Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr :3

The past two weeks have been emotionally harrowing. Not only have I been facing severe existential crisis, I am also becoming increasingly anti-social. Not a good thing, I know. But I guess it’s just one of those phases. I really hope to get out of this rut soon, and put some life into this blog as well.

We went for an overnight trip to Satara as part of our Rural Reporting course. And it turned out to be one of the best things I’ve done here so far. Just visiting the villages, talking to the people, discussing, and thinking of new story angles was an experience in itself. But even this trip and the IIM fest together could not manage to lift me out of my slump for long. IIM A was kind of an enchanting experience for me. The campus mostly consisted of red-bricked buildings, lots of trees and scurrying animals, good food and lesser restrictions. But what bowled me over was the kind of passion, energy, enthusiasm the participants in the plays showcased. The street plays in particular, were unbelievable. I had no idea they could give me goose bumps, make me move to tears and have the power to touch me to such an extent. Our stage play was good, but it paled in comparison to the other stage plays. Kirori Mal college (DU) performed a play called A Threesome without Simone, which involved only three actors on stage. It was an extremely intricate and delicate play but they carried it off with such skill and finesse I could only wonder how they get the time and the drive to act so well. 

Once back in college, I went into my black hole again. Coming out only briefly, as if a little mole poking its head out of its hill. But something amazingly extraordinary happened today evening. I was in the middle of an argument with a friend, when a furry little ball climbed up the staircase where we were sitting. Now I have never been a fan of cats, I’ve no experience with them, and I always assumed they were selfish, irritable little creatures. But this little kitten did not claw me or run away; it just lay on my lap while I stroked its fur. I played with its paws, I touched its little nose, I squeezed it, and it just lay there on my lap, sleeping peacefully. It was such a furry little thing, and it was so cosy against me, I had to bring it back to my room. And bring it back, I did.

(Snuffles in my room!)

(Snuffles cozying up against me :))

(Sleepy kitty)

(Look how tiny it is!)

I’ve decided to call it Snuffles and it is sleeping very peacefully on my tummy, all curled up like a little bundle of warm, purring joy. What amazed me was how quickly my agitation evaporated once I started playing with the little thing, and how elated a strange, lone animal can make you. It’s the perfect company if you are a little homesick and down in the dumps too. After a lot of running about, posing for pictures, hiding under the bed, some warm milk and half an Oreo biscuit, Snuffles is all tucked in while I watch Monsters, Inc :) I can hear its soft purring, and I can feel its heartbeat. Such, such, SUCH an adorable little thing.

There are ways to bring yourself a little happiness. Reading a comic book, listening to your old favourite pop artists, playing with a stray animal, or just enjoying a warm cup of tea at night. For me, as of now, it lies in looking at the Calvin and Hobbes poster and the clandestine messages given to me by my pseudo Secret Santa: Banta Singh :) And of course, Snuffles.

Even if everything we do doesn’t seem to bring us happiness, we can at least try. It can be amazing how sometimes the littlest of things turn out to be exactly what we needed. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers. I love you guys :)                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Of College and Shooting stars

I have been procrastinating a blog post for a VERY long time now, thanks to the ever increasing ennui which has been on an all time high last month, but if there was going to be any reason for me to get my arse here and write, it was this: It’s 12/12/12! The last repetitive date which I’m going to see in my lifetime! Makes you so aware of how mortal you are. And how life is so very, very transient.

It’s funny how it’s almost always Radiohead which helps me transition from my no-writing to writing mode. I’ve had days when I’ve just sat like a big gunny bag full of sand doing absolutely nothing. And I’ve revelled in it too. Is that okay?

Maybe it’s the foreboding about the 21^st of December *snigger* If that does happen, I will die in a bus on my way to Ahmedabad. Which, by the way, is a pretty lousy way to die. I’m playing a small part in a play written by a friend, which got selected in IIM A’s annual cultural fest: Chaos. I’m pretty psyched about it, seeing as Dualist Inquiry is going to perform there as well. Also, I have another white hair (the third one now) and a fresh new pimple on my cheek. All telltale signs of the coming apocalypse no?

The past one month has been jam-packed, airtight crazy busy. Which is awesome, because when I’m busy, I don’t think about evil things. I can just come back to my room, surf the net a bit, and sleep like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Which by the way, it really is these days. College has been good to me, and bad to me. Mostly good though, because it has made me aware of all the things I didn’t know, and all the things I’m yet to know. Journalism is unlike any other profession. You don’t delve deep into the workings of any one subject, you delve deep into basically everything; politics, history, psychology, sociology, anthropology. It made me realize how I was trapped into a microcosm of the huge, huge world and how blind I really was to so many things we face today as Indians, as people, as humans.

We finished our first live reporting TV news story yesterday. We basically did it in one and a half days, and there were a lot of scuffles, tension, hyperactivity, flared tempers and egos and mini mishaps and disasters. But to watch the final output on the screen with the entire class and being appreciated was a brilliant and relieving experience. College has been about juggling between workshops, classes, practices and taking out significant portions of time to go on the terrace, lying down inside fluffy blankets and watch the meteor shower till late into the night. It has been about listening to The Fray as the stars shoot around you, and a misty cloud floats across the sky while you ponder about the life, the universe and everything. About trying to accomplish all tasks on time while oscillating between sudden bouts of euphoria and abrupt depressing spells.

Life here is about talking to everyone, but knowing who matters to you and keeping them very, very close. Life here is in trying to see beyond what you see, trying to appreciate what you have, and stealing those few favourite moments just for yourself. It’s about reading in the library, making tea in the middle of the night, skipping meals and making impulsive plans of going to the city, laughing at a nonsensical thing. Someone once told me that we usually forget most days, they just pass by, in a jiffy. But we remember some particular days because they made us feel different, special; so why not try to do something that makes you feel like that every day and make every day worth remembering?

With winter finally here, Christmas on its way and secret Santa surprises in the air, it’s very difficult to remain grumpy for long. Especially if your next two days are holidays and you have time to read, write and sleep. Even though I do not believe in it, I made wishes when the stars were falling around me. I guess we do need to keep a little faith inside us alive. 

Dilli diaries: Part III

This is the first time in five months that I’m sitting on my own bed, I’m sleeping in my fluffy blanket, and the first thing I see when I get up is my purple wall. I’M HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME! Coming home after staying at another place is quite indescribable, and only the person who actually experiences it knows what it feels like. When I sit in my room now, it’s like I had never left home at all! Like the five months in college never happened! And yet at the same time, it feels so different.

