I was lazy once, and young

Oh wait... still am. I just needed to validate my own existence by resurrecting the blog. Frankly, no one who works every day and in their right mind has the time to blog regularly. But oh the places I've been, oh the adventures I've seen.

Aliveness

The wrenching feeling wafted away on a warm summer zephyr leaving only rustling leaves in its wake. Novelty twinkled at me in lights that brightened my path on a balmy eve. That’s when the finishing touches to a transition from a child to grown up was quickly made, leaving no sense of regret or loss. Instead a fulfilling feeling of well being swelled within me, blotting out other thoughts and emotions. If life’s going to be doled out to me in pieces, I’ve been getting a taste of what’s in store for me in every morsel I bite into with gusto. But expectation doesn’t take the joy out of savouring every bit handed out to me, rationed, like everyone else.
The moon may inspire poets but here I’m grasping for words that float away on wisps of thought uncongealed. Words seem too little a compensation for what every sense is on fire with. Joy is a long winding road with no one in sight, nothing but trees and cultivated land and the breeze that swills my hair about. Sleep and dreams bartered for something equally precious. People, remarks, jokes, comments, discussions and everything the day encompassed is momentarily forgotten as I savour this ‘aliveness’. It’s an incredible feeling, impossible to describe.

My sister, the pirate

My general evening tranquility was chased away by my younger sister rushing about the house like a mini tornado. Coat after coat was tried on and discarded. My irritation mounted as the pile of discarded clothes grew. Finally exasperated, I bellowed, "What do you want?" Her face broke into a smile, "I thought you’d never ask!" Their Microbiology Department was having a farewell party for their seniors the next day and the theme was pirates. Since she was the compere, she needed to look like a pirate. (all this at 10 o clock in the night) "Why are you collecting boy pirate clothes when you're a girl pirate?" I asked. She looked at me blankly. I knew Jack Sparrow had a cult fan following but someone who could identify microbial cultures and autoclave with their eyes shut couldn't even think of the obvious?!? But that's why I was there -the guiding light, the bordering on insanity 'ad' girl. Some burrowing in our bottomless closet revealed a very 'piratey' white shirt. Since she'd be the first pirate to wear jeans we figured the rest should be a little believable. Then I bundled her in a Jacket and tied a rag round her waist. The eye patch and hook would come tomorrow. A bandana and two oversized pens (her weapons) finished the "look". Sweating profusely under layers of clothing she eyed her 70 plus kilo frame in the mirror and said dismally, "I look fat!" Well Chubbs, you ARE fat. Muttering mutinously at the impracticality of pirate-wear she wondered how they raided anything in all those togs!
Now that her costume was in place, she looked at me beseechingly with her puppy eyes, “I don’t have a script.” I knew it was coming! After yelling at her for a few minutes for effect, I got down to writing it. There’s nothing to pirate talk really. Mostly half eaten words and exclamations like “Shiver me timbers” and sea specific words like “Shark Bait”. Aye! It be easy t’ git on with. I couldn’t understand how such smart kids could come up with a wholly unoriginal name like ‘Crystal Violet’ a rip-off from ‘Black Pearl’ methought. My sister looked at me wondering which ditsy planet I came from. “Crystal Violet is a stain” she said. Oh! My bad! But hey, I’m not the microbiologist! A full dress rehearsal ensued thereafter and “Arrrr!s” were flying left, right and center.
So that’s my sister, a cross between Jack Sparrow, Captain Hook and Elizabeth Swann.

