Hello, new life. I kinda love you already.

When I was a kid, the afternoons used to be long. Mom and dad would return only in the evening, and I would have the whole day stretched before me. Of course, I didn’t know the value of all that time then, but I did have a few things I loved doing.

One of my favourite pastimes used to be pedaling my little yellow scooter back and forth in our porch when the cars were not parked inside. I would do it for hours. Making my tiny feet push against those pedals and go taka-taka-taka across the length of the corridor. I would think of many things then. Or maybe I didn’t. Sometimes I just hummed one of the latest Bollywood numbers.

Another thing I loved doing was plucking the ripe, green leaves off the Gulmohar tree outside our house, adding water on it, squishing it under a stone, and making chutney! I would sit on my favourite blue plastic chair (I’d know it was mine because it had a shiny Betty and Veronica sticker on it, right in the center), and I’d just keep grinding the poor leaves under an unfortunate stone and make a dangerous amount of chutney that no one in their right mind would ever even attempt to eat.

But one of my absolute favourite hobbies was to listen to Westlife, Backstreet Boys, and all the other popular ‘90s bands on my cheap Aiwa Walkman, and note each and every word they sang in my ‘Songs Diary!’ Then sing it over and over again, in front of the mirror, copying Britney Spears’ expressions.

Now when I think about that time, I can’t believe I’ve come this far since then. When I think of that version of myself, I can’t believe that was me. And yet, it was.

I am a working class professional in one of the best cities in India. The IT hub. The ‘Silicon Valley’. The city which has the good weather, the good jobs, the good places, the good culture. I have begun my fourth week at work. I’m learning new things, trying to absorb everything like a sponge. I have begun to almost love some of my co-workers, who are rapidly turning into good friends. A couple of them, one absolutely crazy, and one not-so-crazy, have been especially encouraging and helpful throughout. I cannot imagine office without them. It’s a cozy environment, not much different from a classroom, where you love everyone for their specific qualities and idiosyncrasies. I love having lunch with them, where everybody is random and where we can take a break from work and exchange a few jokes.

I went to I-Bar with some of them this Saturday, and we went bonkers dancing to all the Hindi songs we love to love, and the ones we love to hate. We danced so much, and for so long, I woke up the next day with sore muscles.

I even found a good PG to stay in, with a roommate, who is sweet enough to accompany me outside when I don’t feel like eating PG food, and who offers me alphonso mangoes she got from Bombay :) And this is just the beginning. I can’t believe it has only been 20 days. I feel like I’ve gone through a time warp in this time. A new city, new home, new friends, colleagues. To think about how nervous I was on my first day at in Bangalore. (Will I find a good place to stay? Will the work people like me? Will I be able to do what they ask me to do?) It’s almost amazing how smooth this transition has been, and how comfortable I’ve started feeling in this new skin. It is incredible to think how things just start falling into place one by one. In the beginning, I used to just tell myself, “Take it easy. One step at a time.” And now it seems like I’ve crossed quite a distance without even realizing it.

(View from my new balcony)

Today has been one of the best days here so far. I got up way before time, took a leisurely hot water bath, had breakfast, plugged in my earphones and played Queen’s OST (Man, Amit Trivedi!), and walked to the bus stop. I always smile seeing all these people around me walking hurriedly to catch their buses. I read the work tags hanging around their necks. Accenture, TCS, iGate, SAP. All these young people, in their prime, including me, just starting off with our lives, with our dreams. I feel so united with them. Crossing the road, though always a tricky business, was relatively smooth today. I barely waited for the bus for 5 minutes and even got a seat! Oh, the joy. Otherwise, on some days, the buses are packed, with you barely managing to stand in the teeniest spot you can find, jostling with the other women, trying to reach into your purse and managing to find exactly fourteen rupees without falling hard on your ass, or on the road (since sometimes you have to stand precariously close to the door).

I reached office way before time. I knew exactly what I had to do during the day, and I think I was having a good hair day! What more could you ask for? But wait, it gets better. My boss, who is supportive and very approachable, told me I am performing really well at work. My insides were inflating like a balloon, but I think I managed to say ‘thank you, sir’ very gracefully. He told me he thinks I have been working for a quite some time. Now THAT, is the perfect ending to the day. But right now, I have a lot to learn. A LOT. So, without focusing on the feedback much, I would just like to take baby steps, and improve every day. Bit by bit.

I feel so good writing after so long. Even though I worked for ten hours today and I am dead tired. A blog post was long, long due. Please excuse the disjointed post. I tried to contain the scattered thoughts into cohesive sentences. I have a lot more to share. And I will be back soon.

