Teri nafraton ki gehrayi se dar nahi lagta
Zindagi tujhe bahut shiddat se jiya hai...

Dork :-)

This post is dedicated to someone's who's awesome, by the virtue of being my super-awesome friend. :D His name is Doc and he's also known sometimes as Ramavajjala Vivek Govind(RVG). RVG's not as long and large and boring as that name of his, thankfully, but he is as cute and silly and dumbo as his other more real names, Dorkie, Geeko, Veevu, Viv, duffer etc. He boasts of a legendary IQ(<10) despite his super-human coding skills (he can code anything in the shortest possible time and wouldn't sleep 72 hrs just for the love of it...eewww). He's got an abnormally large head that's kept busy 24 hours by heavy threads that are used to think, think and think more crap than you can even imagine exists in this world, hence he's slow otherwise, or mostly lives on AI. He's also got an abnormally large heart, that can love and care so many people so well. He can kill for cheese, chocolate and ketchup, in that order. He can also kill for a hot girlfriend, but am not sure about the precedence ordering. He lives on periodic doses of scolding, and is quite a pro at taking that. Please don't take his psychotic blabbers caused by excessive thinking, or his hindi grammar seriously. He's awfully stubborn just like little kids. He has a 'weird' sense of humour. Also, for information of ladies who like nerds, he's single, ready to mingle and has a high-flying seven digit salary job that he joins in a month.

I half-wrote a poem for him, but praising him is a hard one to swallow, and one of the few things I really cannot live without is pulling his leg. :P Afterall, one of the few people I really can't live without is him, my best friend. :) Happy Birthday, doc! Love you sweety. Will miss you a LOT more than you can imagine.

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Among other things, yesterday an amazing thing happened, one of those that kinda refuels your belief in the fact that life evens itself out. An old friend, who turned into a bitter 'enemy', sorta, about 3 yrs ago over a misunderstanding that I never ever understood, and hence I lost that person despite all efforts...that friend came back, said sorry, and suddenly in 2 hrs, after all the catching up, it felt good again. It felt friends. That's an incredible feeling. Thanks.

Society

At my department farewell today, I got titled as the most popular girl in IITD, and got polled (by my dep-mates) as the "coolest bandi of the department" and "the most hated person of the department."
That pretty much sums up my social standing in my college, and pretty neatly too.

Low.

I'm feeling low, exactly low and nothing other than low, just in the way the word might have been first coined to precisely mean, I'm feeling low like that. And this feeling, the setting of almost everything in my life at the moment is almost exactly the same as a few years back. All that furore and I'm still just where I was, just as alone, just as disappointed, just as closed in my heart. I feel for a moment as if my heart has shrunk and shut and all the warmth and affection in it has evaporated. But I know better, for not all love can disappear. Yet I feel nothing good alive inside me and it's a dangerously dead feeling. I could be dead or alive and it would make no difference. I'm not hysterical or weepy, that's one bad habit I've largely managed to put under some serious check and I'm glad for it, but this peaceful blanket is unnerving for the sheer silence of it, for the sheer immunity it provides from everything around, and for myself.

I feel so terribly inadequate, and that insecurity does not arise externally, because I feel inadequate for myself. Yes, I feel cheated and angry and disappointed with a few people, a few things. Being ignored angers, but being ridiculed without deserving it makes you cry without a whimper. It's amazing how little you mean to anyone and anything, esp when you thought you should have meant something. It's amazing how easy it is for people to walk all over you even though you were there for their need not that long ago. It is a feeling that threatens to kill all kindness and all care inside you, which is a really really dangerous thing. IIT is a bad place; it teaches you all the bad thigs about the bad bad world, important as they are, in a really harsh way. That's probably why surviving IIT is an achievement, and IIM maybe more so, with everyone willing to sell everyone out. It hurts to deserve something and not get it, but it hurts a lot to deserve a little respect and get a lot of ridicule. After so much...God knows I'm tired of the brickbats, and no I don't want any bouquets.

The reason why today reminds me of those days, those times is that I absolutely do not feel I need someone to share all this with now.(A good rant is a different thing, and this post is getting so long hardly anybody would read it, so this is essentially about talking to myself, and I like it)Nobody feels close enough and right enough any more to open up to, and in a way that's a liberating feeling because the habit and expectation of being taken care of makes you postpone sanity and self-care a little longer, and because it hurts much more when nobody shows up when you need them. It's an awesome feeling to not need, to feel low and be okay with it and to remember to fend for yourself. I grew up like that and it's good to see I can still survive like that. The good thing about these days, these times is that everytime they seem unlike those days, those times, someone comes along to gently remind you that 'hey,it's your problem, don't bore me with your stories and just do what you want' or 'hey, you're supposed to fix my problem instead and understand what I need and walk off, thats your job'. It feels nice to have a place, after all, wherever it is. And just like those days, anybody could count the objective 'parameters' in my life and claim it's a good life, but nobody would want to be in it, nobody would want to be me. Except me, of course. I like being me, esp this illusion-shattered me who knows her problem is her chronic disease of investing trust everywhere, but wouldn't do a thing about it.

