Weekend, Destiny and Other Things

They say time flies and it certainly does. Time noticeably flies faster on a weekend and strangely slower on the weekday when coincidently you are also having a bad office day. Strange are the ways of time. We just had a long weekend with four holidays back to back starting from Friday to Monday. And they were gone in a jiffy. I hope the same happens on the weekdays. It will be days and even months before we get a long weekend like this.

We had planned to go to Paris. However with something going wrong in the project and some team members being in the office, the plans were cancelled. It was also evident that Paris would be crowded with tourist on a long weekend. But I was not going to waste the weekend.

Friday was roaming in Amsterdam. There’s a big park right in the heart of the city called the Vondelpark. I think it’s pronounced as “Fondelpark” as Dutch pronounce “V” as “F”. It’s a big park with lots of greenery, water, ducks and open cafes. You can just sit there and watch as the life goes by. You will find people around sitting on the grass, benches around just relaxing. Some jogging around. Dogs running around making their masters run with them.

Saturday it was a trip to Texel, a small island near the west coast of Netherlands (I think, they only have a west coast). The island is known for more of adventure sport like surfing, hiking, cycling camping etc. As it was one-day trip, we would be just looking around. A two-hour drive from Amsterdam, this island is really beautiful. We visited the beach.

There was this big Karting track there. Ok it was not that big but it was not small either. I suddenly had the urge to go karting. I had never done karting in my life. Looking through the glass windows it looked dangerous. There was only one person driving and he was fast. I was having cold feet and second thoughts. But Rajesh and Pranav were ready. I convinced Aman too to join. We did go karting and to tell the truth it was fun. It was fast and when you are on the tracks and with the fast cars under you, it makes your blood rush. I now know what makes Michael Schumaker risk his life on the F1 track. It’s the mad adrenaline rush. If I could get kick on a simple small car, I would love to imagine myself in those F1 monsters.

Sunday evening we had guest in the house. Actually they were Vijay’s guest. Aman and I stay in Vijay’s house. We cooked food. Nothing much. We had Chicken curry, grilled chicken and my specialty Batata vada. We specially called Rajesh, my friend to make Sambhar. He makes nice sambhar. Actually he uses the packed Sambhar powder which is not that difficult. But he makes nice sambhar. I know because we ate it for 2 days after that. First it was good and secondly we were just lazy to cook.

After dinner we all sat for chit chat. The topics ranged from anything to anything. Right from the food to ghost and to relationship. The participants were enjoying it so it really did not matter how late it was. We talked till 6:00 AM in the morning. We mostly argued, debated and discussed.

Of the many things we talked, discussed and debated, one topic was about destiny. How much part does destiny plays in your life. It is obviously wrong to leave everything to destiny and then cry because we were not destined to achieve. Actions are needed on our part. But sometimes action taken in good faith, the hard work done by you may go waste because you were not destined to complete or achieve that.

But I think we may or may not achieve what we started. But the efforts, the journey is also important. Laying too much emphasis on the result we tend to forget the hard work we do. Success is not sure but atleast we enjoyed the journey. Let destiny take its own road.