Naina

Nainon ki mat maaniyo re nainon ki mat suniyo
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge

Even today, those few moments are as fresh in my memory as the raindrops bathing the windows outside. What is it about rain that makes memory zip across to times long gone, and still never forgotten. Tonight, while sleep eludes, I'm once again transported to those years when monsoons meant at least seven days of uninterrupted rain. Tonight, while the enveloping darkness refuses to sing me a lullaby, I hear voices inside my heart that still refuses to get silenced. The brightness of those eyes -- beautiful, innocent eyes I brought endless tears to -- blinds my eyes. I lost my heart to those eyes. I lost the sleep of my nights to an elusive beauty. I do not know what I took away from them, but this rain serves as a cruel reminder of my failure to understand her, her love and above all, my own love, while it still mattered. I wish I didn't let her leave, I wish things were not so difficult. The why that she never asked, is now irrelevant. I could not give her what she asked for; I did not know how much I needed what I got from her without asking.
I wish she'd said something, cried, fought, cursed anything...so I could have realized what I was doing, but she just listened to me, shivered in silence and turned back, tears in her eyes. It was only after she left, and refused to ever come back, that I realised the trail she'd left in my life.

The trail of tears, that makes it rain in my heart, every such night when there's rain outside.

I'm sorry, Mansha.

bin badal barsavein sawan
sawan bin barsaatan
naina bawra kar denge
naina thag lenge naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge

Bewildered Jumpy Party aka BJP

Indian politics is a funny, dramatic space. Political news has never stopped being entertaining, and games of scams, allegations, counter-allegations, hysteria, white lies and short-term-memory-loss are regularly played out in front of a nation now used to it. Afterall, if they stopped, won't the newstertainment industry go into a recession!

But still, the ongoing drama in the BJP is at an entirely new level. The way the party is falling apart is both amusing as well as worrying. And the apparent reasons are even more bewildering. Sacked for writing a book? Boy, was Jaswant Singh ever this popular, even during the notorious times of Kandahar. And while on Kandahar, the revelations by Jaswant Singh over the hidden truths of that episode are disgraceful to India, and BJP and Advani in particular. They prove that the "strong leader" Advani, who only a few months ago was hoping to become the PM, is a liar. And funnily enough, the ghost of Kandahar came to haunt him in the campaign only because of their now-oft-questioned strategy (of personally attacking Dr Manmohan Singh and his weakness). Now, it threatens to erode most of the residual faith people of India had in the Leader of Opposition, esp because even Arun Shourie, someone widely respected for his intellect, has supported the revealed 'truth'.

Ostensibly Jaswant Singh has been sacked for praising Jinnah and criticising Sardar Patel (a Congressman who BJP revers!). Outrageous as the intolerance and narrow-mindedness sounds, other than being disrespectful of freedom of speech and thought (as Modi's ban shows), here are a few excerpts from the book that must be read because what they indicate is, that Jinnah was a personality so strong that he needed a country of his own to run to satisfy himself. He wasn't necessarily anti-Hindu, regarded Muslim League as an extension of "himself" and just used the religious issues to get Pakistan carved, because within India and with the INC leadership, he'd never have fulfilled his personal ambitions. That is my reading, and that is not very reverential of a man whose ambition led to so much bloodshed and hatred in the last 60+years!

Again, I'm no expert, and I don't know enough to argue. Greatbong does it better. I probably don't even care about history that much, in these difficult times of the present and uncertainties of the future! Why does BJP care so much?

The drama, as it unfolds, raises serious questions for the BJP. It appears to be a party in serious crisis, with no clear direction on what it stands for and where it wants to go. It is a crisis of leadership, as Vir Sanghvi has brilliantly elucidated. The Hindutva line already appears to give diminishing returns, and Gujarat 2002 have permanently given it a blot it cannot erase or abandon, and anything else makes them sound too much like the Congress and takes away not just their novelty but also the RSS Ashirwad. After Vajpayee, the party has constantly been struggling, and the recent revelations about how Vajpayee wanted to sack Modi, or how Advani stopped him from a number of progressive things casts Advani more and more in the grey, and adds weight to those voices that long held that Vajpayee was a great man, but in the wrong party. Advani maintains his usual stoic silence-of-crisis, and that is worrying.

