Sunday mornings

(View from our college campus)

So I know that very, very soon I’m going to be sent out (correction: thrown out) to face the ‘real’ world. I will always be busy, always be running about, and weekends will be so precious I would probably sleep them away. I won't have views such as the one I've uploaded above. Which is why I want to write about today morning. In general, about Sunday mornings on the campus. Even though I have missed a LOT of Sunday breakfasts because I hardly ever get up before 12 o’clock, but still, I am writing about the ones I have managed to get up for.

I was supposed to wake up at 8: 30, but I snoozed my alarm a couple of times and ended up getting at 9. I brushed my teeth, tied my hair up messily into a pony tail with my scrunchy, tried to wipe off the leftover kajal from the previous night, wore my Buzz Lightyear pajamas and my Wonder Woman tee-shirt, and left my room. I hummed ‘Your Protector’ by Fleet Foxes as I walked along the smooth hostel corridor, climbed down the stairs and got out of the gate. It was a crisp, sunny day and the breeze was cool and pleasant. I was happy I had my favourite black jacket along with me. 

Chattu was already there, and he gave me a toothy ‘good morning’ grin. We happily hoppity-hopped towards the mess while I told him about the latest developments in Dr. Meredith Grey’s life. The mess area is decorated with red lanterns and posters as part of promotions for upcoming college events. We entered the mess and started stuffing out plates with poha and aloo parathas. But the butter was over. For me, parathas without butter is almost sacrilegious! But I could make do with jam and pickle. We gulped them down and had a cup of tea. After we were done, we filled another cup of tea and sat outside the mess and looked at the beautiful view. And that is why I love Sundays. Sitting in the sun with cups of tea in our hands, gazing lazily into the distance with our pajamas on, and not rushing off to class or discussing an upcoming class assignment. You can just sit, and talk. Or not. Just sit silently. I WILL MISS THIS!

I just love tea. Even more than coffee. My mom never denied us from having tea, and since my family needs to have those daily cups of morning and evening tea, it’s not surprising that I like it so much. It is so comforting, and familiar. Be it in a kulhad, or in a plastic cup, I can have tea anytime, anywhere. Plus, for me, tea means a break. Snack time. Evening. Talking. Anyway, the best part about a Sunday is, you can go back to your room and sleep till lunch!

I have been listening to some Assamese songs by Papon. Have been particularly hooked to Raamdhenu, which means ‘Rainbow’. I’ll try posting the meaning of the lyrics later on. They’re beautiful. I want to travel after the exams. I want to go to Mcleodganj and Dharamshala, and Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan. I want a job which I would like. I want to be in a city I will like. I want to earn money and get gifts for myself. And everyone else. I want to join Aerobics classes, and learn to play an instrument. I want to start exercising. I want to start eating healthy.

I just realized the possibilities in front of me. I can live on my own, and own a pet. Okay not a pet, but I can own a potted plant which I can keep on my window sill. I can have lace curtains and a bookshelf. Ooh, I can have this café cum bookstore which I would visit on weekends and sit and read. I can have a cheap roadside restaurant I could go to when I would be trying to save money. I can learn how to play an instrument. I can learn how to cook. I can make work friends and talk about work things and go on trips with them. I can take leaves and travel on my own money! I can whine about bigger problems than assignments and marks. I can whine about work issues and not getting leave to attend a wedding and not getting raises. I can whine about the maid taking too many leaves, or the rise in the prices. I will be, in the truest sense of the word, independent! Oh my god!

Okay, no more planning. A lot has to be done before that. A lot! I need a job, first of all. Fingers, toes and body crossed. Be back soon!

For the love of fictional characters

Why is the first step so difficult? The first massive, colossal, leap you have to make, to get over the inertia and just start writing. Or is it inertia? Maybe it’s fear. Sometimes when I read a good book, I feel inspired to write but I’m afraid that I can’t ever write that well. I want sentences to just flow beautifully from my fingertips and onto the keyboard, but I always feel that I won’t be good enough.

Why can’t I just use mellifluous words that are just sitting right there in my head? Why can’t I weave beautiful stories without ever doubting my work? Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” So, there. 

I wanted to write about some of the movies I’ve watched recently. The latest one amongst them is Ruby Sparks. It’s a story about a boy who writes down a character and falls in love with it and she comes to life. A quirky, complicated girl with whom he shares a wonderful relationship. But when things start to go wrong between them, he tries to tweak her by writing more about her. Fascinating, right? I mean, what would it be like to whip up someone like that? Someone you think would be perfect for you? For instance, I know exactly the kind of guy one of my friends would like to be in a relationship with. Tall, lanky, bespectacled, crooked teeth, perfect nose, singer, drummer, football player, socially awkward, sarcastic, smart. How would it work in real life though, I wonder.