P.S. I still sing in front of my mirror acting like a big-time pop singer. Some things never change, do they? :)

Lying on the Moon

Know that feeling when you don't mind writing notes in class because the pen is so blissfully smooth? And the feeling when someone makes you laugh so hard you can't imagine what you would do when you won't be able to see them each day? Or the feeling when you walk to class taking each step with the beats of the song you're listening to? The sound of a class laughing in unison? These are little moments that make up my day here. Tiny fragments of the last 30 days left.

There's nothing in particular that I want to write about. I just felt like writing. It's comforting. To open up this little box and observe what unfurls in front of me. It rained today. After long. I was in the editing studio working on an assignment, and when I stepped out, the gust of wind and the smell of wet mud filled my senses. It was like a spell. I was just so happy. I walked all the way to the photocopy shop with a stupid grin plastered on my face. I just love this place so much. 

We have this professor teaching us Business Journalism these days, and he is so good that none of us mind spending our entire evenings sitting in a classroom listening to him. He discussed the financial crisis of 2008, he talked about its aftermath, and then he played a game with us, where we all were the head of the Federal Reserve and had to control the economic condition of America. I wish all the teachers in the world were like him. People would grow up smarter then. I wish I had better teachers in school. I did, but nothing ever interested me apart from stories. Biology and Geography to an extent, but I never spent as much time trying to understand those as I did with my nose etched deep between the pages of my English literature textbooks.

I watched the first episode of True Detective. There's something Matthew McCanoughey says which caught my attention. "Human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labour under the illusion of having a self. The secretion of sensory experience and feeling programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody. When in fact, we are nobody. Maybe the honourable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand-in-hand into extinction."

That's probably a pessimistic, awful thing to say to anybody. But god, I love it. I just love it when somebody tries to think beyond what we are supposed to do. What we are taught to do. What we are made to do. I can't believe people have stopped asking questions. They do not want to know things which are beyond their comprehension. Which reminds me, I also watched Richard Linklater's Waking Life. Linklater is the same guy who created Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight. Sheer brilliance.

Anyway, so I love him because he's constantly asking all these questions in his films. Waking Life is about a boy who is lucid dreaming, and he meets all these people and talks to them about existence, science, the universe, religion and other such things. Things that people, for some reason, don't discuss in everyday life. They just talk about superficial everyday issues. Which is also fine, but have you noticed how people usually seem to talk nonsense most of the time?

I didn't even understand half the things they were trying to explain in the movie. And I know, I know, people usually roll their eyes and advise me not to think so much and to 'go with the flow.' But, I just don't buy it. The whole 'living' thing. If I had a choice, I would probably not even do it. There's got to be bigger plan, but that is not enough and it doesn't even matter because we are here for like a fleeting second. We are here completing our time, trying to get by and salvage some happiness for ourselves. Which is fine, but it just makes me so restless.

There was a scene in the movie where a girl bumps into the guy for less than a second, and they apologize and start walking away, and then she stops him and says, "Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"

Isn't this true? Even more so now, in our digitally 'enhanced', virtual existences where we interact the most on social media and not with real people, we just don't talk. How many of us would start a conversation with a stranger on the road?

I don't know. I know I may be a bit of an over-thinker. It's just that, we are just so small. And powerless, and fragile. We think we are big-shots, with our bloated egos, and our greedy natures, but we are only human. And that is the sad part. How great it would be if people communicated like that, without any ulterior motives?

I don't know. I know I may be a bit of an over-thinker. It's just that, we are just so small. And powerless, and fragile. We think we are big-shots, with our bloated egos, and our greedy natures, but we are only human. And that is the sad part. 

P.S. I'm listening to The Moon Song from the movie 'Her'. It's so painfully nostalgic. 

P.P.S. The title of my post is the first line in the song :)

Just breathe

Yup.

A couple of days back, my laptop charger suddenly decided to stop working. It said ‘the battery was unrecognized’ and I would have to buy a new one. My first reaction was a loud gasp ensued by a panic attack. I could not afford to have even a temporarily dead laptop because it has EVERYTHING. Literally, everything. My books, my ongoing dissertation work, my movies, my songs, internet, everything. It’s my connection to everything important in my life right now. Then I thought to myself how pathetic that was. I mean, if I can’t use my laptop, I’m practically handicapped. I won’t be able to work, to watch anything, read anything, or chat with anyone. I mean, what about the days when your books were physical, your notes were written on actual notebooks and you spent more time outside talking to people for real, and not typing out words with a poker face infested with ‘LOLs’ when you don’t actually ‘LOL’.  