I'm don't know whether Rajnath Singh should stay or go, or whether there's a better way to enforce party discipline than washing dirty linen in public, or whether the party will split in two. All I know is watching the rebel list grow - from Jaswant to Yashwant to Shourie to Vasundhara Raje to even Sudheer Kulkarni, the principal Opposition party is fast losing credibility and is distracted enough to forget its job of keeping the govt in checks and balances, esp in the absence of Left in the political biosphere these days who did the opposition's job regularly while in Govt in UPA-1. That, worries me.


I know I'm attracting the fanatic bashers brigade to my site to grow offended and abusive, but what the hell, not everybody has stopped believing in "freedom of speech" yet!

I?

I like to take each moment as it arises, and yet, when I can, I like to have thought through the worst case scenarios, just to know I can survive it. Heisenberg is God, and uncertainty rules, for both its inevitability and its excitement, yet I need to believe that come what may, it will never be so bad it breaks me.

I hope the irony does not make me weak.

I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad...

India, Bharat or Hindustan?

It's an interesting question: which country do you belong to: India, Bharat or Hindustan, because each of these three popular names have, irrespective of their historical origin, a semantic meaning attached, so your choice indicates your own position and view of the country. Officially of course, India and Bharat are the two chosen names in the two official languages respectively, but Hindustan is widely used in popular usage as well. The difference between India and Bharat in today's times is of the kind Arvind Adiga demonstrates well in The White Tiger as the bright vs dark India, the India Shining vs the India of the poor and the forgotten. Hindustan maybe saare jahan se achha in many eyes, but it has the unmistakable majoritarian "hindu" flavor, not all in sync with the secular, varied flavor of this country. It is also the contrast of choice with Pakistan, by people on both sides of the border.

So for its divisive air Hindustan is not my favorite, and though there exists opinions such as this numerological view why India is a better choice, India vs Bharat is still an open bet.

The semantics of language are the most accentuating part of this contrast, the difference between English, Hindi and the dialectic. It is the difference in the way sections of our nation debate on national, social and cultural issues, from voting to reservation to homosexuality. The nation lives on despite this, among many such, differences, but identifying ourselves on either side of the divide is a disturbing idea.

Because the question still remains, by belonging to a shiny, pacy India, am I alienated from real Bharat?

The girl who needed too much love -I

There was a girl, once upon a time. She needed too much love, always a lot more than her rightful share. Not that she wanted to keep it all hidden somewhere for herself. She returned all she got, many times over. And she wanted to keep giving. But to give a ton, she wanted her ounce. She wanted many ounces over. She wanted simply too much. And all her life, she kept wandering, thirsty for love, simmering from the insides in the heat of her unshared locked up passions. She died with her thirst quenched eventually by a flood of her own salt-less tears. Her greed had stolen their salt and given it to the wounds of her heart, so the heightened pain would finally consume her and end her anguish.

Convocated!

Yey!

I am finally officially out of college. With two degrees, including a post-graduation, no less!!! :D
Master of technology...even sounds heavy! Not that I'm putting that exact degree to any immediate use...the tag is all that counts so far.
Graduate...oops, post-graduate!

I got the award for the second-best all round graduating student. There's been some controversy over the award for the "best" (aka, Directors Gold Medal), but thankfully none over my deserving what I good. Feels nice :)
Also, felt nice to see a lot of people, many we wouldn't see for some time now, and especially hanging out with department fellows.
The official snapping of ties with IITD. Or is it? :)

Now, for the next four weeks, I am officially unemployed, and do not belong anywhere.

