Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well

Unsubtle Pressures

2012-02-15T22:47:00.001+05:30

You know how you sometimes have a feeling that you're just about getting the hang of things and may just be able to start making everything come together better for yourself and maybe enjoy life for a little while - and then someone says something that sets things swinging wildly out of balance and you realise that what you thought was a stable plateau was just the gentle curve up the next freaking mountain you have to climb in your life?

Well, I hope you do.

Sigh.

I don't want to have to make any plans for a couple of years. I don't want marriage, I don't want kids, I don't want a demanding job that ties me down completely, I don't want to have to be responsible, I don't want to chart any damn thing out.

I want to have just-enough money for happiness and emergencies, and just-enough time to myself to value and use and waste it a little bit, and just-enough love to make me feel free.

I don't know why grand, serious statements about the state of my life and the possible grand, serious decisions I may (apparently? for some reason?) make very soon have to be made. At all.

Just let me be, dude. I'm twenty-three years and eleven months old, I'm in the process of quitting my first job, I'm dating a boy I really really like, but who (sadface) is far away, I want to travel a lot (maybe with him, maybe just on my own or with other friends), I want to work on things like my singing and my bartending and I want to learn how to play the guitar.

I will get another job (in a couple of months, or later). I will be your responsible, mature, dependable child again (hard as that might be to believe). I will (not any time soon, mind you) say something about wanting to study some more. I may (much later, yes) say something about wanting to get married (when I want to talk about it).

Just. Stop. Freaking. Bringing. It. Up. So. Often.

All of My Love

2011-10-07T23:12:00.001+05:30

To murmur, softly dropping I don't knows onto the pillow/To be silenced by a kiss, gentle but firm/To be held and touched and distracted from yourself,/To surrender and let another decide for once/Cede control and care and worry/Just float along, let another direct the winds/Decide to make them a gale, or a storm, or a gentle breeze// //To submit. ////To trust.

Scribbled: Words

2011-09-09T00:30:00.001+05:30

I must admit, I've always had a flair for the dramatic. I've tried to shake it off over the years, thinking that it trivialises my writing, but I'm afraid I've never gotten anywhere close to succeeding.

I like the sound of words. I play with them in my head, letting them roll off my tongue, enjoying the way they fall from my mouth as I think them. I choose my words because they resonate in my mind in a way that pleases me. Often, phrases stick with me, long after the context in which they arose has passed, long after they cease to have any meaning whatsoever, simply because they are pleasing to my mind's ears.

My writing is read, re-read, then tweaked and pulled, until I think I'm ready to share it with the world. Sometimes, though, I post things knowing that they are raw and unpolished, with phrases that jar and words that confuse.

I love how my words take the drama I want to express and bring it to life. I have always preferred fantasy and science fiction (and fiction, generally) to autobiographies or historical essays (and non-fiction, generally), because my mind's eye can bring to life characters, places, feelings, colours in a most satisfying manner. My mind knows me well; it knows what I like. It knows how to let me lose myself in a good book.

And as I tweeted earlier today, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'd almost always rather be lost in a good book. Or any good story, whether of my own making or another's.

On a tangent, at most times, I'd rather be somewhere else, or doing something else, or with someone else, and the moments where I wouldn't change any of the three come rarely, and when they do, I recognise them for what they are and say, to myself, if alone, "in this moment, I am happy". If with someone, I share my joy, for it is a thing of rare beauty.

Which brings me to the last thing on my mind tonight - my cynicism (also recognisable as pessimism and fatalism). It is not so much its existence, but its domination over positive thinking, that is a problem. I need to fix it - I need to be strong about this, and believe that I can change. It will take a battle against this very same negativity to begin, but that shall mean that the war is that much more easily won. As it is with weight loss (Beginning is the hardest thing. Once you've started, consistency is the hardest thing. Once you're done, resisting the temptation to relapse is the hardest thing.It's always hard, but it's also always worth it.), so it is with changes in one's mindset.

Wish me luck, folks. Fingers well and truly crossed.

Musings/Music

2011-08-13T12:00:00.000+05:30

I, I wish I could swim
Like dolphins, dolphins can swim
Though nothing, no nothing will keep us together
We can beat them
Forever and ever

Clad in Snoopy pajamas and my lawschool sweatshirt, I sleepily waved goodbye as my parents left to drop my nani at the airport this morning. She's going back to Delhi for a bit, and will be back some time in September. Strangely enough, it didn't feel like an event happening to me, as a person - just something that was happening. I need to spend some time thinking about why that is.

As I shut the gate and walked back into the house, sniffling, disjointed thoughts shuffled through my head, all vying for attention in a noisy chorus.

I think you will grow into a sprightly old man who goes for his morning constitutional every day. I will grow into a ache-afflicted old woman with diabetes, unless I take control of my life. I think you inspire me to do things like that.

I first heard bits of 'Heroes' (originally a David Bowie song) on the OST of Moulin Rouge, in the delightfully titled 'Elephant Love Medley'. Always familiar, never identified, always sung along to.

In this last, eventful, wonderful month-and-a-week, one of the songs (and there were many) that stuck out was The Wallflowers' cover of 'Heroes', which I discovered on a mixed CD (which was so close to what I might have compiled that it amazed me - much like so much else about this time has). I didn't know who had sung the song at the time, but I still loved it; floated in it; let it lift me. It's my Saturday song, now.

I can't wait to be back in Bombay, despite its weather, its filth, its lack of privacy, its desperation, its aggression. It holds several people I miss, and love, and want to spend more time with.

