Mind over matter

For some time now, I've been afraid to look into his eyes, to have a free conversation, to be able to confess what I love and hate about him, about myself, about this world. Really, afraid is the word, for I'm trying to hide somewhere from the questioning eyes of a friend so close, who wonders what went wrong. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he's guessed too. But it's such a stalemate this situation. And so I find myself making non-committal plans for meeting up sometime, and grudgingly indulging in short lame conversations. And making the run, of course!

This ain't typically me, but it's the witless me. He's puzzled me so much by wide variations in his behavior I can't fathom what he really thinks anymore, and despite my curiosity to know, I'm scared, so scared, that if I went any closer to him at this point of time, at least one of us will fall in love with the other.
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I can never exactly pin-point what's going on in her twisted mind, but these days she's absolutely out of my radar. Or maybe, out of my life too, considering the way she acts most of the times as if she hates me, or is extremely bored/irritated of me. I should know better, for not long ago I thought I understood her well, and we were so close, so close that all I wanted was to somehow keep her mine forever...yes, I guess, that was it...that mad intensity with which I wanted to be with her, around her all the time. I don't know what it was, but it was both obsessive and addictive, and I really had to fight to gain some self-control and to not fall in love with her.

Love...was it that? Is it that? I doubt it...what is love anyway? I've always hated the notion of love but this time I don't know...but it seems quite the opposite with her behavior of late. She's running away, and and she's way too smart to do it explicitly, or to do it without a reason. Is it something in me? And yet, I want her back just as her. Pure, bright her.

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It's so easy to say "I don't care". It's so much harder to not care.

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It's so much easier to say "I hate her" than to actually not love her. You know, I think it was love after all, and all that while I didn't understand it. I can't even recollect clearly and chronologically what all happened to be able to understand when and where and why I lost her, but I know I have. To think of it, she never was mine anyway. It'd be best to forget her, but this love makes it impossible to do even that, just that it makes it awfully tough and painful to continue talking to her. Especially when she clearly does not care, or understand me any more. Why do people fall in love?!

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I so can't live without him. Or with him. Whenever I look at my past, the idea of love makes me flinch. It is so scary a thing to exist in the past, leave alone the future. And then, he hates the notion of love. He is an intense person, so much that if I showed him any tenderness his anger would completely annihilate me, as also his peace for a lot of time. And then, love's never done me any good. He is a great friend, why ruin it? Or at least, why ruin it this way?! It's wise to run, I think. Logical. Damn, why do people fall in love?

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"You're weird sometimes."
"As if you aren't. But you act as per your convenience and nothing else."
"Are you calling me selfish?"
"Aren't you?"
"...."
"Well, all you care about is your needs, and everything else is incidental."
"So are you my need that I care for you?"
"Do you, really?"
"No"
"See. That's just what you are, whimsical."
"You're weird, and self-obsessed."
"There could be other things I'm obsessed about...but anyway you wouldn't understand."
"Of course, I never understand anything do I?"
"Almost."
"Thanks"
"Thank you missy! For everything..."
"Whatever. Bye"
"Goodbye"


Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle causes.

Tonight.

Think of me tonight
As you would, of a long sensual kiss
Of a bear hug so tender
Of a moment of eternal bliss
that's condensed in a droplet in your palm
waiting to wet your soul.
Think of me tonight
As the feeling that makes you whole.
And remember me forever
in the secret drawer of your heart,
as your incomplete poetry,
as your unfinished art.
All yours to cherish and forget,
all yours to preserve and protect.
Think of me tonight
and let the thought be perfect...

IPL :: Bad move??

IPL is great entertainment, an addictive timepass despite its long duration and vociferous publicity and support by BCCI, Bollywood, India Inc et al have translated in a success dazzling enough that nobody probably remembers the older poorer cousin, ICL, now. Yet, with its gripping power over the masses, it looks like its doing some serious damage with its regional philosophies.

