einprotagonist - Tumblr blog

[einprotagonist]

Quick update to last post.

Not moving to Canada.

[einprotagonist]

Going abroad...

Earlier, we've talked about how there are several dreams that a person carries, it is highly unlikely you don't have more than one dream. Ofcourse, you can rank them in an order where something is more important while others can be just peripheral options in your opinion.

And this blog is about me trying to go abroad, I'd earlier tried to explore options about how I can go study abroad. When I was in 6-7th standard, I'd talk to random people on internet who were from various different countries and I was fascinated with the lifestyle they had while I was proud of how much academically smarter I was when compared to some of older students too. But I wanted to explore, they had places which weren't awfully crowded and they had public facilities which were far better than ours. Yes, every land has it's own shitty side but I am not the one to dig shit when I'm dreaming.

During intermediate, I came to know about SAT exams which must have costed my dad almost 75% of his monthly salary at the time when he had to pay rents of 2 separate stays - me and family, pay for food and what not. We were basically drowning in loans I think but never restricted ourselves from trying to make life big. I gave the exam without much preparation and scores were a little above the average and were just about enough to secure 60-70% scholarship in a few universities in the USA - turns out that even if we were given a 100% scholarship then also my family wouldn't be able to pay for the cost of me living there. I immediately let the thought and dream pack its bag and leave. LOL.

Then in college times I was getting better at Automobile Engineering and was deeply invested into making a career out of it. Europe was a dreamland for cars and once again I started to check where I would be paying the least for education, be allowed for a part time job to pay my own living expenses during the masters degree and things did not fall into place. This time my university grades were not good enough to breeze me through and then pockets were already empty for this sort of arrangement to go ahead with. Plus there was this notion that I can keep trying after getting into job.

Well, 4 years have passed since I graduated and many things have happened, some may be well versed with all of those things but most will never know the complete details until they read about it here in future.

Now after all these years, and all these experiences... I think I want finally want to move out and make new moves. I've evaluated the current situations, the budget and options that are present in front of me. The decision on where to go has been pretty clear after initial analysis - Canada is the only place which checks all my boxes. My plan is to go for an MBA and find myself a job after completion of the course in order to support my family better while live my best life. That is right, I want this for myself more than anyone else. Which is how most of the dreams are I think, other factors like family or future generations will always benefit from the positive outcome.

So.. yeah I have just finished giving the English proficiency tests and it is still a very long way to go. I'd prefer to get admission into one of the renowned colleges and we will find out more in the aftermath.

[einprotagonist]

[⚠️TRIGGER WARNING] (It's probably for the best to skip reading this one)

Coward? Lazy? Afraid? Or just weak?

What am I? Why is it that I have no solution to the problems I am facing? Are there really any problems or am I just overthinking? Why am I unable to get out of these spirals of life? When will I be good enough to help those who are around me? My parents, my sister, my relatives & the needy in society.

Why are my efforts without returns? It's been so long that I left college with a degree in the hopes of earning well, how has all that gone down the drain? Where are those who would pay me in expected fashion? Is it really too much to expect? I make bare minimum for someone my age, effort and qualification.

Will there be care? Is there always a burden on head? Am I seeing the responsibilities the wrong way? Do they feel like a burden only because I am unable to take care of them? Who assigned them to me? I did, because I thought I was capable but now I'm failing to live up to it. Instead I'm just struggling to make the ends meet. Had my father not been just about sufficient for the family, I could not have provided for anyone - maybe not even myself.

Am I a coward to think of ending it all because it's not going the way I ever wanted? Does it ever go like that for anyone? Maybe for some it does but the others fight, live and win. Maybe I'm just too lazy and I want to give in but I'm too weak to leave anyone like this? Will they think about me? What will they think? Am I going to do anything like this? No, I don't think I can leave anyone with this to face.

I've been trying to sleep for last 120 minutes, eyes closed and lights off - nobody to disturb but my own mind keeps throwing scenes at me. Trying to make think all which I do not want to think about, which is pointless anyways. Does anyone care? Who should take out time from their lives for me and why even bother about someone like me ffs? What do I bring to anyone's life anyway.

I want to eat delicacies, I have materialistic wishes to fulfill - I am not close to doing that for myself. I do steal a little bit of life for myself once in a couple months by spending a thousand on myself. Is it wrong to be materialistic up to some extent? True happiness lies in spirituality, but is this something that people who earned enough and then gave it up for spirituality or those like me who couldn't live one way so went the spiritual way?