Someone should go back in time to last year's me and tell her in no uncertain terms that things will get better and that the city will grow on me. Someone should travel forward in time to next year's me and make sure that things do, indeed, continue to get better. (Just in case. I'd like some warning.)

All that in my second-last post about breaking on through to the other side is yet to happen. But I have complete faith that it will. I'm going to be fine.

Thanks must go out to Aviroop, Shore, V and all my other people everywhere who keep me sane. And to the Boy for reminding me what it is like to feel this way again. I have much to be thankful for. Must remember that.

You Never Can Tell

2011-07-26T02:09:00.000+05:30

She sniffed at my hair;
Snuffled, a little, too.
A question in her eyes,
A crinkle at the corners,
Puzzlement writ large
On her extraordinary face -
As if she couldn't quite
Make up her mind
About whether to take me seriously
Or.
Well.
Not.

He said he was sleepy
Not tired, always sleepy
A true slumber connoisseur -
Someone who gives it its due
At a time when few do, any more;
I could see the sense in that.
Or maybe
I just wanted to see it
Because that would be easy.
Or easier.
Or.
Well.
Not.

I fear my mind,
Its capabilities,
How it knows me
How it can fool me
And trick me
Into believing just
About
Anything.
(It just takes patience
And perseverance, you know).
Or.
Well -
You see -
Not.

The View From Down Here Really Sucks.

2011-07-16T05:12:00.000+05:30

.
Damn.

There's so much happening right now. So much I need to think about, so much I need to prepare for, so very much I need to wrap my head around, and so much I need to make decisions about.

I have found something I didn't think existed in this city for me.

And I am going to lose it very soon. It's inevitable. The loss can be delayed, but it *will* happen. I'm going to leave this city and move back to Bangalore in the very near future, one way or another.

Wishful thinking, avoiding the issue...I've been doing all the wrong things. Sigh.

It hurts to think about it, though.

I just need to grit my teeth, bear the pain, and break on through to the other side.

Easier said than done.

Dreams

2011-07-15T11:23:00.002+05:30

[Note: I wrote this the morning after the Bombay blasts, when I could finally articulate a small part of what I was feeling. These reflections are certainly rather self-centred, but they were all I was able to manage at the time.]

I dreamed a dream. In my dream I dropped my phone, which broke on the corner into small pieces. Like a jigsaw puzzle I couldn't put together.

I dreamed a dream. In my dream I met the blogger Sidin. Except he was a girl and he thought I was creepy and he did not know my name. But he was beautiful, shy and pretty and wearing a green t-shirt.

I dreamed a dream. In my dream, I was dead, a bomb exploding away half my head. I watched, a helpless me, as my control and certainty was stripped away from me, as I became something less than a whole person.

When I became an atheist, I went through a phase of intense internal pressure when I realised that there is no god, and apart from what we can control, everything else in our lives is purely the result of random chance and other people's decisions. It made me stronger because I resolved to strive to retain as much control over my own life as I could - to take back control over those parts I used to leave in the hands of a god that didn't exist. Until I made my peace with that fact - the fact that no one watched over me or answered my prayers, that no one ever would, that it was all up to me - I was very unhappy and afraid and insecure. It was a difficult truth for me, personally, to come to terms with. But I finally did, and marvellously, felt much stronger for it. Much, much stronger. Less helpless.

This entire incident has left me feeling like I have no control over my life, over whether I live or die, or when or how. This is that part of random chance coupled with other people's decisions that really gets my goat.

I need to prove to myself that there is, indeed, a point to this existence, regardless of the fact that someone can just kill me tomorrow if they feel like it.

Birthday Wishlist 2011

2011-03-03T00:05:00.001+05:30

Since this worked so well the last time around, I'm giving it a go this year as well. Fingers crossed, and I hope I'm worth it!

Presenting: my birthday wishlist for the year 2011. :)
Cosmetics
1. Envy Me by Gucci.
2. Euphoria by CK.
3. Mediterranean by Elizabeth Arden.
(all in the 2.5-3.5k range)
4. Bronzer from The Body Shop.
(Must-haves: 1 and 4. Bonuses: 2 and 3.)

Books
1. Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland: More Personal Ads from the London Review of Books by David Rose. Retails on Amazon for $12.00 or at Landmark for Rs. 380/-.
(I wouldn't say no to They Call Me Naughty Lola, by the same author, which is the first installment in this series, either.)
2. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. (Really really really want to read it). (Because I have the two books that come after it in the series and can't wait to read them, either.)
3. The LICD Beginnings Books - details here. I absolutely *adore* this webcomic, particularly the Beginnings strips, and cannot believe that there are three entire volumes of it (Look at Me!, Adorableness, and Fire in the Hole) out that I still don't own. They're only $9.95 each. You cannot imagine how much loooouuv I have for these books.

Other Stuff
1. What I really need: A neoprene sleeve for my Kindle. I've got my eye on the BUILT sleeve for the 6" latest gen Kindle, which is retailing on Amazon for $29.99 (and can be found here). Please pretty please help me protect my Kindle!
2. What I really want: bartending tools. I already have the cocktail shaker and the jigger, but am lacking a bar spoon and a muddler, not to mention a Hawthorne/Julep strainer (which I don't need that much because I use a traditional cocktail shaker and not a Boston shaker) and a pourer (or two) (which I would love to have, but would such be a luxury). Anyone who helps me expand my bartending horizons will be loved forever.
Other related stuff that I'd love: bartending lessons, shotglasses (not the curios, the real standard ones!), good martini glasses, quality liqueurs (Grand Marnier, Peach Schapps, creme de menthe, that sort of thing).
3. For the really lazy (or pushed for time) gift-giver: gift coupons! to (in order of desirability): M&S, Mango, Shoppers Stop, Titan (yes, Titan. I need a new watch.), any place that carries Ray-Bans, Zara and Central.