I thought to myself it won’t be so bad. I’d order another charger and in the meantime I can go out more, read a book or talk to people. But I knew I would be restless till I get my hands on my laptop again. This is what we do, every single day after our classes get over. It’s unnerving, and disconcerting to think of the amount of information that is shoved into our faces as soon as we sign into our Twitter accounts or read all those feeds on our Facebook walls. The relentless ‘Which Game of Thrones character are you?’ quizzes, or innumerable reports and analysis of the same events, or opinion pieces on politics and how so and so affects your so and so. It makes me think, do we need so much information after all? Is it even healthy?  

Everything and everyone is crying out for your attention. But not everything and everyone deserves your attention. Imagine if a person living in the 1930s time-travelled into the future and observed us. He’d be befuddled and appalled to see how everyone is so obsessed with these square-shaped gadgets of various sizes emitting light on people’s faces. He might think human beings are possessed by some sort of bewitching objects, and we have no choice but to follow their orders. Because more often than not, it is us following their orders, than giving them. ‘Read me! Read me!’ ‘Click me because my headline is really inviting and once you open it you’ll realize that it is actually completely useless.’ ‘Watch this video and waste several minutes of your life which you could have spent stargazing or getting some exercise.’ They make us lazy, complacent and totally dependent on them. People can be dumb today, because they know they just have to whip out their black mirrors and get all the answers they want. Don’t know a song? Shazam it! Forgot the name of a movie? Google it! Eating something, or absolutely anything at all? Instagram it! Came across something nobody cares about? Tweet it!

Want to know what’s the worst part? We have all fallen prey to it. Including me. Though I might not be as bad as some of my friends, who hold their cell phones as if they’re an actual extension of their hands, I do it too. I do it because I’m a media student, and I have to ‘keep up.’ I need to be up to date with facts, and sometimes I do admit, I enjoy it. There is a vicarious thrill in 'checking someone out' or 'stalking' them or make fun of what they write. But I wish we had not reached a stage where we all go out and spend half the time with our eyes fixed on our tiny screens. Where everyone can be whoever they want to be, by projecting who they want to be, and not who they really are.

I miss the time when I used to listen to music on my Walkman and rewind it over and over to try to figure out what the singer with the heavy American accent was trying to say. I miss playing board games and cards and the anticipation of getting glossy printed photographs. I just wish we were not so reliant on it, you know? Too much of anything can’t be good.

Anyway, today is March 4^th. Know what that means? We have exactly one month before college gets over. One month to finish the dissertation, classes, assignments and exams. We just attended a college fest. Our last one. We had a band called Swarathma that played in college. They were great! Entertaining, good and kind of crazy. Plus, Amitabh Bachchan visited our campus today! Yep, we saw him in flesh and blood. His voice is amazing. It was pretty unbelievable to see the not so 'angry young man' for real. So, good stuff. 

I’ve been discovering lots of new music and Fleet Foxes is one of my most favourite bands currently. Please listen to them. My top two songs are ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’ and ‘Your Protector’. I’ve also been listening to this song called 'Breathe' since I watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I like the lyrics.

Went to Bombay to give an interview, and once again, was shocked at the number of people scurrying about. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get used to that.

We spent the entire time playing Taboo after dinner today. God, it can be so much fun. Really keeps you on your toes. The breeze was beautiful tonight, like always. I’m trying not to get increasingly sentimental about leaving college over the next few days.

My sister completed two years of marriage today. TWO WHOLE YEARS. I was kind of freaking out about it. I had thought I would be sorted by the time I’m 23. But I guess you can never be ‘sorted’ in your life, ever. One of the things Big B said in his speech today was, “Agar mann ka ho to achcha hai. Aur agar mann ka na ho to zyaada achcha hai.” Translation: “If something you want happens, it’s good. If something you want doesn’t happen, it’s even better.” It just put a smile on my face. It’s okay if things are not turning out as I wanted them to. It will all be okay.

Like the song says, breathe. Just breathe. 

Mumbai Diaries

They’re like insects here. The people. They dwell in every nook and cranny of the city. While some live in majestic bungalows and villas facing the sea, most of them live in one-roomed, cubicle like flats. Their buildings look like beehives. Each window reflecting different stories behind it in their 10” by 10” rooms. Some of them who do not have a permanent roof over their heads settle down anywhere they can. Beneath flyovers, beside railway tracks, on the footpaths, on open fields under tin roofs. When it rains they crawl out of their humble homes, and wait till they can fix them again. They scurry around everywhere, on railway stations, on the roads, in the trains. They are always walking. It looks like an ant colony. People walking so fast the world seems like a blur to them. They bump into each other, but they don’t have time to look back. They stand in queues. So many queues. Long human chains waiting for the bus, for the tickets, for taxis and auto rickshaws.

