2007

Happy New Year, everybody! :-)

From My Backyard

Through The Year

# Rang De Basanti, the movie and the reality, both happened.

# A long pending wish of getting my nose pierced came true.

# Trips to the walled city took place.

# I slogged and scored well in the 2nd year exams.

# I got to do another internship which was completely different from my previous one. And it was one helluva experience too.

# I put on a lot of weight through the year; lost a little towards the end though.

# I sat for my first official job interview. And also, I think, realised why I didn’t get through.

# I got an opportunity to study from some of the most amazing teachers.

# I broke more bones (of myself) this year.

# Learned a lot of heavy-duty lessons too.

# Experienced a lot of feelings and emotions that I had only heard of till now. They may have all not been pleasant but were definitely enriching.

# I got a new phone. It is jinxed and keeps falling all the time. It sustains most falls though. My phone after all! :D

# I met a lot of new and interesting people this year as well. Love it!

# I made friends, lost some, made some more and lost some more too.

# I cut some people out of my life as well.

# My capacity to work in a day increased for sure.

# I got published.

# For the first time ever, I was told that I am creative. That was a high.

# I voted.

# Saw the pain of someone whose loved one left the world. Also saw the joy of someone who brought a child into this world.

# Thought of taking a lot of radical steps but could not do any of them. But I think I will some day.

# I fell in love with Green Day.

# My dear Abhishek Bachchan got rated as Asia’s sexiest man.

# Yes, CAT happened. :-)

# And yeah, I got this new blog.

The year’s already over. I still have clear pictures of January in my mind. Time really flies by!

Let’s hope the new year will be happy and peaceful for everybody around.

Yin and Yang

Meeting new people can be such an interesting exercise. Over the last one week, I got to interact with many people during my practice group discussions and case studies. Talking to them made me feel that I was in a very useless batch at IMS. The reason why I did not make friends at the institute was not because I had suddenly lost the ability to but because there was nobody with whom I could strike a conversation about anything beyond CAT or the faculty. In fact, I could chat more with my teachers than the people I was surrounded by. Maybe I missed an opportunity but never mind.
The people I met recently included guys who’d been in the sea for three years with the merchant navy and are now looking at an MBA. One of them was so pleasant, so articulate and so intelligent that I did not want to discuss during the GD with anyone but him. Another guy did his engineering from Ferozepur where some of my relatives live. His sense of humour clicked. Abhinav looked at the graphs made in my notebook and told me that they are depicting fiscal expansion. So he guessed that I’m studying Eco but thankfully we did not discuss the subject any further. I got to talk to Shefali and Apoorva who are in the other section in college. I’d not spoken to them in the last 2 years as much as I recently did. Akshay and I got so involved in our talks while another GD was on that the moderator had to check us more than once.
This is turning out to be a nice experience. I can have pleasant, fun conversations without having to think about any sort of shit happening around me...without having to bother about things that irritate me...and without any of the people who know me.

I bought a green nose pin thinking that it was the perfect buy - silver and green together can’t be beaten. But I guess I was kinda wrong. Green is not as basic a colour as I thought it is. My nose pin is not going even with green clothes. I don’t like this. :(

It is funny how one avoids things. I must have written over 300 words till now and what I have been thinking about is not even remotely close to what I have written. I think I’ll write a disgusting thing and I force the mind to frame a positive sentence. I want to write about how shameless and scum-like and fake certain people are but I don’t want to. These people showcase themselves as the ultimate pure souls but what they are is not even humanlike. But no!

I went out for lunch with some school friends yesterday. It’s funny how even though we all know that we’ve been through certain things together and have discussed those earlier as well but still talk about them and have a laugh.
A book reached VIII-D in ’99, boys got blacklisted and the book is still with the teacher who caught it. They want it back.

Hutch decided to be kind to me last night. A 40 minutes’ outstation call went unnoticed. I wasn’t charged for it. Yippee!!! :D

A Thousand Kilometres

December 23rd, 6:30 a.m.
It was still dark and there was dense fog when I started from my home with Ma. We were going to my Granddad’s place. From there, we were supposed to go to ISBT to catch a bus to Ludhiana. I was kicked. The opportunity to go out of Delhi had come fallen in my lap; I wasn’t going to let it go.
But everything wasn’t going to go great. My uncle who was to come from Mumbai the previous night so that he could join us, landed at 2:00 a.m. That meant we could not leave early as I wanted to. So delay and delay and more delay had pissed me off completely. I had nearly 3.5 hours to kill. In the meanwhile, I went for a walk in a park near their place. The fog was still quite dense even at around 8.


By the time we crossed the Delhi border, it was past noon. NH 1 was going to take us all the way. I had a window seat, I needed nothing more.