You're always welcome to buy me thoughtful gifts to the complete and utter exclusion of this list. :)

So come on people, buy me things! (And yes, I've almost never been more materialistic. And yes, there is a good chance that no-one will pay any attention to this. But isn't that what wishlists are all about?)

And if you're in town, come celebrate my turning a year older with me!

Causing Ripples

2011-01-17T02:06:00.000+05:30

.
It astonishes me how many lives I've affected along the way to where I am right now - the people I angered, the people I made insecure, the people who thought I was a nuisance, the people who wished that I would just go away and leave them the hell alone... and the other people, who didn't mind me that much, along with the few who liked or even loved me (and the very few, who still do).

I'm sitting in a seventh floor apartment with my feet up in a room lit by fairy lights and great music playing, and here I am thinking about all the random crap I brought into people's lives when I was in college. I could say that I'd like to apologise to many of them for putting them through that, but at the same time I firmly believe that most of them probably gave as much crap to other people (and sometimes me), and so maybe it doesn't matter all that much. None of us were perfect in college.

How selective memory is! I can't remember so many things and so many days that I'm sure at the time I thought were so very important. I suppose it will be much the same for the rest of my life. Even so, I think I'm okay with that. I'm built such that I can forgive and forget. Both are important.

At the same time, while my memories become both more specific (of certain moments) and more confused (of how things worked out eventually), other people's memories will be undergoing the same process. They will remember things that I will have forgotten or relegated to the background in my recollections. It's always useful to maintain contact with people from your past, because they hold parts of you in their memories - parts that you might never have known, parts that you might have lost, parts that you might have known only one aspect of.

You are made by the people around you, both in the time you spend with them and after you leave them. The change they put in place keeps going, working on you, moulding you, changing you, coursing through you long after their presence leaves you.

.

It's beautiful how man cannot be a rock, or an island - at least, not for very long.

Blogsessing Part II: People read this blog. Fuck.

2010-12-26T20:35:00.000+05:30

.
So after forever, I posted something on my blog today.

And then actually looked at my blog for the first time in the last six months.

And noticed that it has had close to a thousand views.

...the last time I checked, it had had forty-eight views.Forty-eight.

This, understandably, I hope, caused me some amount of surprise/shock/joy (let's call it "surshoy"? Or maybe not...), and I wondered how the flying fuck that much traffic to the blog had happened while I was away and neglecting it.

Then I realised that BlogPatrol could help me answer that question (BlogPatrol is my blog stats app, which is where the views stat came from in the first place.), and off I went to discover what makes people read my posts.

It turns out that there are people out there who actually look for my blog on Google.

There are also people who come here because I've mentioned Crowded House, or Calvin Klein's perfume, or Terry Pratchett, or West Side Story or life after college, or, well... Boys.

Twitter and Facebook have directed people here.

People have come here because the title of my blog is derived from a song, Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well, by Mike Doughty (which I heard on the Grey's Anatomy OST).

People have come here from Div's and SK's blogs (and those people may well have been Div and SK themselves, so that's not all that surprising, but still) - so there may be something to blogrolls after all. :)

Of course, people have come here to stalk, snoop, pry and prey, as they tend to do. Law school will never really release its hold on me or the things I do, even in this.

Regardless, it's incredibly gratifying, scary, and surprising to know that people have come here at all - and that they keep coming back. In some way, even though I keep telling myself that this blog isn't written to cater to others, these stats make me feel like I'm not writing for an audience of one. And that does make a difference.

I'll check back in on the stats in six months' time to see how things have changed.

In the meantime, thanks for reading. :-)

"Come on, oh my star is fading..."

2010-12-26T19:02:00.000+05:30

Coldplay's Amsterdam is one of my most favourite "calm" songs. It sings to me, sweetly melancholic. I love how, in the first half of the song, Martin's voice communicates need and pain all at the same time.

I want this song to play in the background at my funeral. Or, better still, I want an a cappella group - preferably consisting of some of my closest friends - singing this, with a piano gently intruding when the time is right. It is the community of crooners in the background that makes me feel that it is the right song to be playing at such a time - that, and the hopeful build-up of the piano after the soft, reverent harmony of voices subsides.

I love how the song matures - it builds sublimely, filling the listener up slowly, purely. It is not noise, but a symphony that draws you in until you're caught up in the rush of sound that flows all around you when Martin finally bursts into song along with the drums and guitars. The lines, "you can say what you mean, but it won't change a thing," and "[I] stood on the edge, tied to a noose, and you came along and you cut me loose," are the highlights of the song for me. They are the core of its meaning. When he shouts out the first line, I feel alive - defiant, proud, bright-eyed, staring life and death in the face - and when, in the second, he descends from proud resignation into soft disbelieving gratitude, my heart bursts, and I feel...loved.

Everything is noise.

2010-11-17T21:47:00.000+05:30

I fear that I will not be able to hide my relief when I meet someone familiar, who gets me (or remembers who I used to be in college). They'll probably think I'm crazy.

The rest of this seems like such a farce. This can't be life. This...existence, this thing, can't be called "living".

There's hardly any meaning to it.

And I'm getting so goddamn sick of all things money-related.

Not just yet.

2010-11-07T00:11:00.000+05:30

I'm at home, in Bangalore.

And I want to never have to leave, and to never have to go back to Bombay, with all its being-on-your-own-ness.