They spend half their day stuck in traffic jams. The continuous, ceaseless, mind-numbingly infuriating traffic jams. While you are praying for the bottle-necked roads to clear up, you listen to some music, but then you are surrounded by children. Oh, the children. They sell flowers, they sell balloons. They sell children’s books which they can’t read themselves. They sell bangles which they cannot dream of wearing on their tiny, dirty wrists.

Walking on the railway platform sprawling, overflowing with people, you can’t help but wonder what everyone else is thinking. Their faces flash past you in under a second, but you imagine what their life must be like. That man, running with a briefcase, wiping the sweat off his face. Is he late for a meeting? Is his boss going to give him a hard time for being late? Or that old woman, barely able to walk at a regular pace, where is her family? Is she waiting to meet them? Is she alone? Sometimes you see a lanky young boy, wearing his bright orange earphones dancing while enjoying his music, dangling by the door of the train. People grabbing vada pavs and samosas on the go. Eating while running, eating while talking on the phone. Sometimes you see young people walking holding hands, completely immersed in each other. Their fingers are intertwined with each others, their eyes twinkling with love.

So many people. So many stories. It’s a never-ending sea of people going about their everyday lives. I cannot help but think of something Kafka says in Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. He says that all these people he sees walking past him, a hundred years later they would not even exist. They would be gone. Gone from the face of the earth. Including him. And me and you and all of us. The future generations will have different stories, different experiences. Wonder what life would be like then. How much of it would have changed? One of my friends yesterday in one of his ‘mellow’ moods said “we are lost in a mist of time. Stumbling and groping around in the dark. Then we suddenly hit a dead end and we look back and realize that the mist was all there was and the journey was the only purpose. The journey that led to a blind alley. In the end, I think, life is a purposeless journey undertaken by a blind man in the dark. We continue to live it for no other reason other than that it’s there. Even though we know exactly what lies in the end.”

Does it make sense? To me it kind of did. I should get some sleep now. Tomorrow is another day.

P.S.  Today’s date is 11.12.13 :)

The one about obscure joys and sorrows

I’m listening to the Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. The song that plays when Ross and Rachel are in the planetarium on their first date. (If you don’t know who they are we can’t be friends) Mushy mushy mushy. I love his voice. This song is so romantic. It makes me melt. I’m just a sucker for this kind of stuff. Sigh.

Possum and I have been gorging on Friends and unhealthy mid-night Balaji chips and cookie binges. I’ve realized we have memorized almost all the episodes now.  There is not one reference or a joke related to the show that we won’t get. It is amazing how they maintained the quality and the humour for ten seasons. Brilliant. There are some scenes I have to pause to laugh at. And I feel the same amount of sadness when they all keep down their keys of the apartment in the finale episode.

I’ve been reading The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal. It’s quite intriguing. I stayed awake all night reading it. My head is full of the book right now. I like the way the convoluted emotions have been explained in the story. It seems like the narrator is unraveling them while he is writing all his revelations out. Since I was up all night, I went for an early breakfast. Ah, the mess was almost empty. Chattu and I sat outside the mess, sipped tea and looked at the misty view for quite some time. There were dew drops dangling on the green leaves and the small buildings looked like building blocks. I like it when all the assignments are done, and you can just sit back, deep breathe and relax. Ah, the campus is breathtaking then. If there is one thing I would crave once I leave this place is the silence. The sheer solitude and the peace. Now when I go to the city and I’m standing on a busy road I keep wondering where everyone is going. Why are there so many people? Why are they all in a rush? Where are they going? Why don’t they look happy? It puts me off. We have screwed up. We are way too many people. I’d rather prefer half the current population to just stop existing. It’s a transhumanist, almost evil thought, but seriously, either that or we have to bear the consequences of fornicating so much.

Do you sometimes enter phases where you’re sitting and you zone out of a conversation and start staring at nothing in particular? You’re not even thinking about anything. It’s like you just stop functioning for a second. Yes? Well, I have been reading The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and I found the exact term for that phenomenon. Ambedo: a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life, a mood whose only known cure is the vuvuzela.

That website is excellent. They have words for the exact emotions which everyone feels but no names have been invented yet. There is one which I particularly relate with. And indulge in. Gnasche: the intense desire to bite deeply into the forearm of someone you love. See? I’m not insane. This happens to other people. Or I don’t mind being insane. Who cares?

Some other terms I was vehemently nodding my head in agreement were:

 Sonder: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Vellichor:  the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

Anecdoche: a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to say.

Flashover: the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.

Wonderful, right? So intricately and gorgeously expressed. Go ahead. Google them!