Wonder

Taking a break from Math is on the agenda since numbers aren’t really supposed to swim around your head. Shutting my eyes isn’t the solution since the numbers also sneak up on me there. So I hazard a glance outside the window and receive a pleasant shock. Pleasant shock is the correct term since I haven’t seen a sight like this in ages and the inherent simplicity of the beauty fills my joyous cup to the brim. A passing shower left the trees a greeny green, dripping dew. The sky was a gentle blue grey. It looked like something I’d have drawn in art class with poster paints titled ‘A rainy day’ or something. Simply marvelous with all the greens with bright orangey-red flowers to offset it. It even made the black tar road look pretty in the setting. The beach was a decided gold and the sea a tinkly silver. So much beauty!!! I drank it in like a shipwrecked survivor starved for food. How much I took for granted. How much I missed because my nose was stuck in a book or my mind on a cellphone conversation. To add to the awesomeness, a sparrow chirruped from a wet bough and his brothers joined in chorus. Quite a rare sight (sparrows have gone Gawd-kows-where). It put me in such a generous mood that even I forgave the crows their grating caw. And the air! Oh the air! It smelt like paradise. One whiff and I was made new again. Something about it makes you feel like a new person –cold, fresh, smelling like wet earth and flowers. As close to heaven as I get, on earth.

A day in the life of a Client servicing exec (mine)

The following events describe the total chaos that precede and follow a visit from the ever exuberant Dee.
A sunny morning, when the rain gods have taken pity on us, wonderful weather greets us on our day to work.Our spirits buoyed, we file into our desks and plan our day. Okay. Urgent press gets priority.Our 5 member team is whittled down to 3 since our a.d. is out with a bad back and our a.e. has suspected flu.

Having no clue about the job that’s just been thunked on my lap, I familiarize myself with the need to connect telecom and Indian independence. Also juggling horrendous hoardings that have been changed at least thrice.
The sup and trainee hover around protectively.

Our merry pace at work suddenly accelerates (with our heartbeat) when we are informed that Dee and S.P. are on their way to “personally supervise & approve” the press ad. (translated as ‘sit on our head till we expedite’)

Poor D Ray G and Sidee have been given the task of making the obscure connection between telecom and independence. One option has been bombed and time till 11 has been spent trying to salvage it in vain. No recycling possible for option 1, 1 A, 1 B and 1 C despite valiant attempts.

Arrival of Dee in a breeze sets everyone going at a typhoons pace. Her black skirt and stockinged legs draw people’s eyes like magnets. She nonchalantly skips about and cracks a couple of sad ones with M G P and COO.

Given the task of tailing her and sticking to her like a burr, I keep at it fervently. Her meanderings are cut short by my leading her into a conference room to repose. S.P. meanwhile lodges himself in the COO’s cabin, deep in discussion with Wabs on strategy.

Since storms cannot be contained in teacups, I’m half dragged to the creative side trying to hold Dee’s curiosity on how our press ad is turning out.

A sweating Sammy working things out with Sidee and D Ray G as quickly as time permits. Voila, layout almost done. Dee gives her blessing, S.P. gives his.
Then comes the fine tuning.

AGM at 3, and at 2 S.P. promptly heads in that direction. Lunch in the aforementioned conference room with Dee. Sammy comes in to help with the PC (polite conversation). In non work related things, Dee is actually quite cool. Lunch is spent eating subs and discussing Feng Shui fish. At 5 minutes to 3, Dee trots off giving us breathing space till 6.30 to figure our lives out.

Artworks etc happen and the legal twist needs approvals. So we wait till 6.30. high level stress since we have around 6 of them to go (2 double spreads and 4 language ones).

At 6.30 they saunter in hungry. After being fed and watered, they suggest changes that are made super fast. Thrice we show them, thrice they ask for changes. The fourth time we hit a jackpot and are lucky (or so we think). Our creative guys decide we haven’t had enough for one day. D Ray G begins making noticeable changes in the layout.

Deadline crossed by a wonderful 5 hours, we send out the files.

“Oh! What have you sent” accompanies a shocked expression by our Sup as he checks it.
I have a near heart attack and the trainees knees buckle.
His face breaks into a smile. What a time to play a prank!!!

S.P. has left about 2 hours ago. Dee hovers around looking into other people’s computers and taking advantage of our general busy-ness to play Polly pry to perfection.

Ché holds fort making ultimate PC. First she gives subtle hints about cabs.
Then it becomes not so subtle till I image she is going to forcibly pack her into a one and send her away.
No such thing. Dee decides she wants to go back to hubby and after a sweet round of goodbyes she leaves in a whirl.