At the very least, I want a longer vacation - enough time to enjoy being home and to leave just before I begin to get sick of being here.

In other news, I went back to campus on Diwali.

Didn't realise how very much I missed being there (at some deep, not-often-thought-about level) until I was sitting in the quad, drinking in the punctuated-by-fireworks quiet. It struck me that I've spent so much time, such a heavily large quantity and proportion of my life, on campus, in the quad, walking around acad, at Cheta, on hostel terraces, in my room, sleeping through class, and doing a hundred other things. You can't dismiss that sort of weight, can't leave it behind so easily. It comes back to re-assert itself whenever it gets a chance to. And I didn't mind that one bit. Law school has a completely legitimate hold on me.

I'm so glad to be here that I don't even mind the fact that my allergies have all come back in a great big rush.

I love how Bangalore is like a perfectly air-conditioned room all the fucking time. Bombay's weather, at its best, is just pretty horrendous in comparison. (And I'll never deny that Bangalore has spoilt me for most other cities in terms of my expectations regarding the weather - it's just that I'll never be very apologetic about it.)

So coming back to the point of this post - I don't want to go back. Just yet.

2010-10-26T01:36:00.001+05:30

Been forever since I've blogged. No time.

Found a lovely house. Love my room to bits. It is huge and has wooden floorboards. The apartment complex is pretty darn awesome, too.

Work is tiring. So freaking tiring. And I keep doing everything for what feels like the first time. It feels like I'll never learn!

So tired.

...maybe this wasn't the best time to start this entry.

*falls asleep*

"I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again"

2010-07-11T12:23:00.000+05:30

So I've started work.

And I feel like a completely different person - completely different from the one I was before. In college.

I'm not used to feeling like this.

But I suppose it'll get better, as I find new things that define me, as I find a place in my new environments.

And I suppose that I'll also discover that the more things change, the more they remain the same. I'm not really any different from who I was in college - these changes are superficial, for now. They might become more than that - but later.

I think what has really surprised me is my capacity for maturity. Who'd ha' thunk it?

Home is Where the Heart is

2010-06-11T04:18:00.000+05:30

I'm sitting in my room at 4 am, tired and bleary-eyed, staring at a screen, trying to read and make sense of an article on the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia and sentencing and international criminal law and whatnot. I'm cursing myself for having left it this late, as a reaction paper to these readings is due in a little under 4 hours. I wonder if I'll make the deadline this time, or if I'll stretch it a bit like I always do. To add to that, I have a final presentation to make tomorrow for a seminar paper I actually do want to work hard for, causing me to seriously consider requesting that my presentation be postponed. I've become lax and deplorably apathetic about my work in these last few days here, and I think it just stems from general exhaustion. I haven't had a good night's sleep for days on end this trimester. 5th year 3rd trim just does that to you, I suppose. Everyone becomes a night owl - and sometimes a drunken one at that. I haven't seen morning on any day unless I was up all night or leaving for a road trip. My average waking-up time has been noon. I've forgotten what it was like to get up at 8.30 and have the quickest shower ever before scampering off to class, bursting in at the door at 8.54, swearing under my breath and hoping to somehow get attendance. That whole life seems so far away.
Right now, all I can think about is my cool, comfortable bed at home in my quiet, comfortable room, where I won't have to worry about submissions and deadlines and other such rubbish any more. I can't even describe the relief that has hit me every time I've gone back home for the holidays in 5th year - the relief that all submissions are done with and I can just be a normal person again and have silly, banal interests like soaps on the telly and download music all day long and go for movies with my brother.
I keep thinking of home. The weather's gotten cooler now - June in Bangalore is the usual bliss - and my mum sent me a sweatshirt with my brother today when he came to campus. In that moment, I just wanted to be home, asleep or talking to my mum.
I want to be one of those people who's leaving college early, leaving everyone else behind, not the one watching everyone leave. I am starting to feel fucking abandoned, and it's a strange, unpleasant, inexplicable feeling. Damn Trial - only because I have to watch people leave because of it. Bah.

Endings

2010-06-07T00:10:00.000+05:30

I always knew law school would end.

But I never expected it to actually happen like this.

Univ Night's over, and with it, Univ Week. One of the longest, most tiring, best weeks I've ever fucking had in this place. And we nailed it. Wonderful feeling. One of the few times I've felt like effort was worth it in this place. And since I'm leaving in two weeks, most things that used to rankle about law school no longer bother me. It's all very simple now. A clear state of mind, simple lists of things to be done, gentle disentangling myself from things around me, quiet and honest goodbyes being said. Pack this up, sell that, throw those things away, give that to so-and-so, return things and recover borrowed things, discover those last few irresponsible losses, correspond with employers-to-be, pay dues, fill out forms, make final presentations, write last seminar papers, give last exams. Breathe in, breathe out. Live out the last of these glorious days in a chaotic swirl of tears, composure, panic, nostalgia, loud music, and that very distinctly collegiate attitude towards life. Staunch refusal to grow up; unwilling awareness that it will have to be done sooner than we want to do it.

I had a profound sense of things coming to an end tonight as I sat in the quad, watching people eat and talk and laugh and take photos together. This time - this one - is nearly done. Things are changing. I will soon have bills, taxes and rent to pay; I will have a home of my own; I will have a place to bring people back to. It will be mine, I will fill it with things that are me. I will be alone in a way I have never been before. I am scared, excited, curious, full of restless energy. A new life, a new start, an opportunity to find something, someone, and somewhere to belong to. Hope and potential all wrapped up in a bundle of uncertainty.

Endings; beginnings. All-in-one.
And together, they are change.