No more a student. When that's all I have been all my life! Wow, this is new :D

Unequal

Read this somewhere:

Never make anybody a priority in your life, when you are just an option for them...

Easier said than done. Too much time. Such little to smile about. Going a little crazy. :)

The party

The party was on at full strength. Most people had settled into smaller groups of their own, chatting, dancing, joking, exchanging gossip, or just happily getting drunk. The lights had dimmed down a little; the alcohol had intensified its effect. It was easy to get lost in the crowd.

At one dark corner was Diya, madly gyrating to the rhythm. She had never drunk so much before, but, well, tonight was something else. Every single serene, smiling soul she saw in that room enraged her. She had lost both count and control, and gave in to the pulsating music and the adrenaline inside her. A couple of guys tried to come too close for comfort, but indifferent to the world, Diya danced on in full public glare. Tonight it did not matter.

The opposite corner was equally dark, but much more silent. The music was only the throbbing beats in the air here and the noise mostly chuckles of smiling people and semi-filled glasses. Pavani moved from group to group, making small talk, laughing at a witty remark, listening to a few tales and a few whines, until she finally settled on one corner seat alone, waring half a smile. All evening she'd had this one glass of margarita in her hand, but tonight she did not want to drink. She was bored, she was lonely and she just didn't fit in among the groups of people she was surrounded by. Someone loitered over and tried to flirt with her. She politely focused his attention on something else. And the party went on.

It was a strange party in a lot of ways. It was full of adults behaving in the most juvenile of manner. Diya and Pavani weren't the only souls with their minds lost in the din; many of them had forgotten carrying their souls tonight, and were busy maneuvering the evening to fit their own stories.

From where Pavani was sitting, she could see Diya clearly several scores of feet away. She longed for the carefree expression Diya carried on her face, for the sexiness of her uninhibited moves, for her ability to enjoy those moments. A wave of emotion threatened to choke her, and she decided to slip away from the party. Once outside, she slipped a text to the only friend who might wonder where she disappeared a couple of hours later when the party would end, and decided to walk. It wasn't so late in the night, but the road was fairly empty. A couple of cabs slowed down checking with her if she wanted a ride, but she was content on walking. She kept asking herself, why she couldn't be happy and enjoy herself like Diya did. There were no easy answers, she walked a mile before settling down at a coffee place window, watching the world happen in silence.

20 minutes later, she saw a cab stop across the street and a girl in white emerged, puking. It was Diya. Immediately, Pavani walked out and helped Diya sit on the pavement. She was crying. Pavani paid off the cab, and helped Diya walk in with her to the nearest bench. Diya was crying inconsolably, and all Pavani could think on was to hold her tight.

"Diya, are you okay?"
"Yeah...thanks. I'm sorry...I.."
....

They talked for more than an hour, and both ended up crying by the end. They'd never exactly been friends at office, each a little intimidated and a lot jealous of the other, but tonight they'd found in each other just what they needed. The world had been harsh to each of them, but intertwined between their fingers as they walked that breezy night, they'd found a soft spot. Broken hearts can sometimes mend each other.

My boyfriend's instructions

Do's Act like a girl*! Grow up. Kiss me lots. Be explicit in communicating your needs. Do not keep things bottled up inside you. Be assertive. Dress hot. Be yourself. Love me more than I do. Eat salads. Eat. Need me. Help me study/work. Want me. Have a right on my time. Forgive me. Know it. Be there.

Don'ts Act like a girl*! Age more than 19. Kiss me when I don't like it. Expect. Use me as a sponge for your emotional outbursts. Be demanding. Dress *hot*. Be impulsive, excitable, blah blah blah, a hundred things you are. Love me more than I do. Eat vegetarian food! Get fat. Need me. Ask me to study/work. Be jealous. Ask for my time. Expect an apology. Want to know it. Be everywhere.

Sigh. Any wonder I spend all my energy finding the balance! Such a sweetheart, such a moron. :P :)
Boys...you can't live with them, can't live without.