All our nerves near collapse we gleefully make our way home. The end of another exciting. Adventure-filled day.

Monday to the new

Monday mornings should, as a rule, move smoothly. If not, it has the possibility of messing up your entire week.

This Monday however began on a nervous note. Let me explain.
On the bus I sat next to this woman who kept her hands firmly on the back of the seat in front. Every two minutes it looked like she was either going to get up or was clutching onto it for dear life like Schumacher was driving the bus. So I sat more or less in a continuous state of apprehension.

The jump into the train and the ride upped the adrenaline, that, for some reason, is still coursing through my veins.Coupled with the fact that I’m a complete wreck about this ‘sit-at-home-to-study’ thing.Well it robbed me of a good night’s sleep. So glad I spent it fruitfully reading Wodehouse though.
The result it, despite the lack of sleep and nervousness, I have a cheerful disposition.

And the little sleep I managed to grab was punctuated with vivid dreams of Channing Tatum as a dancing G.I. Joe (watched the night before). He’s hot no matter what.
So today begins the rhinoceros stampede to the end of a chapter.

Ricky Martin couldn’t have put it better…go go go… allez allez allez!

Rainy wainy

I trundle through wet streets with my many bags hoping to reach work on time. The incessant patter of rain on my umbrella leaves me quite deaf. This grumpiness from the person who loves rain and prayed for it?! Let me clarify, I like watching the rain when I’m warmly snuggling in my bed with a mug of hot coffee. But reaching work sopping wet to a welcoming air conditioner with the appearance of a wet chicken… well that’s not part of the plan at all. So I pinged God on his IM. “wht da heck?!”. His reply -“rotflmao”. Sigh, it’s not very comforting when God’s laughing his ass off at your plight. “wtf??!!!” I type back furious.
Well it’s like this. We humans love to curse things. When it’s hot we curse the heat and pray for rain so we can curse it instead. When it rains we yell our head off at the wetness dreaming of cool winter days. Through chattering teeth in winter we yearn for sunshiney summers with all its vacation. All year round God is grumbled at. So he gets his kick out of making us look like wet chickens, cooked geese or cold turkey.
This season goes both ways, the smell of lovely wet earth vs fungassy clothes, blissful weekends to cold and wet weekdays. Good and bad are a couple and they’re here to stay.

Confrontation

I wonder what people do when confronted wit something they’ve been trying to avoid they’re entire lives. Like if someone they’ve loved deeply for a long time doesn’t love them back or they’re a total loser with no scope for redemption. It could also be something positive, like they’re made for bigger, better things and were wasting they’re lives until now. Does it break down the entire construction of their lives leaving debris of brick and mortar? Does the building (life) develop cracks but still not crumble? One thing is for certain though; life cannot go on as it were. It has to change even if it doesn’t want to simply because this certain suppressed “fact” has come to light.

I have realized many people build their lives on false hopes, constructed realities and tend to gloss over all that is imperfect. On the outside they are happy and smiling, but on the inside the truth eats at them slowly, unconsciously clawing its way to the surface till one day, in a burst of fresh air, it breaks free. In its aftermath it leaves behind change.

Basically it’s a confrontation between the individual they think they are and the individual they really are. The time and money they’ve spent trying to keep their secret personalities under wraps has gone to the dogs. I wonder if they try and salvage their ego and pride from the crumbling edifice or begin rebuilding it. And if rebuilt would it be the truth or an alter-ego?

Shopping? (cringe!)

The dictionary defines Chores as a hard or unpleasant task. Shopping for me is a Chore (with a capital C). On my one free day –Sunday, mum decides to drag me shopping at the supermarket. It’s pouring and by the time I get there, I look like a wet chicken. With as much dignity I can muster, I enter the fully air conditioned supermarket and listen to the background score of my teeth chattering (very kelvinator). It looks like they’re giving everything away free, judging by the number of people who’re there. There were all sorts of people–fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, short ones…mostly fat ones.