Only in Dreams

2010-05-26T02:08:00.000+05:30

I want to go off to some exotic place, study photography - or dance - or music - or singing - or some other craft - and make a living doing it. I want to be a warm, honest person who creates beautiful things that people enjoy. Anything that doesn't require me to leave college to become a working drone. Sigh.

Worth a thousand words, eh?

2010-05-18T04:02:00.000+05:30

Been up for a ridiculously long time tonight. I have to get up in less than five hours and catch a morning show of Iron Man 2 with the family. Let's see how that turns out. Fingers crossed. Anyhow.

I was just going through my pictures on Facebook. There are nearly 900 pictures of me up at the moment. That's an awful lot. And over 400 of those pictures (close to half, really) are from this year. From the beginning of the fifth year, starting with my Australs trip, ranging through SF and New Year's and Delhi and third trimester right up till the Mysore trip I took two days ago. What struck me most was that I am so happy in so many of those photos! I smile, and I pose, and I look good in so many of those pictures, too!

I can only think of a couple of explanations for that. Either I'm just a great liar in front of the camera, or I've learnt how to be happy, to dress nicely, to smile graciously for the camera, and to have fun with people I care about and like spending time with. I have this sneaking suspicion that it's the latter. It's only when I put my life in such perspective that I realise that I've had a great last year in law school, and a particularly wonderful last trimester in college. The last six months have, in fact, been truly epic. I've had a blast. I've spent so much time with friends and had so many memorable times out to town and elsewhere that I feel like I've finally had my fill of happiness for law school. Like all those years I spent randomly angsting have been forgiven and forgotten. What a bloody wonderful feeling. Fuck, yeah.

I feel deliverance. Peace. Calm. Like I can help others now instead of needing it all the time. Like I can be strong and calm and responsible. Like I can look good and smell nice and go out and enjoy myself, no baggage.

I feel great. And am immensely grateful for that.

We'd Be So Fantastical.

2010-05-15T05:04:00.000+05:30

There is a beautiful feeling, when your tongue goes slightly dry, when your lips get slightly numb, when your voice echoes in a space that your body can't understand, when you know that you're oh-so-slightly drunk. That's when you feel like you're invincible. It's a terrific feeling. Heh.

And Vrinda and Bhabna are holding my chair hostage. :( :(
And I solemnly swear that that is not untrue. :(

More on Wishlists

2010-05-12T13:16:00.000+05:30

I've put up three wishlists to date, all before my birthday, all containing some ridiculously strange things, and all put up in some vague hope that people would read them and actually buy me those things.

Let me make one thing clear: I did not expect them to work.

But somehow, around my birthday, I ended up directing people to them whenever they asked what I wanted (isn't that easier?), and I'm kicked to say I netted a jewellery box, a bangle stand, Drood by Dan Simmons, and (*squee*) that White Musk perfume from The Body Shop that I was going gaga over as a result of said wishlist.

Which has inspired me to find a wishlist sidebar and add it to my blog. I think this is an ongoing project :P And since I never stop wanting things, a continuously updated list is probably more practical than repeated posts. Plus, my blog may stop being so boringly me-centric. (Heh.)

Other news: I got an O in my CPC TA-ship, thus bringing my total number of O's in law school to two, and placing Shankara right at the top of my Favourite Teachers list. :-D

Apparently, I'm going to have to start work as early as the 1st of July. FML. No time to breathe, no time to travel, nothing. Bah. I didn't ask to be thrown in at the deep end, but I guess I don't have much bargaining power here, either. I really hope work isn't as bad and as painful as I imagine it to be, and I really hope that my recurring nightmare, in which I turn up for work and they just look at me and say, "Why are you here? You're too stupid to be here! Go away!" remains in the realm of dreams.

On the other hand, I've decided that a part of my first/second/third salary will go towards ordering the LICD Beginnings book, posters from xkcd, and other geeky/nerdy paraphernalia. The prospect is filling me with a boundless joy, and I can't wait to be able to afford that stuff and indulge in buying it. Sighness. :)

Badmaash Company and Illness Blues

2010-05-07T23:44:00.000+05:30

Woke up today feeling like two golf balls were lodged in my throat, making it painful to breathe and near-impossible to swallow. To top that off, had a light fever and felt really weak. I'd had a bit of a cold for the past few days, but I guess all that screaming at Hard Rock last night while watching Junkyard Groove play finally pushed my body over the edge.

After panic-calling my dad and getting a bunch of meds prescribed, I somehow forced down some soggy cereal before popping the pills and collapsing back into bed. I don't fall ill very often (apart from regular colds) - something I'm very glad for - so when I do, I get very very angsty. I can't understand why my body is misbehaving, and I spend the entire period of illness whining about how unfair it is and how I could be doing so many other things in the meantime. Heh.

There had been some plan to watch Badmaash Company today floating around last night, and I was (of course!) very keen to watch it, because I have a small (read: bloody massive) thing for Shahid Kapoor (particularly after the stunning solo dance sequences in Dance Pe Chance and the bare-chested running-with-the-horses sequences in Kaminey). This illness business was putting a dampener on my movie plans, however, and as a result, I was feeling even worse.