I want to feel loved, but what are my expectations? Are they too much that despite being with someone I still feel this need? Do they do less or am I just too greedy? Maybe I'm just wrong to even have an expectation from someone, they have their own life to figure out and they are working on it - all I'm doing is adding an extra load on them. Why should they take care of someone who does this to them - it's fair point. So I don't demand, but my naive mind/heart feels the need. But I know I am just too free in life and hence thinking like this.

Maybe I too should be doing something in my free time, something productive? Something fun? I preach and often convince people to live their moments - have fun when you want to because you're not going to be as efficient anyways. But tonight I'm just doing the opposite, I would generally put on a movie or watch a football match and go to sleep midway. It's not a toxic habit that bothers my daily sleep. It's just for nights like these. Tonight I thought I wouldn't need to watch and I'll just sleep, yet 3 hours have passed now.

I shouldn't have written all this, may put some in tension. But who reads my blog anyways until I push them the link myself, so maybe it's a safe place to pen down my chaos once or twice.

It's not even midlife and I feel the crisis, the crisis felt by a beginner in career and an adult in life. Maybe maturing early didn't do too well for me, did I not have fun or am I just getting melancholic for no reason? Did I even mature early or was I a delusional fucking cunt who was just boring people with his takes on life? Maybe people just didn't say it to my face out of pity.

[einprotagonist]

Well.. there goes that dream

When we were kids, people would often ask us - ‘Hey little one, what do you want to become when you grow up?’ A very cliche question to keep conversations going in the room. We would dream, didn’t matter if eyes were open or closed. Some wanted to be doctors, some wanted to race, some wanted to fly and some wanted to cook then some wanted to act while some wanted to sing.

There were all sorts of ideas floating around inside a room full of children with dreams.

All of us carry our dreams from childhood and one day wish to fulfil them. I too did the same, I wanted to be many things in life - all at different phases of my life.

It isn’t exactly like we want to be everything at once, but we keep finding new things that we want to do.

I wanted to become a Pilot when I was young, a Military Officer. Had always been patriotic, wanted to take responsibilities and give everything I possibly could for my motherland. School days strengthened the feeling, I got inclined towards Airforce because of NCC affiliation of my school. I couldn’t qualify the exam after school for it in my only try though.

By then I’d also gotten into football and, at the very least, I was a big fan of the game with a sporting physique but my technical footy skills were not so good as I started late (14-15 years of age). I was naive & passionate enough to believe that I’ll train alone in local ground, 2-3 hours a day every morning before going to school and will be able to one day get scouted for some academy at least. Just missed a massive factor that I was in India. I did become a good player though.

School ended, this is when I failed to qualify the exam for Military and football was never happening now. It was time to get into a college.

I still had a shot at Airforce after graduation, but over the passing years my love for automobiles grew strong and now I wanted to be an automobile engineer.

Got into mechanical engineering and this happened, cars and football were basically done for at this point. It’s not like I gave up but I had to start earning and the doors with these two were FAR from being open for me.

I took my chances at Airforce now that graduation was complete, they allow you to take tests till the age of 25. I qualified exams, crashed out of their interview procedures 4 times.

The fourth time was funny, I had been to the last stages in previous attempts so I was expecting myself to make it that far again before finally nailing it this time. To my surprise, I headed out right on day 1. I thought to myself ‘Oh well, fuck. Next one is mine for sure, bad luck in this one!’

I made my way home, got extremely busy with life (jobs, relations and travels).

So near the end of year 2022, they release exam forms again and I’m filling in my details until I realize that it is not accepting my date of birth.

This is when it struck me, that 4th one was actually my last one. I sat still for a while, just wondering how so many of my dreams just finished being my dreams.

Not a footballer, not an officer for Airforce & nothing to do with cars.

So when do we become old exactly? Maybe when...your dreams are now old talks.

Some achieve what they want, they work hard till they get it -  some work hard but run out of time while some just get betrayed by luck. I regret nothing on my end, I’ve always had the luxury of being good at many things - so I keep my career options open.

But yeah, on December 29th of 2022 the clock ran out on the longest held dream of my life so far.

[einprotagonist]

Should I write something again?

[einprotagonist]

Sometimes, even though there are risks, all you gotta do is take the leap. 😊

[einprotagonist]

Two roads diverged in a wood, I took the one less travelled by.

[einprotagonist]

Let there be peace on your mind when you lay on your bed, because you deserve it.