For someone with motor skills two levels above an ape, my mother very adventurously asks me to maneuver the shopping cart. I sigh and grab my cart only to have one of the wheels run over my toes. Mentally yelling at myself for wearing Floaters instead of shoes I sigh and follow mum into the labyrinthine shopping area. “Ouch!” the wheel again as I tried to reverse my cart. As I peer at my toe to evaluate the damage, one supreme shorty decides she wants biscuits from the topmost shelf and causes a cascade of crème biscuits on my previously unbruised head. Now I’m bruised from head to foot (well, my inbetween is miraculously unscathed… not for long though). Looking daggers at her isn’t helping 'coz she’s scuttled off. It would have been better if I had kept my eyes firmly in front of me. Someone with motor skills even worse than mine decides his shopping isn’t interesting enough and playing bumper carts might enhance the experience. Result: a bruised middle. In spite of all the blubber that shields my tummy, I know it’s gonna be a blue bruiser.

Somehow I make my way out of aisle one (in my head, it pops up like a video game: LEVEL 1 COMPLETE: LEVEL 2)

A fact I’ve accepted is, the wheel of my shopping cart has an affinity for my toes. It doesn’t help that other people want to run me over too! And in all this, my mother is blissfully unaware, in her wonderland of aisles filled with things to stack her cart with. The heavier my cart gets, the more unmanageable it becomes.

To make my life a little more bearable, I add some Sprite to my cart only to have mum promptly put it back on the shelf and launch into the “diet” lecture. The chocolate I sneaked in is sneaked back with “the look”.

Feeling great pity for myself, I decide to tame my undomesticated cart. By then, my toes hurt, my legs are aching and my head is throbbing. Just then a kid decides to throw a tantrum and launch himself onto the floor kicking and screaming. Half of me wants to pick him up and pet him, the other half wants to spank the brat. I ignore wailing Wally only to find myself abandoned by mum. The 4 yr old in me wakes up and I panic (why?! I’ve been here a gazillion times) still, I want my mum!!! I scan the aisles and find her looking at some new fangled precooked mishmash. Relieved, I rush to be near her. I go one way, my cart goes the other and the stack of soups comes down crashing. The staff is now glaring at me (they think I’m the creme biscuit crasher). Mum decides the faster she gets me out of here the better. She doesn’t want to be “black listed” for having a delinquent daughter. Luckily, the checkout is reasonably empty as I pile my stuff on the counter, grab my bags and leave.

Garbage, Garbage, Garbage

I fail to understand why any educated person, traveling/ commuting suddenly risks throwing out all their education with their littler. The mentality is “Mumbai is one big garbage bin” so without a second thought throw wrappers, peels, old tickets, ANYTHING out of the window. From trains, cars, buses… if the airplane had windows open, I have no doubt they’d chuck their garbage from there also!!!

I have had many a tussle with the ladies who cannot keep a wrapper in their bag for 20 minutes and throw it at the station dustbins. Some days I go around with other people’s garbage in my bag just because they think it’s “uncool”. I have been called a pest, an activist, a crazy girl etc but I refuse to budge. I believe if ONE person doesn’t throw ONE packet; that is one packet less contributing to the mess, one packet less for the cleaning lady to pick up and a few seconds saved so she can pick up another.

The BMC don’t make it easier with the number of dustbins hovering around nil. But it’s a mentality that has to change. They wouldn’t DARE do something like this if they were abroad. (Sadly, I see some foreigners in their ridiculous Hawaiian shirts and shorts mimicking the Indians)

When are we going to realize we’re the cause of our own troubles and after we push self destruct, there’s nothing that can save us but ourselves. Should I turn this into a movement, a revolution???

listen to song "Garbage, garbage, garbage"

A film festivaler

I wrote this sitting in a theater chair, at the MAMI 10^th international film festival, just before a screening began.