But Vrinda saved the day (at least in my eyes) by convincing me to come - with the argument that if I could walk, then I could very well sit in an auto and then in a theatre for a couple of hours instead of lying in bed and moping. Her logic was to my liking, so (against medical advice, for sure) we headed off with the rest of the bunch to Baby Gops (:P) to watch aforesaid movie. Got there just in time (though we missed the first 4 minutes of the movie) and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

...well, most of it. Lawyer-knowledge made me laugh at a scene where a cheque is written in the name of a company that hasn't even been formed. My keen sense of style :P made me wonder what the hell the protagonists were doing dressing in 2010-era clothes when the movie's set in the early 1990's (at least they got the telephones right...oh, wait, they threw in a cordless phone for variety. *facepalm*). Bombay seemed fairly believable, but NYC was definitely not dressing the way they portrayed it two years after Kurt Cobain kicked the bucket. Just by putting the Twin Towers on the skyline and bringing Michael Jackson (almost certainly played by Shahid Kapoor) into the story, you aren't going to convince anyone that it's not the late 2000's. There was also very 2000's-era scenery visible in the Thailand sequences. And let's not get started on the elaborate apartments and houses the protagonists were staying in after making just one million dollars. Bah. My only other grouse with the movie was the most certainly not chart-topping soundtrack. It was loud, repetitive (one word, sung over and over again, does not make for a blockbuster track), and entirely unnecessary. It's not even like they had any proper song-and-dance sequences that would necessitate so many songs. They interfered with the story and dragged the movie out entirely without reason.

But apart from that, I liked the movie. Sure, it was formulaic. Sure, it was contrived in parts. But Shahid Kapoor can still act, and his co-starts were very competent in holding the film and the (slightly weak) plot together enough to make the movie enjoyable. (I was particularly happy to see Indian Idol winner Chang being given a significant role, which I thought he essayed fairly well - in my opinion, there's very little visible diversity in Bollywood.) A little too much random senti at the end, and that whole 'Bleeding Madras' shebang (What is it with setting films in America and then going crazy with stereotypes about Americans in current Bollywood cinema?!) made the ending a little much for me. Simple love stories are never 'simple' in Bollywood; similarly, a rollicking, fast-paced con-job tale is almost none of those things when it's being made in Bollywood.

Worth the 150 bucks, but not with as tight a plot as Kaminey, nor as out there as LSD, nor as time/era-appropriate as Lagaan. Making it a one-time watch, not a movie that will inspire critics to rave about it.

The other highlight of my day? Running around Star Bazaar in Baby Gops with Babs sitting in a shopping cart, and giggling like a schoolgirl every time someone looked at us like we were crazy. This is why I love Vrinda. :D I'm exhausted right now, but I've had a happy day despite being sick, and I couldn't ask for more right now.

The Music of West Side Story (and Other Titbits)

2010-04-29T03:23:00.006+05:30

Just sat through most of West Side Story, and found it utterly painful. Maybe it's not for me. Loved "America", "I Feel Pretty", and "Tonight", though (finally heard the originals!). Still, I can see where the cult appeal of the film comes from. In its time, it must have been a phenomenon!

I must say, however, that I much prefer Julian Lloyd Webber's cello rendition of "America" in "Variations 1-4" on The Premiere Collection: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber, the short little ditty that was made out of "I Feel Pretty" for the film Anger Management, and the Glee version of "Tonight", sung by Jenna Ushkowitz (who plays the stuttering goth Asian teenager, Tina). That may have a lot to do with the fact that these were the forms in which I first heard each of these songs, and they've stayed in my memory in those forms as a result. Ah, well.

West Side Story does have its moments, though. It has attitude and spunk in a way that only dance movies can have, and watching it reminded me once again how much I love the niche. A musical's a musical (and I adore musicals!), but a dance movie is something else. Which explains why I loved Dirty Dancing, Rent (absolutely fantastic!), Footloose, and even Save the Last Dance and Step Up. I happen to find boys who can dance extremely attractive, and as a result get twice the kick from watching well-choreographed dance movies!

So overall, I wouldn't recommend West Side Story to anyone who isn't into 50's and 60's cinema, because though the energetic song-and-dance sequences are worth a watch, the story (a Romeo and Juliet-esque saga) drags on interminably. I'd go for the new versions of the songs any day, but would (somehow, I get the feeling) still probably catch the musical of the film if I ever have the chance to.

On a related note, the NLS Ball is tomorrow night (technically, tonight), and I'm looking forward to it immensely! The ever-dependable Shore is my date, and I'm sure we'll have...well, a ball!

On an unrelated note, there's a bottle of Triple Sec lying in my fridge, and all I want to do every time I see it is rush out, buy bucketloads of cranberry juice, vodka and lime juice and a cocktail shaker, and make industrial-size, ice-cold Cosmos. Bah.

Here's marking 200.

2010-04-25T02:06:00.001+05:30

I've been steering clear of this blog for what seems like forever now, simply because I'm terrified of writing a rubbish 200th post (which this is). (200, that is. Not rubbish. I hope.)

Well, here it is. Short, sweet, and to the point.

I'm astonished that this blog has lasted 200 entries, and blown away by how much I've changed in those 200 posts. I'm much the same in some ways, but have grown up in many others. That's heartening to know.

There is so much I'd have liked to write about to commemorate this post. But I've never been good with momentous speeches or pieces of writing - at the end of the day, I'm spontaneous, and quite unable to give a moment as much importance as it deserves. So, fuelled by alcohol and a rising impatience, I've decided to just write this damn thing.

So. Happy 200th blog post to me. Here's hoping I keep learning, and growing, and writing.

Much love to the couple of souls who actually follow this blog. I commend you for your patience.

P.S. - Wishlists work! (More on that later. *grins*)

Wishlist, Part n

2010-03-04T02:01:00.000+05:30

So my list of things-I-want has grown by a bazillion items since I last posted. I've fallen in love with ultra-high heels and designer watches and fancy jackets, yes, but there is also a small list of things that I just want for the sake of satisfying a craving. Yes, they are all edible. No, none of them are items of underwear. I've also been making another (very long!) list of things I want to buy with my first salary. The first bunch can be found at Wishlist: Part 2, and the other two lists are below.

