Withdrawal symptoms

I get extremely agitated and tensed when I don't write for so long. So much happens in a span of a few days that to think of how to bring the words out succinctly is perplexing. I shall try.

*breathes deeply*

Out of the big lists of things that have happened, it is safe to say that the most significant of them is the fact that I now have a job. On the day of my last exam, I had three job offers in my hand. And only a couple of days ago, I had none. Funny how life works out sometimes. Just when I had accepted that it is highly likely that I might have to go home unemployed, something clicked. But I applied somewhere at the right place at the right time. So now, Bangalore it is. I'm excited and nervous. I'm exervous. I really like the city, my friends will also be there, I think I will enjoy my work. The thing I'm most looking forward to is managing my own finances. Finally, I'll be earning. No more a parasite. I would be producing, instead of consuming. I'm employed! :)

The first thing I felt after I received the call was.. relief. Not joy, not excitement. I just sighed and sat limp for a while at the thought that I would not have to give any more interviews. No more people sitting across me and judging me. It is time for me to really give everything I have. Just be good at something. To do something. Have an identity.

I'm not sure I'm handling it very well, though. The suddenness of this. Sure, I have a job. Is it really such a big achievement? To be honest, I'm quite terrified of what lies ahead. What if I don't perform well? What if I don't enjoy my work? What if I don't get along with the people? Plus, I'm going to the city alone. Looking for a place on my own. This time, it is permanent. This time, I cannot be unhappy. I have to mould myself in order to enjoy what I have.

One of the questions the interviewer asked me was, "If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?" He gave me no time to think, and for some reason I could only picture giraffes. I think I thought of them because they are so tall and slender, and well I have extremely long limbs. But to him, I had to give a substantive answer, so I said, "Because they have the advantage of reaching the inaccessible juicy leaves on the tall trees. Oh, and they can run free and wild on the grassy plains." And I had a faraway expression and a stupid grin on my face while I said that. (Inside my head I was shrieking at myself, "What?! Juicy leaves?! Grassy plains?! What did you just say to him? Be professional! Sound intelligent! You've blown it, blown it I say!") Thankfully, he just laughed and let it be. I think I'm always going to remember this. Giraffe. Sheesh :P

The other significant thing that happened and broke my heart to smithereens was that college got over. Completely. I felt it dawning over me when I had my last lunch in the mess, when I packed my bags till they looked like they were swollen and overflowing, when mom and dad came to wrap everything up and take me back home. My mom loved my campus. We sat together, tea cups in hand, watching the sunset. Dad said, "So your last sunset, eh?" And I swear I welled up. The hills contain too many, just too many memories.

People always complained while we were there. 'Oh it's so far away from civilization.' 'I hate coming back before 11.' There's nothing to do here.' 'It's so boring.' 'The mess food is so bad.' Many of them were happy to get rid of the place. I never understood them. How can you not love a place so beautiful? A campus so pretty with such good infrastructure? A nice, clean, comfortable hostel with a gorgeous view? One of my professors told me that we all take this place for granted and don't appreciate it for what it is. I told him that I did not. I felt lucky every day I was there. I would give up anything to be in a place with such natural beauty, than live in a concrete jungle full of honking cars and imposing buildings. I tried to soak it all in, because I knew I would not get two whole languorous years on such a picturesque campus.

It is a scientific fact that our brain has a habit of phasing out all the bad memories and retaining the good ones, and that is why when we look back on our childhood, we remember it fondly as if it was the best time ever. It probably was, but the point is, the more time passes, events seem grander than they were in our heads. I was probably miserable when I was eight, seeing as I hated school and fought furiously with my sister and brother and always had problems with math. But now when I think about it, I would give up everything up to be 8 again.