I'm sure some marketing strategist would've advocated it, and maybe it pumps up the moolah by some skewed complicated equation too, but IMHO it's a bad move in the greater scheme of things to have regionally identified teams...we might as well have had SuperKings playing Royal Challengers, but instead it's a Chennai vs Bangalore clash, and unfortunately not just on the field but also in the stadium and on the streets. And hence a crucial Delhi DareDevils vs Mumbai Indians clash brings Dilliwallahs at odds with Mumbaikars, and the regional pride and self-esteem of parts of our country dips and rises with the IPL point tally. It couldn't have been incidental either, since the first promos of IPL itself focussed on bitter rivalry between supporters of different teams, identifiably natives of those regions.

There is definitely a section of people, me included, who care for the team, the players and cricket only to decide their loyalties (damn Mumbai the chokers, they're a better team than people to throw away 3 on 3 matches in the last over) but then, I love test matches as much as T20, perhaps more, and the glamour and glitz was never targetted at me in the first place(for the record the Lahore XI in ICL is an awesome team). It does make a difference, however, for the masses who burn effigies at world cup losses, celebrate Diwali at Dada centuries and pray for Sachin's back to heal faster. They count, I don't, and it is them who're being manipulated in a dirty way. What surprise then that the Mumbai crowd chooses to boo the Mohali players defeating "their" team, even if it means cursing their favorite Yuvraj Singh.

Encashing on feverish patriotism was a bad enough exercise when India played an ODI with Pakistan and gunshells boomed on the LOC depending on who won, but taking the rifts deeper inside home seems like a very bad move at a broader level for a country already struggling to hold up despite differences (and mindless Gujjar agitations).

Window-shopping

Definitely one of the most under-realized truths of our times is the all-powerful influence and importance of the high-profile brands on our lives, so much that we actually pay them to use us to advertise themselves...

My space v/s Our space?

Arnav's post this morning reminded me of my very own intimacy v/s privacy debate, shreds of which penetrate every relationship I have, and more so in recent times, and the crux of which invaded my relationship with my parents probably before I learnt to define these words. I love my parents, without doubt, and they've loved me so unconditionally I don't even want to think about it lest it gives me guilt pangs. But my relationship with them has always been confined to strict limits and lines which I drew and kept since and for forever, I think.

As a child I was one of those who have the bane of growing too soon for their age thrust upon their shoulders by destiny, and though most people wouldn't believe it, I was more of less really quiet. Talkative in friends, but quiet. Both my parents work, and I lived in a creche since I was about four months old, and till the time I was old enough to take care of myself and my younger brother in the absence of my parents. During those 11-12 years, though I don't remember the first few of those at all except my dad teaching me alphabet and poetry and me ruining the whole house's walls with a pen in hand and some such shredded memories, I became comfortable in a life in a shell around myself sufficiently enough that I never needed to step out of it.

Now, for the last five years I've been living outside home, and my fortnightly visits are essentially about a lot of sleep, food, TV and a little banter and during the week I almost never call up home, and my mom calls every 4-5 days. I argue almost endlessly with my mom at times, sometimes bordering on rudeness but mostly playfully. I'm not interested in any of the stuff going on at home so half the time I'm not even listening, and I'm absolutely not interested in divulging more than a minimum amount of what I do here even if they ask. And as a result of this, my parents know very little of the person I've become in all these years. They know I'm opinionated and rebellious but my mom was shocked a few days back when there was a hint of sensitivity (which is all her domain in my home) in something I did. They don't know most of my friends, they don't think I do anything other than studying and a little bit of extra work here and never step out of hostel after 9pm, they don't know I write much except a couple of articles or poems they might have seen sometimes, and they don't know what goes in my head at any given point of time. Now you can call it tragic, but that's just the way I've liked it to be, all these years.

Except today, reading Arnav's post made me realize I've never gone to them with a problem, at least never ever with a personal/emotional problem, and I never try calling home if I'm lonely, or down. The one time I screwed up a course horribly and psyched out completely over it, I eventually cried out to them and they were immediate comfort. I don't even tell them if I'm ill because they worry, not even when I want someone to worry. I've become so used to the independence that I can't really live at home for too long, though it's become better in the last one year. In fact there was a time I used to be outright stifled, because at my home I can't wake up late, can't talk on phone, can't go anywhere (not that I've any friends there) and can't even just keep to myself and my novel for too long. My brother, I can still talk to him sometimes, and I often regret not being around for him, but that's primarily because I'm protective of him.
Otherwise, I'm just so sadly, fiercely independent I feel sorry.