In other news, chances are I might end up in Bombay for my winter internship. Nothing is confirmed yet, but fingers crossed. I don’t know what is in store for me. The city intimidates me. It has this throbbing, pulsating, almost unnerving sort of a feel to it. It’s exciting, but you never know when it might just pounce on you. My feelings toward it are the kind you have for your physics teacher you kind of had a crush on. He scared you, even annoyed you, but you wanted to attend all his classes anyway.

The classes for the third semester are over. Every time I say this out loud to Possum or tell her how much time is left, she quivers her lips and then covers her ears up. How is it that time keeps slipping out of your hands and then makes you realize that there was so much that you had planned to do and just couldn’t do it due to some reason or the other? Here’s a quick list of the things I have to do before I leave:

1.       Go to Depression point again

2.       Go to a disc/pub with friends and stay out at night

3.       Walk all the way down the campus and climb one of the peaks and sit there

4.       Go on one more trip with friends with the epicness greater or equal to the epicness of the Kashid trip

5.       Stay awake all night and watch the sunrise with the others

6.       Go to a Karaoke pub and SING

7.       Buy the damn thermocol sheet and make a bulletin board lest Possum peals my skin off

These are the ones that come to mind as of now. Will add more later. Can you believe I will be 23 in another month? I always thought 23-year-olds are responsible, independent, strong, career-oriented, ready-for-marriage type of women. I wasn’t even over the shock of turning 22. I feel 16. Where is my life going?

Before I start hyperventilating, I will move to happier topics. I always had this mental image in my mind before I joined this college, that I will have a big group of girly friends who will be always there for me, and we would share everything. Well. That didn’t happen. Lots of things didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to be. I got a lot of rude shocks and unpleasant realizations about a lot of things. And that is how life is. The things you really want might not happen, but sooner or later you realize you did manage to squeeze out some precious memories and you do end up making friends. Because there will always be people who you can call your closest buddies. And life is just a little less dreary then.

And now, as Norah Jones is crooning in my ears, I’ll stop writing because this post is turning into a rather long disjointed flurry of scattered thoughts. So long!

P.S. Possum broke something that belonged to me a while back and so she got me an earthen wall hanging which is a half a sun and half a moon. Night and day. Yin and Yang. I love her! :)

P.P.S. I have a new possible pen name. The Radical Slug. How does it sound? Will explain the story behind it later :)

'Cause I've got a peaceful, easy feeling :)

A few days back a friend visited the campus and he made me look at my campus in awe all over again, through the eyes of an outsider. I live in the kind of place where people pay thousands of rupees to go vacationing to. I have been dabbling into a lot of new music and I’m addicted to two new bands, Broken Bells and Imagine Dragons. They go really well with the overall atmosphere of this place. A couple of days back Possum and I went up on our terrace, in a desperate attempt to do something ‘spontaneous’ because we suddenly realized how little time is left before our time here gets over. Third semester flew by. Literally. 'Not like a an aeroplane, but like a rocket.' When I think about it, it seems like a flurry of assignments, workshops and guest lectures. And funny one liners and insane laughter sessions at night.

And oh, sleeping like this every day.

It rained gloriously today. With frighteningly loud thunder and purple lightning. It has been pouring since the past few days and it makes me enter this euphoric stupor where I suddenly fall in love with everything around me. It felt amazing to just sit back and observe the rain. The water gushed underneath our feet, down the sloping road as we made our way back to the hostel. We felt the spray of the water and we observed some juniors sailing some paper boats in the streams.

There was a stormy, torrential downpour at night again, and as I walked back towards the hostel under my umbrella I knew I had to get drenched. It was time. I ran back to the hostel, changed into my shorts and asked my crazy neighbor who I knew would be crazy enough to join me in my craziness and took her to the terrace. We stood there, giggling, scaring passersby on the road below and just sharing the beauty of the moment. I don’t know what it is about getting soaked to the bone. Maybe it’s the thrill, maybe it’s defying what you’re supposed to do. Maybe it’s the pleasure of letting go despite the risk of falling sick.

I went to Mumbai recently to shoot a documentary film we are working on. The reality shook me up a bit. The real world is not like my campus. It's not always rainbows and butterflies and sunsets and trees. It's sweat. It's hordes of people pushing you. It's homeless people. It's people who try to swindle you. It's hours of travelling that sucks all your energy out. It's dust. It's haggling with autowallas. It's not easy. And once I start working I will have to deal with this everyday of my life. I don't feel ready for this. And yet when I'm thrown out there, I feel like I'll live.

