Beauty

A silent, beautiful night had set upon the beautiful, lonely cottage. My escapade in the hills had just turned divine. For as far as one could see, there was not another soul visible. The sounds of the night, although clear and crisp, kept themselves to the background. There was a leopard somewhere in the trees on that hill, but he too chose to silently admire the peace for some time. There must have been some vehicles passing, every now and then, some 2500 ft below us, but up here one couldn't hear any of them. The fire in the fireplace, under an imposing, still-scary head of a hunted tiger, made an occasional noise, but mostly it provided luminescence and warmth to an otherwise lonely night.

Outside, the full, bright moon filled the valley. It hung like a halo on the top right of the frame, and the freshly bathed hills below gleamed at the treetops. There were a few lights strewn across the hills, but from here they felt like dew drops. One couldn't actually see the valley, blinded by the clouds that floated slightly under the peaks of the hills like a haze. The sky, above the clouds, was otherwise clear and strewn with thousands of stars. When was the last time I had seen so many stars? Cities are too busy soaking in the glitz of man-made stars and stares to seek cover under natural hoods. There were flowers near my cottage, I knew, that splattered color on the scenery in the day - right now, they contributed to a sweet fragrance, something that made me believe more and more this was just a dream. It probably was, for something this beautiful, this peaceful, this heavenly couldn't possibly exist on this earth. I shut my eyes, but it was still there when I reopened. I looked at the moon, and it seemed to smile at me. It also reminded me, painfully, how lonely this moment still was. How beauty has never managed to cure pain...

I shut my eyes again. There was a chilly nip in the air, but suddenly the warmth of an embrace had taken it away. Suddenly, I wasn't alone, and the moment felt complete. Music played in my head, and I felt content like I could die without regrets. I knew you weren't there, yet I knew you were. I knew you'd come to make me complete, just for that moment, to make me capture the beauty in fullness in my heart. And once the beauty made home inside me, I realized, while beauty doesn't cure pain, it certainly makes it easier to endure it.

PS Partly fictional, inspired by real-life, by this place. More on the vacation in other posts.

Smriti

Yoon to tumhein bhool gaye hain hum

Kayi kayi mahine beet jate hain

bina tumhari yad ke

Par achanak kisi kisi raat

khud ko fir usi mod pe paate hain

Jahan tum bichhad gaye the

Aur fir wahi 'kyon' yaad aata hai

Fir wahi dard jaag jaata hai

Khud ko fir se solah ka paate hain

Kaaran dhoond dhoond khud ko samjhate hain

Fir wahi ladakpan yaad aata hai

Ab tak us dosti se naata hai

Kyon khoya ye jaane ne jaane kabhi

Kya khoya ye dil tumse behtar jaanta hai

Connections

Nothing and seriously nothing makes my day like a great conversation. And so often, the best conversations happen with "strangers". Or very old friends. It is a pity how rare these opportunities are, but whenever such a chance comes along, it is like a spray of refreshing energy rekindling life. I'm lucky I have this blog, which has over the years helped me cross paths with so many brilliant people who have made a real difference to my life, through their words, through their friendship and just by their generosity of being themselves and letting me be myself around them. You know who you are - thank you. 

You know, even though this world is awfully small, this life painfully long, and the billions painfully crowded, the communication and "networking" modes too intrusive - we are all too lonely still as individuals, too starved of connections with other fellow human beings. And then, there's something magical about connecting with strangers in fortuitous moments, who in their "real world" protocols are too improbable and unapproachable to cross paths with you. 

Thinking of recent time, few months back, meeting SS after months of a pleasing relationship with her written words was the brightest spot in a super-dark fortnight and how much I adore her for that! And yesterday, through a rare conspiracy of circumstances (getting upgraded to business class in a flight too full!) I met someone else, a total stranger, who in the "real world", given who he is, I would have never had the kind of conversation with that I eventually did over the 2.5 hour flight. 

And once again, over a conversation ranging from the battle between i-banking, consulting, private equity and industry to  that between India, china and the world, to that between romanticism and pragmatism, life and dreams, heart and mind - I once again realized how incredibly easy it is sometimes to open up to strangers and admit your deep fears and conflicts that you don't even discuss with yourself. It defies logic, how we can tell a complete stranger your secret guilt, your conflicts, your "story". I think it comes from the freedom  of not being judged, or not caring about being judged. I don't know if I will ever meet him again - so much older, senior, busier, so very much unlike me in the person he is - but those 2.5 hours were special just for the unique freedom that came with it, something that even the mirror cannot afford. There's so little to lose, so much to gain - esp a stranger's ability of reading between your sentences and in your eyes of what you're really saying. A stranger's ability of making you think!

And then the beautiful facet of discovering how all people are basically the same - suffering similar basic existential questions in their mind few years apart, going through the same agonies halfway across the globe, and alternating between the same few so-called philosophies of living.