And contrast it with the other relationships I have. 2.5 years ago I actually opened up to people to let them come close enough, and trusted them enough so they mattered a lot in my life, and since then more or less I've looked at them for support when I needed it, approached them with problems and found the few I could relax enough with to just be myself to them. That period's almost past now, but in them, during those years and with those people, I craved for intimacy, and doted love a bit too much so it became intrusion in their privacy.

I juggled around this thin line between the urge of being there for them all the time and still allowing them the space they so fiercely protected so much that I probably pissed them off too many times. I just don't have the absolute answer of maintaining this balance, so I kept getting pained in their pain which I wasn't allowed to share, and in my pain which I so strongly wanted comfort for, till I just gave up.

And hence the eternal debate found a new question as well. When we, the funny, erratic, baffling humans can't really ever get to understand and adjust to ourselves and our own uncertainties and eccentricities, how could we ever live with and adjust to somebody else's uncertainties and eccentricities, at any measure of close-distance?

Reminds me of the Calvin quote: Why did evolution give us something like a sense of humour? Because if we couldn't laugh at things that didn't make sense, we wouldn't be able to react to most part of life.

Today.

Let's build a new world
Let's think a fresh thought
Let's break another rule
Let's water an old drought
Let's smile a new smile
Let's wipe every tear
Let's fight a new fight
Let's bring someone near
Let's just give one more shot
Let's discover a new stream
Let's just start from scratch
Let's dream a new dream

Today, let's try.

Murder

How do you kill a kiddo? Simple...tell her, no yell to her, in her face till she's convinced, that all her dreams of her perfect fairy-tale world are false and illusory.

Show her the gruesome reality, the absence of faith, the farcical "forevers", the shallowness of love, the need to be selfish and then put the balm of practicality on it. And voila, you have a slightly hurt slightly shocked slightly jittery much grown up dreamless new member of your society, one who never again dreams of selfless compassion, the good of sharing and the Prince Charming.

You do this everyday, don't you?

Friction

I hate that sound, that screeching one of an awry shrill chalk movement, of nails against glass, of a dry crumpled paper wiping a blackboard, that dry eardrum-piercing sound of unadulterated friction. It's exactly the sound I hear in my head when my thoughts drift in a forbidden direction and I rush to apply the brakes. It's a useful one if you want to disconnect, but it echoes in the air for a long time afterward, moist in the shadow of the forbidden memory. How hard do we try to remember, and forget, certain memories! How hard do we try to just control ourselves, especially our thoughts, and especially when we 'instruct' them to fly free...

We just don't get it, we humans, that there may exist a paradigm beyond the master-slave relationship, beyond the winner and the loser, beyond the controlling and the controlled. We always want to "know", we always want to be in charge, we always want to be well-guided, we always want to do the right thing, whatever that may be. We need to define everything, so it can be controlled, in some way. That's all this struggle of life is about. We are sheer control freaks, all of us.

The most interesting lesson in class 9 physics was that if there was no friction, we wouldn't be able to walk ahead. If there were no conflicts, no disputes, nobody to disagree, none of that uncontrolled 'noise', we wouldn't be getting anywhere. As much as we love and desire peace, the truth is that all we want is a peaceful disagreement.

And it's an amusing truth too, because it brings you at a peaceful agreement with the fact that those everyday niggles, those irritating aspects we bring ourselves to live with, those little arguments and the occasional yells that creep in all our relationships, they're okay, because it's the friction that prevents us from stagnating, and collapsing. It's the little friction that produces the little hug, the "sorry mom", the love you whisper. It's the friction, in just the optimum amount, that keeps love growing. Just a thought...