I’m back where I belong, doing what I love best, living through (what was earlier) a dream –watching films back to back. And what an ambiance! This film festival has been another occasion for me to blossom and grow. The evolution has been from the cramped cardboard box life into a dark room full of strangers all enthralled by the flickering image on the large screen. The familiar smells bestir memories from film festivals gone by, from times when I was younger and excited out of my mind to be volunteering. The smell of popcorn is omnipresent. Like heady wine it transports me into another world. This world is cathartic, a purging of my worries of la vie quotidienne. For a couple of hours I exchange my life for someone else’s, snug in the knowledge that however bad it is it will eventually end. I sit wide eyed and absorb the narrative as my bottom grows numb and my mind travels far away.

As every movie ends, the audience bustles around and rearranges themselves at a new screen. Ah! The audience! Strangers but bound by a common thread for the duration of the festival. Familiar strangers from festivals gone past, new friends made from the previous day’s marathon viewing. It’s all part of this “double life” every cinephile leads. The ingrained urge to be a voyeur manifesting itself even more strongly with these film enthusiast types.

The surge of the smallish, but intellectually bound crowd is exhilarating. All for the common goal of viewing someone else’s opinion and life presented on reel. Any avid film festival regular with moderate powers of observation will deduce the clear cut “types” of people that attend.

First, you have the Makers –people who are here because they make films, or have a film that’s being screened. So you have actors, directors, producers… the lot. They add the glamour. The second type is the ‘contact’ people. They are here solely for business purposes, to enlarge their network. So you have distributors, marketers and that set. They add the element of “commerce”. The third are the cinephiles, people who love cinema and come to the festival just for the sake of watching films. They add character to the festival. Students are the fourth type – students from colleges, students of film etc… all here to be amazed by the work of their seniors, peers etc. here to get a toe-hold in this mad world of filmmaking. It fascinates them so much they don’t see themselves doing anything else. The fifth type is the “wanna-bes”- the “I have an image to portray” people who don’t give tow farthings for cinema.

If you observe the crowd in the interval between films, they are all milling around, trying to look like they have something to do, others consulting their catalogues or schedules debating the better movie. There are others indulging in pseudo-intellectual conversations of movies they’ve just seen or directors they love. You see the press running after celebrities for sound bytes. The hungry fill their stomachs with class A-carry able inside- junk food. When you watch people come out of the theater after a screening, you’ll observe their shuffling gait, the blood rushing back to their legs after sitting on their now numb bottom, a little disoriented from emerging into light from dark, thoughtful as if absorbing and collecting their thoughts about the movie. You’ll see the organizers walking around congratulating themselves on a job well done.

That’s why, this is where I belong. I live from festival to festival, in this separate world of mine, switching between a normal person and one transformed, sometimes even my dreams manifest themselves as a movie with opening credits and sometimes subtitles.

In all these film festival “types”, where do I belong? I’m, in reality, all of them, all at once. A truly La Phooey feeling!!! I’m also the silent observer that watches and takes note. In between screenings I mill around. I see familiar faces I smile at.As the slow moving line makes it’s way into the theater, I find myself a suitable place and make myself comfortable. From the beginning to the end, I’m lost to the world and to normal life. The only things that exist are me and the little charade begin played out on screen. Too soon… too soon, the credits begin to roll and the audience claps giving tribute to the filmmaker.

After the closing film, I know my head will begin to throb and I will feel the need to sleep like a drunk. My “waking up” will be comparable to a hang over. Reality will be a little easier to bear; people and places will take on a new significance. There will always be another festival, another time, but each has a separate place in the time-line of my life.

Living to regret the pain

This is what Kahlil Gibran had to say about pain

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder
at the daily miracles of your life, your pain
would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your
heart, even as you have always accepted
the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the
physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink
his remedy in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided
by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter
has moistened with His own sacred tears.”

Unlike many, I don’t find it liberating, I don’t find it a “gift” from the “potter”. After a storm of tears I feel drowned or drenched not emancipated. The constant pain eats into my soul searing myself from the truly happy person I was before. This pain manifests itself in various forms… one more devastating than he other; till I’m left with pieces I’ve managed to salvage but still don’t make a whole. I can’t run or hide ‘coz it’s on the inside… throbbing, unremitting, unwavering till I’m screaming in my own head for it to leave. Physical pain is nothing compared to it…the bruises, cuts or bleeding doesn’t compare and doesn’t make one forget. Prayer doesn’t assuage it, meditation doesn’t calm it and talking about it is a waste of time. I grit my teeth ad hold it all it, put my mask firmly in place. Its source varies faster than a blink till I’m hurting with pain from everywhere that I can’t tell what’s causing me to ache. I hold myself tightly so I don’t disintegrate because that’s what it’s feeling like right now. The death-grip on my sanity is as unwavering as the pain… if I let go, it might let go… I’m not taking chances.

