Chulbuli finds a new word meaning(?)

I know its a bad habit what I did, but the conversation which Kats and Clio was getting so loud that I couldn't control my ears. I know it sounds stupid, you can control your legs, your hands, but ears? If you don't wanna listen to stuff, sometimes when you don't want to you can. But I just didn't not.

Here is what they were talking,

Kats: Did you see the news? Adele won the oscar for Skyfall? Amazing isn't it?

Clio : I know. Its amazing, every year she keeps getting awards, and her songs get better..

Kats: She won three Grammys at the age of 19, two world famous platinum record winning albums by 21..Look at all that she has achieved, with each day she writes a more meaningful song; she fought her throat problem and sings even better now.

Both of them were silent for sometime and what Kats spoke next was typically Kats.

Kats: I'm going to be 21 soon, and look what I have achieved..nothing.

Clio: You can't compare yourself to Adele, you are in a course studying a certain subject. You have lectures to go to, assignments to write, exams to give..

Achieve, again a very diffcult word for me to understand. When a friend of Kats got 100 on 100 in an exam everyone was complementing her that she achieved something great. Her photo was in the paper, her name on a board in the school. I don't remember where the board was placed also; but whenever I read the names on it I never felt anything speical about them, like I do about Barney or Doraemon and Nobita. I just knew the names, very few teachers told about the people whose names were on the baord, that too only about the ones who were lower on the list.

The people who helped our country become free teachers and elders say have achieved a lot; even players when they win medals for the country at the olympics or some big game everyone says that he/she has achieved somethign great. Getting 100 on 100 in an exam and getting an entire country free, both are achievements? Confusing..

I asked Kats what it meant, and her reaply was, “The meaning is different for differrent people Chulbuli. For some getting a job in a big company where travel in a long expensive car is an achievement. For some growing a crop is. For Clio it is finding what she REALLY wants to do and do it. For me, it is to do something nice for many many people that never forget me.” How can one word mean so many things! There has to be an end to the number of meanings a word has.

Kats wants to be remebered by many many people; maybe their grand children and great grand children and all the generations to come. And when that is done she says she feels like she has achieved something. But what if after she dies people forget her, all those many many people who remembered her, will she still feel that she has achieved something? What if sometime in the middle a dark hole eats up earth, there would be no humans to remeber her, would her achievement be an achievement?

I think, if we do stuff that we like, and if it makes us happy and others happier, that can also be a new meaning for achievement?

Finish and forever, are they real words??

Kats finished reading this novel about twin sister who are joined in their head last night, its titled 'The girls'. When she was younger, that is when I was in compelte control of her, the thought of having a sister never came. Maybe becasue I never liked the thought of sharing Mummy and daddy with someone else. Also no one amonst my friends then had baby brothers or sisters. The thought of how it would be to have someone younger than you, almost like you, with you all day long never came to me. Then I got older, and Stacey moved into our colony with a little sister. Then sometimes, I used to wish for a little sister who was with me to play with me all day long, so that I didn't have to look for friends out side.

But neither me nor Kats ever imagined to have a sister so close that she is with you all the time, joined at head with you. We both are good company to each toher, but we don't always stay together; we are not sisters too, we are...us. And thats why Kats thought to read that book, to know how it is to have your sister by your side all the time. In school eveyrone believed that girls can never be good friends for long. Kats told me once that grown-up sisters also fight, and don't talk to each other, sometimes forever. So because of all these other stories we read, we wanted to know how do they stay forever togehter.

Forever and finish these two words have confused me a lot. Especially after Kats read portions of the book out to me.

The two sisters about whom the book is are joined together in the head, they share an important vein,no doctor can separate them. They are together forever and ever. But it says in the book that if one died the other won't die immidiately but would die in sometime for sure. That isn't togehter forever right? But when one dies the other would die too but only with a difference of time of a few months, maybe days, maybe hours, maybe just a few seconds. But there is a difference and that difference in time of their death doesn't make it forever. I told this to Kats and she diasagreed saying, “A few mintues of separation against years of bein together doesn't cancel out their togehter-forever status.” But..I suddenly feel forever is fake. Its a word that is not real.

