Naturally I was worried.I was through half my journey and right now was sitting in the last proper village before the actual thick jungles started.

My actual plan had been to start in the afternoon and reach my room in Tamnar by evening before darkness sets in. But my being unfamiliar with the narrow village roads and because of a number of wrong turns I had covered only half the distance.The other half was through the jungle and I did not intend to cover it after dark. The sun was setting as I sat there pondering over the journey ahead.There was one more small detail which kept gnawing at my mind. There was a particular stretch of road right at the end of the route which had a reputation of a different kind. There were rumours of it being haunted.Most of the people use it only during the day and people who even think of using it after dark do so only in pairs.Even in pairs there were a couple of stories, recalling ome such story sent a chill down my spine.

Two people on a bike were going through that stretch after a late night party at a dhaba. Normally they wouldn't have dared to take that route but on that particular night a combination of factors, chief among them a copious amount of alcohol made them take that route. As they were passing through a particularly sharp curve, an oncoming bike with high beams made them lose their balance and both of them tumbled on to the field beside the road. Their bike fell on its side and screeched to a halt a few metres ahead. Its headlight flickered for a while and then shut off. Total darkness now. The oncoming biker, god knows who that was, did not stop and was away on his/her/it's way. There were no villages on that route.And because of its reputation there was no one to be seen. One of the guys now barely conscious lifted his head off the ground only to see a small red glowing ball behind the bushes which lay directly ahead of him.As he was trying to make sense of what he was looking at, he saw a sight he wont forget for the rest of his life. As he was focusing on the ball to make out what it was, slowly as if a screen was being lifted in front of it, another similar red ball appeared beside the first one. It took 5 seconds for the guy to realize that what he was looking at was a pair of eyes.Somehow he knew those eyes belonged to no man or animal. With a huge scream he leapt back and crawled on to the road.Somehow in the darkness he lifted his friend and the bike and managed to make his was back to the nearest town. He spent the next two days at home with high fever. His friend was lucky.He didn't see anything.

The fact that I had to pass through the same road was making me very nervous to the point I was on the verge of deciding to go back to Bilaspur. But I had to report for duty the next day and I had to reach home. I always prided myself on the fact that I could lay good plans. This particular one just backfired massively. After weighing my options I finally I decided I had no other feasible alternative but to press forward on the route. I thought Ill take the chance.Little did I know what I was getting into.

To be continued...

What is the best thing your teacher ever told you?

You can do it razzaq! I know you can. If only you give it a shot.I am sure you will do good.

This is what my favorite teacher Amulya ma'am told me during my 11th class.

This was when a student was noting down names of students who were interested in taking part in an elocution competition.And I did not give my name though a part of me wanted to.

I was a very shy and quiet person back then and never participated in any extra curricular activities except quizzes. But I was good in English and used to always score the highest in it. Also I used to read a lot of books.We had this competition called 'Best Reader' organised by our Library Dept and I had won the first prize in the last two years. But in spite of all this I was scared of going on the stage to deliver a speech even though I always wanted to. I was not confident. All I needed was a push.

This came in the above words of Amulya Ma'am. She used to (and still does) teach English in our school. Though she never taught me I liked her immensely! She was one of my favourite teachers. I suppose she knew about my lack of confidence and told me to go ahead and participate. She told me exactly what I wanted to hear. That I can do it and do it well.

I went ahead and participated in the competition and eventually won the first prize. This proved to be a huge confidence booster for me. I went on to give a lot of speeches on other occasions in school as well as later in college and job life.

All thanks to Amulya Ma'am!

Fake Forward!