One of the best movies that I’ve seen in a long time though, is Her. What an irresistibly beautiful movie. It makes so much sense in the technologically advanced world we are living in. Imagine having that one socially aware operating system who is also our best friend, who we can call and have an intelligent discussion with, who we can ask anything about anything in the world. It only gets messy when emotions get in the way. God, emotions can be so detrimental to everyone, to society. Why are we such a backward species? We kill each other, we are greedy and malicious and do unspeakable things to our own kin. And what is up with all the diseases and sickness and the slow, painful deaths?  Why is the whole process of reproduction so outrageously risky and disgusting? We should have been more evolved, resistant, logical and advanced organisms. I should have been born a billion years later. Anyway, I digress. The point being, the movie is fantastic.

Another movie to watch out for is The Ship of Theseus (Fair warning: This movie is not, I repeat, NOT about a ship) It’s one of the most brilliant masterpieces any Indian movie maker has created. And that too, a movie maker who once wrote dialogues for Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki. Until one day, he realized how pathetic his job really was and devoted himself to making god amazing movies. Anand Gandhi used Theseus’s paradox as the base of the film which questions whether an object which has had all of its components removed and replaced remains the same object. There are four stories, each beautifully constructed and woven together to form a brilliant tapestry in the end. It’s deep, you need patience and the eye for little things to fully enjoy this movie. Some of the discussions in it made me pause it and think over it. It is really something. I am so glad India is going through this sort of movie renaissance where there is this whole new parallel cinema running alongside the mainstream crap, which is coming out which such good movies. There is Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap, Anand Gandhi, Ritesh Batra, Kiran Rao and so many others, trying to prove what movie watching is all about. Just go through this list once. Exciting, isn't it?

Next, I watched Frozen. Sure, it’s a beautiful, funny, very well-made Disney movie. But I don’t get the hype about the two main characters being female and how it is a feminist movie. I mean, Anne was stupid and clumsy. She fell in love with a guy who she met for a few hours, decided to marry him, offended her sister and then ran away onto snow-covered mountains to get her atop a horse? Then she had to ask another guy for help. Elsa on the other hand, somehow really irritated the way she handled her problems. Okay, if you are not convinced, please read this article. I do give this movie a big thumbs up for being funny, beautiful, entertaining and engaging. Just let’s not discuss the feminism aspects of it.

Okay, I really need not say anything about the next movie. You’ve seen it, you’ve loved it and you’re rooting for Leonardo Di’Caprio to win the Oscar with all your heart. The Wolf of Wall Street. I loved DiCaprio hated him at the same time in the movie. I loved his drool phase and his cerebral palsy phase. Sheer, sheer magnanimity.

Last on my list is Don Jon, a movie about a guy addicted to porn. I had a few problems with this movie as well. The entire purpose of this movie, actor and director Joseph Gordon Levitt claims to make is to show how porn makes us have unrealistic expectations with  with our sex lives. But the movie somehow seemed to do the opposite. It reinforces the fact that girls are not hot enough, guys have to do all the work, and sex is never as good as the porn. He sort of used sex to sell the movies. Opinions are solely my own, however.

Ooh, I’m also watching Grey’s Anatomy, which is a good show. But if you’ve been a loyal Scrubs fan, you will not like it much. The concept is the same, the characters are somewhat similar, in the end everything resolves, and the narrator has an epiphany, which all of us can relate to. Scrubs is funnier, but I guess Grey's Anatomy is more popular. Oh, and the doctors look like supermodels who somehow always have perfectly blow-dried hair and lip gloss on. But it’s a good show to watch when you are not getting any sleep at night. 

Well, that’s that. I have more movies to watch on my hard disk and I cannot wait to start gorging on them. But I have this big submission on Tuesday and I JUST CAN’T SEEM TO GET DOWN AT IT. Tomorrow, fo shizzle. It's deliciously chilly up on these hills and the weather can't get any better. A few things are stagnant but I hope they will pick up soon. I shall be back.

See you soon!

The hills

Every day slips by only too quickly and I can’t help but think how fast it is approaching. The end. Of college. Of student life. Of living on this hill. I wish I had one more semester. One more semester to do so many things we do not have the time to do now. One more semester to go out to the city and eat at all the places we had favourited on Zomato. One more semester to set things right with some people. One more semester to become better friends with friends, and to get to know more people we could never really get to know.

How do I sum everything up I have seen, felt and experienced on this hill? How are you supposed to do something like that? It’s like trying to fit an elephant through the eye of a needle. How do I share what I felt when I woke up every day and just gazed in amazement at the view outside? How do I share what those long walks with friends around the campus under the moonlight meant? How do I describe the infinite cups of tea I’ve shared with my favourite people looking at the sunset? Sitting at the iconic tea-point and imitating everyone, those inside jokes, the times when somebody’s chappal would fall in the drain and one of us would have to jump down and rescue it. How do I express what I felt every time I would sit in class and it would start to pour outside? How I would itch to go outside and get soaked to the bone?