Things I want right now (a.k.a. The Cravings)

- A cheese paper masala dosa with properly made sambhar. Actually, any well-made dosa with properly made sambhar. And idli-sambhar! I'm missing South Indian food like crazy here in Delhi (never thought I'd say that!) and cannot believe that people fork out seventy bucks plus for a dosa here. I refuse to, on principle. But that's not helping the craving! :(

- A candy necklace from Sweet World. One. Just one. It's a pure sugar rush, and I can't get it out of my head since I saw it at Citywalk in Saket this evening. yummies.

- Spiced hot chocolate or spiced hot coffee from Chokola/Barista. I just want cinnamon-y, cardamom-y things, I think.

- Bengali Market golgappas. Fucking heaven.

- Mushrooms. Lots and lots of cheesy-garlicky mushrooms. Boo my family here for not liking mushrooms.

- Masala prawn and Mangalore Pearl style mussels and grilled fish and, ooooh, batter-fried calamari! I want to go eat in Goa or Pondi or Gokarna. :( Now.

- the cinnamon cake and brownies I made in third year. Yes, this is slightly neurotic. I can't help it. My mouth is watering like crazy just thinking about them. I want to be home and baking shitloads of brownies and cakes and sticky cinnamon rolls and pizzas and pies right now.

Things I will buy with my first salary (a.k.a. Things I Can't Afford Right Now a.k.a. Things My Mother Won't Let Me Spend Her Money On Right Now)

- Those Nine West shoes. I've already found out where the Bombay outlets are. Those shoes will. be. mine.

- A nice, classy, silvery metal watch with a beautiful blue face and the kind of clasp that doesn't get loose and cause the watch to fall off my wrist when I'm not paying attention.

- High-quality speakers.

- clothes from Mango and Espirit and Fabindia and everywhere else yummy yummy sighness.

- Books! Books! Books!

- stationery. lots and lots of stationery. high-quality paper and pens and legal pads and , drool.

- pretty pretty house things. bamboo and cane and stainless steel and glass and ohmygodiamsuchahousewife. Crap.

There have got to be better things for me to spend my money on, right? Suggestions?

Wishlist, Part 2: Steeped in Luxury

2010-03-04T01:16:00.000+05:30

....aaaand, we're back. Or at least, I am. With an additional list of things I want want want. *grins* This list includes ~~some~~ a lot of ridiculously expensive stuff that I'm in love with and will probably spend my first salary on or something. But don't forget - my birthday's coming up and *some* of this stuff is still affordable. [hint, hint]

So.

1. Teal clothes
I am manically in love with the colour teal. I want to marry it. If you don't know what colour it is, look here. Or check out these things (1) (2). That's the shade. I love darker and lighter variants as well. Every time I see a teal top/camisole/sweater/blouse/skirt/dress/belt I melt a little inside and want to buy it/them immediately. Regardless of whether it/they would fit me or look good on me or any other reasonable considerations. I own a fair number of blue teal and teal clothes, but I would never ever ever say no to more.

2. Body Shop's White Musk Eau De Toilette or Body Mist

I first purchased the smallest white musk perfume bottle from a Body Shop factory outlet in Melbourne which had a sale on (yes, a factory outlet had a sale) for a pittance. I've fallen in love with the fragrance since then, and was really upset when some ~~bitch~~ one stole the bottle from my room in college. I've been longing to have the perfume again since then, but haven't gotten 'round to saving up enough to buy it full-price.
30 ml Eau De Toilette comes for around 1k and the 100 ml Sheer Body Mist is around Rs. 800.

3. Nine West Shoes
Going to the Nine West shop at Select Citywalk the day I landed in Delhi was not a good idea; I've been walking around with the image of the most gorgeous pair of shoes ever stuck in my head. They are black with bands and ooze sexiness in a way that no shoe should be allowed to do. I can't find the exact picture, but they look something like these (which I would also love to have, sigh):

I think the problem is that I love these shoes and know that I could afford them if I wanted to be ridiculous and splurge on myself (as opposed to Jimmy Choos, which I have resolved to stay far away from for an indefinite yet long period of time so that I don't cry at my poverty). They're really comfortable for such high heels (which I just didn't expect; aren't gorgeous shoes supposed to kill your feet?) and they make me want to buy pretty, sexy clothes to wear them with.
*squeals* I just found another lovely pair at the Nine West site. *melts*

I. Just. Want.

At the Select Citywalk outlet, my favourites are retailing for the low, low price of Rs. 3,990/- (after a 40% discount!). The Nine West website shows a price range is $89-99. Yummy. If only shipping didn't cost so much. :(
I'm an 8.5, for any magical loving generous loaded fairy out there who wants to make my day. (fat chance, hm?)

4. Euphoria by Calvin Klein

I've been in love with this perfume and lusting after it for four years, now. It's about bloody time I got it. Somewhere in the 3k range.

There's more, as always. I just haven't bothered or dared to find out how much those things cost. :P

Rediscovered: Crowded House

2010-02-21T00:14:00.002+05:30

After a week of absolute isolation from the worlds of Facebook, Blogspot and GChat (thanks to work blocking them) and from my laptop (thanks to outings and distracting games on my brother's iPhone), I'm finally back online and finally back on my laptop. As a result, I've been letting my iTunes DJ spin hour-long mixes for me without any tweaking or cheating, and I've realised that I absolutely love it for randomizing my intimidatingly large music collection to the extent that it does. In the last 24 hours, I've heard a lot of lovely Western classical and country music - stuff that I wouldn't ordinarily include in a playlist, but which I enjoy regardless. There have been a couple of bad eggs that have popped up as well, but they too served a purpose - they're helping me prune my music collection (much of my music was acquired through wholesale dumps from friends' hard disks and iPods, leaving quality control and fine-tuning very much in the lurch).