I still remember how I felt a few days before I left home, the apprehension, the excitement, the hollow pit in my stomach. Now I feel like I’m not the same person anymore. So much has changed since the last time I was here. So much. And yet, all these little reminders in my room tell me that I’m still the same person, and perhaps will always be. Talking to mummy is still refreshing, making tea in the kitchen feels so warm and homely, uninterrupted internet connection is bliss, waking up to the reassuring hum of the washing machine and going through all my old books and diaries. Sigh, it’s brilliant to be home. I needed this.

Delhi was absolutely wonderful to me. And because Diwali is around the corner, it was gorgeous and exciting. I turned 22. Yes, it hurts to say that. I had JUST turned 21, and I wasn’t even over the shock when BAM! I turned another year older :/ I just wish I could stay 22 for another five years, and then move on. Time just whizzes by, it’s crazy!  Anyway, you always have people around you who make you feel so special on your birthday that it all seems worth it. People who gift you amazing, thoughtful books, and people who write poems for you, and people who get you toffee eclairs cake, and people who take you out on a drive on the highway and you can just sit on the window of the car and scream like a banshee against the wind. Also, people who make you have something so amazing as a Banoffee pie. Mmm!

I miss Delhi now. I miss travelling in the metro, counting the stations, standing till my legs felt like they would fall out. And I miss the brilliantly lit up Select City Walk with its fountains, and music and having warm chocolate donuts sitting in the chilly winter breeze. I miss working for the NGO, Vidya, and the little kids with the big sparkling eyes and the innocent grins. I miss walking on the roads, in the malls, I miss how there were always so many places to go to, and so many things to do. I miss the vibrant, shining, shimmering city. I really wish I get to visit it again soon.

For now, I think I’ll get back in my fluffy blanket again.

“If I lay here,

If I just lay here,

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Let’s waste time,

Chasing cars, in our heads.”

Dilli Diaries: Part II

"Ambar pe milte hain kadmon ke nishaan, tere hi har shaam,
Khidki pe likhe koi os ki boondon se, tera naam."

I cannot explain why this song makes me feel the way I feel when I listen to it. It brings back a lot of memories, and stirs emotions which I am always trying to hide.

It's the magic of music, I guess.

My blood test results are out, and turns out, I only had the sniffles, and not dengue. So I won't die. Yay? Yay.

Delhi is beautifully silent tonight. I'm so going to sleep. 

Dilli Diaries: Part I

There is something about Delhi.

There’s something about the premature winter winds of November, something about the bustling crowd at the metro stations, about the pretty young faces sitting at the Hauz Khas fort, about the restless, busy people walking on the roads, and the young groups of friends outside the malls.

There’s something about travelling in the metro, looking at the faces standing around you, wondering about their lives, and watching the city go by.

There’s something about cutting a birthday cake on a bench in Deer Park. There’s something about listening to Ambar by Raghu Dixit at Delhi Haat amidst illuminated trees.

There’s something about gorging on the typical north Indian chaat from a roadside food vendor when you are incredibly hungry.

There’s something about purposefully not wearing anything warm and then catching a cold and sitting in bed cutely sniffling away and whatsapping.

There’s something about living with a typical family who fusses over you and takes care of you and feeds you twice as much of ghar ka khaana than you are generally used to eating.

There’s something about watching a Shahrukh Khan movie on his birthday till 5 in the night, making fun of everything about it, and then getting up at 3 in the afternoon the next day.

I’ve spent only four days here, but I already feel so connected to the city. The sprawling, massive, frightening, liberating city. I can’t get enough of it. 6 more days here :)

Also, my birthday week has begun! I’m going to collect all my Delhi memories and keep them in a little bag when I go back home. Delhi, you can be so harsh and mean, but oh I love you :')

We should meet again, you and I

Down the road, somewhere in another world

In a white wonderland, on a marble bench

Sliding dew drops on a glass window pane

In a parallel universe, on a cliff overlooking a valley

On a park swing, hearts fluttering in the chill of a foggy night

In a galaxy far, far away on an apartment terrace underneath the stars

We should meet again, you and I

There can always be another goodbye

Another world. Another dimension.

The smell of cheese hanging in the air

The whiff of nostalgia and the whispers so crisp

The taste and the sweet melancholia

Salty lips and sleepy eyes

Dreams and smiles and melodic verses

We should meet again, you and I

You can keep asking yourself and never know why

Console yourself

Negotiate with your heart

Shush your soul

The answers are scattered

Flown away with the wind

Hiding in the sea shells, and in the clouds, and between your fingers

In the autumn winds, in the hill tops, and in the cold rain drops

We should meet again, you and I

We should meet in the sky; we should float in the air

We should talk of endless love, and our lives and the universe,

We should meet again, you and I

Nevermind

It really sucks to know that you were always that warm, smiling girl who everyone was nice to. But not the girl who someone would grab and give a bear hug.
It sucks even more to know that a single unfortunate moment when you said something about a certain someone would change the course of things in such a colossal way.
Yes, I was always the girl who made everyone laugh, someone who everyone would like to listen to, but never the one who they would call at 3 in the night because they were lonely.
I was always at the centre, and yet I was the one who stood at the sides.
It sucks to know how all you ever really need is a shoulder. And yet sometimes, somehow it is not enough.

Is it really so impossible what I'm asking for? Is it really much?

In hindsight, is it even worth it?

I have no idea what title to give to this post :D

Yes, I know I’m obsessed with the rain and I write about it wayyyy too much. And it’s another one of my I-just-WANT-to-write-a-blog-post-so-I-will moods. But please, I HAVE to talk about it again. Pwetty pwease! It was just too epic. Okay one of the overly used terms here. Epic! Amongst others. But I digress.

So, six of us were sitting at one of my favourite parts in my college campus. It is a projection which overlooks the valleys and the hills in the distance. It makes me feel really light and springy, and it’s ironically called ‘The suicide point’. Well, because one slip, and you might just fall. But even then, the maximum damage that you can do is break your bones, or worse, your phone. Anyhoo, the sky was considerably clear and the air was pretty calm. And then, they emerged.

Ze clouds. They approached from one side of the sky like huge, sinister dementors, gliding ominously in the sky. They looked like brobdingnagian monsters, and gigantic dragons covering the sky as we screamed “Oh my GOD this is SO epic duuuuude!” And then. It got better. There was a storm; there was the most terrifyingly loud thunder and the most powerful lightning I have ever seen. One half of the sky was completely dark and curtained by the black clouds, while one side was still bright. It was like nothing I’ve ever witnessed. It looked like aliens were taking over the sky, (Independence Day style) or better, it seemed like it was going to be the end of the world. It gave me chills. It felt unreal. I couldn’t believe anything like that was even possible.

