Dedicated to IIT girls

WATCH OUT!!

No matter how smart and sweet you are,
(and one day you'd surely be noticed for that too)
if you keep on outdoing them all the time,
(and making them feel suicidal)
one day they will get back at you.
By hook or by crook.

(just to be fair, you know...though I'm sure Vik n others would find better captions :P :P)

Dedicated to IIT guys

No matter how big you are, everyone needs a good shower.
Everyone. Everyday.

P.S. A junior of mine recently set a record of 78 bath-less days. Some people I know, despite the terrible humidity, seem set to challenge it. I'm gifting deodorant tomorrow.

Funde, again.

Just the quickies:

• Everybody's pain is colored the same shade, and yet each has it's own story.No matter how many bright colors the joy have, each happy story is essentially the same.

• The thing we believe the most, is the one we know the least about.

And among other things, it's happy birthday bro, Niks, Juhi, and 25th anniversary of 1983 cricket world cup victory today(whatever!). So while the midnight was about 5 people in an empty hostel eating and playing with two cakes, and hopefully this evening would be about not kicking my bro's butt for a change, right now it seems like...err...nothing...I need to stop drawing analogies.

Cheers.

Tamanna

Ek meetha ehsaas
Khud ke hone ka aabhaas
Pyar nahi,
par vishwas.
Khud ke liye nahi
kisi aur ke liye jeena
Madad nahi,
bas sath.
Lamba nahi
bas chhota sa jeewan
Lamba nahi
bas mehka sa saawan
Halki halki boondein
Thodi si meherbani
Zara si barish,
thoda sa paani.

Why life is (a) comic?

Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If he isn't there the first time you need him, chances are you won't be needing him again.

~Dilbert.

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...)

Four zero zero

Similarly, just because this is the 400th post on this blog, it does not mean it is any special.
Or 400 times saner/useful/less(or more) crappy than the first one.
Real life isn't even interesting enough to be suitably perfectly gray.
Still, smile, come what may.

Falling out
of love
is as soundless
as falling in,
only much much
much slower.

In my head

We all hate being taken for granted, yet the people we love the most, especially our family, are the ones we take for granted all the time. People can't live with each other, or without. I mean, more than six billion on the planet, yet the amount of loneliness on earth is astounding. Isn't that ironical? We spend years waiting for a few moments. It's driving me crazy.

You never realize how much you love someone till you seem to be losing them, or till you see them hurt, a hurt you could have probably prevented by being there for them, and then you can't stop crying. Why can't people just always be there for those they care for? What is the point of loving if you couldn't show up when it mattered, if you couldn't give love when it could heal? Everyone should have people who could be their strength, and who would trust them unfailingly come what may. Otherwise it gets so so alone, especially because so often there are such people in our life and yet we don't have faith, or don't believe they really care, because they aren't there for us when we need them. Nobody should feel so helpless.

And nobody should have to stop talking when they realise no one's listening. Because it makes people do crazy things. Negative energy is as powerful as positive energy. And when you realize you're losing someone because you didn't support them and weren't there for them when you needed to, there's no feeling worse than that helplessness, that guilt.

Dialogue from yesterday's play:

One of these days, I'd be gone. You'd be gone too J, sometime, but in the interim, don't spend time wondering how it would have been had you given me some more time when I needed it, because in that moment of pain, I won't be able to be there for you.

Sometimes, you're both the criminal and the victim.