Google displays a search result in 0.44 seconds. Assuming it takes 10 seconds to type your search query, and a maximum of 10 seconds for a web page to open, I can say with a certain amount of certainty that it takes only 20.44 seconds for knowing about something with google. So what amazes me is why so many people are reluctant to use this. The reason I am talking about this is that on facebook and Watsapp you see people sharing all kinds of fake messages. People don't bother to verify anything. To cite an example, the other day on facebook I saw a friend of mine sharing a post about a recently started law dealing with the Indian penal Code. I got suspicious as soon as i saw the post. It sounded ridiculous. I did a Google search and it turned out exactly as I thought it would. A fake. There was no such law and the IPC number it cited dealt with a completely different area. So a simple search would have revealed about the authenticity of the message saving misinformation to spread. Now there are a lot of reasons for such kind of messages to be actually made. False propaganda is one for a start. You can simply create a false message citing an achievement/feat/deed/accomplishment of a person/organization/country/government etc. and spread it on a social media platform. It spreads unchecked as a lot of people don’t take the time to verify the message. They accept the truth at its face value. This unchecked and rapid growth creates whatever effect the OP(Original Poster) wanted to create in the people. By the time sensible people who actually check these kind of things start declaring it as fake these messages will have spread far and wide fulfilling the purpose for what they were created. Now if these messages are harmless not much damage is done. But communal messages instigating one particular community against another by putting up a lot of fabricated lies creates huge problems for law and order. So the next time somebody forwards you a message be sure to verify it before you forward it to someone. 

Imagine a dream!

What are dreams? Why do we get dreams? If you think about it for a minute the very idea of a dream sounds so magical.I mean when you are dreaming not for a second do you know that you are dreaming.Everything seems so real.You believe that whatever is happening is real.Only when you wake up that you realize that everything was just an illusion and was happening in the confines of your mind.

Now imagine if only we had the power to control what we dream about. Of course we can always just sit and 'imagine' things.But there is a difference the two scenarios.
First scenario is being awake and imagining an event.The second is being in the state of sleep and dreaming about the same event.No matter how deeply and richly you imagine an event,you know that its all fake.But when you dream in your sleep you believe that its all real.Therein lies the key difference.So the experience of dreaming is in my opinion a wonder in itself.

Consider the following scenario.You want something to happen in your dream.So just before sleeping you imagine the whole event.And you get the same thing in your dream.Only difference is now you believe everything is real.You don't know you are dreaming.It will be like a part of your brain is creating an illusion for another part.That part wants this part to believe. Isn't it fascinating? Generally our brain is taken as a individual entity but if we look at this dream aspect,it is as if the brain is divided into two parts.One part creates the whole dream and the other part believes it.

Dreams,though so fascinating,leave mixed feelings.Somebody(I don't know who) summed it up quite nicely.
''I prefer nightmares. I wake up from bad dreams relieved, because I know they're not real; I wake up from good dreams disappointed, because I know they're not real"

Need for Sleep!

My eyes were red.My head was spinning.My eyebrows heavy.A rumbling sound, like the drone of a particularly smooth motor was running in the background.As my brain was shutting down,Slowly,painfully the world was fading into oblivion.A sharp jab in my left abdomen suddenly halted the whole process and quickly bought me back into the world.I found myself sitting in a classroom listening to my biology teacher.My friend on my left was the one who saw me about to drop on the desk,so being the lifesavers that friends are,he quickly made the split second decision to save my life and at the same time with delirious satisfaction and delight elbowed me quite violently.You see friends are always looking for chances to beat the shit out of you and this was a golden chance he wasn't going to miss.Though I muttered a few choice expletives at him I was quite grateful that he woke me up.That is how you show gratitude to friends.Throw some nice exotic sounding expletives and you are good.Having got back into the world of the living, I then shifted my focus,whatever that was left,to my teacher.She was rambling on about some organism that attaches itself to the body of another organism,shutdowns the brain and slowly takes over the host.Yeah,I thought to myself,you are having the same effect on this classroom.Five minutes was all I could listen and slowly my mind drifted off to some other thought.And a couple of minutes later the cycle was beginning to restart.My mind was slowly shutting down.Again a jab from the ever alert friend woke me up. Ahh! I groaned to myself.This has got to stop.I imagined that there should be a bed right beside my bench and as soon as I felt that extreme sleepiness that only teachers can induce,I will jump right into the bed and sleep till my heart's content.But that would remain a dream.So sad.Another thing that annoyed me was sometimes at home when I wanted to sleep early I couldn't fall asleep easily.I thought at times like those these teachers should be made available and a class arranged right beside my bed.As soon as the lecture starts I will fall asleep and jump into my bed.So much for wishful thinking.