The next instant, I felt a thick drop on me. IT.HAD.STARTED.TO.RAIN. That moment I knew I was not going to run under shelter. As my friends ran to stand under the shade, I just stood up and looked at the view. It was like the rain was saying, “Fine, get out of my way, but let me happen.” Another friend and I, stood there, arms outstretched, soaking the water in, feeling the drops on our faces, and for the first time in days, I felt utterly, and blissfully happy. (Zomg I’m happy just thinking about how happy I was)

The teeth clattering, the sneezes, the shivers, the unmanageable hair, were all worth it. The lightning and thunder continued, and after I was all dried up after a hot water shower, I just sat in the balcony and listed to it. After dinner it rained again, like cats and dogs and dinosaurs and almost flooded the area outside the Coffee shop. We sat there, felt the spray on our faces and had hot chocolate. I felt so relaxed, so, so, so EPIC :D

Sometimes you know what I feel? I feel that I don’t mind going into mind-numbingly, suicidal phases of mind, if the opposite of it means this carefree abandon, and joy. And this reminds me of Calviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!

Okay you know what? I have a three hour long 80 mark Photography exam tomorrow. Gulp, yes, I know. But I’m too happy to study :D It seems so trivial :P

I'm just so ecstatic right now and I have no idea why :D

I love long walks, and long talks, and discussions over hot cups of tea, and chocolates and random texts and everything everything EVERYTHING. I love the things I don't love because they make me realize how much I love the things I love. I need to bite someone.

Oh my god I need to get myself tested :D

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D

A thousand little stories

I stood in my corridor in the dead of the night and looked at all the rooms around me. I walked in the corridors, and smiled at the little posters, drawings, messages, or names hanging on the doors. A door suddenly opened, and I peeped inside. Framed photographs, post-its, lights, books, mess, laughter. I knew the girl. She smiled at me. She had a mug of coffee in her hand.

I smiled back. There is a story behind every door. Suddenly I was filled with a sudden happiness. So many of us. SO many of us. Studying together. Living together! You enter any room and there is just so much happening behind it. You cannot even begin to fathom it. Tiny little worlds inside a big one. And all of us live in our bubbles, our own lives, friends, problems, memories, experiences. Sometimes the bubbles collide momentarily, and then off we go our separate ways. Sometimes the bubbles collapse and merge into one big bubble, and we float in it together.

Also, another observation. When I came here, I used to have these sudden imaginations where I would mistake people for my own friends back home. It happened very, very frequently and it was almost freaky. I used to tell so many people they remind me of so many other people I knew. Fast forward to yesterday, when I saw a group photo of my old college friends on Facebook, and I mistook three of them to look very much like my friends here! What’s more, one of the teachers looked like my current professor! It’s nothing big, but it’s just funny how we get accustomed to faces. And then we find those faces in other faces.

Also, you should listen to The Shins’ latest album: Port of Morrow, if you are into their kind of music. But pliss to give it a try. I just had Top Ramen noodles, and I had a very weird day. Don’t know what to make of it. Well, except for tea time, where I sang Linkin Park songs and looked at the sun dipping behind the clouds till the moon rose on the other side of the sky. The song ‘Aashiyaan’ (Barfi) is making me super super emotional right now and I am resisting a fierce urge to cry.

"Dabe dabe paaon se, aaye haule haule zindagi.
Hothon pe kundi chadha ke hum, taale laga ke chal
Gumsum taraane chupke chupke gaayein.

Aadhi aadhi baant lein, aaja dil ki yeh zameen,
Thoda sa tera sa hoga, mera bhi hoga, apna ye aashiyaan."

The crickets are extra loud today. And the silence brings the pre-exam feeling in dangerous amounts. And I miss the curled up figure of my roomie inside her red blanket and her gazillion jerky loo breaks which occur throughout the night, every night. And there is a big ugly insect inside my room and I’m not going to do anything about it.

If I’m making no sense, it’s the CH30CH3. Let’s hope for a better day tomorrow.

Hope.

Yep, let’s do that.

Black holes and revelations

Even though it’s nice to come back to a roommate who yells a loud ‘Hi!’ even before you’re inside the room, and one who threatens to throw you out of the room if you don’t get some fresh air when you’re down, it does feel good to have the room all to yourself for a week. You can wear whatever you want to (if at all), you can fling your mess around the room for a change, you can listen to whatever you want to and at whatever volume, you can cry, and you can trash someone on the phone. You get the picture. It just feels very, liberating, ‘sall I’m saying, even though it gets lonely after a point.

I just finished a Photography assignment. Clicked a few macro shots. Flowers, bees, butterflies, stones, whatever I could find. I love butterflies, they’re beautiful. And they do not fly away when you go close to them. Also explored my voyeuristic side as I snapped pictures of them making babies. Dragonflies, on the other hand, are tricky little paranoid creatures. But I love how their wings glisten and sparkle in the sunlight. It’s brilliant. Sharing some of the pictures here :)

(Butterfly, fluttered by)

(Sunlight dipped petals)

(Glittering wings)

(Yellow)

(Spiraling down)

(Love is in the air, and on the wall)

(Ribbit)

Mark Knopfler’s voice is caressing my ears, and calming me down. His voice is like chocolate, which is also what I’m eating. I really like it when sunlight permeates through the pink drapes into the room. Today was our last day of classes. The official last day of Journalism and Audio Visual students together. Ten days before the final exams begin. We had night photography classes where we captured light trails, and where we sang songs and rejoiced the ending of the first phase of a wonderful journey at SIMC. The wind echoed with the soft acoustic strums of the guitar and our voices trailed far into oblivion. The first semester is already over. One and a half years later, I’ll be writing a similar blog post about the end of the course, and the end of my stint here at Lavale.

The last two months have been the most beautiful and the most unexpected and unusual months of my life. I didn’t even come to know when the rain gave way to the lush green plants, the trickling waterfalls, the rainbows, the colourful flowers, the slithering snakes and the peacocks. When the fog took over the sunlight, when the breeze got colder, when the moon became bigger, when the sunsets became even more heavenly, when the friends who I hardly talked to became my best friends, and when my feelings transformed. It is funny really, how sometimes you don’t have a control over how you feel. You try to cling on to what is right, quite like Jim Carrey trying to grab hold of the memories of Clementine washing away from his conscience in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And you fight, and you deny and you hurt yourself and despite it all, you feel yourself slipping and sliding down. As Leo Tolstoy said, “Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”

You look at the sunset, you feel the breeze against your face, you walk on moonlit drenched roads, and watch the clouds glide past the silvery shiny orb, and your eyes water with ease, and you feel like you can laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes feelings can be so illogical; heck they are mostly always illogical, and no matter how much you try you can’t prevent yourself from crashing deep into the infinite abyss of treacherous emotions. Sigh.

