A night in Delhi

Alone and lonely. Tonight, I sit upon the cooler on the tiny balcony in my room. The current has gone. No fans. No cooler. No light. Only the heat, like a python, choking, stealthy, unforgiving. The night, it shrouds me. Only a little less stifling than the darkness in my room. And the sky, almost purple with pollution. Dense with smoke. So much so that there is never a star i can see. Only Venus shines through the haze. Despite the heat, despite the pollution, it is somehow very beautiful. I fan myself as sweat trickles down my belly. I hate and love this city. But I deeply long for home. And the power comes back.

Home. It fixes everything.

If there's one place I know coming back to would make things alright, it's home.
Delhi was so muddled for me. I was lost, for a bit. Confused. Irritated with change. Somebody really moved my cheese. I come home and it's warm. Familiar. It's mine. I am not anyone here. I have an identity, a place. I have a family that engulfs me with love. I have a couch that smells just the way it used to. Home makes everything alright. Even when nothing is alright, home brings comfort. And at the end of the day, if I'm about to cry, I sit in my rocking chair, I cry and the peace of home calms me.

I'm free today. Free, in every sense of the word.

"Singing hallelujiah... let's make this last forever"

Crappiness

1. I freaking want to go home.
2. I want him back. NOW. now. now now.. :(
3. I miss my parents.
4. I hate that stupid dog Max that ate my slipper.
5. I miss rose like.. freaking insanely
   
6. Amit. I need amit.
   
7. I dislike college
8. I dislike making new friends. i want my old ones back.
   
9. Abraham. Fatso. Potten. I miss him bad bad bad.
   
10. FUCK.
    

Delhi

Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.
That's what delhi is to me right now. the climate is killing me. and today.. i am missing home like a mad lunatic. i miss my mother. her soft hands. her laugh. her annoying way of being a mother. her cooking. her opinions. everything. i miss papa.. i don't know for what, particularly. but i miss him terribly. and then abu. i miss his idiocy, his hugs, his irritating behaviour, his constant follwing me around, his pestering, the fights, his annoying kisses. i miss my brother almost like i've lost a life force. we took each other for granted.

Snuggling

You read right. Snuggling. It's pretty much the only word that is on my mind today. That and Amit.
Right now i'm thinking, wow. I'm really glad i fought with amit because now, i get the occasional hug from him. and somehow a hug from amit, somehow, SOMEHOW makes things alright. (don't ask how) and finally, i can think "amit really cares" without giving myself an "oh my god, you're kidding yourself". someone(vidya), or something(the fight), or some place(hyderabad) suddenly made amit comfortable with "snuggling" and well, hate to admit it, but i love it! for one, the only people i do that with is my family. (and NEM..earlier) and well, amit's always been family. but hehe, it's good to know that i can say "ok mister, i'm upset. let me listen to your heart beat." and he'd let me. wonderful.

for a skinny bony lanky guy, amit is ridiculously comfortable. but then, maybe comfort has nothing at all to do with the way your body is and has more to do with who you are( he's going to hate that i said that) and you know what? the fact that we were mean to each other for a decade or so(and will be mean to each other for the next few decades to come) makes this little island that we're on even more fabulous. making up for all that time lost and stuffing it into two days of snuggling and hand-holding and talking about smells and everything else that floats in our heads... (non-romantically, of course :P)

funny how it took us this long to be like this, but it was worth the wait. i might have wanted a big brother.. but this, this is a brother + (non-gay)best freind + irritating bumfart + personal diary and that is a preeeeety good trade off.

i love you amit. and wow. i'm finally not too shy to say it. hehe. *snuggle*

This the most stressed i've been in my life.

why do colleges everywhere make admission time so hard? different dates, different rules, different forms for each college and in my head it's all just a blur. If universities in our country could make this process uniform all over, the kind of stress we students could avoid is unbelievable.