I cannot get over how much I have changed in the past one year. Earlier I saw, but never really observed. I heard, but never really listened. I felt, but never really thought. I feel like my senses have opened so much more to everything that happens. I enjoy silence more than loud noises now. I look for solitude instead of large crowds. I am...quieter. Well, relatively. I'm more cynical. I still romanticize mostly everything in life, but a lot of my unreasonable expectations have taken a backseat. I’m still a big bag of emotions, opening myself to those precious few, but deep underneath a lot of creases have smoothed over time. I feel like I needed to clear my head a bit. There is a little more clarity when it comes to setting my priorities straight. I still don’t know what exactly I want from life, but I don’t let it bother me as much. I’ll figure it out.

For now, I’m just happy to have a roommate with whom I can share anything with. I’m happy I came to terms with my past and I'm happy I did not lose the people I cared about. I still have that friend who will burn and send me CDs of my favourite TV shows. I am happy I have that one person to walk around with, the one who completely ‘indulges me’, the one who shakes trees to make water fall down on me and run away laughing like a child. I’m happy I have that one friend who has worse existential crises than me and complains how she doesn't want to do anything anymore. I'm happy I have that one friend who I can count on when I want to discuss anything with, the things that 'normal' people won't understand. And a mom who pings me on Whatsapp asking 'Mela baby homesick hai?' And a dad who is okay with me wanting to go backpacking to another country because he is okay with everything. And a sister who constantly asks me to intern in Singapore so that 'we can be crazy with each other.' I'm happy for all these people in my life, because each one has a different purpose, and each one has a different place in my life, and I’m a completely different person with all of them. It's like they are my horcruxes. Life has never seemed so comfortable, and so full of exciting possibilities :)

P.S. I bought a camera! Sharing my photostream here! Do give me feedback on the pictures :)
Click here.

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.”

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.

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!

Futility

This completely resonates with how I've been feeling lately. The futility of life :/

"I see an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history; without a purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives."

-Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

Wind of Change

So, it's happening :)

It's finally, actually happening. I'm going to Pune.

This is one of those moments when I don't even know if it's real or not. When it's so big that you've to keep questioning yourself "Is it really happening?" "Is it?" "Wait, really?" When it's so new and exciting and frightening that you don't quite believe it. It's like I can smell it in the air. The change. 

The first, real, big change. I'll live in a different city. I will live away from mom and dad, away from the house I grew up in, away from my family. I'm finally, breaking away :)

Am I? Really? See? Here I go again.

I wanted to wait before writing this post. There are over two months before I go there, (and I have to give a gazillion exams and pass them) but I can't help it. Like I said, I can smell it. And I can feel it. Almost like I can touch it. My fingertips are tingling. I can feel a yawning chasm slowly expanding inside my body. I'll bid farewell to the place where I spent 21 years of my life? Mummy? Papa? Baba and dadi? All my relatives? My friends? 

I'll live in a world where my friends will be my family. I'll live on a hill. I'll live with a roommate. I'll live in a different world. I'll have different sights and smells and people and places and moments and memories and incidents and experiences. There is a little chance that I might end up in Delhi. But I'll still live in a hostel :) I'll sail away from home, never to come back again. (Of course I'll come during the vacations. I just mean I'll be out for good) Am I really, really moving out? Of home? :O I'll live on my own? I'll wash my clothes and iron them? I'll withdraw money from the ATM and take care of it and learn to spend it wisely? :O 

I'm ready to face it. To experience a whole new universe and to write a whole new chapter in the book of life. Or am I? :O

I keep getting reminded of this song by the Scorpions.

"Take me to the magic of the moment,

On a glory night.

Where the children of tomorrow dream away,

In the wind of change."

And I can feel it. The wind of change, blowing straight into the face of time. 

And this time it’s blowing for me :’)

Suspended

I sit back in silence and watch the particles of dust sparkling and swirling in the ray of sunlight entering through my window. Meandering aimlessly, suspended in the air, as if not being able to make their mind up.. looking for answers, fighting with themselves. I look at them, transfixed, trying to find the answers to my own questions. I try to dig deep within my soul. What do I want? What do the others want from me? Strangely though, the only thing that comes to mind is.. nothingness. A strange, hollow, uncomfortable feeling which makes you numb. It makes you feel like the world is moving around you, while you are stuck. You are stuck into infinity, and waiting for some kind of emotion to engulf you. What if, right now, right this moment, the world comes to an end? Would anything matter anymore? Absurd though it may sound, the idea doesn't particularly horrify me. 

Incendies

I still haven’t recovered from the shock after watching Incendies. After watching it, I couldn’t sleep or talk. I just wept. We sit here, so comfortable in our daily lives, shrouded by our own trifle issues, that we do not realize our life could have been tremendously worse that what it is.

