X-Changing Times

Ten hours back, at the stroke of six last evening, a tired, bored and confused girl was sitting inside the Dean's office, volleying away queries from three middle-aged members of the intelligentia of this world, sometimes with a straight bat, sometimes inside-edging them onto the pads, and sometimes picking up boundaries with the 'third man' with lucky thickish outside edges. And of course there were the ones coolly left alone.

The occassion? Interview for the Students' Exchange Programme that IIT-Delhi has, under which it sends a dozen or so handpicked students each year to a foreign university so that they can study(?) there for a semester or two, and learn something about the 'rich' culture alongwith.
What was I doing there? I don't know. For almost a year now I've been listening to imploring cries from several people around me in my college and hostel, who kept persuading me for trying out The Exchange opportunity. Hidden agenda? Peace. Too many people are too bugged with me. Just Throw Her Out of This Place. Atleast for a few months....

My take? Denied for several months, till one day got so frustrated that decided I'd atleast fill up the form and see what happens. A few days later the form was out, and somehow, by the last moment I filled it up, buoyed by increasing frustration from life@IITD.

Now I've cooled down. Am in a lot of love with this place again, and don't see any real point in going abroad, even if I have a chance. But let's not talk of hypothetical scenarios. The legend is that I made the shortlist, and so at 4 p.m. I could be seen with 40 other hopefuls, all padded up to play the innings of a lifetime perhaps. The mood was sombre, infact I have been pretty irritable all day( to cheer myself up, I got five people to give me compliments that I was looking good. Always works!) , and I had had my moment of clarity that told me I don't really want to go, so I knew more than anybody else I was there just for the heck of it, for the sake of the 'experience' of the interview. And this background explains the kind of answers I gave. Full of Uchhalapa and spunk. (I could have easily PJed more, but can't really afford to offend those profs. Xchange or no Xchange, rehna to IIT mein hi hai na...) So it's extremely likely I won't make the final shortlist. But I swear the experience was worth it. I mean it was fun, even though it meant a lot of time wastage.

Glance into the questions, whatever I remember now : (especially for the benefit of the latter 20 who didn;t get a chance to bat today. Best of Luck!)

So there I was, entering finally into THE ROOM after lots of delays, having firmly decided to have fun and follow the only sane advice I had been given from him : BE MYSELF.
I gave the three of them a killer-smile. There was the Hunter, Mr. Kaale, and the Mouse, H M Gupta. Clearly Prof Shantanu Chaudhary, the Third Man was more impressed than the rest. Unluckily for me the Dean Anshul Kumar had left the room just before the interview. He had been given two good smiles, and infact he asked me to relax and enjoy and wished me luck before he left.

Anyway, so the interview began. The Hunter started reading out my Application form, that detailed all the Extra curriculars I do and other details. 120 seconds later, he throws me the bouncer:

Hunter: After doing sooooooooo much, where do you get the time to study?
Me(almost laughing out): Sir, it's all about efficiency and time-management. The idea is to maximize the output by maximizing the efficiency, and that automatically reduces the time. **some more crap on concentration etc**

Hunter: How about your lectures? How do you utilize your time spent in lectures?
Me: (fighting temptation to give the obvious honest answer...by covering up on my sleep) Sir, I make it a point to clarify all my concepts and clear all my doubts witin the lecture itself, or atmost just after with the professer. I'm not the kind who'd study just before the examination etc etc (which is sorta true, I CANNOT slog. I ruin my exams if I dont have enough clues already from the lectures, which shall be proven this sem, when i know nothing about the courses I'm doing [:(] )

Mouse is keen on taking notes of whatever I blabber. Third Man seizes the moment to ask his burning question.
Third Man(taking a cue from my form): You mention creative writing. Define 'creative'.
Me: Creativity cannot be defined sir. Creative writing, simply put, is a writer's manifestation of his own creative idea......and on and on.

Another googly, Third Man: Would you include all writing, poetry, novel, play etc as creative writing?
Me(start to answer something else, but interjected):Yes sir. To every writer, his own work is creative. Anything written to convey any thought of the writer is creative writing to me. It's about perspective. As I writer, when I put my thoughts into words, I don't really care if anybody reads it or understands it. It is precious to me neevrtheless.
Mouse(waking up):Give me an example of something that's not creative writing.
Me(after a little detour): A newspaper report detailing facts of an event, for example.