[einprotagonist]

A Trek To Tungnath

Uttarakhand is known to be the Land of Gods for its mesmerizing beauty throughout the state. It has 5 Shiva Temples on top of mountain peaks which are known as Panch Kedar. The highest of Panch Kedar is Tungnath temple, right before Chandrashila peak, sitting at 3680m altitude with breath-taking views – sometimes literally.

The trek to Tungnath begins at Chopta, where water in the pipelines remains frozen during most nights. These temperatures were very different from what I’ve been used to in my city, where average temperature of day remains above 31° C for 2/3rd part of the year. There was an adrenaline rush in veins and thrill drove us to not only live with the situations but enjoy them with all our heart.

The three of us - Suyash, Avinash and I - decided to go on a trip to explore some of the places amongst which Chopta & Tungnath were two on the list. After exploring a few sights, we reached Chopta for a night’s stay so that we can start our trek to Tungnath early morning next day. Temperatures in the evening were 4-5 degree Celsius and our punk asses could not care less, we went out to take photos and look around. Everything far was covered in snow and near us was all ice. We wanted snow, not ice - excited & waiting for the next day. Haha.

There were like hardly 50-60 residential houses which also allowed stays for tourists. Some 4-5 dhaba (restaurants) and a couple small tea stalls. The most expensive thing was water out of all drinks, because you need to drink it more and there is a shortage of it around the valley. Shortage because water freezes, even in the water supply pipelines.

Temperatures dropped below zero at night and we didn’t move an inch while sleeping in those warm blankets, the air leaking inside from the gaps in windows was totally the villain for all of us. We fell asleep while cracking jokes, grabbing our types of drinks and sharing stories about our lives. The morning came and we got ready, locked our room and headed straight towards the peak. It was a hard time getting fresh in morning for the three of us in that small bathroom with just 1 bucket of water and taps being useless. The scenes can not be compared to anything nor can be described so easily.

There are many stories behind how these temples came into existence and I learned about the most popular one later, it was an interesting story. A Hindu mythologic tale exists which speaks about how these temples came into existence –after winning the war against Kauravas, the Pandavas realized that they needed to atone for the sins which they’d done by killing their own brothers and priests in the war. They went to search for Lord Shiva’s blessings while Lord Shiva did not want to meet them so he went into hiding. These Panch Kedar are the places where Lord Shiva ultimately hid himself and the Pandavas found him after travelling mountains before finally being freed of their sins.

It is interesting how this story connects to what most travellers would feel in their own tales too, excluding the war and killing parts ofcourse. I had a tough year before deciding to go on this trek – Covid, job scarcity and family problems. When I overcame all these mentally and finally felt like I’ve won the battle against my problems – I went seeking peace and relief at Tungnath. The landscape beauty was evidently godlike and was visible throughout my journey towards the temple. It was a challenging task though, I fell and slipped – got ill but never skipped. Is this how peace and relief was trying to hide from me too?

The trek was not easy, we did not have enough water to begin with and then we donated whatever we had to a family on their way up because their kid fell ill. We knew that eating snow wouldn’t cut it but we tried that once or twice too. My shoes were pretty well suited for the trek overall and it was fun to watch people slip down the path after hard worked climb - am I evil? Maybe. LOL.

Just before reaching the temple, I was out of breath and out of determination to finish it. Avinash and Suyash kept calling me from ahead, I stopped only 50m behind but it seemed undoable at that moment. I finally gathered courage and picked myself back up (I was literally lying on the side of path for few seconds). We made it. We did it.

Upon reaching there, it felt like I’ve reached the top of world – a never-ending dose of confidence despite staying hungry for hours and running out of water earlier than expected. The happiness and calm on top overshadowed every other feeling that I had, it was a moment of pure relief when one can hear their own breath and winds around.

Call it the lords, call it nature or call it whatever you want – the stories from the past will always connect to you if you look at them through the right lens. Tungnath made me realize how beautiful and teaching my life has been, at the end of every chapter there is a new beginning waiting for us to join hands and move forward with new plans for life.

Until next trip people! :)

[einprotagonist]

Tbh it really does ig

Your brain translates ‘wtf’ but not ‘lol’

[einprotagonist]

Rendezvous With Her

I’d call them rendezvous rather than a meeting because on her hand she has to keep it hidden from her family. The thrill is just unmatchable.

We meet once in a 2-3 months or sometimes even longer, whenever she has the chance to come to my city or nearby cities. We’d steal our moments in between our busy schedules. Sometimes we plan our schedules in a way that there is a meeting possible from both sides since months have gone by!