On the way I sawLong stretches of green fields; yellow spreads of mustard crops; those tall trees with a white trunk; Carriers that belonged to Tamil Nadu and were visible after almost every kilometre for about 50 kms; brand new army trucks going somewhere, lots of gurudwaras, trains running parallel, and at least a 100 boards directing towards villages.

This was a hut-shaped booth at one of the two toll collection points that we crossed. The picture above was an attempt at being 'arty'. :-)

6:15 p.m.
The evening sky was one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen or at least remember. The horizon could not look more perfect from my window. To be precise: at 6:30, the light was dim, there was a symmetrical line of trees after the fields that was the darkest shade of green, about two inches of a dense layer of orange, then a 4-inch layer of violet, then 3 inches of faint yellow, then a wide layer of light blue, after that it was dark blue that kept getting darker and then there was a crescent moon. It was splendid.

The bus got late for some reason and it was almost 8 by the time we reached my mom’s cousin’s place.
They are a joint family. I had met some of them earlier, some I’d forgotten, and some I was meeting for the first time. They were all very warm people.

December 24th, 6:00 a.m.It was cold and I was bold (Err). There was a gurudwara opposite the house and they were reciting the shabad on a microphone while I was taking a bath. I rarely feel holy about things; this was one incident when there was nothing else to think about and nothing else to feel.

We were on a Punjab Roadways Transport Corporation bus headed to Phagwara at 7:30 a.m. We crossed the Sutlej but I could not see it. All I could see was the railing of the bridge. The fog was otherwise not so bad but of course, on the river it was. The chill in the air was the real chill…the chill that we are longing for in Delhi for weeks now. All my layers were failing me. But I was loving it.

8:00 a.m.A big, bright ball in orange was rising in the sky. Orange! I felt each soft ray that was hitting the glass of the window.

From Phagwara, we took a bus to Hoshiarpur and from Hoshiarpur to Chintpurni, Una, HP, our destination. It was even colder on the way to Hoshiarpur but thereafter it started getting sunny.
My first view of the Shivalik Range was at around 9:45 a.m. I went there after about 10 years but I still had memories. Vague, but they were there. So I saw lots and lots of monkeys, sharp turns, unique trees, dams, small huts, towns, picnic resorts, and more for over an hour. From the Chintpurni Bus Station, I could see snow capped Himalayas. They were so close. I wanted to extend this holiday, fuck all sorts of studies, and travel more. I was under a 100 kms away from Dharamshala. But as of then, I was dreaming.

So we walked up to the temple of Mata Chintpurni. The crowd there was crazy. Apparently, it never gets that bad. There were two long queues of people wanting to get in. There is also an entry from the back side but that was closed that day. But we found a way to get through. The men on civil duty were from one of Ma’s office’s wings and we misused her position to get in. I didn’t like it but we saved over an hour by doing so.

We took a direct bus back to Ludhiana from there and were home before 7:00 p.m. That day’s sunset happened early and was different from the previous day’s. It was all pink. Pink sun, pink rays and pink sky. Awesome!

The greatest loss happened on this journey though – I broke my nose stud (And I am still without one).

December 25thWe started our journey back home at about 10:00 a.m. Mom and I had our co-passenger changing every few hours. Each time, it was a woman with a kid. And the last one of the day was the biggest chaen (I hope you get the pronunciation of that word right). Oh, but there was this other kid who was sitting two seats ahead of mine. He was standing and facing us most of the time. Very fair, brown hair, bright eyes, chubby, cute and naughty – that’s what he was like. I gave him a smile, he gave me a smile; he showed me his tongue, I showed him mine, he showed me his, I showed him mine, then he showed me his again and his mother caught him. So from then on, he was doing it slyly…making sure that she doesn’t find out but also making sure that I see what he was doing. He was funny.

We touched Delhi at 3:45 pm. and I switched my radio on. I knew was back to the grind but somehow even this felt good. The real feel good factor was an email with my next entrance exam’s test centre. Perfect end to the perfect vacation!

SO much for belonging to the fairer sex!

Damn I need to go and get this thing taken care of.

Go tomorrow morning.

No, I wouldn’t have time. I will have to go now!

Hi, can someone help me?

# 1: It will take time. Everyone is busy.

# 2: Or have a seat. Someone will just attend to you.

Ok.

*She looks like she’s walking towards me. But she also looks like she’s new. I hope she knows her work well.

**She begins.

*I really hope she doesn’t screw up things. Last thing I want is a mess-up here. Why do I get a feeling that she WILL do something wrong?

This one’s done. Here’s the mirror.

*Huh! This looks strange. This is not how it usually is. What is wrong! What is wrong!!!

This is too pointed. Don’t you think?

**Blank.

Umm...umm... Oh look, you’ve pulled out extra hair from here.

* Bitch! It is looking like a mountain peak. Bloody hell! Bitch! Bitch!! Bitch! I was right. I should never have let her do it.

Is it too thick?

Nahi, ye dekho. Yahan se!

*Oh I could slap you!