Sometimes it feels like a dream, or like life is playing a silly joke with me. And sometimes, I don’t mind it. Not at all. It is really hell inside my head sometimes. Do I like to sabotage my own happiness? Do I revel in being miserable? To add a dramatic tragedy in everything I do? I wish the wind would carry my feelings away, far far away into the valley, or the rain would wash away my confusion. I don’t like it. Not even one bit. And sometimes I do, and I want to be entrenched into this sweet sticky painful sickening feeling. 

I’m listening to Dream of a Drowned Submariner and thinking of a close friend who very conveniently is chilling at home and happily rubbing it in. The Heartbreaker misses you.

“From down in the vault, down in the grave

Reaching up to the light on the waves,

She did run to him over the grass,

She fell in his arms and he caught her

So went the dream of the drowned submariner

Far away on the water,

Far away on the water.”

Yesterday

I miss a time long, long ago, and yet it feels like it was yesterday. I miss a world far, far away, and yet it seems like it’s right in front of me. Or is it? It is, right? Isn’t it?

I miss the negotiation of thoughts, I miss the careless flow of seemingly unimportant observations, I miss the natural flow of the unending chuckles, I miss the infinite pings and spurts.  I miss the flurry of emotions at a phone call, and peals of laughter after reading a text. I miss the sleepless nights and the restless days. I do not like the emotion running through me right now. I dislike the laughter in the hostel corridors; I hate the music wafting from the other room. I hate it when my eyes sting. I hate the gnawing gorge forming in my chest, and the hurtful stab in my gut. My days are breathless, a blurry array of countless activities. But the nights are hollow, throbbing with angst.

When you think you have nothing, it decides to give you everything. And when you finally realize you can have absolutely everything, it decides to take it all away from you. It takes some, it gives some. It gives all, and then takes it all away.

Well played, life. Well played. 

Now

Every face is beautiful. You just have to look close enough.

I sat in a group of 15 odd people in college during a meeting today, and looked at every face slowly. No face can ever, ever be ugly. There are the little things about them.  Stubby noses, long noses; curly hair, straight hair; big eyes, small eyes; pimples, smooth skin. The beauty lies more in the kind of expression they wear on their faces. I have been feeling continuous pangs of affection for all my friends. Such beautiful, beautiful people some of them are.

Sometimes I feel so fortunate it feels like a dream. It rained a lot today, and when I got out of my room to go to the mess and have dinner, a huge grin spread over my face. Yes. It was the same powerful gush of wind that blew my hair off my face, the familiar smell of roses, the puddles of water, tiny little chocolate frogs jumping all around me, green leaves, greener than the ones you’d have ever seen, and the familiar, smiling, welcoming faces of some of my closest friends. I literally walked through clouds today. They engulfed me as I walked towards the mess. As I held my umbrella tight. As I smiled at the laughter around me. As I looked at the moon shining down on me. Sometimes it becomes too overwhelming. Too breathtaking. And then you cannot help but just swallow that bubble rising from your chest and up your throat. That painful, lovely feeling you get when you look around you, and you grin like a hopeless baboon. You can’t help but fall in love.

If I could stop time, and expand it, limitlessly, I would. I simply cannot get over the sheer exquisiteness of this place. Life, you astound me. 

Living life inside a bubble

I feel like I’m perched on a cloud. The window is opened strategically enough to let a flow of cool breeze inside my room, and the night light is on. Coldplay and Radiohead keep me company. And a bit of Led Zeppelin. It is so peaceful tonight.

Yesterday I saw another splendid sunset, after long (owing to the fact that there was hardly any sun for a long time). But yesterday, there it was, hiding behind the clouds, in all its glory. I sat on the ledge outside our mess with my legs dangling and watched the clouds moving continuously, and the sky turning pink to orange to purple, and the last few rays of the sun glowing and then dying out. It is always so beautiful.

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make you happy. A sunset, getting wet in the rain, a cute dimpled smile, a gentle squeeze of the hand, a good meal, a laughing session with friends over tea. And sometimes it feels like nothing in the world can change the way you are feeling. I’ve given up on my emotions, I have just decided to embrace however I’m feeling and make the most of it.

Things move so fast here, it is not even funny. These two months have changed me in so many ways. Being a journalist requires you to be hard-hitting, factual, cynical and probing. But I feel like I cannot help being a dreamer. I enjoy the classes, the events, the rush of performing on the stage, the banal chatter with friends, but at the end of the day, I feel like I am floating through it all. Sometimes I just want to close my eyes and feel the nature around me, without being questioned or judged. It has always been about the little things with me. The seemingly insignificant things that sometimes even change the course of how things turn out. Like standing and looking over the valley and then noticing a lone brown leaf, floating and fighting against the strong breeze, and dancing in the wind till it is finally forced to fly away, far away in the distance.

I went to Mulshi recently with a friend, and the beauty swept me away. We sat with our legs dipped in the lake, we felt the streams of cold water rushing against our toes, we saw the clouds looming over the green hills, we felt the breeze against our faces, and there was nothing but the long winding road in front of us, the waterfalls and the greenery all around. The world is such a wonderful place to live in. How do we not look beyond our daily trivialities? Why don’t we appreciate the beauty around us? How are we trapped in our daily chores, enslaved by routine, upset about marks, assignments not well received, gossip.. how do these things even matter?

Sometimes I feel like feel like I’m a very, very difficult person to deal with. Even I don’t know how my brain functions. I have started questioning things a lot, which might seem unnecessary, but important to me. Gallivanting aimlessly across various links on the internet, I somehow started reading about Sylvia Path. She was a poet and a writer who committed suicide at the age of 20 due to depression. I read some of her quotes, and my god, it was like reading something that I would write. My thoughts resonate so well with hers. Read some of her quotes:

“God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.” 

“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.” 

“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.” 

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.” 

“Is there no way out of the mind?” 

“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.” 

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.” 

“We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,
Me and you.” 

“I write only because
There is a voice within me
That will not be still” 

Tell me you don’t love her?

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to observe the beauty around us. Sometimes it just takes a friend to notice the cacophony inside your head. Someone, who you know is going to be there, to look out for you, to infect your face with his own smile. And if nothing, at least he is going to hear you out. Or walk with you silently. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Rise

It began with a hesitant message on Facebook,

A question about one of the most important steps I was going to take in my short but reasonably interesting life.

A reassuring reply later, began the extensive conversations about life, the universe and everything.

From absurd ideas about making movies (IJJAT), to exposing our ‘personalities’, to talking about sunsets.

From dreaming about rock concerts and trekking expeditions, to discussing Douglas Adams.

From little ideas to random khee-kheeing about,

You have been a constant guide, adviser and friend.

A friend I felt I had even before I joined SIMC.

And now two months later, I feel like I know you quite well,

But there is so much more to know.