When it comes to my college life at Lavale, it was already so grand while it was happening. I don't need time to pass to look back at it and think of how wonderful the time was. I felt that when it was happening. I was so aware of it. It was Unagi. When I was running back to the hostel on a rainy day after class, half-drenched and laughing, I felt it. When I sipped hot coffee on a chilly night with my friends, felt the breeze blowing my hair back, and gazed at the sky which was always, always so amazingly clear, I felt it. When I sat in class and we laughed together at a joke our professor made, I felt it. When we all danced to a stupid Bollywood song at one of our go-to place for drinks, I felt it. I felt it in all those small moments. I felt thankful. I knew I was living one of the best, most amazing, most exciting years of my life. I can only wonder how grander they would appear when I am 50 and I think about them then.

I knew I was going through withdrawal symptoms when I woke up in the morning and it took me a couple of minutes to realize that I am not in my hostel room. I didn't see the pink curtains, with the shadows of the leaves dancing on it. I was in a room where I couldn't hear the chatter and laughter of the students at PMC. It took me a while to get out of bed.

I'm listening to a song called 'Daydreaming' by Dark Dark Dark which makes me think of it all the more. You will understand if you were a student on our campus.

"Oh now look to the east, great mountains remember me,
It's land I can see for miles, with only the wind whispering,
And oh if you knew what it meant to me,
You would see it too."

(One evening on the terrace)

(On the way to class)

(View from the hostel terrace)

(Depression point)

(View from the amphitheater)

(My room. And fairy lights)

(View from the football field at sunset)

(One beautiful, foggy evening)

I'll miss college terribly. I can't believe I won't go back to my room, meet Possum and break into our renditions of all the silly songs we sing. I can't believe I won't greet all my friends with warm hugs, high-fives and discuss our vacations. I can't believe I won't have the view. Oh, the view.

I had decided that after I write a post about it, I might get some closure. Then I will not look at my college life with woeful reminiscence, but a surreal satisfaction of living it. I was there. I lived it. It's time to look ahead. It's going to be frightening and maddening at times. But now I will be an adult in the truest sense of the word. I finally control the steering wheel of this car called life. And I can't wait.

Goodbye Lavale. You were incredible.

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. 

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!

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. 

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 :)

First film!

Hello beautiful readers!

We were supposed to make a Personal Documentary as part of our course. The rules were: it was to be 5 to 10 minutes long, no music was allowed and no special effects. So I just shot a bit on campus, and patched all the archival footage I had with it and just sewed it up together to make this!

Awaiting your comments and feedback! My first movie :')

Click here: My first documentary.

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Chaos

Today was the kind of day where Murphy was at his sadistic best. One of those days when you think things could not get any worse, except that they do. It was one of those days when everything bad you can imagine happens to you. You get out of bed and step on a nail, you slip in the bathroom, you miss breakfast, you walk into a cactus plant, you fall in a ditch and break all your teeth and there is no mosambi juice when your soul is desperately crying for it.

We were supposed to prepare a news bulletin as part of an assignment for TV Reporting and we were given an entire day to do it. We were five people, and I thought we would easily finish our assignment way before time. HAAH! So we wished. Everything from our camera, to the memory card, to the mic, to the cable, to the laptop, to the editing software, to the edited footage, to the electricity decided to conk off at regular intervals killing us painfully inside. There was so much of screaming and shouting and chaos and mess and outrageously impossible mishaps that at one point of time I was seriously considering walking out of the studios, walking straight to the hillside and jumping right off. We finally managed to finish it three hours after we were supposed to submit it, only to be thrashed by the teacher. I never realized preparing a news bulletin was such a tedious and painful task when I used to mindlessly flip over news channels.

I think I’m going to stick to print, thank you very much. I need time to think, and there’s no goddamn time when you are working for TV news! You oversimplify everything because it is for the “common man.” You slog laboriously for hours and then the viewer gulps it down in a few minutes, probably doesn’t even pay attention to half the things you say or show in it, and it is not even gratifying. I know I'm being negative and whiny but try going through a day like this. Cannot subject myself to this on a daily basis. I’m surprised I came out alive. So, broadcast journalism goes out the window. Fo shizz. 

Just cannot get over the sheer magnanimity of the unbelievably horrible day I had. Thank heavens it’s over. I better go to sleep before a huge spider crawls inside my room through my window and gobbles me up. 

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. 

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.”

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.