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.

Tough Sailing

Often I feel life pulling me down. This past month, nothing in particular has been bothering me and yet everything seems to be getting under my skin. My friends, my exams, my emotions, my family, even the people who aren't my friends are things that irritate me.

Indispensible

There are precisely 6 people in this world i can trust my life with. Out of that is my mom, dad and brother. Family, always. But the other three, they are the ones that i never want to take for granted. Unlike my family, they could walk out of my life at any given time. And then i would be broken.
When i realised i have only three real true friends, i was shattered. Because when i realised it, i was fighting with one, i was breaking up with another and i was ignoring the third. So i realised i was a complete and utter bitch. And i cried and i cried and i apologised and i cried some more.

Roselyn:
God, i love you. You, with your squeaky voice and your hand on my waist and your laughs and just your everything. I know that sounds so weird coming from me. You're my confidante, girl. And despite all your other friends that hurt me, despite all the little fights, i still want to talk to to you about the lamest stuff. And i really hope college isn't going to change this. I really hope I'd still be the person finishing your sentences.

Shari:
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere we banged our heads together and now you're here and i don't know sometimes what i would do without you. Reading each others' poems out loud and reading each others' lives out loud too. I don't want to lose this friendship because more often than not, it keeps me from breaking down into nothing. So Shari, i love you.

NEM :
Well you're another deal altogether. You're the blood in my body, the twinkle in my eye, the spring in my step. You're the reason i changed. You're the person who's shown me the greatest love and acceptance. You......I'm going to miss you. But i know that as a friend you're here. I don't know how much that will change things between us, but even as friends, for now i can trust you just like i trust the other five, like my family, like my best friends. I know you know i love you.

Mamma, Papa, Abu:
What can i say. You guys are my home. You guys are the ones i fight with the most and the ones i owe my entire life to. You are the ones i know will always be waiting for me no matter who i am, where i go. for your unconditional love and constant guidance. I know our arms will always protect each other. That is the bond of family. I love you guys so so much.

Change

Lately, my life has been quite a bit of upheaval. there has been a lot of change i have to deal with. They say change is always good and one must be resilient in the face of change. I think of these small changes in my life and i see them causing tornadoes in me.

Have you seen the great trees in the forest? The ones that tower above us to kiss the sugary clouds. To me, a tree is the most resilient of creatures. For her, change is infinitesimal. It doesn't matter because whether there is rain or sunshine, whether it is autumn or spring, this magnificiant being lives through it all. A year in our life is simply another tiny ring in her trunk. And when we think we are old by the time we are 40, she is still in her fresh green youth at that age. The tree watches over the changes happening, hardly changing herself.

Then he comes. The lumberjack. His saw cuts her and her sap bleeds down her trunk. But she is silent. she cannot speak, she cannot move and she lets this change topple her over to the ground. She falls like a giant with a thunderous echo and the lumberjack smiles. His work is done.

But what he doesn't know is that in years to come (but a second in the tree's life), she will regenerate her being. She will grow once again, building on her roots, forgiving the one who brought her down. Once again, she will grow above us and watch.

I want to be her, the tree. I want to break away from these changes and look above them. I want to bounce back into life with energy and not with a sense of defeat. I want to be her.

Love is like..

I was thinking one day about love and all of it that i have inside me and i found an analogy which, at the moment seems fitting.
Love is like Quicksand.

There i was, minding my own business, watching the skies and as unexpectedly as ever, i fell straight into love; just like a wanderer falls into a puddle of quicksand. If you resist it, it pulls you down even more, so i didn't fight. i just let it be, i let this love come into me. Slowly, yet surely i was up to my neck in love. Only my head was sticking out of the puddle. After some more time my mouth went down, my nose went down and that's when i realised it was taking over me. It was a part of me now, there was nothing i could do to break free. This love was engulfing me with its power. I could not breathe, i could not see, i could not think. And gently, ever so gently, it took the life out of me.
Here i am now, left for dead. Because love, like quicksand, shows no mercy. At the end of it all, you simply crumble into dust.

In retrospect, i wouldn't regret falling into quicksand. There's a hefty price to pay for the greatest, most exhilarating moments in your life, but somehow it all seems worth it.