I hope we have a million more of our crazy conversations, and I get to see your scary unsmiling face more often (which sometimes breaks into the cutest grin),

And I see you getting excited like a little girl about the things you love,

And I continue to bewilder you with my multi-polarity.

So I dedicate this blog post to you, and I'd like to take this opportunity, to ask you what you know I am going to ask. I think it is a good way to immortalize the Yule Ball kind of a thing we are indulging in. No?

So, Mr. Spanzy, wouldja? :) *batting eyelids* *smiling radiantly*

P.S. Is this ‘irresistible’ enough for you? :P

Rain down, on me.

(Hostel view)

I love this moment for what it is.

I love it that I’m all alone, and I love it that it has been raining since morning.

I love the colourful umbrellas hovering about our campus, which looks green and freshly bathed.

I love the leaping frogs mucking about and I love the puddles of water.

I love the muddy trails of footprints on tiled floors and I love the water droplets trickling down the umbrellas left on the sides to dry.

I love the thick, dense clouds as they float over your head; and I love the fog which makes its way inside my open window.

I love watching football matches in the rain, the thrill of your team winning and the noise of the people cheering.

I love standing against the window and feeling the spray of water against your face, shivering and hugging yourself tight.

I love hooded raincoats and wet feet.

I love hot water baths and steaming cups of coffee amidst the comfortable chatter of friends.

I love friendly grins and nods of acknowledgements.

I love having work to do and I love procrastinating.

I love always having people to chat with, I love walking out of my room and knowing there are hundreds of people I can go and talk to.

I love walking back to the hostel, and running fast because it starts to rain, and then giving up and getting completely drenched.

I love the wet hair and the sneezes that follow.

I love the constant sound of the raindrops.
I love the thoughts that accompany me on nights such as this one.

I love the serenity of this moment.

I love this moment for what it is.

Let go

Days are just passing by. You’ve hardly opened your eyes and it’s time to close them again. I’m thoroughly enjoying the classes and I’m bonding well with my batchmates. Touchwood.  The discussions we have and the documentaries/films that we are shown have deeply moved me. I have felt the change coming within me, frothing and bubbling underneath. I saw a dream which was related to a documentary we saw about the Hindu Muslim Gujarat riots which disturbed me to such an extent that I couldn’t move out of bed for a long time. But it’s good. I want to be disturbed. I want to know what’s happening in the world. I look forward to the next two years' worth of knowledge that is going to be shared with us.

It’s surprising how much you can accomplish on some days, and on other days you hardly move a muscle. And how both of them can be equally fulfilling. There’s always this electricity running around this place, people running around, people with a purpose, participating, competing, all of them striving to achieve the little somethings in their everyday lives. All of them talking, speaking, shouting over the babble, trying to stand out, to find their identities, to get noticed. I think it’s great, and it gives me inspiration. But sometimes, as I’m walking along on the road leading from our classrooms to our hostels, and I look at the green hills on my left and the lush valleys on my right, and the endless cloudy sky above, I feel like slowing down. I feel like receding, like being silent, like not being noticed at all. Like, being invisible.

It is a scary thought sometimes, when you think about where you stand amongst the thousands of students studying in the same college as you, getting the same opportunities as you, doing the same things as you, eating the same food as you. I sometimes panic at the thought of you being a small unit in such a huge college, and your college being a unit in the city, the city being only a part of the world. And then we know how limitless the universe is. It makes you feel how puny and insignificant you really are. You’re just a speck. And what are you doing? Striving, surviving, trying to find happiness in relationships and learning ways to earn enough money to have a family. Sometimes when I think about all this, it seems very absurd and meaningless to me. Then I feel like letting go of everything, and going on a long soul-searching trip. Yeah right.

Anyway, I’ve decided not to think about it much and immerse myself into the innumerable activities here and grow as a person. So that when I pass out of here, I pass out as a better and wiser individual.

I’m sharing a video my friend made here. It sums up our first month at SIMC in the best way possible. Yes, I do feature in it and no, I didn’t know she was recording when I was, ahem, doing the things I’m doing in it.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_DJx7hS8qI&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy and cheers :)

We can't return, we can only look behind

I’m so happy today. I’m just so happy. Maybe because Chee shared this article with me and I realized how much it resonated with how I’ve been feeling lately but haven’t been able to put into words. I haven’t even comprehended how much I love the campus and the weather here. I was just existing, floating from hostel to mess and mess to classroom and back to hostel. One month went by in a blur. I still haven’t gotten over the fact that I live on a hill and amidst hills and it’s always breezy and green and rainy.

I’ve been singing ‘The Circle Game’ by Joni Mitchell since evening. Please go and listen to it?

After dinner I spent my time with friends and soaked it in. Took it all in. I want to make the most of my time here. I want to know people. Make friends. Have crazy times. Difficult times. Go out. Travel (especially to Bombay) Write. Laugh. Live. I never realized before today how many possibilities exist now that I’ve moved out of home. I can do anything. Walk wherever I want to, always be surrounded by so many friends, go out and eat with them, take on individual projects with them. Almost anything I want to! I felt so full of life and love today. I felt so alive. And the breeze and the little raindrops added on to the effect. Music was wafting through the air, emanating from different corners of the campus. People were laughing, singing, dancing, bonding. I looked at the campus and at the sky and just felt lucky to be where I am. I love college. Room 221. The trees. The frogs. The constant chatter. The familiar faces. The smiles. The midnight birthday celebrations. The noise in the mess. The cold coffee. Sparks flying in the air. The conversations that flow. The friendships that bloom. Even the bad jokes. And it has all just begun.

I want to be so much more than what I am. 

Over the hills and far away

There is so much to write that I feel like my head is going to explode. My thoughts are fluttering about, all over the place, like twitchy little butterflies, and I’m trying to grab on to one of them, and write something coherent down. It is really difficult when you have an ardent desire to express so many things at the same time. Well, let’s start with the present. Then I’ll move on to the past few days, the past few CRAZY days and then the future :)

I just went into crazy epileptic fits of laughter with my roommate where we literally rolled into two crumpled balls on the floor, clutching our stomachs and wiping off tears. So much so, that we scared our neighbour a little :P Reason? Well one of them is because two hours back we just had strong coffee which I made in my electric kettle (shhh!) and another reason is that we were watching the most hilarious videos in the history of Indian cinema. So yes, you can guess, hello hostel life! :)

Well, I was right in my previous post, it did hit me hard when I left home, it did hit me when I said bye to my family, it did hit me hard when I saw dad walking away on the busy FC road in Pune, and I knew, from then on, I was on my own. Actually, finally on my own. It was a scary and yet an exciting feeling, to know I could make my own little decisions, do my own work, take charge of my own self, be in command when something goes wrong, and just be … free. And then college routine began. Getting up at 7, having a bath, walking to the mess and then to the class on time initially felt like a herculean task. But as time passed on, it started to feel more natural, more regular. We had team building and interactive group exercises for the first five days, which seemed very exhausting when we were doing it, but when I think about them now, they actually helped me in getting to know so many people. It still is a little difficult to take in so many faces and names at the same time. But now I know them. I know their little idiosyncrasies, their habits and talents and likes and dislikes. It already feels like a family, with some people who you go straight to talk to and those who are bound to brighten your day up.

