It's been two Awesome decades! :D

For months I'd been dreading my birthday. I didn't want to be twenty. Twenty just seemed too big a number. I didn't want to be twenty at ALL. Twenty means you've lived for two decades. Twenty means you're not that innocent, cute little kid anymore. Twenty is when you stop using the suffix 'teen' (that you've used cheerfully for seven years) after your age anymore. Twenty is when your adolescent years are over and you become, gulp, an adult!

I remember five years back when my sister turned twenty and it all seemed to be such a big deal. I would look up to her and think "Wow, she has really grown up!" And I can't believe those five years whizzed by in a blink and here I was, in the same place. First of all, I felt that I didn't seem like a twenty year old, I didn't look like a twenty year old and I certainly didn't feel like a twenty year old. I was so comfortable being nineteen, I didn't want time to move any more. It's just the perfect age. You don't really feel like a grown up, and yet you're not considered a kid. But turning twenty, now that, as one of my friends puts it, is 'big shit'. It's like life is nudging you to grow up, become more responsible, start taking life seriously and start making your own decisions.

Anyway, of course I knew it was inevitable and I decided to take it in the right spirit. So when the clock struck twelve on November 9, calls started pouring in. I don't think I've EVER received so many birthday calls. Courtesy: Facebook. My sister pinged me on Gmail and wrote "Welcome to adulthood!" And that's when it hit me. I just stared at that one sentence and muttered, "Oh. My. God. I really AM twenty, aren't I?"
The next day was nothing like I'd imagined. Some of my friends forgot to wish me, some did, in a very "Oh it's your birthday? Well then, happy birthday" sort of way. They weren't even excited to go celebrate it with me somewhere. What was worse, we were attending classes!! As the day progressed, I became more and more forlorn. It was like I was a balloon and someone had punctured me and I was gradually deflating. (Except for the time when a friend (Cheenti) sent me a dozen red and white roses and I screamed with joy! and also when mom and dad came into my room early in the morning, lovingly woke me up and hugged me and made me so so rich!) After college when I asked my friends to go out, they came up with the lamest of excuses:

"I'm tired."
"I'm sleepy."
"Don't feel like."
"Maybe tomorrow..?"

Anyway, we ended up going to this little restaurant very close to our college with four of my closest friends. I was mostly sitting there dejected while they happily chatted away, apparently oblivious to how I was feeling. Boy, was I bummed out. Back home, I plopped down on my bed, disgruntled and hurt. "20th birthday. Big whoop", I said to myself scowling as two tears rolled down my cheek. Right at that instant my dad told me that one of my friends (Bhakti) was at the door. Sure enough, she stood there holding a big bouquet! She asked me to come over to antother friend's (Smriti's) place. So I agreed.
When I reached her place, believe me, I had NO inkling whatsoever about what was going to happen next. I open the door and there's a loud outburst of "Happy Birthdayyy!" It took me about two whole minutes to register the entire scene. And my reaction was so idiotic! I was like, "Oh MY GOD! You guys. What.. When. But how.. Oh wow..I just.. Shit man.. Oh god..!" :P
ALL of my closest friends, around 15-20 of them, all standing there, grinning from ear to ear. They got me a chocolate cake! They'd blown lots of heart-shaped balloons and had put streamers in a haphazard and cute manner! Wait, there's more. Another friend (Samrath) made Bhelpuri and got cold drinks! And they did all of this in such a short amount of time! Smriti said she wanted to do something more extravagant and I just rolled my eyes. It didn't even matter what they do or what they get me. The fact that they all gathered together, took time out and were just...there for me and with me on my birthday, was more than I could have asked for!

I was.... overwhelmed, overjoyed and speechless. In the first five minutes, I couldn't even focus my eyes, I was just so perfectly, amazingly SURPRISED!!
Every year on my birthday, I organize the party and I get the cake. This is the first time I've ever received a surprise party! The first time my friends have gone out of their way to make my day! And trust me, it's the most wonderful thing ever! Especially when you're friends deliberately turn into assholes and lower your expectations to such a level that you have absolutely NO idea they're planning something! At first I was emotional, then I was excited, and then I was ecstatic. I hugged each one of them and was hopping and frolicking about in no time! I even let them put a little cake on my cheeks and nose! I love them! Each one of them! It was AMMMAZING!

I suddenly felt.. special. It's great to know you've got a bunch of friends around you who care. I know I'm never going to forget my 20th birthday. And I've quit fretting about it. What's the big deal? One day I'll turn 30! Even 40! and 50! I'd freak out then. Being twenty actually feels awesome now. I know childhood is gone, I'm not the same little kid anymore who would sit for hours with her crayons and who would write short stories and make everyone in the household read them. I know I've grown up and I'm a year closer to the grave, but that doesn't bother me at all. Life has been beautiful so far and I'm sure with friends and moments and experiences like these, it's going to be wonderful in the years to come!

Yay me! I'm twenty!!!! :D

Light My Fire!