First you have all those autonomous colleges with their own norms. They wait for no one. I applied to Christ University and in about a week I get my interview date. Im in bangalore, messing up the interview beyond compare. I come back to Cochin and in two days, voila! I'm in. I have the honour and privilege of being a Christ-ian (or whatever they call themselves)(i just realised i said christian) . but there's a catch. I have to pay straight out 50 thousand rupees(the first year fees) within five days or my admission stands cancelled. Now, i haven't got ANY of my results at this time. My board results would be out only in about a month or so. But they have no problems with that, now do they. Just hand over that fifty grand and the deed is done. if Christ was my only, or first option, this wouldnt have caused any trouble. The thing is, i really dont want to go to christ. it's just a sort of backup. But what use is a backup if it's not there when you need it, right? And i'm not the only one, y' know. students all around face the same dilemma. Most of them actually pay the money because whatever said and done, it's a seat in a good college. After about 4 days of "what to do what to do" i decided i was smart enough to ace my board exams and thereby, have a good chance of getting into my preferred college (St. Xaviers bombay, who incidentally, dont open applications until 1 and a half months from then) so i saved 50 thousand rupees. one down. god knows how many to go.

And then it was a flurry of entrance exams because I, like a dog, am writing my engineering entrances even though i kind of would hate doing engineering. (unless i got into NIT calicut, which was a fat chance really) thats the problem with being a science kid. people think you've gon crazy if you dont do engineering or medicine. the things i hear people say when i say "B.A. Economics" includes "why child, why?", "you're kidding me right?", "good marks in science obviously means u take engineering" and so on and so forth. it's frustrating really. because i began to doubt myself at one point. whether i was really doing the right thing.

and then the results came. and what.. ?no way. i get a 90 plus average. and i'm like hold up! Delhi University!! so thats another window i'm bound to crash my face into before i manage to fly out.

it's crazy with DD's and application forms and certificates, and ATTESTED certificates.. and it's just plain crazy. i lose track of days and hours and myself most of the time. which is really a gift i can do without at this point in my life. but it bears its ugly head at the opportune moment, like a good three headed dog.

Xaviers has started some new e-admission form that i personally think is really really crap. Becuase i sweated my ass off trying to figure the whole thing out.

1. entire thing is done online. no printouts. no postage. e-genius. :P
2. the entire thing has to be done in one sitting. which means that if you accidentally quit, or mess up. that's it. start over. i did this at least 7 times.
   
3. errors in your admission form (like format errors) are only reported AFTER you pay by credit card. convenient isnt it? (yes, it happened to me)
4. you're supposed to scan ur documents and attach them. i scanned my documents only to find that my scanned originals were no good since i needed scanned "attested photocopies" . i honestly dont know the difference between the two. but that's another trip to the copiers since i dont have a scanner. i come back, and one of my copies is upside down and yes! i dont have photoshop. im back at the copiers to fix it.
   
5. they encrypt your page with a signature and the dialogue boxes are loaded with jargon that the layman would stutter over. thankfully, i had the genius of pressing ok or next no matter what was on the screen. guess what, it worked :P

today, i finally got it right. FINALLY. i feel a sense of accomplishment like i just won an oscar or the booker prise or something really big anyway. oh my god. i wonder what someone who doesn't use computers often would do. why do they make this whole process so damn hard?

i liked that about delhi university. one form for some twenty-thirty colleges. brilliant. SO much less trouble. (except the stupid OMR bubbling!!) but honestly. it makes life so much easier. can't everyone do that. can't we all just get along?

Maybe it is written

1. That i will go to one particular college
2. That NEM and I couldn't stay together
3. That rose and ruby really hit it off
4. That the deserving got into the iit merit list
5. That i flunked my drivers test
6. That wolvy showed up

Ichayan

His eyes are blue, hard crystals. They sparkle with a youth that his wrinkles betray. In our land where eyes take shades of muddy black and brown, his are unusual and beautiful. He doesn't smile often. But when he does, you can see he was breathtakingly handsome in his youth. A fair, blue eyed romeo of his time. I don't know his past but every fold of his skin says a story to me that overwhelms me. Without saying a words, he tells me that his life has been full. He did everything he's wanted to. He's made money, lost it, made a family, seen them grow up, traveled and met people and i can tell he has no regrets. His gait is one of confidence and he walks strong, unlike his years. Even at the age of maybe ninety, Ichayan swims, he eats chocolate and poori masala like a man in his twenties. It fascinates me when he says without even an ounce of sadness that his days are numbered. It makes me laugh when he does this little thing where he sticks his tongue out like a snake and licks his lips. He doesn't even know he's doing it, and when i ask, he tells me he doesn't know what I'm talking about. And then he does it again. He speaks rarely, mostly only when spoken to. He minces his words, but there's so much he says with his eyes and his thousands of wrinkles that maybe words couldn't say anyway.