I was waiting for that moment when all the emotions would bubble out on the surface and I will cry. But it didn’t come. And it was scary. It almost came when I got up in the morning on the first day of college and I imagined to myself be in my own room back home. There was no purple wall, no familiar posters or books, but an alien room, with a girl I hardly knew on the adjacent bed. But it just got better. I have a crazy, cleanliness freak for a roommate, which is good for me, because she likes tidying up my mess as well :P She gets up on time and wakes me up, and calls me ‘beta’ sometimes :P We have a very open and candid relationship and it’s great!

About the campus, dear LORD, about the campus. This place is meant exactly for people like me. The SIMC campus is situated on a hill, which overlooks valleys, and the city far away and is surrounded by even more hills. The weather is always pleasant, always breezy, always dreamy. I feel so floaty and poetic all the time. The clouds come down on rainy days and they pass by you, as if saying hello. There is a mystique and an aura to everything around here. It is just so beautiful. The best part? One, is sitting in a corner and watching the sunset. The first time I saw it, I’d never seen such a sight before. The sky turns orange and pink and the clouds float across it as if some sort of celestial creatures travelling back home. And to think I get to see it every day!

The second is the midnight moonlit walks! The breeze is always chilly, and It blows over your face and caresses your skin and you feel so awesome to be alive! It’s the entire feeling of being free, being able to walk around the sprawling, beautiful campus and the feeling of being on your own. The classes couldn’t have been better. I respect this place so much more for the kind of teachers they have and for the kind of workshops we are getting to experience. I will write all about it in a different post because I want to do justice to it. It’s a Saturday, my room mate and I are listening to Owl City and it’s way past the devil’s time! I’m going to come back and talk about specific things about the college in detail. Right now, I’m just going to lie back, look at my ceiling, and cherish this moment. Can you believe that it has just been a little over two weeks since I came here? :) Tomorrow I have a Sunday-full of clothes washing to do, but strangely I feel so good about it! Washing my own clothes is the biggest testimony to the fact that I am in charge of myself. Oh, how I love this place :’)

Some glimpses of the SIMC campus :)

(Hostel view)

(Sunset viewing point)

(Sunset)

(Hostel view again)

Bittersweet Symphony

(A cloudy evening on my terrace)

Today is my last day in Agra! It’s funny how this day is nothing like I thought it would be. I’m not galloping from this room to that room, being an absolute delight and making sure mom and dad are going to miss me; I’m not looking at my photo albums and feeling nostalgic; not writing long farewell e-mails to my friends. Well, in my defence, it’s too damn hot to do anything anyway.

I cannot believe my term here is over. I won’t sleep in my house, won’t laugh at mom’s jokes and her crazy dance moves, won’t listen to baba’s advices and won’t go to college on my scooty. I won’t ask dad to drop me to college, and I won’t sleep amidst the comfortable mess of my little room, won’t get to spend an evening gazing up at the sky on my terrace, won’t find familiar smiling faces on the streets and won’t flop down on top of mom and whine about my terrible day. This past month has been really different. And kind of terrifying. I was so aware of everything that has been happening all the time. Reminds me of Ross when he says “It’s what the Japanese call Unagi!” The state of total awareness. Even the most mundane everyday things seemed so good because I knew I was not going to experience them after a few days. Lying on the couch, having lunch with grandparents, walking in my colony, going to a friend’s house who lives one block away, eating a big, red, juicy, chilled watermelon with mummy papa. I never really paid attention to all these things earlier, and now when I’m going away, I know I’m going to miss it all. I’ve really tried to soak everything in. I have been overly affectionate and PDA-ish with mom and she has been asking me if I’m okay. I’ve spent time with everyone, and I’ve realized how much I love mom dad. Conversations with them are sometimes so fulfilling. I love them not just as my parents, but as my friends and as individual people. I feel like the universe provided me with such nice roommates to live with for so many years :D I also spent time with myself at all my favourite places, especially my terrace, when the weather was good.

And so, here I am, in the middle of my packing, listening to this song, writing a blog post, just to bring a sort of finality to the whole thing. Looking at all my stuff packed into these bags I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel excited, I feel apprehensive. My mind is prepared now, it’s time to leave! Mom is getting annoyed with me and I’m loving it :D I won’t get to hear her yelling at me again. Okay no, that, I will. So, the moment has arrived. But I think it will hit me when I finally sit in the car and look at my house one last time. The house I’ve lived twenty one years of my life in. The house I played in, cried, laughed, studied in. The house I wore frilly frocks and celebrated my birthday parties in. The house I played "Ice Spice" and "Independence day" in. The house where I spent all my summer afternoons drinking Rasna and playing "Coast Piece" and "Business King" in. The house I grew up in. Sigh. 24 Adan Bagh, you will be sorely, sorely missed! :')

Tonight I choose to be sad

For all the relationships gone wrong; for all the misunderstandings; for all the broken promises and the failed friendships; for all the things that were never meant to be. For all the times I should have kept in touch but didn’t, all the times I should have called but didn’t and for all the plans that were never implemented. What idiots we all were. We never realized that things change. We never did think where we would be in the ignorance of being happy little kids. When we walked holding hands and snuck our little MP3 players in our pockets, earplugs in each ear, listening to our favourite songs, and when we lay in bed dreaming about the future and when we promised each other that our kids will marry each other. When we walked like old ladies in school, and skipped down staircases, when we wrote stories in college notebooks, when we made French toasts at night. 

How naïve we all are. Don’t we know things never remain the same? We sang songs and shared tiffin boxes and shared secrets and poured our hearts out to each other. We thought we would always be best friends, sharing each secret and each incident till we become old and wrinkly. We ran towards each other like lost lovers after a war, squealing and jumping. We talked on the phone for hours and plotted and planned and schemed. We made fun of people, and of each other. We laughed till tears spilled out of our eyes. We loved each other. How stupid were we. We should have known.

Times change. People drift apart. Maybe the only thing that changes is you yourself. Or your own perception about things. And it is okay if it is circumstantial. It is okay to let things go, because it is more painful to hold on to them. If it gave you enough warmth and love and joy to help you survive when you thought you could not cope with your life, then it was worth it all. Every relationship I have ever had has been special to me. I can relate to what Celine says in Before Sunset, “I feel I was never able to forget anyone I've been with. Because each person has specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost.”