It's beautiful.

No love lost!

Good morning, and welcome on-board what feels like a bad week coming. Or at least, the start couldn't have been insaner. It feels wrong to crib in the morning, but short of kicking myself (and including that), this is the best I can do. So here's what happened:

After the thought of the longgg flight to Chennai and the long day and week ahead made my sleep disappear over night, after I got out of bed at 4 feeling refreshed with a 2.5 hour sleep, there I was trying to get to the airport at 530 in the morning when the car broke down. Had Einstein been around and amnesiac, he would have probably rediscovered relativity seeing how long and short 15 minutes are early in the morning - the 15 minutes of sleep, too little, the 15 minutes of car breaking down, too much. And just as I managed to reach the airport 2 minutes too late, I realize to my horror that I forgot my wallet (with all my money, cards, ID proof et al) at home. The ah moment of taking out change at 1030 pm returned. The sleeplessness kicked me on discovering that the next flight out is only at 850, and the guilt of asking my dad to wake up early in the morning and bring me the fateful wallet has sapped all my energies for the week already. And hence, here we are, suited booted packed and sleepless, waiting at the airport for Dad to come and the flight to leave. For all the work I was supposed to do in two hours in morning getting pushed to late at night. For more sleeplessness.

Yes, you can go awwww now. And repeat that when I crib about working so hard on Valentine's day, with no one to swoon over. Double awww. 

And double yawn. Damn.

That kind of a year...

It was the middle of the decade when I started writing this blog, all of 18 years old, always believing myself to be older than what the years stated. It's been almost six years, and just like the life it was trying to transcribe in this public yet often too personal space, this blog has seen its shares of ups and downs. The flavors and the tones have kept changing with the season, but a true companion it has always been, especially in the lows of life. Even so, the dark and the melancholy have overwhelmed the struggling words on this pages in the last year, particularly the last few months. And still, much has remained unsaid and unwritten, only sometimes by choice. It has been that kind of a year.

As 2010 draws to an end, I sit back and wonder- and it is only now at the end of the frantic year that I have taken a much deserved break to unwind and just let myself be - how tough it has been and I should give myself some credit for pulling through it all in the end. Then again, there is no cause to act like a Tragedy Queen. More than anything else, the struggle has been in the mind, and to some extent between the mind and the heart, and continues to be so. Somewhere down the way, I completely forgot who I was, who I am  - till one day as I stared at the darkness of the  abyss I realized how lost I was. That was the beginning of the end of what had been until then, a journey of reactive living, constantly lowering self-esteem, endless pain and a desperate expectation of help that never came. 

Growing up and just coming to terms with life is a harsh process full of rough edges. The choices, the decisions and the constraints. The desire to fit in, the desire to belong, the desire to feel safe and protected. The search for roots, the search for the zenith. The kindness of strangers, the bitterness of relationships. Most of all, the weight of your expectations from yourself. And the constant judgment of what is right, what ought to be, and what is forgivable. The questions, the hopes and the disappointments. Would there be a respite, was there a safe place where one could hide from all of this, am I meant to keep fighting this alone, is there an end. The cold, lonely pillow that unleashes the devils in the night - on some nights it was warmed by tears, on others it was a hard dreamless seat of repressed energy and pricking pains. 

I'm not saying the process is over, or these edges have smoothened, or that I know any better to deal with them. All I am saying is I know they exist, I have survived them so far, and will continue to until it is over. Which it probably never will be, but it doesn't feel that scary any more. I think it is because the last year had more than its fair share of gloomy nights. When it hurt so much it possibly couldn't hurt any more. When tears didn't halt for hours, and also when tears simply froze away and were replaced by icy smiles. Also, I lost a lot of people. Some of those I think I did a favor to myself by losing. Some I grossly miss, and regret pushing them away/not keeping them closer. And for some I lost them in the sense I lost the "idea" of who I thought they were in my life, while they really were someone else. The idea remains an endearing void, the reality awaits full definitions. Those losses were, are, hard to deal with.  Some, I magically managed to repair though. Residues of pain, strong rage and hurt still remain from the darkness. There're still two days in the year - I hope it will take those along as it goes.

Anyhow, when it gets really low, it starts getting better because it can't get worse. And so, life has started hoping to look better again. Importantly, I have stopped waiting and started doing. By bits and pieces, the journey of unlearning self-destruction and discovering who I really am has started. This blog has been a mirror of my life for the last few years, and intertwined in the reflections of some of the words and the truth of my memories, I find clues and causes, clauses and closures. And there is a calm, of the kind that gives you strength even as struggles continue to surface, mind continues to battle the heart, opposing needs and wants tear up and the mayhem underneath sustains with renewed interest. Yeah, it feels alive.