This semester is coming to a close, and everytime I begin to think about it, it completely overwhelms me. So much has happened in such little time that I don't even know what all has. Exams start monday, and God knows my acads are f***ed big time this sem, but my will to work, to study, to fight, to even try is awfully hard to find. I wish I could crib, "why me?", but I know better. In some instances, I wish I could also complain "why not me?" but I know the futility. You know, you could do so much and still fail at it, just like those times when you do only a little and luck helps you incredibly a lot.

This last year has been so so harsh. Such little good has come out of it. People have come and gone and come and gone etc, life also came and gone and came and gone and toyed with my spirit, my resilience till it got tired of the mochery. And now, at the end of it all, at the end of four years, I feel so empty, so numb, so...finished. And not even in a depressing sort of a way, just completely matter-of-fact empty. As if my job here is done. And although there's still one whole year which I have no clue how I will survive and my head goes into a frenzy trying to look for a point to it every single time, I don't feel I have it in me to live. I will survive, eventually, because there's no reason to just quit, but really, in life's journeys if you eventually come to the same point as you started, why do we even move? Why do we even try? No matter how much you do, how much you slog, how much you love, and how much of yourself you kill and sacrifice, how come it's never enough? Why should I go on?

PS I may be low, but I'm perfectly sane. I will take care of myself, thank you.

Too many guys, too little time :P

One guy
too much brain
so many fundas
falling like a rain

Another one
killer smile
twinkling eyes
M'n'B style :P

Then a third
A heart of gold
But much too tall
And much too old

Expensive-dates Fourth
Rich spoilt brat
Small head
Too big a hat

Next one kind
sensitive mind
A bit too weepy
but interesting find

The crass the psychotic
the dirty sixth guy
2 swears a sentence
mr macho, never-say-die

Obsessed with sex
Yet charming style
A flutter, a flatter
A shameless smile

The guy next door
a little cute, a little bore
A little helpful, a little dumb
A little sweet, a slittle sour

The almost-mr-perfect
The one oh-so-taken :(
The unreachable morning of his arms
And the night in my eyes, forsaken

The super-duper geek too
married to his comp and code
romance a mere cryptic mystery
And love an unbearable load

One more dancer
Mister 'kewl" dude
Desperate for a 'trophy'
But mostly a brute

The sweaty footballer
sexy macho body
brain a bit too dirty
choices a bit too gaudy

And then the man of my dreams
The impossible amalgam who'd be mine
Until then, a long futile list
Too many guys, too little time!

Dear diary

Fatigue and bad news is an ugly potion. It changes the tone of your voice so everything you say sounds so wrong to the wrong people, and you've no energy to explain. Feels awful too, because for no reason you've spoilt someone else's mood.
Been working non-stop all day today, been a while since this happened. Too tired to think or move is normally a good feeling, but is kinda inconvenient at times when you got to push yourself to get something to eat so you have some energy to finish the pile of work in hand. What an unforgettable semester!
Yesterday's party revealed a lot of key things, one of them being that most of the things that seem important to us most of the time end up becoming meaningless by the end, in the long run, and vice versa. Keeps me interested at least, who knows what's gonna turn up from where. It's a short life, but still easy enough to waste!
And does someone know where my faith and devotion is these days...kinda feel lost.

Two more weeks, and seas of changes. Waiting....
Yours.

Paradoxes

Some moments are magical in the way they allow opposites to co-exist. Tonight is one such moment.

Tonight I am very emotional, yet calm and peaceful.
In this moment, now, there is a lot of happiness and a deep pain. There is fun and masti, and also disappointment. There is gratefulness, especially to God, and there is an anger, a complaint. There is nostalgia, a lot of it, but also a little hope. There is the terrible sorrow one feels on losing something really precious, yet there is a sense of extreme joy at the realisation of that something precious having been there all this while, having been mine, and that it will never be truly lost. There is a deep sense of attachment and a strong growing urge of detachment. There is loneliness, a dark, desperate feeling of being lost and useless, and there is a bright smiling light on the other hand, something that reassures me with a loving presence that I'm not all alone, not all unwanted. Being forgotten feels bad, but when there is someone, somewhere who remembers you and you realise those are the only people who really matter to you, you just cannot stay feeling bad.