Is it supposed to be this way?

I was looking forward to getting out of college.. Finally… But suddenly I feel someone has pulled the ground from under my feet. Last time around I was feeling so liberated when this got done, but now I have this heavy sinking feeling…
Most of my routine has been forged going to and coming back from college, homework, projects and last minute studying. Suddenly I feel adrift, without purpose or reason… with more questions than answers.
No more getting up at 5.30 in the mornings and tumbling into college. Sleeping through the boring lectures and enjoying the interesting ones. No more teacher imitations and canteen food stealing. Wonderful, bittersweet memories.
One of my identities has been on a roll call, reiterated every morning, part of a class of 60.
This is the end of something precious. The end of life as I knew it…

Will you be there for me?

Lately, so many people have been asking me this. As if, in their storm tossed lives, they look for one constant, one rock… weather-beaten but there. They are unsure of where they go and when they will come. But if they do come back, they need the assurance that someone will be there for them, someone they can come back to. They want me to be that person- who will listen to them, be a balm on their travel weary bodies, soothe their uprooted hearts and minds. In the dynamic, ever-changing they ask, “will you be there for me?”
I say, “Yes, always.” Not forever, because forever has ceased to mean anything…. So, always, till the end of time. But when I ask them the same question, they look apologetic as if making an excuse for their fickle minds, hearts and loyalties.
So I sigh, and continue being there for them, without anyone “being there” for me.

Embarassment Central

THE BEGINNING OF MY MAJOR EMBRASSMENTS
This was the singularly most embarrassing thing in my entire life....
As i walked outside college on a sunny afternoon praising heaven for a teacher who didn’t turn up, i had a mildly euphoric feeling.

Annnnd....this journalist with a camera from IBN 7 stops me and asks for a sound byte. "maidem, tewday eez the anheebherysari of savitri bai phule. Please to be giving us a little thoughts on it."

I thank the stars for the Marathi lesson in 6th grade who told me WHO savirti bai phule was. "maidem, please do be giving it in Hindi." i froze and apologized stating I’d be a national embarrassment. seeing my predicament he allowed me to intersperse words of english in my hindi.

So i go on camera. and mumble some feminist shit about "strong women" and "women before their time" "role models". I felt like a total bimbette...
To add insult to injury... Sheena was taking pics of me with their cell-phone cameras.

That day will forever be marked as "the day that i made an ass of myself on national television". Where is my head on my shoulders when i need it the most!?
Gone was the euphoria and was replaced by a sinking goop like, innards turned to sludge like feeling.
Ironically, i was on my way to enroll in French class when i didn’t know my national language well.

I’ll live down the embarrassment in while but till i get over it... I’m in a state of constant mortificationhopefully something as embarrassing will happen with you... so that i know the world is a just place


EMBARRASSING SITUATION 2: I WAS ASKING FOR IT!
I read this English-Spanish book... and i picked up these phrases... so i was using them left right and centre...
iIwas calling people compadres and saying "que passa" all...and well... those idiotic spanish men say "hola! conjo!" to each other....
So i said "hola! conjo! to Fr. Terry (the priest) and HE knows spanish...
He looks amused and asks, "do you know what conjo menas?" and with supreme confidence i say "yeah! it means buddy or pal."
"er... not quite... “he says," conjo means cunt" and he bursts into laughter
For 2 seconds i was SO shocked i couldn’t react. And then i blushed the deepest crimson and burst into laughter.

Gawd! Another thing i won’t be able to live down!