Life on earth isn't forever. The dinosauras lived, but a metor hit earth and they call died. Some species that lived before on earth just died. And I remember Kats telling me once that some day a bi g black hole might come and eat up sun like pacman eats rasberries in the pacman game. It might also fall into the sun with a great explosion some day. That some day is really really far away, but when it comes all the history that we have studied and saved, all the science we have learnt and discoveres, all the languages and thins we have invented, all the memories that we have preserved would vanish. There would be no forever for us, human beings or earthlings. But changes keep happening, maybe that is forever. Change is forever but being same is not forever; so maybe forever is a speical word that is used only with change; like orangy for orange?

Coming to the word finish, it always reminds me of something that Uncle Stash, the uncle of 'The girls' said to Rose, “People don't finish, Rose. People stop. To finish is to say okay, now it's right, never I'm going to change it. To stop is to say okay, it's not perfect but I have to go to do something else.” I felt that the novel Kats read didn't finish, it just stopped. It happens all the time. Last summer, we both saw a plait on the internet that was like the one princesses wear, we read the instcutions on the internet and tried to make it, but it didn't turn out the way we wanted it. We tried for three hours, but it just wasn't perfect and we had to stop.

The pages of the story book/novel end, but both myself and Kats keep wondering what would have happened next in the life of the characters had they been real or that things could have been better had something else that we liked had happened. Maybe stories also never finish, they just stop.

Guess you can never finish things like paintings, plaits, stories, songs; but you surely can finish a fresh hot plate of poha by mummy.

To finish something forever, can that happen?

Did the cloud move, or did I move away?

When travelling in the auto I have seen the clouds move away from me. But sometimes, when I am standing still I can see them move. When in auto I see the other things also move away, this Kats says is because we are going ahead and everything else remains stand still so to us it seems like everything else is going away. But I asked her, that what if while I was going ahead in the auto, the cloud actually did move away because of wind, how would I know? Kats had a solution for this too! She said, “Ask another friend who is not moving at all to watch both your auto and the cloud. She would know who is moving and in which direction.”

Smart idea, isn't it? But is it really possible for one person to see both the auto and the cloud at once? What if while she was observing the auto for a few tiny-winy minutes the cloud moved, and she didn't notice how much and in which direction it moved. Then even she wouldn't be able to tell what actually happened isn't it?

I guess Kats would say then, “Have two friends then. One who carefully observes the auto, and the other the cloud. And after sometime let them discuss.” But what she does forget is that when two friends have to do a job togehter it is simply not possible for them to do it wihtout talking. And then they would deifnitely make a mistake about the auto and the cloud's movements.

The clouds as I told you before reminds me friends; sometimes you don't know wether you moved away or the cloud. If you ask a friend or two friends to tell you when the cloud has moved away from you, by the time they tell you the cloud would be too far. Not that they will always be wrong, but the chances that they can manage to tell you on time is very less.

How does one solve a problem like this! I saw somewhere on the internet, where by controlling the temperature and moisture of a room someone made a cloud inside the room! Amazing isn't it? The cloud stands still, right where you want, it is of the shape you want. But it won't thunder or rain, it can move, but has nothing to cover or sheild away from. But who would want a cloud like that, that doesn't thunder, that doens't cause rain; that just stands in one place like a showpiece. So the make the cloud in the room solution goes. There should be a way right?

Maybe if you walk back from where you started and you see that the cloud is still there in the sky above you, you'll know that you moved away. But what if the cloud had moved too, but came back when you did? How would you know that?

I can't think of a way to find out who moved away exactly at all times, me or the cloud. You can't pin a cloud on the sky like on the display board, but you sure can keeping looking up and smiling for it to come your way again, or at least hope the winds to push it your way.