...and then it rained

The air was still. The heat didn't burn, but stifled with its humidity. I looked around. Everything seemed lifeless, inanimate. There was no movement, no noise. I began to walk.

Long walks have a cathartic quality; the mind races randomly in different directions, with different thoughts forming, colliding, bouncing, dying every instant. I like thinking nothing. After a while it put me in such a calm mood I began to hum a tune, an old favorite, as I walked. A cloud from nowhere drifted towards the sun's face.

And slowly I re-learnt several things I had forgotten, or overlooked. And slowly I realized, analyzed, rejected and accepted facts I should never have forgotten, or overlooked. A little breeze began to flow. A flight of pigeons were being noisy. Somehow, as I looked at them, the following lines came to mind: It's your problem. Above all, I just want to be happy now. I just want to fly free. I can survive, hopefully, so can you.

It was unconnected, I know. The breeze had turned into a wind. We are who we are, and where we are, because of the choices we make, and choose not to make, as we move along. I realized my choices, and understood they didn't match with all my expectations and needs, but they were consistent with the most important ones of those.

Some limits we don't set, because we can't. Some limits we never push away, because they keep us safe in bounds. And the rest of them, we just keep pushing at to test ourselves, and they keep shifting, we keep winning, we keep trying. I knew, if and when it gets difficult, I wouldn't quit. And you will fly. Finally, I smiled.

Some times, things trivial for most of the world are everything for somebody. With the thunder the things that meant the most to me shone at me in their apparent insignificance.

And then it rained. :-)

Things hardest to let go-II

The emptiness has set in already. Thirteen more months, 382 more days in IIT to go (hopefully not getting a degree extension). Phew! And the good times have already slipped past. Dual, or 5yr integrated degree that IIT dishes our, sucks for the simple reason that it has an extra year where you're the ghosts of the campus, who hardly anyone knows and nobody cares about. All your friends have left, most of your courses are over, you've even been given a farewell as the "batch of 2008" and nobody needs you anymore. But you still have to live here one summer and two semesters an oblivious life. Hmmm...but how do you let go of the habit of running into your friends in the institute who've suddenly gone too far, at least physically, or of msging them for momos and maggi, or of random nightouts? Why's it so lonely out here? Where are the people?
...and suddenly, there's nothing to do. A stupid project can only take so much of your time. What do I do about my workaholism? Especially when I've gone out to refuse all regular extra-curricular stuff for the coming year, the kinds I've been doing forever in IIT. Suddenly, there's so much time, and no activity. I'd planned to start working on a book, but so far I can't get myself to write a word. The plots in my head dont look convincing; I'm just so uninspired. Seriously, folks, give me an idea. Or a summer job which I can do with my project without traveling much in the heat. Or social work? Anything...

Things hardest to let go-I

All the best, guys. Will miss you.Love you! :)

Relief??

The semester is over, finally. Grades pour in tomorrow I guess, and though it's been academically a bad bad semester, at least I'm passing in all courses for sure( :P :D)! Yesterday when I submitted the final assignments of this semester, it felt a little relieving but surprisingly not light still. Work is light now, but there is still more or less a continuum with the Project (that's going to keep me here all summer, damn it's hot) work asserting itself. Especially after that horrible presentation on Monday. I cried almost an hour after it; my mood was already low and there was still plenty of work, but I'd nevertheless put in 8 hours for that presentation of which nobody saw a slide. I hate my department!
In fact most things I've seen happening in IIT since the majors have been ugly, something nobody will fall in love with IIT for. Millions of people outside this campus think this is the greatest place of all times, the best and all that crap. Lakhs of students dream about making it in here, but inside, there's so much filth at the wrong places and 80% of all students dream about getting out asap by the end of their term. This semester profs have had a field day with failing students. Sure, students have been at fault to some extent, but a large part has come without warning. Humanities alone has failed more than 150 students, most on attendance. There's a course where 33 of 44 students have been failed due to attendance, another in my dep has 28 casualties and there are a couple that have like an F at 65 or an audit at 80 or a C- at 75. Talk about being ridiculous. 75% of all people I know in the graduating batch currently are facing a serious problem in some course or the project. People will now have to forfeit IIM calls because some professor is heartless enough. And then they wonder why most IITians don't come back to their institute with love. Our batch was to take up a physics course in our final year, and some of us did it as extra credits, simply because our dep curriculum didn't have any physics courses in first year when all other deps had. And it was tough, more so because it used all JEE concepts and tricks which we haven't just forgotten, they're completely irrelevant to us today. It took me some scare and effort too, to pass it. IIT system is rotting, there are so many ills it makes me nauseous at times. But student say is limited, and the higher ups won't change anything. Plus, the attitude of mostly everyone sucks. Student politics is mostly a shame at the calibre of the students in this campus, but worse than that, even good hardworking people have this attitude for working for a post they want to hold next year rather than because they hold one at that moment. And since I'm blunt enough to say this ( and also refuse point blank a post in the next placement team), I get more than my share of brickbats. You know what, I'm cool with it. I've worked like a maniac four years, I want to try something different now. I want to just...disappear.
The sem's over, but the relief is not coming in. Most of my friends would be leaving soon. It's going to be a different life soon, one I'm not too relieved to enter into.