How do I describe those flashes of memories that fly before me so quick no editing software in the world would ever come close to the video that plays in my head? Those enormous clouds gliding past on those rainy days. The droplets slithering down the colourful umbrellas. The rings left on the mess table. The brown leaves falling on the road leading down to the mess. The screech of the bus tyres. The cacophony after winning a match. The twinkling fairy lights in the room. Pink Floyd. The warmth flooding through me when I would see my friends after months. The long hugs. Waiting at PMC. Running to the store to buy snacks for the night before it closes. Hot cups of coffee after dinner. Making plans of going to SS. Running to the terrace with the desperation of doing something spontaneous. Making plans. Oh, so many plans.

How do I write it all out? How it would crush me to remove the bulletin board we stuck on our walls with so much love? How will I get used to not sleeping next to a person as crazy as me who gets up squealing and screaming and laughing? What better way to start your day? The uncountable shoes under her bed. Her table so messy you wouldn’t know how she keeps a track of anything. Her laundry basket always overflowing with clothes. The sound her keyboard makes when she types away furiously. Her cookie monster face. Her horrifyingly loud and physically painful laughter. Her telling me “I ate three of your cookies in the morning but I replaced them today evening.” The one who understands exactly what I’m feeling because more often than not, she feels the exact same way. Who quivers her lips when I tell her we might not need another hand wash. Who cries when I read out my old emails I had sent to my best friend. How do I express what I feel when I think one day we would pack our bags together and will not live in room 445 anymore? How do I tell her how this time round, it will be me staining my pillow, for she will be gone and I would be missing her just too much.

How do I talk about the boy who sat next to me every day? He made me jam and butter sandwiches when I missed breakfast. He marked my proxies in class. He understood when I was hungry or sad even before I knew it myself. He sang old Hindi songs with me, he made me laugh and he made me cry. He hurt me more than anyone else here, but he loved me so much more than that. He sent me hilarious audio clips in the morning to wake me up for class. He sent me chocolates, he got me books, he encouraged me, he made me feel I am worth so much more than what I get. We would sit by the benches next to the basketball court and gaze up in amazement at how clear the skies were. He would invariably tell me “You see that? That’s the Orion belt. And that’s Ursa Minor.” And I would say “Wow”, even thought I knew that already. I would let him explain the constellations to me, because then, his eyes twinkled brighter than the stars.  How do I say what it would be to not talk to him at the end of every single day?

How do I describe what those Whatsapp group conversations mean? Asking about the next lunch/dinner, discussing assignments, events, classes or people. That incessant chatter will one day end. I am afraid it would reach a point where none of us would have anything in common to discuss. I am even more afraid that one by one, each of us would leave the group and get lost in our respective jobs, dashing about concrete jungles and trying to make sense of the brand new chapter in each of our lives.

How do I explain how much I love my room? How inviting the bed is after a class ends and you stumble inside the room, drained out of energy. How fresh it looks when it is bathed in the sunlight entering through the window? How do I write what seeing familiar tables in the mess felt? Those times when you would stand till 11:59 outside the hostel gate, talking to everyone because it was just so much fun to be with all your best friends? How it felt when the cool breeze blew the hair away from our faces, and we ran around, high on friendship and on love.

What do I do with the endless photos I have gathered in my phone? The unusual uniqueness of every relationship I share with each of my friends. So different, so comfortable. How I know each one of them so well. Maybe too well. Which makes me love them and hate them at the same time.

When you live on a residential campus, your friends are your family. And I have found my family here. These hills, silently observing our every move, knowing what takes place in dark, obscure spots of the campus, enveloping us in their misty, majestic presence. They know us. It is oddly pleasing to look at the sprawling city spread out before you like a game of Monopoly. The shimmering city lights in the distance remind you that when you gain enough perspective, your problems do not seem as gigantic as you make them in your head. Right now, I feel that there is so much more to life than your career. Than your placement. Than your CGPA. That’s not what we will remember. What we will remember are the nights we were crazy enough to stay awake and go for breakfast even before the mess opened. What we will remember are those times we stayed up at night talking, realizing how we all have the same doubts in life, how we are all in this together. We are all in the same boat. We are a family.  

I wanted to do this for quite some time. Just sit in front of my laptop without thinking and let the words spill out, like smoke billowing out of a chimney in haphazard patterns. There is so much more to this place than what meets the eye. It teaches you life lessons which probably no other place would teach. It compels you to bond with the people around you, to keep you sane. It teaches you that there is more to life than holding grudges against each other, or to wallow in grief if you miss out on an opportunity. Much like the roads here, life here has been full of ups and downs. And my heart refuses to believe that it is going to end. How would it be to not have to worry about missing class every morning? How would it be to never have to write an exam again? How would it be to not stay up all night and sleep the next day away? How would it be to not see the deep orange sky and the silhouettes of the guys playing football every evening? What would life be? Where would I be? Where would we all be?

We would all probably be struggling with our newfound freedom and all the challenges that come with it. But I am certain that we would never forget our experiences on these amazing, throbbing, gleaming, heartbreaking hills. The hills that have witnessed thousands of students come here, go through the same experiences every 20-year-old something would go through, and then leave with a heavy heart. They have watched them leave year after year, knowing that they will never be the same again.