Third Man returns a smile. Some more discussion ensues.
Mouse: What is more of creative writing? Tolstoy or jeffrey Archer.
Me: Actually both. But more so former because the latter is written with a dominant commercial interest in mind, in a way for the masses, where the writer makes it a point to put things in a way readrs understand and like. So the freedom of expression is slightly curbed.
Hunter: What books have you been recently reading?
Straight drive, expected question. Talked and answered about Rushdie, Marquez etc till he asked...
Hunter: What language does Marquez write in?
Me(playing late): Spanish.
Hunter: Which country is he originally from?
Got confused, so left alone.
Me: Am not sure sir.

Mouse gives a wry smile. Third Man looks satisfied still.

Another look at CV, Hunter looks at my choices for universities.
Hunter: So you've filled in Sweden at top. Tell us what do you know about Sweden.
Blurted everything I could remember from the Dressing Room meeting outside THE ROOM.
Hunter: Hmm...so what do Swedish people eat?
Me: Food.
Grinning at my own PJ. How the hell would I know what they eat? Then said some crap to innocently cover up, and made some flukes. [:P]

Third man:So what are the academic reasons for which you chose Sweden?
Me: Sir as far as academics is concerned, there's very little to choose as all five of them are very good universities and more importantly, IIT itself is an excellent university. If it was just academics I was looking for, I would not go for exchange. My motivation is the complete experience..........................for another minute.
Hunter: But have you looked at the courses?
Me: Yes sir.
Spoke of Chemical Engg's all pervasive presence and option of several electives to do. A few quick overs with plenty of questions. Then the tester:
Hunter: OK, I'd ask you a hypothetical question. "Suppose I send you to Sweden but tell you to take no departmental courses at all. What courses would you do?"
Me(thinking quickly as I speak): In that case I would do all the other courses, optionals etc, that I like.
Hunter: Which are?
Me: For example, at least 1/2 comp sci courses, something on evironemnt, a crse on technology and society remembered seeing on the website, humanities courses, and the rest I shall see.

By now I was clearly playing for stumps. Negotiate some more deliveries, when he says:
Hunter: Ok final question, Sweden was in the newspapers 2 weeks back for something very peculiar. What?
Me, obviously clean bowled: Sorry sir I cannot remember.
Mouse(waking up): Don't you read newspapers?
Me: Of course I do sir, but I can't remember anything now. I was anyway busy organising the Inter college debate at that time.
Hunter tells me the answer. Something on clean fuel technology. I obviously didn't know. Gave him a tired look. So he finally said goodbyes.

Bad light. End of play.

Interviews can be fun. Especially the ones you don't care for the results of.

Un-Growing Up!

People say I have a knack of driving them to the wall sometimes, pinning them down to the one corner I want them to, till they are completely disarmed and smile, bowing to my wishes. I don't know if that's true, or whether I do a lot of it, but I'm feeling happy about it nonetheless...makes me feel like a queen of an illusory world, even though I know they are only humouring the ziddi kiddo in me( ah..dont worry...I don't make too many unreasonable demands normally![:P]) .

Which brings me to think, it's not soo difficult to retain some of your innocence, childhood chastity of heart alive even in this mad world, if one could do just two simple things.

One, sometimes, for some moments, let yourself go...without thinking of what the world will think, do the silly jab on the roadside and throw the meaningless tantrum to someone close that something in you wants to do, but your mind always intervenes with a "Stupidity Reality Check!" It's hard to realise how difficult it is for most of us, trained by the norms of the adult world to un-behave ourselves for just a little while, in close company. It's even harder to realise how therapeutic can nonsense be to the soul. Try it.

Secondly, try bowing down to someone else's tantrum and laugh with their jab, instead of laughing at it. Judgementalism is hard to discard for some people, but try and honestly humour somebody occassionally, and smile along, and you'd be surprised to realise how relieving that is, too.