I miss the little things about people. I miss insignificant things about them, maybe the way they made a weird sound with their lips or maybe how they squinted in the sun or even the colour of their eyes.

Such silly little children we were when we painted bindis on each other's foreheads and laughed. When we made midnight meals and ate more than we studied. When we got Linkin Park trivia for each other or said that we were soul sisters. Little did we know that relationships are fragile. One slip, and down the rabbit hole they go. So I’m embracing the pain that comes along with losing friends. Morrie said that in order to detach yourself from a feeling, you have to drench yourself with it, dive head in all the way and throw yourself into the emotion instead of holding it back and being afraid of experiencing love or pain or grief. Because once you know you have fully experienced the emotion, you can tell yourself to get away from it. And finally move on.

So this is to all the friends I have ever had. I have never been good at keeping friends but the friends that did matter; I have loved them with all my heart had to give. KK has already put what I'm feeling into a song:


"Chal, sochein kya, choti si hai zindagi.
Kal, mil jaayein, toh hogi khushnaseebi."


So, now, as I move out and go into another world, I would like to express that each one of you were a part of my life. You've all had a role to play and you’ve all shaped me into what I am. I will carry little pieces of you in my heart, recalling only the good times. Times when we were stupid little idiots, without a care in the world. 

P.S. And maybe, just maybe, sit on a sofa again before a Maths exam, staring into space, bobbing our heads to a random song after having eaten a million packets of Blue Lay's.

The Teacher

Reading Tuesdays with Morrie has compelled me to go back into the old, school memories and think about one of the most influential people in my life. I still remember the burnt black marks on his hands. I noticed them first when I went to talk to him about my science project and I saw him closely for the first time. It was 9th grade. He had very dark, rugged skin, a thick black moustache, a deep, gruff voice, and a very serious expression on his face almost all the time. If it weren’t for his black, beady, affectionate eyes and his dimple, he would have been very unpleasant to look at. But he was not. He carried himself very well, was always well dressed, and every time he smiled, though seldom it used to be, his entire face used to light up, including his eyes. He was my Maths and Physics teacher.

 He believed in not only teaching us the subject and performing his duty; he used to make sure we really understood it. Every Monday and Friday we used to have Value Education classes. I never liked them, because before he started teaching us, Value Education classes were nothing but reading stories from Moral Science books and learning life lessons. But life’s lessons are not meant to be learnt off a book. I remember the first class with him. He taught us about the importance of behaving properly, dressing properly, and having manners. He gave examples from his own life, and I was so absorbed into his lecture, I never came to know when the class got over. At the end of the class, he asked us to dress neatly. Of course, I was a slob, and I conveniently forgot all about it. The next class, he checked everybody’s shoes, socks, clothes, ribbon, nails etc. He looked at my socks. They were dirty, their elastic had become useless and they fell all the way down to my ankles. He looked at me and said, “Have you seen the state of your socks?” I looked down, embarrassed.

He then explained to us, that when we dress neatly, it is not only for us, it is for the others. "If you go to someone’s place dressed shabbily, you are insulting them. You are saying you don’t care enough to appear clean and tidy. You simply don’t care."

And that was it. I had never thought about it like that. Since then, there was a considerable improvement in the way I started dressing myself up. He also taught us the right body language; he taught us compassion, humility, and punctuality. I began to love his classes and always looked forward to them. He also made a box where he asked us to write our suggestions of topics that we would like to discuss with him. And we wrote, oh, how much I wrote. We talked about relationships, God, spirituality, death, money, education, family, career, life, teenage confusions and a whole lot of other things. I never missed a single class. Every class used to leave me pondering, and compelled me to write about it in my journal. He used to solve our fights and conflicts patiently, like a counselor. He just had a way with words, if you know what I mean.

Though, I often wondered about those marks on his hands.

Years passed, and his classes were over. We moved to the 11^th standard and apparently, Value Education classes are not as important when girls turn 17. All the while, I never got enough guts to talk to him about something on a personal level. Although I really wanted to. I was a good student, did all my work on time, but never did I follow him any day after class to just talk to him. Or to tell him about my feelings about his classes. I should have. Really should have. I learnt many life’s lessons in that classroom; I became a better, more empathetic human being. I learnt how to be selfless and kind. How to believe in something. How to improve as a performer, and as a person. And I owed that much to him.

Finally, one day I got to know he was being transferred to another school. It was his farewell party in a week. I couldn’t believe it. Immediately, I got some handmade paper and made a card for him. A flowing river, with a lone figure walking on a bridge over it. Underneath it I wrote, “Whenever there will be trouble, your wisdom is going to help me through.”

It sounds stupid right now, and maybe a little too much. Inside I wrote everything I wanted to say to him, everything his classes meant to me, and how much I learnt from them and cherished them. Before he left, we all stood around him, holding flowers and banners. He came up to me, looked at me with those black, beady eyes and said “It feels good to know my classes helped at least one student. It means a lot, thank you.” And then he just left. Forever. And I still continued to wear clean socks.

After reading Morrie, I became sad. I wondered where sir would be, how he would be. And then it hit me! Hey, we’re not living in the ‘70s anymore. I Facebooked him! Yes, he was there! He currently lives in Ontario, Canada! He still looks the same :) At once, I sent him a friend request.

I hope he remembers me :)

I still often wonder about those scars though.

So Long, And Thanks For All the Fish

This is something which I had read in the fourth book of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Series. I was pondering over something when it just came back to me. And I love the title of the book :)

“He said airily, "I want you to tell me a story.''

She looked out over the kale and pondered.

"All right,'' she said, "it's only a short one. And not funny like yours, but ... Anyway.''

She looked down. Arthur could feel that it was one of those sorts of moments. The air seemed to stand still around them, waiting. Arthur wished that the air would go away and mind its own business.

"When I was a kid,'' she said. "These sort of stories always start like this, don't they, 'When I was a kid ...'Anyway. This is the bit where the girl suddenly says, 'When I was a kid' and starts to unburden herself. We have got to that bit. When I was a kid I had this picture hanging over the foot of my bed ... What do you think of it so far?"

"I like it. I think it's moving well. You're getting the bedroom interest in nice and early. We could probably do with some development with the picture."

"It was one of those pictures that children are supposed to like,'' she said, "but don't. Full of endearing little animals doing endearing things, you know?"

"I know. I was plagued with them too. Rabbits in waistcoats."

"Exactly. These rabbits were in fact on a raft, as were assorted rats and owls. There may even have been a reindeer."

"On the raft."

"On the raft. And a boy was sitting on the raft."

"Among the rabbits in waistcoats and the owls and the reindeer."

"Precisely there. A boy of the cheery gypsy ragamuffin variety."

"Ugh."