What is the matter?

Look, this is what has happened.

**She notices and realises.
*Of course you see what has happened. You better do something about it.

Don’t worry. I’ll make this one also like that. It wouldn’t be noticeable.

But they are different. I anyway have trouble making them look the same. See.

*See! See!! Seeeee!!!

**But she still does it. She had to.

*I know this one can do it better. I just hope I look normal.

Now see.

Hmmm. Ok.

*Give her a smile. Faint one.

Thanks.

*Whatever!!

Done!

One blow from the left;
One blow from the right...

And you're done for a while.

A messy affair

That is over; you know that very well now. But was there more?

I guess.

But you did it yourself, didn’t you? It was you who loved, you who acted stupid, you who acted more stupid, and you who are experiencing guilt. You decided to go ahead with that, you decided to put an end to it, you wanted to speak more, and you wanted to stay away. You’ve done it all, yourself. What’s bothering you now?

I don’t feel good.

Oh really? What did you expect?

I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. I did and said whatever made sense to me then.

Yeah, so live with it now.

Hmmm... Was it really so big that I decided to take such a step?

You know, you did not decide to take this step. You just felt like doing it. This means that you added one more mistake to your streak. It’s not how you treat important people.

But what I did wasn’t forgivable either. I don’t regret doing it because even though things were interpreted in a way different from what I wanted, I took a burden off myself; a burden which was independent of all the things happening with me and around me; a burden that was too heavy to live with as a human being. But I am definitely sorry for the after-effects it had. Maybe sorry is too small a word for what I am feeling right now but how and what do I explain to them?

You and your bloody values in life! You can’t have everything in the world. Accept that.

Two close friends is everything?

You have already said so much to them. You have probably hurt them already. What do you think you can do now anyway?

I don’t know. I’m just wondering what got into me that made me take such a radical step.

Stop wondering. Now there are only two possibilities. Either they become saints and forget whatever you did.

Why should they?

Yeah! Or you accept whatever has happened and move on. You have always known that your dependency factor is high. This is an opportunity for you to move away from that and become independent.

But why the fuck do I have to give them up for this lesson? It’s not as if I’ve not given up enough number of friends in life. Yeah, I have a huge circle. But nobody is aware of the dark, hollow side of it. They are some of the few good things in my life.

No one cares!

I know that. I don’t want anyone to. Everyone has a life. But...

Look, you’ve done as much damage as you could. It’s not in your hands anymore. You don't have anything other than 'sorry's. So you just want to go and hug them? Not happening na.

Who is that?

“There’s a creative flow. You’re creative. There are many ideas in the head and they all want to come out. But what you have written is not conveying what you intend to convey. The ideas are good but take care of the basic purpose. Creative.”
_____

“I’m more of a loner. You’re a bloody socialite.”
“You don’t have to be reserved to be a loner.”
“Oh?”
“You should hang up.”
“Umm...yeah...bye!”
“Bye!”

_____

“I don’t watch cartoons.”
Hmm... I thought so. You do look like the type who doesn’t watch cartoons.”
“The type?”
“Yeah.”
“OKAY!”

_____

“You’re a freak. I’ve never seen such a smile on your face. You ARE Monica.”

:D

“Just look at yourself!”

_____

“You should give up all this.”
“I think you are right.”

The Genius

Little things at the most unexpected moments can bring tears to your eyes. At some level you do understand why it happens but it's hard to digest the fact that your mind is capable of doing something like that also. Sitting in class, doing a test, I came across a poem that I read many years ago. It touched a chord somewhere inside and I was numb for a few moments.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

I don't think it could be written more simply.

Woohoooo!!!

The joy of fitting into clothes that were your favourite but you had to stop wearing them because of an obvious reason! My favourite favourite pair of jeans is going to see light of day again. :D

Non-Stop

Everything is running; everyone is running; the time is running; and the work is running too.

As of now, I am just chasing. I think it would be more pleasant once I catch up and can jog along.
Till then, I’m enjoying the thought of struggle. I don’t want that ten years down the line someone comes and says to me that you got things the easy way. I’m slogging. Yeah, so is everyone else but it’s just a nice feeling. Yes, I'm completely exhausted, frustrated, irritable, tired, sleepless, and more at the end of each day. But I think I like it.

I’m finally getting certain things that I deserved to get many years ago. I am also getting things that I don’t think I deserve today. I guess it is some sort of a balance.

I had a lot of fun in college today. Went around hugging people, clicking pictures, laughing out loud, concentrating in class, bugging little pups, having tea and Maggi at Irfan’s after a very very long time, and just feeling good about everything in life.
I wish every day was like today. Happy!

:-)

Ah!

So I couldn't resist! :-)

I suck at writing page 1, chapter 1, introductory paragraph texts, so I shall not make much of an effort.

I wanted a new blog, and it had to be in the Beta version so that I could play with the font colours. Got it!