VALENTINE’S DAY EMBARASSMENT
The fact that it was Valentine’s Day didn’t cut me any slack on my embarrassing situations... so for today's comedy of errors.... here’s the first one… the rest I’m conveniently forgetting

The 2 hour break between classes gives me an opportune moment to finish my project and submit it. So Tess drags me off to Kayanis... a Parsi restaurant. She sits opposite me and we're joined by two of our other classmates –Sheena and Saurabh. We see couples from college coming to celebrate a v-day breakfast at Kayanis.

The meal is filled with discussions and complaining about college and the upcoming prom. Halfway through, my one rupee coin falls on the floor... i lena over to pick it up and BOINK! I land on my butt... and with an "ooeee" i find myself sitting on the Kayani floor...

My table erupts with laughter and the people at neighbouring tables are politely trying to suppress laughter (in vain!). Needless to say, i was laughing too (on the floor)…
The waiter comes, looks at me, then at the chair and decides to pick up the chair instead... hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk... the lighter of the two.

So for a minute I’m on the floor laughing my guts out and no1 at my table is capable of helping me... by this time, tears are streaming down their face...

I pick myself up to find everyone at kayanis smiling at me (pityingly? in comfort?)

I sat right there... ordered a custard and jelly with as much dignity i could muster and ate my dessert (and my friends are still laughing)

Taming of the Shrew

I have finally made peace with myself- actually, peace with everything around me. I have lulled the storm within my soul to rest, sealed the cave of the Behemoth inside and temporarily chloroformed it, till it rises again –furious and baying for blood-for the two years I will spend giving society a false sense of security that I’ve conformed. I have consciously made myself ductile and malleable. For two years, I’ll do what’s expected of me (an MBA), to show them I CAN and then wave adios and go do all the things I’ve dreamed of- albeit with an MBA in hand. “Better equipped to face the world,” my parents say, I grudgingly agree. How bad can it be that people automatically thing you’re smart and you have an answer to all their problems? It’ll be that much easier for people to invest in my pet schemes. Yeah! I realized money speaks a different language and all the world changing, Lutheran/ Che Gueveran revolutionary ideologies, I need the moolah. I’ll hopefully get into an IIM –this year or the next because doing an MBA for me from another place is not an option. Let’s face it. This year I was lazy and gave a million excuses not to work hard. Now I realize that everyone at IIM is really not normal they’re completely weird and I’ll be among my own (having to work hard at numbers that don’t come easily to me). So IIM- here cometh I !

YIKES! SAVE ME!

What am I doing sitting and writing an exam that I don’t care to study for and one whose outcome I’m unworried about? I should be sitting at home writing agnostic treatises, tearing popular beliefs to bits! I should be “out here” propounding theories and instigating people to a pseudo-intellectual debate about existence (or any other NON MBA topic) or making non-mainstream, experimental movies that make people sit up and think. I should be prodding, poking and pushing society to reach a higher level and stop running after the petty. Alas, I don’t have the mind of Socrates (thank God! look what happened to him!) nor the guts of Luther. So I shall be pushed and shoved against my will to do an MBA… can you imagine that?!?! I cannot see myself stuck in “bored” room meetings, telling people how to go about their work! How can I manage a company when I can’t manage my own life?! My ambitious parents want me to throw away my God-given talents and run with the herd (who are, by the way, making money). Money? Ça ne m'intéresse pas. I’d rather be a chocolatier in Belgium or a travelogue compére (even if I have to live on bread and water for a while). Who understands? Who will explain? Every time I tell anyone my plans, they sigh and say “Another dream snuffed out!” “ Another talent bites the dust!” Should I be another casualty? Another statistic in this graveyard of dreams? Is there anyone who’ll pull me out of this Hades and support my stand?