War, famine, poverty, epidemics, discrimination, abuse, murders, terrorism.. we never envisage these things could even touch us. They only happen to others, they cannot possibly happen to us. And yet, people have gone through things we cannot even imagine.

I wept not only for Nawal Marwan, but for the entire humanity. For the injustice, for the atrocity, for the circumstances that compel humans to become so hard-hearted that they do not even blink before ending somebody else’s life. What must go through them to make them like that? Their conscience has to be dead for them to become so heartless. I wept for the destroyed homes and souls of the people who cannot get the undemanding pleasure of living a simple life. I wept for people who pray, for people who have faith and for people who have none. I wept for the silent, greasy tears that stream down a weary soldier’s cheek and fall onto a land which is divided into fragments for pathetic, greedy reasons. I wept for the blood baths, for the ravaged, raped, abandoned bodies and the withered consciences. I wept for all the pain, for children who lose their mothers, for families that are torn apart, for dreams that are shattered beyond repair, for hearts that are broken into smithereens. I wept for the millions of souls that are burnt and bludgeoned and tortured and killed and scorched in a world where that almighty being in the sky still looks down upon us and for those who believe he loves us all.

Love in the Time of Cholera

I just finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and not surprisingly, my head is exploding with questions and thoughts. The story is set in the late 1800s, and yet, the feelings, the emotions, the madness, the confusions and problems that people have to face in their lifetime seem timeless.

It is about a young boy called Florentino who falls in love with a teenager Fermina and how they get to know each other through a passionate and fervent exchange of love letters. As she grows up, she realizes it’s not really love but immature, illusory stupidity and decides to stop being in touch. He cries and burns in anguish and helplessness and continues to write sonnets and poems in her memory.

A young, intelligent and reputed doctor, Dr. Urbino then proposes to Ferima and though she initially dislikes him, agrees to get married to him. They live a long and happy life, have children, and go through the usual downs and highs every married couple goes through. Florentino indulges into countless love affairs with many lonely women, while he still truly loves only Fermina and longs to be with her again.

When he is almost eighty years old and she is in her mid-seventies, with her husband dead and her alone and facing many unresolved issues, they find solace and comfort in each other. They crash into love and finally get the mental peace and stability they looked for all their lives. Fermina realizes that even though she kept feeling that she was happy with her married life, now when she retrospects, it seems so loveless, so complicated, so wrong.

That shook me. This is what we do. When we look back upon something, old incidents or relationships, we don’t really see it the way it was. Over time, every time we look back upon it, it gets changed, according to changes in our lives and in our personalities. At one point of time, when I thought I was so happy and content, now when I think about it, I wasn’t. I don’t even know what or how it actually was. I don’t even know what the reality is. What was it?

We change so much over time, that we lose parts of us somewhere along the years, and acquire so many new personalities. We’re over a million different people in a lifetime. How can we trust anything then? How can we trust anything or anyone to do what we think they would? Are we in a position to judge anybody’s actions? Are we to say anything at all? And can we trust ourselves? How do we define what is right and wrong? Is there any guarantee to anything in life? Is there any guarantee to love? Is there any guarantee to life itself? Is anything ever what it is? Or does it keep getting changed because we want it to? What is real?

Veronika Decides to Die

Yesterday I finished reading this book by Paulo Coelho which I'd bought at the Nizamuddin railway station, Delhi: Veronika Decides to Die. It is a story about a young, good looking, 24 year old girl with a steady job and plenty of boyfriends who attempts at killing herself by consuming an overdose of sleeping pills. Why did she want to kill herself at all?

Monotony. She felt that her life was too boring, too predictable and from then on it would only go downhill, with her becoming frail and weak and diseased and watching her loved ones die. She didn't see any point in living any further. She believed that every human being had a choice to take their own lives if they wanted to and 'God' shouldn't punish them for doing so, in fact, if anything, He is the one who should be apologetic for putting them on a place like the Earth in the first place.

Anyway, she survives somehow and wakes up in a mental hospital where she gets to know that her heart has been irreversibly damaged and she only had a week to live. While she waits for death to arrive, she suddenly realizes that she needn't care about what people think about what she says or does or how she behaves because she had nothing to lose. She needn't care about the walls she had constructed around her, trying to be correct, to be precise, to be proper. And so, for the first time in her life, she allows herself to be free. To do things she had never done, to experience beauty and love and hatred and perversion.

It is when she is so aware of death lingering around her that she finally understands what it is to live, to fall in love, to experience extreme emotions, to find joy in simple things. Isn't it ironical? Her decision to die teaches her how to live.