In the end, life is not a war that you have to win. Life is just this moment, this one-fist-joy, one-fist-sorrow, this flickering hope, this affectionate pain, this paradox. They say sometimes winning is the only thing. I would like to disagree...it never ever is everything. And thank God for that. I maybe a loser, but I have what really matters and what I really need, at the end of it all. It feels great. Thanks.

Forgiven

There wasn't much light anywhere, save a red flickering tower-light in the distance. There was the half-moon of course, in whose glorious light the night bathed, and revered those that revered each other. There was no need of any illumination, for the hearts were bathed clean, and everything was so pure one could see it clear in the dark. Passion forgives anything; forgiveness is truly passionate, and in that passion the dust of time and the gloom of loneliness disappeared. What's forbidden in tempting, and when resistance fails, temptation becomes a full grown animal, sweeping anyone off their feet. Sometimes, it's good to give in, to let go, to stop resisting.

That's what they did. In a lonely night in the wild that their incredible fate had landed them into, by sheer chance, bringing to life in a flash all the moments years ago that were full of love for each other. And in that flash was forgotten the grime of time, the unspeakable distances, the fights and the tears, the pain, the failed relationship. In that flash was forgiven all the hurt, all the unsaid grievances, the marriage, the divorce, and all those years, wasted. They were young again, fresh growing-intimate-strangers and not worn-out indifferent-acquired-strangers any more.

Gaze locked itself in the eyes and the night melted around in a haze. Love is beautiful.

Long Drives.

I like analogies.

Life is like a long drive. Mostly, we are driving alone, in a car whose size changes with time and need. Some people have a load of people in their back seat who they have to drive for. A lot of times, there's nobody, just us, driving on, listening to the monologue on the FM. Some phases, out of city limits, are so lonely there's no FM either.

Sometimes we are driving in the fast lane, zipping past everyone else. Sometimes, we are stuck in traffic jams and getting nowhere in life. Sometimes, driving is a big pain, zipping through mad traffic and lawlessness, struggling to manoeuvre so as to get somewhere. Actually, to think of it, a lot of it is like that.

Sometimes it's raining, and the car gets stuck in deep water. Sometimes it's so foggy you can't see anything. Sometimes someone bumps their car into you, jolting you completely. Sometimes you run out of fuel or a tyre is punctured, and have to stop/push your car to the next station. If you're unlucky, once in a while your car breaks down completely, and then you need help to repair it and get it on the road again.

But you keep moving. Through roads and lanes. Sometimes even on paths that do not exist, on a road in the wild that you make as you travel. You just keep moving, till the end comes and you die in a fatal accident, on the road. That, is the rule.

And most of the times when you're driving by yourself, tired of the FM monologue you wish there was someone sitting next to you you could talk to: a friend. And you wish and you dream there was the someone special you could find who promised to stay by your side on your journey, someone who touched your hand everytime you moved it to change the gear.
Someone who bent over to kiss you at every red light.

Life, is a long drive. Sometimes, brakes fail.

Abstract Posts-II

"Why is it so dark in here?"
"So that you can see better."
"What do I have to see?"
"Whatever you want."
"Couldn't I just have closed my eyes?"
"Your eyes are closed. Open them."
"In the darkness?"
"Yes."
"Ok."
"So what do you see?"
"Myself."
"Why are you hidden in the dark?"
"Because in the darkness I see myself better."
"Why don't you stop yourself from getting lost then?"
"Because I don't care."
"Who does?"
"Who does!"

Peckish

I'm feeling irritable and cranky, whiny and sulky, indifferent and angry and there's no one close I can talk to tonight, or even want to. I'm basically tired (stupid course stupid trip to Sonia Vihar water treatment plant (eh) with stupid second yrites), and there's still so much to do and the confusion in my head just makes it worse. So what do I do? Sleep, I guess. And whine to the world (ty blog. Oh btw, my blog's 3 yrs old...yeyy!) And hug the pillow.

Damn, it doesn't hug back.

Fair too, I guess, for eventually in this journey of life we are all alone, absoluetely alone, and that's how we ought to be.

Note to myself: Shut uppppppp.

Note to world: Make fun of me at own expense.

Things I learnt today-II

• Nothing is better than something, sometimes.
• Imagination is more powerful than you can imagine. Power is more imaginary than really potent.
• The single biggest fear that haunts every single IIT student is an explusion, losing the degree. It is also a remarkably well-exploited fear by the rank and file.
  