There were the good parts, of course, to count my blessings.  I think by the time I moved out of Mumbai, I had accepted the city as my home, in some way, and it taught me a lot of things worth remembering. I have also now finally managed to find my comfort zone back at home here in Delhi - in seven years away I had quite forgotten my corners of the home. I made a few good friends with whom I shared a few memorable laughs, a few candid moments. I did well in what is my first job, and found much to learn about the world and about myself. There were a few moments of sheer bliss worth savoring around the year. Towards the end of the year, I finally broke the circle of depressive, reactive thinking and accepted some truths, some mistakes, some to-dos. I feel less lonely, even if I am just as alone. Baby steps, but they all count. Best of all, I survived and came out happier, no less.


There is plenty to do. Plenty to renew and rekindle. My friendship with words for one - they have choked somewhere and come out only in blurts and splutters without flowing.   The ability to connect with people in ways that mattered. The energy to learn and do well in work and in life. The freedom to let myself just be and dream again. To find love and hope. To find myself. I hope 2011 does not wither away in the burden of expectations. :)


Happy new year, everyone.

Of roads not traveled and places not seen

Two in three people I know would say they love traveling if I asked them - or maybe more. I would too, of course, if you asked me. Traveling is really fun, exciting, adventurous. From ancient travelers who wrote tales about lands and regimes they passed through, to the modern-day backpackers and travelogue-writers, their choice of lifestyle has that enigma, that excitement worth being jealous of.

Of course, I am a consultant - it's one of a few jobs where traveling is a part of profile, a requirement. What, when, where, how much - all depends on how lucky or unlucky you are with staffing. :) But the why is always a constant, 99% is for work, 1% for official recreation, which is also work under disguise :)

One could argue that work related travel is hardly travel, and correctly so. Of course there's no fun in waking up insanely early for a morning flight, battle random traffic mess,airport queues, flight delays and train crowds to get somewhere, prim and proper to meet a client at about the same time you get to office on another day. And zip through roads, hotels, airports to work late till night because of all the travel time "lost", and brave yourself for an encore the following day. No complaints, it's part of the job!

But that's exactly what it is - part of the job. It isn't exactly traveling, is it. I have been in eight or nine cities in the last couple of weeks as part of the job. Short field phase. But that wasn't travel. What did I see of those cities? What do I remember of those sights and sounds and smells?

The boyfriend just returned from a nine day vacation to Sikkim. It reminds me the last trip I took to anywhere was a two day trip to Lansdowne - 250 kms from Delhi - almost a year ago. Excluding an overnight getaway to Alibaug near Mumbai few months back. And before that, I cant remember anything till the Sweden exchange except IITK.

It reminds me how little I have traveled in my entire life. It would shock most of you, but if I died tonight, I'd have never seen Jaipur, Jodhpur, Agra (I was 2 when I was taken there - doesn't count), Goa, Shimla, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune .......And then there's the list of places that work has taken me in the past year - all comprising of work-filled stays of one night or less, and therefore not counting as travelled either - Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, Kochi, Lucknow, Kanpur (been to IITK once before for Antaragni). Hell, it would be shorter to count places I have been to.

I admit I'm a loser. I know you're going to say, take a week off, pick your bags and go somewhere, anywhere. I know I want to do that - have always wanted to. And still haven't. Till a year back I never had the money to do that. I was in college, I was supposed to study, have fun within the campus confines, and make my pocket money last the month. I also didn't have the friends, for the most part, for company. And what would I say at home? Where am I going - why, with whom. Now I can manage the money, but the other two is still a problem.

I know I need to get up, grab a backpack, and just leave. The complications would probably wait till I return. Someday.

Anyone wanna join?

Bits and pieces of a consultant's life: Chapter 2

So, some of what they say about consulting is true. One day in a year you get to live a "high-flying" life. Somebody says the client wants to do the meeting in Dubai, somebody says, "What the hell, you come too", and in a haze, while you generate slides after slides for the said meeting, somebody makes the booking and one evening you find yourself flying with other much senior, darker people in the team (and thanks to them, flying business class, no less). Few hours later, you find yourself chauffeured in a 7 series Limo to a splendid hotel (which sadly enough, is only 5 minutes from the airport). That's the part they tell you - the glamor!
And then there's the rest of the iceberg. Like you spend a total of less than 24 hours (including 4 hours of sleep) in a new country, only seeing the airport, one hotel, one "view", and one boardroom for 14 hours :) And then you fly back, landing at an odd hour in the night, body tired of too much exhaustion, wanting to just sleep in peace. That you didn't get to see more of the city at 50 degrees C is hardly a regret by then. Lots of people will still kill for this job. :)
Or maybe not. But show off of the one good day in the year apart, it's actually been more than 10 months in this job. Thanks to the fact that our joining was delayed, the new batch for this year is already in and we are already the "older", "experienced" lot. Really? :)
I wonder if I've changed much in this time. I wish there was someone who could point out and explain. I would like to reflect what I learnt and what I unlearnt. The collage in my mind has started filling in with memories of the good times and the bad ones. Of crying in a meeting, to the ones where awesome people around made life feel a breeze. Of mistakes made, of misjudgments, of frustration, of fatigue, of excitement. Yeah, I guess I have grown somewhat.