An Eerie Sense of Calm

Life has taken a new turn this week. The crutch i used for all the horrid things that happened to me, namely that guy i love, i have allowed to fall away.i thought i needed him so, that i couldn't breathe without him. but now that we're not in a "relationship" it's not that bad. still friends, still talking, still laughing our heads off like before.
in one sense, i still have him as my crutch, as my pillar of strength because I'm not over him as of now. i still love him with all my heart, but i know time heals these things. we need to move on someday. the sooner i get it done, the better. I'm looking at this whole breakup as a chore i just have to do no matter what. I'm trying to be completely emotionless and practical. it's working to an extent as long as i don't think about it too deeply.
it's really pissing off that i have to do this, that the one relationship i had that made me completely, flawlessly happy has to end. life is crushing in its punishments. but what am i gonna do? cry, crib, or carry on. I'd say let's just dry out those tears and f*cking move on. I'm sick of all this sadness.
love hurts.

but after this, my mind has acquired some sort of peace. this is over. i can't think of what ifs and imagine the future. it's over for good. no turning back. nothing i can do. giving up isn't easy here, but it makes my brain think about bullsh*it alot less.

I'm probably not making any sense today...

At a loss for words

I need to speak for myself right now, I need to think. And yet, when I open my mouth to speak, or try to get my mind to think, there's simply a void. no words, no rational thoughts. I am still a child and life tells me this over and over again. So I shall write, like always, so i can at least pretend to be an adult through these silent words. words that are drowned even by the clickety clack of my keyboard. words that you, reader, may find the meaningless uttering of a child.

 

The parents are adamant about sending me to a good professional college. and so am I, the only difference is that I don't want to do a professional course. I fear for myself and I wonder if this desire I have to do something new and different is only the echo of my foolishness. What I want to do is journalism and mass communication. it entails the study of subjects I have never studied. I do not know if I will enjoy it. but my heart yearns for it so. I can just see myself sitting in those classes learning new things, gaining in confidence, becoming a good speaker, writing to my hearts content about everything under the sun. I want to cut and chip away at the rock that I am and make myself a gem. my fear is that all these thoughts are simply fantasy. what if my mind is just playing tricks on me? what if I am only amber at the core and not a diamond?

must I do the safe thing and do my professional degree? should I make a safety net for myself before I plunge into the unknown? again, I fear that weaving the safety net would take up too much of time and I will deviate from this dream to an extent that I cannot go back to being a journalist. I wonder if that is my fate. to be a computer science engineer with an unfulfilled pining to be a writer. yes, I can see myself clearly in that state. it is a much clearer vision than being a successful writer and a much clearer one than being a satisfied computer scientist. 

 

I wonder if my inability to choose will be my greatest weakness, and eventually my downfall.

Undterminable

each one of us has some urge within us to be different. we have a wanting to do something special with our lives that no one else can do. and we admire the people who have acheived this. we look up to them and give them laurels. they become our heros, our role models.
i find everyone around me with these very real hopes of doing something different in life, and i find myself wishing the same.
young as i am, i have always wanted to be different, unique in every possible way, and yet, i could share a common thread with any random person. i have my own dreams, my own ideas, my own imagination and it is very different from other people. at the same time, i can find something similar with any person and begin a conversation with them. i am a chameleon in that sense. i can change according to the people around me and i am comfortable in most environments. but somewhere in me, as i have grown older, i have found myself a misfit. in my attempts to blend in, i had forgotten to discover my desire to be unique. but now, those desires come pouring out and i find myself reacting to situations, wanting things, that are different, out of the box.

my life is paved in front of me like an ominious highway. school, college, job, marriage, kids, retirement, death. sure, i'm going enjoy some beautiful times. but there is no excitement in a life so perdictable. and i could, if i wanted to let it happen this way. i could choose this well driven, safe highway, with all the right stop signs and green signals. or i could walk through the woods barefoot. my spirit would rush to the woods without a second thought. my mind would submissively drive along the safe highway and my heart, of course, my heart would be in the woods too. aching to experience the uncertainty of it all, but too scared to really go out and do it.
someday, this little girl, that i still am, will grow up. maybe then, i will have the courage to walk into those dark woods and the intelligence to steer my way out without too many bruises.

i remember Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Lost - Michael Buble

beautiful song...



Michael Buble Lyrics
Lost Lyrics

Tired

I'm tired of getting frustrated. I'm always in a bad mood these days and I'm really sick of it. it's time to cheer up.
by the way, i hate being a girl. i always get picked on because of my gender. it's always "because you're a girl you shouldn't be doing this.." and that's freaking irritating. why couldn't i have been just born a guy? i mean it's not my fault!! it's really pissing off and anyone who's set to say "don't this, you're a girl" can shove it. i don't give damn.
onto happier thoughts. I'm going to Goa tomorrow!! yippee!! I'm excited. my last excursion from school, i hope it's as much a blast as i expect it to be.
i miss my prince charming like crazy. i haven't talked to him properly in ages. it's just email now. god, i really wanna get some time with him, but time's never on my side. oh well. might as well take it as it comes. i still love him like mad. this doesn't change any of that.