BOOM! An ear-shattering explosion right outside which makes you jump out of your skin. The stench of smoke so strong it enters into your nostrils and even into your rooms. Battered, torn, little red paper bits scattered all across the streets outside. Little children running around every nook and corner carrying guns that go ‘phat-phat-phat-phat!’ Families hop scotching from one relative’s place to another, wearing bright attire and carrying huge boxes filled with sweets so saccharine they fail to serve their purpose. Chubby, prosperous women throwing kitty parties, playing flash, and exchanging luxurious gifts. What am I talking about? It’s a simple trisyllabic word almost everyone is familiar with: DIWALI!

Yup, it’s that time of the year again. Personally and blatantly speaking, I’m not a big fan of this festival. I cuss under my breath every time a bomb explodes and makes me drop whatever I’m holding. I fail to understand what sadistic pleasure people achieve by simply producing loud noises? It honestly beats me. I always vouch for a non-smoke Diwali every year.

As a kid, I remember the little pig-tailed me, tinkering around here and there wearing new clothes, jumping holding sparkly phuljaris, lighting up the whole place with candles and diyas and proving to her cousins how daring she is by jumping across revolving charkhis. I used to enjoy it all, but honestly, I mostly used to be scared out of my wits of those godforsaken bombs!

Does that mean I’m a scaredy cat? Maybe so, but this is what it is.

See, I like the fact that people celebrate it because Lord Ram returned to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile in the forest and all, but today, do people really celebrate that? His return? Or is it merely an excuse to dress up, pollute the environment, and eat lots and burn thousands of bucks into smoke? Imagine the amount of pollution that is added to our country in one single day! Not to mention the accidents caused due to firecrackers.

For me, Diwali is a wonderful time because the families get together! This year we went to my mama’s place at Mathura. He is in the army and the cantonment area in which he resides was beautiful and well maintained. All I remember about that weekend is, soaking in the winter sun in their lovely little garden, having the most mouth-watering tasty delights prepared by mami amidst fun family banter, lazing around in the living room listening to the Beatles and watching amazing fireworks together. It was peaceful, refreshing and just what I needed after a hectic college month.

I started to think a tad optimistically on the night of Diwali, when I went up on my terrace. It was….. spectacular. The houses were amazingly illuminated with countless blinking lights, while the sky was emblazoned with continuous fireworks exploding all across it. The sound of crackers, rockets and bombs booming all around me, amalgamating into an uninterrupted, amazing symphony until it seemed as if the whole world was joyful. Everybody, the sky, the trees, the buildings, every living and non-living thing was partying and celebrating and rejoicing together. Everything seemed united. Alive!

And I just stood there, turning round and round slowly, looking up at the sky. All I could whisper was “Wow”. All the money spent, all the blasts, all the smoke, all the pollution, it all seemed worth it. Smiling to myself, I decided Diwali in India is like Christmas in the west. There is so much positivity, love, happiness, brightness and togetherness around you that it’s hard to remain unaffected by it. As Andy Williams puts it, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”! :D

Happy Diwali to one and all!

Dark Tranquility.

You never think, or you never hope at least, that it would happen to you. Except when it does. Your mind goes into this unfocused, deplorable, demonic state and you achieve an inexplicable pleasure in being miserable. You like it when you’re lonely, you like it when sleep eludes you every night and you’re in this hazy, cloudy stupor; reminiscing and pondering over the absurdity and the tragedy of it all.

It’s a condition when you couldn’t care less about self-hygiene or the fact that your hair literally makes you look ghoulish. It’s a state when every second of every day feels like a hangover after a ghastly bout of a drinking spree. You think, and you rethink, and you reconsider and you wish and you hope and you pray and you long and you want and you plead and you crave to such an extent that it becomes impossible to ignore the voices in your head. It’s a loud cacophony, accompanied by images of the past whizzing round and round and round in your head like a movie; until the fine thread that separates consciousness and unconsciousness slowly dissolves and you feel like you’re drowning. You’re enmeshed into a trap of your own beguiling dreams; with monsters screaming and loathing and cursing and tormenting you.

It leads to a strange asphyxiation; and despite yourself, something inside flails itself all around, trying to break free, to get some air. And yet, even under that claustrophobic pressure, you cannot move a muscle.

You walk around like you’re carrying a huge burden on your chest, only to realize it is something you’d have to carry for a long way to come. You laugh with your friends, your heart flutters for a brief period of time, greedy, lustful, and holding on to every sign of warmth and affection. Realizing soon after, that it has rebounded, with double the amount of force.

People talk, cars whiz by, morning turns to night, the clock ticks away; until it all happens so fast and so at once that everything seems to be a blur.

You want to cry out, you want there to be some way, some solution, some answer. But strangely, you can’t, you’re unable to, because you’re standing in a vacuum. Where there is nobody, no sound, not even air to breathe. It slithers all around you, like a grotesque slimy reptile and chokes you, until you have no other way but to let it all out. Every emotion, every tiny speck of despair, of pain, of sorrow, of anguish comes onto the surface until your tears dry themselves out, your head clears up a little and your mind gives way to exhaustion, and finally, to sleep. The demons are finally quiet.

It’s 3:00 AM. The beginning of another day.