Don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. :)

A tale of a few cities

Those of you on my Google Talk may have noticed oft-changing city names in my status over the last 10-12 days. Such is consulting life, and my brush with early morning flights and hotel-airport hopping has been tiring, but work-apart, also insightful in a few ways.

Delhi and Mumbai are both "home" now (yeah, I'm gonna give Mumbai-whining a break, this city has grown on me that much :) ) but Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad were refreshingly fun, even in the brief city. Ahmedabad felt good, modern and developing after all these years, even though my cab driver talked about the invisible parts of the city where poverty and discrimination were collected. Still, there was an energetic air in the city and in the people, in the smiling kids and buzzing households. Ludhiana was a completely different experience. The city has a lot of money, probably more than Ahmedabad, and definitely more per capita than Delhi (if you include "actual" and not "stated" income). Every home houses entrepreneurs, but sadly enough, the infrastructure is crumbling and governance seems to have fallen short on so mnay grounds it's sad. Education is a priority so low that an outsider will be surprised. 15-16 year olds in every home have taken to alcohol - the official figure for last year was 29 cr scotch/whisky bottles, up by 10 cr, not including Chandigarh (where it is duty-free) and only counting bottles actually bought offiially in Punjab. Even that, is almost 2 bottles a month per person. Holy shit. Over more conversations, I discovered most women in the city aspire to get married to an "NRI" and virtually very neighbourhood boasts of a few Amreeka, Canaida, London, Greece and etcetras. Marriage - sine it's easier if you have a degree - is the sole objective of most of the women who study, and the rest tend to move to other towns. The men run businesses, drink and make merry. It is a larger than life lifestyle for most of the happy, kind people of the town, and let, feels another country, another era altogether, in a few ways.

Hyderabad is a far more complicated place to make generalised comments about, even at a caveated opinionated level. I loved most of what I saw - it is no longer the sleepy town of the 80s, the infrastructure is pretty Goddamn good (awesome airport and love the roads, mostly!) and the people are nice, learned, hardwoorking and speak Hindi easily :) ! I was stuck in the curfew though, over the Telengana agitation, and heard mixed opinions while trying to find a way out of the city. It was almost painful, to see what I saw, but I admit I don't understand and appreciatew the full complexity of it yet.

Travellogues can be boring more often that not, but I was still amazed at the perspective I found in brief visits to three of the most important Indian cities the coming decade. Would love to know more.

Despite 530 am wakeups, some things are fun about this job.

Bits and pieces from a consultant's life: Chapter 1

Three months is a long time in consulting - long enough, I reckon, for me to begin writing my memoirs. In any case, the rate at which my hair are graying and my memory cells degenerating, I fear I'd be too senile too soon to remember any of this. :)

Many, many people have asked me what do I do as a consultant. Depending on the context and the person quizzing me, I find a different answer each time. But if I were to reflect and give a neat three bullet point summary (rule #1: There are always three points about everything!) about what I do just to myself, I think I'd struggle. Being a consultant is being so many different things at once, from a hardcore analyst to an efficient networker to a top class call center executive as you adopt both their lifestyle and cold-calling skills. Being a consultant is about learning and unlearning a lot of things really quickly - from being a manager to being a
waiter taking food orders ( :D especially true if you're the junior-most member on the team!).

Last month we were in Kuala Lumpur for regional training, and one of those team-building/ice-breaker games was built on a speed date format, meant to give us a chance to know and interact with our colleagues from other offices. It is amusing how invariably "How's your work-life balance?" was one of the top three ice-breaker questions, and how people found solace in knowing people elsewhere were just as screwed as they were. It was an-almost cheerful feeling of bonding.
The people around you are the single biggest reason what keeps people doing this job. I'm really lucky though, I work out of office for this project and it's a series of pranks and cracks at one another, interspersed with some work. Absolutely adore my team, even the bosses (except when they become too bossy :P). More than anything else - even more than the fact that I enjoy what I do despite obscene hours- so far, that's what keeps me going. Making fun of my 'boss' for wearing a pink shirt, or sending silly emails from each other's accounts to the entire floor, I suppose that's all I remember now.

I've been told I'd be a different person, at least in terms of work and work maturity, at the end of one year here. I don't know how true it is, but I sure can feel some growth, and all I wish for is that I'm still the same person at heart. Silly, naughty, sensitive kiddo.