OK, if you are convinced for starters you can experiment with me too...I'm in an immensely ziddi bacha mood today...[:D] And if you're not convinced, read the above paragraph again dumbo. :-P

Jokes apart, the point I've been trying to make is simple. There are lot of things that add stress to life. The pace is hectic, and it's a maddening rat race most of the times. But in a rat race, no matter who wins, the winner is still a rat! I don;t see any harm in holding back for a few seconds, returning to the child within, even if that means abandoning the "sophistication part" for a litle while. And I never said do that in a board meeting, but trust me, nothing brings friends closer to each other, more than honesty.

"Chhoti si zindagi hai, muskura ke jee lo yaaron

Shikvon mein kho ke kahin, jeena na bhool jana"

DISCLAIMER: I'm taking Optimism Injections these days. So the above post may be viewed in the light of any side-effects I might be suffering. I also think I've been obscenely lucky with something recently. I think that makes me be unreasonably buoyant ajkal, even on a day like today when I have been going to every class since morning and discovering that the most khadus-est of Prof has decided to bunk today, despite the fact that I'm being soo sincere even after a nearly no-sleep night!(Thanks to him, who was chatting with me till well past 5 a.m.)

Kaagaz pe bikhri syahi ki tarah
Mohabbat mein do pal ki judai ki tarah
Karti hai nafrat wajood tak se mere
Ye duniya aj-sachchai ki tarah...

The End of It All.

As I always say, all things, good and bad, come to an end.
That's a part of life I guess. Life, which irrespective of all this, continues to move on, until it meets its own end.
To sound optimistic, we often say that all that matters is what lay between the beginning and the end. I'd buy it, and place all my belief in cherishing whatever was, as long as it was, rather than question and postmortem the how's and why's of the end. I'm anyway short of both strength and peace to think clearly at the moment. I just realise I'm standing at the graveyard of several things, and maybe it is the time of new beginnings. I can see a few windows of hope at a distance, and consider myself lucky for that. So while all is not lost, the History book deserves its share of updation and condolences.

The trivial things first. One year of my tenure as the EDLC rep effectively ended with the four day Inter College Debate I had mentioned in earlier posts. Formally, that post is still mine a few more days, and it was such a precious experience so long as it lasted that I'd be shortly dedicating a whole post to the year-that-was, and that club that was and still is, a crucial part of my life. Just a quick thank you to all the people, Secy, co-reps, panelists, regulars, judges, participants, all the people I was associated with, for making it such a special part of my memories. Now, I'm free. Jobless. Useless. I almost feel retired.

My grandma passed away last Monday, and that was when I closely saw the end of a life. People have died before, but freshness of memory serves greater impacts. I saw a lot of pain, and the end of a lot of pain too. More than anything I hate to see my mother cry, and I saw that too. Several old relationships ceased to exist; a few new ones were formed in the hearts. And life moves on.

In the recent past, some people have lost respect in my eyes for various reasons. There are some for whom probably I lost some respect too. I earned hatred, and trust me, it's a painful exercise to get a salary of despise. I lost love and I gained love, and alas my heart knows no mathematics else I'd have told you how much it eventually cost me. Emotions cannot be weighed in the balances of profits and losses; guilts cannot be bargained for by words of genuine love and understanding. Sometimes life leaves one with little choice, and that is when we have to learn to let go. I'm just hoping that the age-old adage proves true for all: all that happens, is for the good.
Amen.

And at the end of it all, I still count myself lucky to be alive. And lucky to have windows full of hope and the fingers that I could hold and be guided to the windows in my hands. Everyone has to make fresh beginnings when things end. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I only need strength now, for as long as I manage to survive.

If anything, pray for me that those fingers don't leave my hand. If that happens, I'd be dead for sure.

For peace and strength to everyone, and for my own infectious optimism.

Hamare baad mehfil mein andhera bahut ho jaayega
Bahut chirag jalaane padenge tumhe, roshni lautane ke liye
Khilenge phool fir bhi yoon hi, baagon mein har subah
Bahut mehnat karni padegi magar, unhe mehakna sikhane ke liye...