I read somewhere "The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." It's only after we lose something that we realize what it meant to us. Veronika realized that she hated the way she had lived her life. She never let herself be a little mad, a little crazy; she always tried to be a cistern, containing all the water inside her; but never a fountain, overflowing with emotions and enthusiasm. She never took risks, she never liked adventure, she was never rude or spiteful, she never made moves on guys thinking they might dump her; she never lived life on the edge. There was no excitement, no meaning, no purpose in her life.

I guess this is what happens to most people somewhere through life. They lose the spark, they are too afraid to go out of their comfort zones, they don't live life on the edge, and they end up existing, instead of living. Reading the book has once again changed my perspective about life (earlier it had happened after I watched The Secret) I guess we should all live our lives like its going to end very soon. Like we only have a few days to experience everything we can and to do everything we wanted to do. Like there's very little time left. Like there's no tomorrow.

Be crazy. Be daring. Try things. Try things which are considered wrong. Make mistakes, make lots of them. Experience bitter resentment and extreme anger and maddening euphoria. Weep with happiness, jump with joy and laugh out loud. Live. Life is too short and there is a lot to be done. Like a wise man once said, "There is no time to act dead; for one day, we will be."

Beautiful mess

You know your life is messed up when:

1. You best friend with whom you used to spend every free hour talking about the most inane and inconsequential things, has become one of the friends who sometimes drops by for an occasional visit to catch up.

2. Your other best friend with who you really bonded over with in the past couple of months, is leaving town in another fifteen days. And she has a job. And she’ll be rich. And she’ll be in Delhi :|

3. The song that has been running in your head all day is “Ooh la la”. And you're singing it with a lot of gusto (The horror!)

4. Compared to older times when you used to read 3-4 books in a week, now you take more than two weeks to finish an 800 page long book, thanks to your ever decreasing attention span.

5. You try to solve the GK section of a mock test paper for an oncoming exam and you score an 8 on 40.

6. Your dreams continue to get more and more peculiar. And not in the funny way. In the creepy way.

7. You procrastinate so much, that you can even manage to procrastinate procrastination.

8. Your bestest best friend lives miles away and you hate life because you can’t see him every living moment of every day.

9. It’s awkward when you go through your entire phone book and you feel like there’s no one who’d understand.

10. You sometimes feel so lost and confused that even writing doesn’t help. Nor does sleeping or music or talking.

You know life isn’t that bad after all, when:

1. That best friend is still going to be there even if you don’t study together or share midnight snacks and she’s still going to laugh her guts out every time you tell her that when you look at peahens you feel sad, because they look incomplete.

2. The other best friend will always be a call or ping away and she’ll repeatedly tell you that you have long legs (though she has the shiny ones) and that you look good in anything you wear.

3. Sometimes singing and dancing to lame songs can be one of the most fun things to do. Also watching English movies dubbed in Hindi :D

(I once saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix in Hindi and boy, was it a riot.

“Harry pe tampishaachon ne shikanja kass liya hai!”) :D

4. Books are never going to run away. Time will. Time to devour all the books you’ve always wanted to read.

5. You know you suck at GK. Do something about it or just suck it up!

6. Sometimes after the dreams are almost forgotten, you can just laugh about them and say “Yeah well, you guys are just dreams y’know."

7. Maybe you can try to start thinking about procrastinating less. After you finish writing this post, maybe?

8. Your bestest best friend (Chee) will love you no matter what, and send you edited pictures of you that will make you look all pretty. Like this one:

Nice, no?

And will have the funniest things to say like “I’ll talk to you later. I’m going to open this book and do things to it now.”

And you will never have sane pictures together:

9. Actually if you think about it there will always be that one pestering, but somehow sweet and mostly harmless guy who will send you his kid pictures to cheer you up. And they WILL be intolerably cute. 

Seriously, no one is allowed to look this cute man!

And there will always be that guy who tries to be the wise one and he'll give you all sorts of gyaan when you go on one of your “I don’t understand why this happens to me” rants. And he’ll tell you that he thinks you’re wonderful and whacky and blah blah till you grin like a chimp.

10. Sometimes you also know that it’s okay to feel lost and confused. It’s okay to feel let down and downtrodden.  And that feeling will eventually go away

In addition, chocolate always helps! So do good-hair and cute-face days!

Also, check out this pic of Chee’s cousin’s baby girl, Sarayu:

Why can't I eat her?!

Isn’t she the cutest baby you’ve ever seen on the entire planet? Seriously, sometimes I feel I may be a baby-cannibal.

Okay, time to study and time to beat procrastination in the shins!

Off I go!

*“Chu na na chu na na, chu na na chu na na, ab main javaan ho gayi”*

DAMN.