There are several joys of consulting, and there are several pains. But that's true everywhere, isn't it. There are thrills in consulting, and that has somewhat fewer parallels elsewhere in the world. There are also kills, but let's not go into those. :)

Cheers to living another day.

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

It happened to me...

I was walking home this evening, through the same beaten path, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a memory flashed in my head of an afternoon long long ago, when I walked down the same path, sobbing all the way. Out of the blue a buried emotion stirred a little and stopped me in the tracks. Those were the days when I was happily young and comfortably innocent. Having lived through twice as many years of life now than then, I can understand the circumstances better, but the feeling is preserved as-is.

I was walking back from school to an empty home - bro usually strolled in a full ten minutes later; he had friends, you see - after a particularly rough day. A lot of people would find it hard to believe today what a quiet friendless soul I used to be in school, through most of it anyway. Anyhow, that particular day was a summer afternoon, just before vacations, and I'd been at the receiving end of some particularly bitchy behavior by a bunch of girls in my class. The sad part was, these were the girls who lived near my home and I used to hang out with them plenty in the preceding years. They were never "friends", but for a while they were friendly (plus they always needed me for notes and stuff) and I always strove hard to fit in/find approval with their group. There weren't many options beyond.

They were cool, I was not, they were clever and often mean, I always took it in my stride but the wavelength never matched. But as we grew up, they got plenty of attention and 'friends', and I became dispensable enough to be mean to. It had been going on for quite some time, and even my normally forgiving and innocent self was frustrated enough to just cut off ties with them. I had tried making new friends, and asked this particular shy 'new girl' to sit with me, who had been sidelined so far. It was fine, and I thought I'd just move on, but that particular afternoon, somehow, they all had managed to gang up against me, getting the 'new girl' on their side as well and humiliatingly left me alone.

I told them off with a brave face, but couldn't help sobbing on the way back. I felt helpless, infinitely betrayed, and terribly embittered at the 'world'. I was sure you couldn't trust most people, and that the only way to survive and be happy is to be entirely self-dependent and not let anyone come close enough to hurt you.

The vacation was a few days after this happened, and I got through most of it alone. I did try to make friends in the years after, but never got so attached and never found a lasting bond till much, much later.

The funny part is, whatever happened that one afternoon was fairly insignificant in the whole scheme of events, and I later reconciled to a civil talk-and-walk acquaintance with these girls that I still have, but still, out of the blue, it was that memory that came to me. That helpless, lonely feeling, and the vow not to let the world pull me down.

It's amazing how much of who we are and what we believe is a function of our childhoods. In fact, I have a theory that puts the onus of who we become as people, what we believe and how we behave entirely on our childhood, but more on that later. For now, I guess I'd just be glad it happened to me sooner than later.

Parking: the invincible monster

This is a long overdue story of the famous five who wished one day, to explore the streets of the ancient city of Delhi and undertake a voyage to see glimpses of its heritage, despite all the perils that lay on their way, primarily the monsters of traffic. This is a story of the L, the Doc, the Kiddo, the Psycho and the Munna, and their ever-trustworthy, beautiful Taani partner, aka this. It was a wonderful Saturday morning, and we wished to spend the day merrily around the city, in particular exploring the delights of the Walled City.
It didn't begin so well, and we started an hour later than we intended to, yet we made up for it by treating ourselves to Wimpy's burgers, arguably the best fast-food joint burgers in Delhi, and sang our way along to Red Fort. We braved the nuisance of afternoon traffic monsters with the strength provided to us by the aroma of the Dilli-6, and managed to reach our destination, but then we were faced by a monster so mammoth, fear crept inside our spine.
Parking.
We searched and searched, through the bylanes of Red Fort and Chandni Chowk parking, mindlessly cutting right across 4 lanes from left-most to U-turns, but in vain. The only spot we saw was immediately occupied by an industrious clever entrepeneur cutting down his floor area cost and setting shop there. Then we decided to get to the Chandni Chowk metro parking lot, but when we finally reached the gates of that heaven, we found ourselves caught in a queue outside the gate, for Heaven was full! We couldn't go front or back, and the queue moved very slowly, allowing inflow only when there was some outflow. We waited, and to our utter joy, 15 minutes later, we were allowed in. We celebrated in delight, but before we knew it, Heaven turned into hell. All we could see was darkness all around. Darkness and metal. Rows of cars lined in every possible space everywhere one could see. We got lost in the maze, trying to find beloved Taani a place to wait a few hours, but all in vain. 30 minutes later, we gave up and decided to exit. The exit, just like the entry was a 45 degree slope with cars parked on both sides on the slope of what was originaly a three lane exit from the basement.
As we were trying to make the accent, two cars ahead of us, someone had prized a spot on the slope and was trying to park it in, when he suddenly stopped and walked out, with the car half inside both lanes. On being called, he said, "Aap log 5 minute ruko, main chai pi ke aata hoon".
!!!!!!!
A part of us died there.
Somehow, he was persuaded, we got out and ran for life. We went all the way to Old Delhi Railway station, but the parking was full there as well. The last hope had died. We just made our way back, seeing Red Fort for the third time from the windows of the car in the last two hours.
It was just not meant to be.
The retreat was easier, and Doc was just being helpful when he yelled out at the top of his voice to the motorists struck in a jam on the opposite side of the road, "There IS no parking. Go back!"
We stopped at Darya Ganj to nurture a beaten soul and stomach, then made our way to CP, where to find ourselves some solace, a brilliant idea and some more outrageous lane manoeuvering led us to Jantar Mantar. When we finally parked, Doc with the parking ticketin his hand said with tears of joy: Finally!
So we saw a different beautiful red building, and original destinations have been left as hurdles for another day. Food and drink at CP healed us for the day.