The trough in the wave

My crest has peaked. The trough has begun its descent. the smiles will slowly dim until i cry again. story of my life: crests and troughs. and now, it's trough time baby. I'm all set.
exams were horrible. i didn't study a thing, and well now i know that if you don't study, don't hope on acing your exams. it's simple logic really, but then again the simplest things take a long time to hit me. well i guess the next unit test I'll do better. doubt it though. somehow studying seems such a waste of time right now. whether i like it or not, in less than 5 months i will have to start studying, for the big evil board exams would be near. but now, they're not. so why study? shouldn't i take a break before i have to burn the midnight oil just to get into a good college? yes, this time, just for these next two exams, I'm going to chuck studies. I'm going to have some fun, if it's the last thing i do. it might be the last time i have any carefree fun. I'm going to do what i want this year. I'm going to read novels, paint, make crafty things, dream, sleep and generally live it up. just this once, let studies be out of my mind.
the love of my life is going away. it depresses me. it scares me. it's weird how I'm so attached to this guy that i feel like if he's not there there's really nothing i have to look forward to. it's like my whole time in school has revolved around him and now suddenly the thought of him leaving makes me feel empty. and I'm so in love with this guy i can't even believe it. I'm doing things, thinking things, saying things that i would never normally say. I'm believing that love really makes like wonderful. what i hope is that when he's not around so much anymore, I'll learn to live without seeing him and talking to him all the time. till now, i felt so suffocated if i couldn't talk to him properly because it was only him that i could say anything to. but maybe i can learn. maybe we can both learn to bear the distance, and still keep love alive in us. maybe it will make us stronger. that's what i hope.
my friends are so oddly connected to each other. one of them hurts the other, one ignores the other, another pair hates each other. they're all my friends, then why can't they all be friends with each other? it pains me to have to choose sometimes between my friends and pick sides. like when we get together, who do i go with? it's really frustrating because i love all of them, i want to be with all of them, and they just cannot get along. to think we were all such good friends once.
it is from my friends that i realised love doesn't necessarily have to be constructive. it can have terrible consequences. love can break friendships, it can make you cry, it can force you to give up. i don't know ow hard it is to be on the receiving side of painful love, because i found someone who means the world to me and i to him. but it isn't the same for everyone is it? maybe my turn is coming round, who knows. i can't agree with anyone and say yes, love sucks. don't fall in love. because to me it's so beautiful. but i can't disagree and say love is always a joyride. it's not. love demands a hefty price.
and so as i find little things that scare me, tire me, irritate me, i know that it's time for the part of the cycle where I'm going to be a little more upset than happy. but I'm ready for it. I'm taking it head on, without fear. wish me luck

Life's Good

By good i mean the ratio of good to bad is greater that 1. hey, i wasn't asking for 100% good. now that's being greedy.
school is mostly good. sports day preparations happening. sports day week=lots of sun+sweat+running+laughs+ice cream+muscle cramps+competition+adrenaline. it's tiring, but fun. soon it'll be over but till then I'm all smiles.
school is going OK. nothing great. but hey, it's better that a board exam class. couldn't ask for more in this stage of my life. soon life will all revolve around two exams namely the boards and the engineering entrance. might as well live it up while i can.
home is good. I'm hardly home these days, but when i am, i like it. my parents are pretty nice at the moment.
him, he's wonderful to me as always. i worry about us less and about him more. i hope he doesn't work himself too hard. but he knows what he's doing. its better if i don't interfere.
i guess when it's good, there's less to describe.

So, What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

I was somewhere between 5 and 10 when i was first asked this question. since then, it has incarnated into various forms. Every time it was posed to me, i had a different answer. from beauty contest winner to pilot to fashion designer...the list was endless. that seems like a long time ago, but my list is still endless. Lawyer, Engineer, Journalist, Architect, Designer? The options are so many that i cannot think. people say it is a boon for our generation to have professions that cater to every one's aptitude and skill. but is it really so? i feel like i have so many options i cannot nail it down to one. each one equally uncertain, yet equally rewarding. what to do, what to do?
i want to be a writer, and editor, a journalist. do i have what it takes? am i good enough? what if I'm not? what if it isn't what i thought it was and i become a failure? yes, it is something i love, but do i have the skill or am i just kidding myself?
i could be a lawyer. I've never thought seriously about the profession, so i don't have a burning desire to be one. but do i have the skills it demands? can i rise in this field if i work hard? will i like it? will i regret it ? am i just acting on impulse from what other people said?
i most probably will end up an engineer. i know i can do reasonably well. but i do not feel a rush when i solve a sum, or conduct an experiment. will i be just another slob, just another in the multitude of intelligentsia applying for engineering? will i waste those four years wishing i did something else?
oh the uncertainties of life....
my time is running out. i must decide, for now is the time. i must search inside me and find out my strengths and which profession it will be recognised. will i make the right choice?