Sleep inducing classes were the worst.Right through my school,junior college and college these zombie making classes made life difficult.In school we had a few teachers who,at times,looked like had magical powers in inducing sleep in students.In college I had the freedom to skip boring lectures.If at all I ever attended those classes it was only because I had a very urgent need of attendance. If theres one thing that I don't feel nostalgic about,its these sleepy classes.Thank god I no longer have to attend those.

Roll no.17 ? Absent sir!

This was me in college! Never had more than 75% attendance! 

No name in first box!

Name in the list for the rest of the semesters!

My 5 favourite coming of age movies.

After the horror genre my next favourite genre is the coming of age movie.They are about that exciting phase of life which when we are going through,we cant wait it to end and once it ends we cant stop thinking about it.That glorious phase when we can get away with most things.And at the same time there are uncertainties,awkwardness and a sense of being lost.These movies show that phase.The following are my favourite from that genre.The first two are clear favourites. The other three are in no particular order.

1. Napoleon Dynamite
What is it about
Its about a dorky 16 year old who tries to help his friend win a class president elections.
Why I liked it-
It is set in a small town and It brilliantly showed how life in small towns is.It has this innocent rural quality to it.People in this movie are all good.Some are serious some are funny.And the quality of humour is very high.This was the movie that piqued my interest in indie and offbeat movies.

2. Ghost world
What is it about- Its is about two girls of a small town spending their summer vacation while planning their college life.
Why I liked it
Scarlett Johnson would be a big reason.Her acting her is superb.She perfectly portrays the character of an aimless girl here. Her co star Emily Birch is good too. Add Steve Buscemi to the mix and you already have a classic indie movie.The story revolves around these girls getting acquainted with Buscemi for fun and slowly things take a different turn.The thing about this movie is it is slow and things happen leisurely.It has some wonderful moments.And it brilliantly shows their naivety and direction less attitude to life.

3.Stand By me
What is it about
It is about a gang of four 12 year old friends who set out to track down a body of a boy who gets struck by a train in a small town in the US.
Why I liked it
First of this is about friendship.And the thing that any movie about friendship should have is chemistry.This movie excels there.Like in every gang of friends, the four friends here have all different characteristics and yet they have so much in common.For one they are out for an adventure together. There are things that they do together,they insult each other and when the time comes they stand by each other.This movie perfectly portrays the worth of childhood friends.

4.The Spectacular Now

What is it about
Its about a popular guy who falls in love with the good girl/Sounds clichéd but the movie deals with the story rather well.
Why I liked it
My favourite Hollywood romance movie.The movie follows a very simple plot.The characters are simple.The plot is simple.The movie is honest in its portrayal of the kid who believes that the present is spectacular and he has no need to think of the future.He meets a rather quiet girl who brings a change in this outlook towards life. There is no unnecessary drama and no nonsense.This is a very good mix of romance and a bit of a philosophy.

5.Safety Not Guaranteed
What is it about
Its about a man who puts in an ad in the local paper 'Wanted someone to go back in time with me.This is not a joke.You'll get paid after we get back.Must bring your own weapons.I have only done this once before.Safety not guaranteed' Three magazine employees(two interns) set out to interview the man behind the ad.
Why I liked it
The absolutely interesting premise is what hooked me. An interesting set of characters and very wonderful execution will keep you wondering till the very end if the main lead is telling the truth or is just plain delusional.Also this is set in a town.By now you may have deduced I am partial to movies set in small towns.The characters in this movie have this sweet sadness about them about missed chances and lost dreams.Add to that, elements of science fiction,romance and comedy,it is a nice little indie movie worth your time.One of my all time favourites.