Now

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

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

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

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

Living life inside a bubble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is there no way out of the mind?” 

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

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

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

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

Tell me you don’t love her?

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

Rise

It began with a hesitant message on Facebook,

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

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

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

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

From little ideas to random khee-kheeing about,

You have been a constant guide, adviser and friend.

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

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

But there is so much more to know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rain down, on me.

(Hostel view)

I love this moment for what it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love hooded raincoats and wet feet.

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

I love friendly grins and nods of acknowledgements.

I love having work to do and I love procrastinating.

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

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

I love the wet hair and the sneezes that follow.

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

I love the serenity of this moment.

I love this moment for what it is.

Let go

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy and cheers :)

We can't return, we can only look behind

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

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

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

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

Over the hills and far away

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some glimpses of the SIMC campus :)

(Hostel view)

(Sunset viewing point)

(Sunset)

(Hostel view again)

Bittersweet Symphony

(A cloudy evening on my terrace)

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

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

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

Tonight I choose to be sad

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

The Teacher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope he remembers me :)

I still often wonder about those scars though.