"The picture worried me, I must say. There was an otter swimming in front of the raft, and I used to lie awake at night worrying about this otter having to pull the raft, with all these wretched animals on it who shouldn't even be on a raft, and the otter had such a thin tail to pull it with I thought it must hurt pulling it all the time. Worried me. Not badly, but just vaguely, all the time.

"Then one day --- and remember I'd been looking at this picture every night for years --- I suddenly noticed that the raft had a sail. Never seen it before. The otter was fine, he was just swimming along.''

She shrugged.

"Good story?'' she said.

"Ends weakly,'' said Arthur, "leaves the audience crying 'Yes, but what of it?' Fine up till there, but needs a final sting before the credits."

Fenchurch laughed and hugged her legs.

"It was just such a sudden revelation, years of almost unnoticed worry just dropping away, like taking off heavy weights, like black and white becoming colour, like a dry stick suddenly being watered. The sudden shift of perspective that says 'Put away your worries, the world is a good and perfect place. It is in fact very easy.'”

Adams is one of the wittiest writers I’ve have ever come across. So far. His entire style of writing is fresh, quirky, crazy, and sometimes so profound you have to stop and think. You can expect absolutely anything to happen in the series, which makes them such a different read. His simple analogy teaches us one of the simple things in life that we so very often keep forgetting.

It’s about focusing on the sail of the raft, and not on the otter’s tail :)

Get it? :)

The lunatic is in my head.

Whenever someone asks me “What’s your favourite food?” and I go “Pizzzaaa!” with a stupid grin on my face, they stare back at me blankly. “Pizza? Really?” with a raised eyebrow. So what, I’m too ordinary for you? Well, I’m terribly sorry. Maybe you already have a ready answer in your head. You’ve already decided that this particular French dish would be your go-to response when being asked about your favourite food, but for me pizzas work just fine. (Also, vegetarians do not have a wide variety of choice :/)

The sight, the aroma of cheese-filled gooey crunchy-on-the sides pizzas make me go weak in the knees. Serious! I can have it anytime and anywhere. Such a beautiful creation by mankind! :’)

Anyhoo, guess what? Tomorrow is my last day of college! As in, the proper, classes-filled day! I still have to give exams for another month. Kill me? :\

And how do I feel? Hmmm, how do I feel? I’m REALLY trying to figure it out since yesterday. And till now, I feel nothing. Nada! Is that normal? :O I mean, my first two years were pretty sick. I had a lot of senior-friends and everyone seemed to be so good back then. We went out, laughed, had crazy times, you know, the usual. But at some point, even getting out of bed to go to college used to be the hardest challenge. There have been days when I have wept. By fifth semester, I just wanted to run away. Sigh, I guess I’ve had my ups and downs. I guess you’re so excited about college that the ‘reality’ doesn’t really settle in until much later. What I can’t believe is.. THREE years have passed since I moved out of school?! Three?! Whaaa? How did that happen?!

I guess I should just appreciate these last days of exam-giving at home. Because very soon, I won’t get to sleep in the comfort of home, and have the luxury of being woken up by mom (and mostly not getting up), and get fresh, clean, nice-smelling, ironed clothes to wear, and creep out of my room scavenging for food like a nocturnal rodent at ungodly hours (and mostly always making cheese Maggi) and then watching a funny sitcom into the wee hours of the night, and then witnessing the beautiful morning light permeating through my curtains and mull over deep, philosophical thoughts about humanity, relationships, the universe and the meaning of life.

What will NOT change, is, I’m assuming, my entire trying-to-sleep process every night. Where I toss and turn, and then change positions, and turn the pillow, and hop to the other side of the bed, then go to the loo, have water, look at myself in the mirror, make faces, smile alluringly, do a few dance moves, get back into bed, check mail, check phone, try to sleep again, change into a more comfortable pair of shorts, turn the pillow over again, take the sheet, remove the sheet, take the sheet again and stick one leg out.. mull over and over and over over silly things and get worried about unforeseen future mishaps and think about past incidents, and then mull over the fact that it’s late and there is so much work to do and I will not get proper sleep and will end up going to college looking like a wet chicken. Then finally, somehow, anyhow, by god’s divine intervention, my eyes will close and I’ll fall into a slumber so intoxicating, so sweet, so delicious, so strong, that the entire world and the universe with all its billions of stars and galaxies will cease to exist for me, and I will wake up, late, ALWAYS late, cussing and cursing myself and stubbing my pinky toe against the foot of the bed.

That, I’m pretty sure, is a lifelong thing now. My mom told me as a baby I used to chuckle and chortle and kick my legs all night, and wail and sleep during the day. And to DATE, it has not changed. That’s how I am. I’m meant to rest throughout the day, and then PARRTAYYY at night! :P

A new semi-friend told me that I am a “bunch of nerves” and that I remind him of Rapunzel from Tangled. When I asked him why, he said that because EVERY time I meet him online, I’m in a completely different mood. He said I might be a schizophrenic. I don’t know, if I’d have a mental condition, I’d rather go for borderline maniacally depressed and bipolar with suicidal tendencies. The world will be so much more dramatic then :D I even told him that I imagine myself in extremely dramatic situations, and sometimes sitting by myself on a cliff, overlooking green valleys and rivers, with the breeze blowing my hair around my face. Of course, looking at the rate with which my hair is falling, I might be bald, for all you know, but I hope the rivers and hills will salvage the effect I want to create.

Okay, I’m nuts. I warned you! I am capable of giving myself headaches. I don’t know if this is the Tina Fey effect, (Thank you Karishma! I loved the book!) but I’ve been feeling pretty funny lately. I’ve been having funny monologues with myself, and chuckling to myself. Is THAT normal? :O

I asked Chee to write ten positives and negatives about me and this is what he wrote. He couldn't be more right. His assessment is spot on. Some of it here:

Brilliant conversationalist. Makes friends so easily. Such an excitable person. Bubbly and squeaky and spreads warmth and happiness.	Overly sensitive. Gets major upset over little things.
Able to express feelings perfectly, to the point and honestly.	Extremely lazy – to the point of bunking college and exams.
Extremely honest and trusting and deserving of trust	Big procrastinator
You make people feel special and comfortable and at home.	Extreme mood swings. Unstable. Mercurial.
You don’t like to do things half-heartedly. You want to give your best attempt to all your responsibilities.	Sometimes acts without thinking

See? He's awesome! :D

Okay I have a Major project submission due in a matter of hours and I should either get back at it, or try to sleep. The topic is pretty interesting. "Neuromarketing: A Paradigm Shift in Advertising"; but I only wish I had worked more on it. I could have done a lot of things with it.

Sigh, long day ahead. Bah, I'm sure I'll survive! :) Or not. Okay no, I will!

Cheers ma' hommies!