Little Steps

Tiny steps make for long journeys. An infant's little steps are her start to her epic journey called life, but growing up speeds up those steps till one is reduced to practically running 24 hours a day. Time, perhaps, speeds up as well. The world hails those who take long quick strides forward, and understandably so. But sometimes, just sometimes, for a little while I feel like slowing down; I want to stop, to let time slow down, to move in tiniest baby steps such that I could 'feel' every millimetre of my progress. Life feels like it is running away from within the clinched fist. I want to let it go for a little while. I know it will come back to me, because it's mine. If it doesn't, it never was. It's too short a life anyway to fight over. But it might seem like too long if I do not let it manoeuvre its own course.
I want my pink baby shoes back. I would move in little steps :)

************************************************************

The debate is over. It went off well. A lot many other things are over too. Including my repship, but life is too stifling at the moment to speak more. There are some phases in life when just everything happens together. I'm still waiting for the end of most.

Meanwhile, I'm finally free, or am I? I need to sleep for the next five days.
Happy Holi.

Inter alia

I'm living 48 hours everyday...yes, life feels like I'm living it twice over, and for the most part, loving it well. Tomorrow is the inaugration of yet another GRAND first in IITD, which is the first annual IIT Delhi Parliamentary debate and the next four days promise to be grand, memorable, and for people like me involved in the organising bit, very very hectic, sleepless and tiring. But I'm pretty much looking forward to the work load and everything that comes with it (yes for stuff like this I'm a workaholic). Besides I'd be really really happy if this pulls off fantastically and everyone goes back happy and satisfied, including all teams and sponsors. You might say I'm taking the whole business slightly personally, and I know a lot of people don't like this. Afterall I'm only a second yearite, who's one of the nine reps of the club organising this, which is the second level after several other seniors, secy and other responsible people. I totally agree, infact respect it, and my prime aim is to do whatever has been assigned to me the best way possible, and so for the moment I'm ready to ignore looks and words of those who think I should not be doing "so much", whatever that means, or those who feel I'm actually good for nothing but keep jumping with needless enthusiasm. They're free to think what they have to, because I know I want to work, I can and I will, and the rest my work can speak for itself. If I'm bad, fine I accept it. If I really am useless it shall be proven by the 12th. If not, they can eat their words. For now, they are conveniently ignored...I've better things to do.

Oh yes, this reminds me, the inaugration is tomorrow, and the finals on 12th, sunday, and with some of the best teams in the country here, it promises to eb a really good event. so all IITD junta, and infact anybody who's in delhi sunday 10 a.m, drop in to Convocation Hall, IIT delhi. I promise refreshments, and a few hours of stuff you'd really not mind listening to.:D

Among other things, life has been going beautifully, so I shall not word it too much. Fluctuations happen, but the highs supersede the lows at the moment, and things are good. Infact, today I've managed to eat a decent lunch and haven't thrown up yet unlike the last three days, which is a good sign as it means things are finally looking better after I was thrown out of a lab yesterday for nearly fainting during the prac!

I just hope the high tide continues till my debate comes out well...

Things look gloomy at times, life tempts you to regret, but it's the present that one must look at, with a lot of trust in yourself, because that is what determines whether the future is a bitch or not!

Believe in yourself....

Never Let Me Go...

Words fail me each time I think

Why is it that I love you so?

Not everything can be 'said'in words

Not everything has a reason you know

I don't know how you do this to me

What is it that from your eyes does flow?

That intoxicates me, more each second

Takes over my senses, steady and slow.

Reality is relative; mine exists ''within us''.

If broken, outside, is nothing but a black hole.

There's just one thing I want-to die in your arms

One thing I beg you for-Never ever let me go!

The Perfection of Passion

I'm happy; I'm the happiest I've been in a long long time. And I'm afflicted with infinite optimism.

Touchwood! Nazar lag jati hai!

All those who don't know what passion means, stop reading further, because I'm only going to mumble some non-understandable crap about passion here. Because for me, life is all about passion. Things don't work without the fuel of passion except as a mechanical fulfilment of obligations. I have slowly been losing a lot of passions in my life; the fire within me had started to burn me myself because there was a dearth of causes for which this fire should burn. As a child I had little aims of a particular subject, a particular score, a particular sport, a particular moment of happiness that would keep me going. But growing up has its price.