Still, so long and thanks for all the fish. And someone please magically cure this IIT system. It's gonna take a few lives more :(

Options

Sometimes, no matter what the options and what the consequences, silence is the option it is your duty to choose. Sometimes, if you are lucky, silence is the only option you got. Often, after all, silence is the only way to say what you have to and still avoid being heard.

I don't like noise.

Surfing, fishing, eating

Everyone knows internet is an excellent place to kill time, especially during exams :D, and nothing's better than blogosphere (or my feed reader, for that matter) to do some good, varied reading. For instance, I was going through the archives of this blog, and only wondering at the average index of sentimentality of the girls of this world [:P], when I saw this post and the instantaneous index for not just girls, but even guys went up in a spike :P :P Point is, touching words (or movies, music etc...essentially "expression") makes even the most inert start feeling, and the sensitive crying!
It's nothing new, but it's still incredible, the power of dots of ink on a paper (or pixels on a screen) to evoke emotions in a perfectly unfeeling stranger. It's the power of something "artificially created" by another human being, something that's also a slave of the receptor's moods and sensory organs (and mind, is mind a sense organ? is mind an organ?) that is so immense, no wonder power of plain natural beauty and the perfectly natural miracle of life is too great to even begin to fathom and appreciate!

The writing bit also reminds me of this quiz I took eons ago, and that said I should become a film writer (rofl). These endless questionaires and all on net I tell you, I wonder who makes them. (And the countless ones on facebook!!!! Wat color heart are you? Are you a zombie? Mind blowing imagination!) Some of them are fun, some are pure stupidity, but I think they survive on their ability to feed curiosity and kill time. Sometimes, I like going back and finding permutations of answers that give certain solutions, till I find all the nodes and more or less the whole flowchart.

Blogosphere is an interesting read also because of the reactions that tag along with the posts, most delivered in semi-anonymously. So someone asks Keshi why is every third post of hers about sex and someone asks herwhy she doesn't write much about all the sex she has anymore and it sends me into fits of laughter. There is so much desperation out there in the world :P :P Shit, it must be hard to have your blog so widely read. Creepy.

There's the daily dose of poetry, and there's current affairs. IPL has also caused its share of turbulence in blogosphere, and not without reason. From cheerleaders to fan whines The best online timepass though, by far stays XKCD and its lesser cousins (phdcomics et al), including Kay's blog,. Check this one, and this:

Zindagi [edited]

Teri nafraton ki gehrayi se dar nahi lagta
Zindagi tujhe bahut shiddat se jiya hai
Tere kadamon mein raundein jaane ka gham nahi
Zindagi tujhe bahut fursat se jiya hai
Tu hath chhudake bhage, to hum nahi rokenge
Tere sannaton ke shor se bhi dar nahi lagta
Tune kitne hi dil tode hon, ranj humein nahi
Zindagi tujhe bahut mohabbat se jiya hai