But there was more on that day to follow. Doc took us to watch ek kutte ki emotional kahani, Marley and Me. (Jennifer Aniston is OLD now). While we were pulling our hair in frustration, Doc insisted he loved the movie, and I suspect it was because of the really hot chick sitting right next to him. For the rest of us, the movie sucked out whatever spirit the afternoon had left behind.
And so we retired to the abode, armed with fresh spirits, and even as other comrades joined us for what tured out to be an eventually entertaining night courtesy couple of my really drunk and really funny co-warriors, the day left us with leassons to learn and memories never to forget.

PS If you ever wanna go to Red fort or old delhi, park at a metro station, and take the tube. That is THE only way.
PPS Wenger's at CP is awesome, if you already didn't know.
PPPS If you find a better burger than Wimpy's, let me know.
PPPPS Please do not ask NMG or L their drunk and partially censored adventures of the night. They really don't remember.

Mostly nothing

Nothing much seems to be happening these days, or maybe it is happening, but I don't feel a lot of it and certainly my life is pretty much in auto-pilot mode. Stress-free, relaxed, eventless. Doing a little bit of something, I've realised, is much harder than dealing with a lot of everything, or with mostly nothing, so I've basically shifted to the latter stance, because pushing yourself to do things for the sake of doing them by yourself is taxing, and I've a huge inertia problem. As I was just telling a friend, we spend most of our lives trying to "utilise" the time that we have, trying to derive outcomes after whatever obligations leave us with.

I, too, do that, and will do that shortly after this interlude, and hence, it is such a boring, repetitive, standard activity, it's almost repulsive. In short, consistent with my regular behavior, I oppose consistent rationality. Life is good. Alone, but good. In some way, it is reminiscent of my days in Sweden. And thus, I can almost sense the wave of change that'd gradually engulf me, yet again, in the next few months. I'm almost looking forward to it. I am tired of being me, at some level. I'm tired of being a certain way, a certain person for certain people. They want to fade away, I wanna let go. Yep.

There is one thing happening in the immediate environment though. I know February is the month of love, but the way people I know are getting married left right and centre, you'd think it's free to hold weddings these days. Three people my batch, who graduated with a Bachelors last May, are either married or gonna be married soon, and that includes the first one from my hostel. Ment, Kanu, Arpz, a cousin, a school friend, a friend's brother, a blog friend are all in the list too. I wish them lotsa happiness and luck. Maybe some day I'd understand why people get married at all. But not for a long while, that's gonna be, if at all.

As of now, I haven't even learnt the meaning or how-to of what another friend maintains is not just the basic step to understanding that, but also a necessity of to survival: To make myself necessary to someone.

I am not a statistic

The one good thing that came out of a super-weird conversation with the guy from TIME (no, he's not cute, by far) I mentioned in the previous post was that I realized being dumb and defensive and watching people jump from one hasty conclusion to another is amusing timepass. Towards the end of that convoluted inconsequential conversation was an exchange of dialogue I'd probably remember for some time.

Me: You don't know me. Your judgements mean nothing.
Him: But you're not letting me know you.
Me: That's right, I wanted it this way. That's the mood I'm in this evening.
Him: See, all judgement is experiential, and statistics show...
Me: I'm not a statistic. Do you have any more questions?
Him: No.
Me: Neither do I. Thank you for your time.

Felt good.

Maa da laadla bigad gaya!