the self

This is it. The fragmenting of the self (saṃ). The cohesive forces of the atoms comprising of me undone by my own bidding. When categorical words like forever and never have faded into the background of an unworthy past (I love you forever, friends forever, I’ll never leave you) …. It’s all Maya – illusion… delusion… disillusion? Like a heavy fist of iron it struck deep, it struck true… forcing the essence of my being apart… by my own folly… My nascent atoms roam the universe each carrying my former trait of being a wanderlust in search of answers. And yet each seeks to conform with different beings… separate… individual. A goal unachievable for the fact that they are a part of my being, linked through intangible cosmic threads interwoven to form the fabric of my conscious… the pain… the agonizing pain I seek to numb is only accentuated when I try to cut each thread loose… as if by subduing my conscious and sinking into the subconscious (unconscious maybe), I can somehow forget, alleviate my pain… but that is not to be…. Not in this life, nor in the next. Like Cerberus, it guards the door of my soul and keeps me from peace. The pain is a testimony to my humanness, my vulnerability, my mortality.
Eons ago I lived protected and shielded, my naïveté shielding me from the wallops of this hard-hitting world. The subtle cruelty the world seeped into my innocence forever poisoned a pure, unsullied fountain that seeks to be purged daily.
Sleeps offers no respite as dreams shape themselves into my darkest fears. I cry out and jolt awake only to be confronted by them in reality. I sink into a cycle of sleeplessness and wakefulness.
“You are your own master” they say. True for those who blindfold themselves against the vagaries of fate and ignore the twisted plots of destiny. They who choose to live life unquestioningly and uncomplainingly –complacent and happy with whatever is doled out. Do they even realize there’s a higher calling?
Alas, I have been cursed with a mind that asks “Why?” more times than I draw breath. Unanswered questions crowd around, pushing for space to be heard. Would I choose blissful benightedness over the predicament my questioning mind has set down on me? Negative. I refuse to be beguiled by ignorance’s pretty face that urges me to accept it all and move on. ‘So be it’ is not a part of my existence. No matter how painful it may be, I cannot go through life not knowing, not asking. The tribulation and distress are all a part of this journey. I wait in joyful hope, that someday, all mysteries will be made clear, all my questions-answered and peace will line my eyes. Till then I have to pick up the pieces of my fragmented being and forge ahead on my weary way.

destination destiny

Is that really me? Pushed into a vortex of circumstances I have no choice in… Existing, not living, by the dictates of other people- family, friends, society… doing what is needed or required, not what I want or choose to do. And in all this I can’t reclaim the life that is supposedly mine because “I owe people things”… I owe my family for bringing me up, society for accepting me, so on and so forth. But why in all this meaninglessness should I exist? Why? Hmmm…. That is the first word that confronts me every morning. (Blame it on the existentialist in me… and Camus for influencing me) WHY must I get up and go abut doing things as if I mean them? WHY must I study what in my opinion is conformist bulls***? Unanswered questions of the pseudo-intellectual, rebellious mind. Society has always served to wipe out and eliminate entirely beings who question her ways. They are pushed into the inconspicuous subcultures and slowly forgotten. Society beats everyone into conformity0 in the flow of the river, in the run of the herd and anyone who sticks his neck out… “Off with their head!!!”
Must I meekly submit to this stomping of all that I hold dear or should I fight for my ideal ideals and risk getting ‘cut-off’? My own family doesn’t understand why I behave this way…. How do I expect an entire conformist civilization to do that??? “Please be a little more normal!” they beg. But can’t they see? I’m better than normal- I’m abnormal! Under the lie of teenage counterculture I have gotten away doing most of what I’ve wanted to do. But time is running out and soon the validation period to use that excuse will expire. I’ll need to face my fears and tell them that in all this orthodoxy/ compliance / consistency / accord / submission I need to be an individual. Or I’ll have to face the music and finally ‘grow up’. Two words I dread and have come to hate. Associated with untold responsibilities thrust upon members of a society once they are deemed to have reached a certain age- mentally. Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage…” But this ain’t my kinda show baby! So I’d better get my act together with people who think like me or bid the old life a toodaloo and begin from scratch, away from the influencing currents of all that I have come to abhor in this place.

Limmerick-o-mine

this is the limmerick i wrote

BMM I thought was easy,
All sweet honey and breezy.
But a week sans sleep,
My eyes sunken deep,
The world appears all fuzzy.

BMM is the course i do. it is Bachelors in Mass Media.