• Sadism is an art. Masochism is a science.
• With some people, nothing they ever say really reaches you. Even if you hear the sincerest I love you a 100 times, it just doesn't cut it.
• "Believe in the step function."
  
• You can live for someone other than yourself. It may not be the best or wisest thing to do.
• What people do to get attention!
• I still prefer an arranged marriage over a love marriage, and the margin is huge.
  

Strange, perhaps

Since the last few days, an eerie feeling resides in me. I feel a strange, powerful revulsion from everyone...in the sense that I'm really comfortable only when I'm all alone and silent, mostly. I'm happy! But with people, even with my closest of friends and most loved ones in the whole wide world, with anyone except for work, there is an inexplicable unreasonable aversion (okay, that sounds a bit too intense, I'd say mild repulsion/ urge to escape) which is stupid as well as embarassing. I have to fight an urge to run off, and while I can successfully do that and the existing affections are acknowledged and strong, something's just not comfortable. I don't feel like chatting, don't feel like talking much to anybody more or less, am very nasty, bitchy, rude, blunt to a lot of people these days ( and it's strangely pleasing too :D) shun arguments and just adore silence.
I know this has got to be temporary, and I hope I do not permanently offend many people, but what the heck, I am happy.

Something similar happened to me just when I came back from Sweden, and I put it down to months of solitary living. I don't know what to ascribe it to now. I don't even know if I want a cure. :)

Raahein dhoondne ki koshish kiya karte the
Ek manzil ki talash mein hum bhi jiya karte the
Apni si ek duniya banane ke liye
Ek chahat ki chahat mein jiya mara karte the
Ek din jab kho gayi manzil bhi rahein bhi
Sookh gaye aansu bhi chup ho gaya darr bhi
Fir samajh aya bhatakne ke liye duniya bahut badi hai
Aur lambi hai bahut zindagi bhi...

The Devil lies in the details

Along the corridors of life
you walk.
Knocking at a few shut windows
Missing a few open doors
Mostly, pretending to be nice,
you walk
along the corridors of life.

And passes by neglected, overlooked,
a lot.
Moments when you deceived yourself
And became what you were and never knew
That moment when you hated the truth,
a lot,
passes by, neglected, overlooked.

And everything else is a haze
unresolved.
The efforts to think and to feel
The energy in the anger and the zeal
It's all a maze of thoughts, unfiltered,
unresolved,
and everything else is a haze.

Sometimes it helps to stop and ask
yourself
Just who are you running from, and to
Just what do you truly believe!
How much do you really love?
...yourself?
sometimes it helps to stop and ask:

Just how much of the devil
is inside you?

Conversation

An unheard love-byte
An unfought angry fight
A drunken eye moist
Another puzzling sight
Until tomorrow, they decide
Goodbye, goodnight.

The Inscrutable Americans

Last week we hosted a 15-membered delegation of Harvard students at IITD, and I was one of the overall coordinators and organizers of the 8-day conference under the Harvard College in Asia Program (HCAP)-2008. The first leg of this conference was last month, when a delegation from IIT (along with 5 other Asian universities) traveled to Harvard. I was supposed to be a part of it, but pulled out last minute due to some personal issues. Anyhow, getting the chance to host this conference here was a matter of great prestige and pride, and hence pulling it off successfully (in a last-week-March poltu-ridden insti) brings some satisfaction. This along with the relief of finally discharging all "responsibilities" for this year (and for my stay at IIT) implies some joy some peace, but more than anything else, more than the chaos and the madness behind the scene organizing the conference, was also a plethora of fun and memories created, something that's hard to be easily forgotten. :)

And why not, for it was a truly lovable bunch of 15 we got to host know and befriend (and I suddenly realise the number would have been ten-folds had I gone to Harvard). I wish I'd spent some more time with them than I did...I mean 8 days is small...and I spent so much time organizing things behind the scenes (someone had to, you know) that the interaction time was reduced. Anyhow, we had a mix of academic and cultural/fun events...ranging from talks by eminent speakers to wild Holi celebrations, movie screening, shopping and clubbing as also trips around Delhi, to Agra and Chitrakoot, Dilli Haat and the like. I'm pretty sure everyone had fun, and it was a great opportunity to interact despite minor hassles and workarounds in the schedule.

More than anything else, I realized yet another time that all people, despite all cultural geographical and upbringing differences, are just the same deep down. At the same time, we are all individuals worth a case study, characteristic unique individuals on whom superimposing stereotypes is so not fair an exercise. Inter alia, I spent a week getting impressed.

Life is good. :)