I'm slightly cranky today. No real reason. Part cold-induced nausea, part PMS, part silly-as-hell lab (of the one and only this sem) course and the rest aiven hi. As such thoughts in my head are colliding like a million multi-colour crazy-balls (the ones that bounce super-extra, or used to when I was in class 5) in a 10ft by 10ft room (not that my head is that big, not that thoughts are coloured). That, apart from increasing the intensity of my yet-mild headache, makes me vomit mostly unconnected thoughts (and the body is making me vomit even more gross and ugly things that looked fine before I ate them since yesterday). So here, let the blog handle the dirt. :D :D

So, you know, in the fluke of the year, I sorta cracked CAT and landed up with calls for IIM interviews which I'm almost convinced I'm gonna skip unless I'm too bored (these kinda things should be transferable though: I would gladly give them to someone who actually studied and actually wanted to go to an IIM). Anyway, the gossip here is not the rather undeserved glory of that event, but the after-effects. A couple of gentleman from T.I.M.E. have been calling me everyday since Friday with some question or the other, and despite my showing little interest in their specially tailored programs et al, one of them has persisted with 3 calls a day. This evening he told me he wants to meet me tomorrow at the IIT cafeteria. So I thought, what the heck, let's humor him (and maybe he's cute). :P

From my window I can see hot (ok, relatively speaking) girls of my hostel dance on item numbers around the fire of Lohri. And I can hear a huddled bunch right next in the corridor right next to my window discussing how their boyfriends (and one girl's brother) bigad gaye hain over time. The conversation is obviously helped by the song (in the title of the post) being played once every 6 minutes or so by whoever is handling the music. I bet she has emotions on this one! So I have actually, of two kinds. One is memories from my recent Chandigarh trip. In a Chemical Engg conference, the cultural evenings at Panjab university were shockingly colourful, and the one I attended had Shankar Sahni, the singer of the said song among others, performing with his troupe of scantily clad girls and gymnast boys gyrating around him, and the crowd going mad. Even the profs were salivating staring at the girls. The second emotion is related to the bigade hue boys in my life (best friend, boyfriend, bro), but that makes me crankier. Guys you know, they can never get hints. Not even the most direct ones. :|

My best friend can't decide the heads and tails of life and programs his brain to think weird crap incessantly (and doesnt get me icecream!), yet claims all his happiness anyway lies in his ability to access his laptop from anywhere. And if I tell my guy why cant he be consistently loving and nice, he says I've been spoilt by Rahul Dravid's influence. They are silly and painful and spoilt, but cute they are still. :P

Color

Randomly browsing through the archives, I stumbled on this post, when the picture in the post signified a snapshot of a certain point in my life. And then, al of a sudden in front of my eyes, the pic faded at some spots and brightened at others. Suddenly, there was new-found emptiness, while something had started filling the gaps there were before. As the picture metamorphosed before my eyes, I wondered, if the life that it contained metamorphosed too. And what about the me trapped between the uncolored pixels of that image? Has that changed? How?

Not an easy question to answer, I know, but I don't think an answer is what I'm looking for. If anything, if you could tell me, it would be nice to know if the pixels today have less or more color than they did.
But then again, what would I do with that information?
Smile, at best.
I can do that anyway. That would instantaneouly increase a little color in my life, hai na. :)

Vacuum-II

(continued from here)

He was right when he said that eventually the moments, the memory, the nostalgia, the pain, the loneliness, the real you...it catches up and then you can't run anymore. As I got to know him more I got to sense some of his pains, his fresh wounds, his undying love for her, his hatred of himself for letting her down and losing her...all this was there, and his eyes weren't opaque anymore either. In the translucency of those eyes I understood a lot more than what was said, and I knew unless he stopped and faced himself, the facade would consume all of him. He had to stop and let the pain pass through him before it caught him, and somehow it was my job to help him realise that. He was right, the memories eventualy get to you. Today I almost feel the same sensations of pain and helplessness I had felt then when I wanted to help a friend. I miss him.

Is dil mein yaadon ke mele hain Tum bin bahut hum akele hain

It wasn't as if I was the one helping him. I was just the one pointing at the problem and the solution, both of which he knew, both of which lay right before he eyes, both of which he didn't want to see. He was the one helping me by being a mirror to my life at points. He was the one who helped me be strong and faced things in my life. He was the one who helped me be courageous enough to go ahead and fall in love.

I never admitted it to him, but there were moments when his eyes became perfectly transparent and reflected my life, my thoughts, my unshared secrets, my complexes, my pain. I never admitted it to him, but laughing with him on inane things, quietly sitting by the side when he sobbed in silence, being a part of the frenzy weirdity myself in his world, in all those moments, I had chosen to trust him as well. I never admitted it to him, but he was my best friend.

And then, like all things, good and bad, that phase came to an end one day. The hows and the whys are almost irrelevant today, nothing I want to remember for they were absolutely trivial. Just like that, one day, it was time to move on. He knows he can come back to me whenever he needs me, and that's enough. Just like that, life had become happier, peaceful, busier, farther and now I had no space in his world either. And I didn't feel bad about it, for it wasn't bitter, only natural. I didn't even feel worried anymore for she is back to take care of him, and for her poise and her loving heart, she is among the most adorable people I know.