We live almost 750kms apart from each other, each with their own parents and only one of us was blessed with parents that are instantly fine with relationships now that we have grown up -  mine. This is why our meetings are somewhat secretive.

We both are busy settling individually up to an extent where we can finally stand up for each other whenever needed, that would be the moment in our relation when we move on to next phase. However, till then these meets are our only way.

It was not always like this... she used to live alone earlier. Away from home for her studies and those times were normal if seen from a relationship point of view. But since past couple or more years with my job, Covid and her study regime taking a hit due to the pandemic have all taken their toll on our relation.

And I kid you not, life was near perfect as a young couple when we were nearer and not bound by restrictions/situations. We’d take calming evening walks after my office hours to share about our day while she’d returned from her institution. We’d sometimes cook and eat together, weekends turned into nice cute outings for dinner and some of the nights converted into impromptu movie nights at each other’s place. Those times were dreamy for a man like me who’d always been in long distance relationships for his life so far.

Seeing her care so closely cleansed my mind everyday of the week. It was a bliss for the short-while that it existed. Just within few months... things happened - I got another job in preferable field and her study tenure was coming to an end. We moved apart - of course I was the momentary villain for moving away first. Hahaha.

Since then, we’d try to find chances to meet when she is around for some work. We replicate our walks, talks, food cravings and what not from the past. But there is always a timer running on our head. We have learned to live this way for the better tomorrow we are hopeful of, for the life to come.

Everything is a part and parcel of this life. Everything has a meaning and a lesson to teach. These distances have always taught me a lot, how do you perceive your distances from the things you desire the most?

[einprotagonist]

What's your excuse?

Clicked by me when I was surveying a slum with an NGO for public help.

[einprotagonist]

What a nice read!

Blind people must save a lot on electricity.

[einprotagonist]

Some people, who are VOCAL, confuse themselves with being a social influencer/leader.

Nope, they're not. They're being just heard because they are vocal. A very important part of being a social influencer/leader is right KNOWLEDGE. They might just be an extrovert who speak out.

[einprotagonist]

A Personal Loss

Maybe I’m just attached to all my stuff, but this one felt a little more hurtful to lose as I was not anticipating it by any means.

I’ve posted it’s image on my social media with a small caption “Achhi thi ye, yaad rahegi“ translating to ‘It was good, will be remembered‘ but only a small count of people know the story behind it. Well, up until now - when I’m making it public.

I bought my bicycle on the day of New Year 2022, with a strong motivation and will to do all my city-wide rides on this vehicle. I always wanted a cycle of this kind, where I would do all my daily tasks on it. It was the perfect ride far out from my budget which I couldn’t afford until this point. Not just financial affordability but situational and spatial mixed along with the former too.

I’ve always dreamt about a peaceful & healthy life, I’ve tried to live it too as much as possible. This ride was a part of it. I bought it for almost 19k with the help of a small EMI scheme and spent an extra 2k on its accessories, while I continue to pay off my other dent debt from education.

A B-Twin Rockrider ST100, bought after taking serious consideration about the activities I have in mind. B-Twin suspensions to accommodate the poor conditions of roads in my city, Shemano 7 x 3 gears to help with all speed-torque situations and a light-weighted alloy frame with great strength and ergonomics.

Just in the third month into the purchase, while I was away from my home and my parents were still at home with my younger sister - the bike was stolen 3AM at night. The useless guard was deep asleep and the two thieves took a free look into each and every house of my society until they found things that they’d like to steal away.

They took my ride, lifted it away outside the boundary with stealth in feet and courtesy to my light weight alloy frame. I do not like what happened, considering that I still have a part of the monthly instalments left to pay for it - they keep reminding me of it.

The police can’t and maybe won’t help the case even though we filed a complaint (along with clear CCTV footages) which they did not register as an F.I.R. I never even had hopes from them, it’d be a miracle if they really find it for us.

I needed to speak out this story, it was not just a normal bicycle that got stolen - it was a lot for me and it mattered to me. There was an emotional significance, money doesn’t bother me as much as the attachment I had to it.

[einprotagonist]

A couple of Strawberry Plants are new additions to the small garden of ours. 😊

[einprotagonist]

A sunset view while returning through the Chopta Valley in Uttarakhand, India from a trek to the highest recognised Lord Shiva Temple (Tungnath) on planet.

Every single view takes your breath away and sometimes literally! Haha. :D

The photo is unedited/unprocessed.