So many times I feel we live in an age where most of the good causes which deserve to be fought for and lived for are already taken and over, and now, all the burning fire within individuals is getting wasted in trivial frustrations. We are in such a shortage of worthwhile things to complain about that all the pseudo-intellectual questions of existentialism and other such things keep haunting us and we keep getting wastefully lost in them. Some time back I said that our generation is probably the best ever at cribbing, and then I saw the only people who were not getting lost in the pseudoism were either those who had found a cause in their lives and had better things to care about- mostly survival needs of food, water, family and job, or else a distinctive passion on which they could focus their energies. I could see a stark contrast in these vis-a-vis those who had nothing strong to call as their faith, whose life was embroiled in continuous calculations of gain and loss and pros and cons, and who had made compromise the single biggest characteristic of their way of living. And that was when I rediscovered some of my lost passion.

Moments of clarity are good for the soul.

I have always felt individuals are who they are because of what their belief is. There's nothing right or wrong in this classification: yes, from this perspective there are only two kinds of individuals, those who have strong beliefs in life and those who don't. Again beliefs could be borrowed, and even gullible(different from flexible) and not disbelieving is not equal to ignorance either.But all these are individual traits and are extremely subjective. Nothing is inherently wrong or undesirable, and had I not been so intoxicated with my own passions at this moment, I'd have perhaps gone on to the pros and cons of each. But a logic that postmortems everything is something I've abandoned for the moment. I'm on a high, a high no amount of alcohol or drug can parallel, because I've consciously found myself a cause to be devoted to. Now if it's right or wrong, fruitful or self-destructive, I simply do not care.

Just like the attainment of perfection needs passion, so does the attainment of passion needs someone perfect : a perfect 'cause' such that in the given space-time coordinates nothing is more right.

I feel someone has injected a few doses of "life" (or atleast a double dose of Ecstasy) in my body...I found my perfect cause. My passion seems alive. I can smile without guilt. And I wanna live some more, though even if I die this instant, that would be a perfect death in perfect bliss.

Aj kal paaon zameen par nahin tikte mere.....

UPDATE: If you're looking for good causes too, this is a miniscule thing: If you really feel that street harrasment and eve teasing, this page warrants a look

http://www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/

Of Things That Break and Do not make a Sound

It's amusing how things that are more delicate than glass break without a sound, while glass itself creates a clamour loud enough for the whole world to hear and makes your hands colourful so that you can be caught red-handed. But the more delicate things mostly break even without a whisper, perhaps only a silent tear- shed or unshed. You escape being caught, but the face is a give-away so often that everyon knows you're the culprit anyway. Even the mirror. The crime may be hidden, the criminal never is.

One of the most crucial of these delicate things is trust. I've told myself 183 times not to trust anybody, and failed 184 times. I trust the same people again, little less or little more, or I trust newer people. Then I get hurt, little less or little more, or in a new way altogether, and 183 becomes 184 and 184 becomes 185(essentially, add one....if hurt==huge, add a few more). But frankly, it's not me alone. So many people have trusted others an regretted their foolishness later, but one cannot just do away with it because this world sould no work withou trust. If everyone stops trusting each other, it would be a catastrophe, and I'm optimistic enough to assume it would never happen. Perhaps I need to become wiser and maturer so that I know whom to trust and whom not to, but I don't think I have the patience.

183++;

The other thing that shatters extremely soundlessly and painfully, is respect. A lot of people meet me and I get to know them from a position of respect, i.e. they get my respect by default and from there proceed to either lose it or increase by virtue of their actions. And when sometimes some of them lose it drastically in a minute, you only feel foolish about yourself, and sooo hurt. I do not want to get sceptical and cynical such that I start being suspicious of veryone I meet, but if things keep getting shattered like that and I keep getting "moments of complete gyaan", I dont think I can hold out much longer.

The third, is the poetic cliche' of the broken heart that breaks without sounds and leaves one so numb, so destroyed and so hurt that no other pain looks worse.

And I'd not even go into this. I'm at a loss of words.