I felt...almost nothing. I just missed him. Still do.

Aa jao laut kar tum ye dil, keh raha hai...

Vacuum -I

Fir shaam tanhaii jagi
Fir yaad tum aa rahe ho....

Life was a hustle, an escape and a chase following each other at arbritary time intervals. Life was getting dissolved in the hustle of every single such moment, and I knew he didn't mind it. What I didn't know was why. Everytime I looked at him, his eyes were opaque. They betrayed nothing except a stone cold numbness. And that was baffling for me, for I could sense something was wrong but couldn't put a finger at what and where. To be fair, I didn't know him at all -- well almost, we were acquaintances and I saw him almost everyday.

I knew I could be grossly wrong in what I felt and interpreted, yet, I was intrigued enough to observe closer the traces of silence in his almost unending laughter. He was hard to overlook in any social setting, such was his aura. He was weird at times, borderline disgusting occasionally but mostly downright hilarious. He always stood among his friends, he was just not the same as them; they were ordinary, mostly useless and wasted, but even though he was constantly around them and did the same kind of things, something about him was different, deeper. And just like him, that bit about him was impossible to overlook as well, at least for me, that bit where he was only unanswered questions, that bit where he apeared the anti-thesis of what he otherwise came out to be, that bit which finally forced me to confront him with a careful question, "You're unusually noisy today. Something wrong?".

I still remember that day distinctly. I knew I had to be calm, confident and look straight in his eyes when I said that. To my credit, I managed that. That was the beginning of our friendship.

Fir jaan nikalne lagi hai
Fir mujhko tadpa rahe ho....

"You know, all day you run from something..."
"...myself"
"and the thoughts in your head.."
"...that too"
"...but I don't think you ever escape.."
"maybe, but most times I manage to keep those ghosts away, immersing in activity, crowds, noise, waste, the world..."
"...the world is never on your side, otherwise the lonely moments which bring you face to face with yourself and every single thought in your head would never be able to catch up. But they do, sometimes, don't they?"
"...yeah, eventually, I so hate it. (pause) Don't do this to me."
"Ok"

(Part fiction, part real....to be continued...)

My embarassing moment

When this happened I was five, at most six, years old. There was this guy S who lived on the ground floor of my building, and as far as I can recall, was just a few months younger to me. He must have been a playmate of some sort, for I vaguely recall running around and jumping stairs with him and a couple of others on weekends. Most probably he was the only guy in my friends, which weren't many at that particular time as I lived in a creche with not many kids and also had a two-yr old to bully at home, and I'd known him since I was born. He wasn't in my school though.
One day in school, in sports period, I clearly recall sitting on my favorite swing when a sudden activity emerged at one corner of the park where some of the girls of our class started gathering. Out of curiosity I went near them, and I realised they were talking in hushed whispers about "boyfriends and girlfriends". It was a relatively new, taboo idea in the India of early 90's, at least in primary school, and people really didn't have much of a clue about it.

I had exactly two notions about it till that point: 1. It is something people are usually embarrassed about if openly known and essentially is grown-up, stealthy, love against the zaalim zamaana kinda thing. 2. The whole "liberal" feed of girls and guys could be "just friends" and people shouldn't be gossipy or make a big deal about it.

Anyhow, the big scandal that day being liberally doled out in every eager pair of ears was that some fourth class girl in our school had a boyfriend in her class (trust me, schools these days wouldn't even react to a news like that). And so I listened to gasps, chuckles, curious "did she kiss him?" reactions all around me, while I distinctly remember at least one guy staring at us from a distance. There must have been more masala of this sort which I don't recall now but a few minutes later, I suddenly found a few stares at me, for I was standing quietly so far without any contribution of news or excitement to the group.

"A", the unofficial leader of that pack, asked me: Do you have a boyfriend?
My first reaction was a stumble: "What is a boyfriend?", to which I got a little frown and a cheered "A boyfriend is basically a boy who.."
"..is a friend", I finished.
And for no particular reason, I added, "Like S, who lives near my house, he's a friend.", which instantly turned into a roar of "She has a boyfriend", "S is her boyfriend" spreading as the new round of ear whispers right before my eyes.

That's the oldest real embarassing moment I can recall. It took me a minute to start protesting, "not that way A, he's just a friend", but it didn't work. Not for the rest of that day, although it didn't stick either, because afterall it was only a baseless gossip, but somehow, I don't remember playing with S almost ever after that, and a couple of years later we moved out. Perhaps I was scared, or embarassed, or caught in some complex I couldn't handle in Class II.

I don't know why I'm suddenly reminded of this incident today, after all these years. Most memories of those years are vague, only some flashes are clear. Perhaps I just wanna know how scared, how embarassed and in how much of a complex am I today, 15 years later.

...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. :-)