I digress. The point is that iTunes DJ is wonderful for its randomness, as also for the fact that it's intelligent and veers away from songs and artists that you skip when creating playlists in the future. But what I love it most for (apart from the very high quality of its mixing) is the fact that it brings me back to artistes I've been neglecting and have not listened to in a long time. The joy of rediscovery is...like a light suddenly going on in a dark corner of your mind whose existence you had forgotten about.

(Image from Discogs.com; Image Copyright Crowded House)

A band that I've rediscovered as a result of the magic of iTunes DJ is an old favourite, Crowded House (Wiki here). I first discovered this late-80's/early 90's Australian/Kiwi band back in school, sometime in the 10th or 11th, when my dad handed me Recurring Dream: The Very Best of Crowded House and told me to give it a listen. That CD quickly became one of my favourites, and I would play it on repeat for hours at a time after getting back from school, lying on my bed and losing myself in the melody.

One of their biggest hits (and hence the one song that may seem most familiar) was "Weather With You", a very cheerful song with slightly bizarre lyrics (but then, most Crowded House lyrics are slightly bizarre - more on that later). Their biggest hit, however, was undoubtedly "Don't Dream It's Over", a standard sweet love song, very 80's and very much that song that the DJ's likely to put on so that couples can do their slow dancing thing. :)

The band's signature sound (a lot of percussion and what I can only call "whooshy sounds" :P) comes from the variety of instruments that they used (notably, the tabla) and influences such as Maori and Irish music. The beauty of their music lies in its simplicity and in the lyrics. I've spent hours contemplating the words of my all-time favourite, "Private Universe" (listen here; ignore the trippy video); I've often thought that a certain Death Cab For Cutie song's lyrics make me feel the same way as this song (but that's probably just me). The lyrics are peppered with rhymes, metaphors and similies, and are often, as I've said earlier, quite bizarre. Take "Pinapple Head" (recently covered by Natasha Bedingfield, for those who're interested), for instance - the lyrics go something like this:
"Detective is flat
No longer is always flat out
Got the number of getaway car
Didn't get very far
As lucid as hell and these images
Movin' so fast like a fever
So close to the bone
I don't feel too well...
...Sleeping alone for pleasure
Of pineapple head, it spins and it spins
Like a number I hold
Don't remember if she was my friend
It was a long time ago"

The song is still melodious as hell, though. And that's what I love about these guys. Their music is gentle, alive and simple. It's not trying to be anything it's not, and it's honest and un-manufactured, at complete odds with much of the trash that's floating around in the name of music these days. The songs are actually catchy and have identifiable emotions attached to them. Compare that with something that's practically obscene in its banality, and infuriatingly catchy as a result - "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. I'll admit that their lyrics are bizarre as well, but draw the line at trying to make that seem like a good thing. Let's admit it: the lyrics are trash, and if you hear that song more than twice a day, it will make you want to shoot yourself. (I should know - my phone wiped itself of all messages, presets, apps, and pre-loaded ringtones, so I had to choose either "I Gotta Feeling" or the new Nokia ringtone [which has the dubious distinction of being the most infuriating sound I have ever heard], so I've been waking up to hip disco beats for the past few mornings. Ugh.)

I digress yet again. Let me just wind this ramble up now by saying that I've always had a bit of a crush on this band, and rediscovering it has just intensified my nostalgia for school days, young love, and slow dancing at non-alcoholic parties. Sigh.

I haven't heard their latest album (released in 2007), but I doubt anything would make me turn away from these guys. I've forced Recurring Dream on practically all of my music-sharing friends in law school (starting way back in first year with my then-it's-complicated-later-boyfriend-now-ex-boyfriend) and am likely to continue to do the same post law school.

I leave you with this song (all their videos are trippy!). Enjoy.

Blogsessing

2010-02-10T20:27:00.000+05:30

Something that just struck me: how much we seek validation from our blogs. I mean, look at it - we worry ourselves over visitor stat counters (I just added one to this blog :P ), how many followers we have on Google Follower, how many people subscribe to the blog's RSS feed, how many comments each post gets, how many people 'like' each post (or respond to it in any other way by ticking one of those three little boxes we've put into our blog's layout), how much feedback we get to posts in real-world conversations... the list is lengthy, and, frankly scary.
We obsess. We refresh our blogs every two hours to see how many more people have read our posts; we urge our friends in ways both polite and impolite to follow our blogs; we try to think of funny and interesting things to write about; we post links to our blogs to Facebook; we allow Facebook to make a note-feed of our blog posts to share with all our Facebook friends.
Let's face it: we're all blog whores. I'll be the first to admit that I am one, and that I love tinkering with my blog almost as much as I like looking at myself in the mirror (which is saying something!). There. I said it.
Like a weight off my shoulders.
Any other blog whores out there?

Drift.

2010-02-06T03:58:00.002+05:30

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

The smooth flavour of a vodka-apple juice; the way it raises tendrils of heat as it shoots down my throat; how I feel after a strong drink. All a part of the experience.

Very confused at the moment. About what I want from life and from the male gender in particular. In my head, I have too many fingers in too many pies, and I'd much rather decide to have simply one finger in one very desirable pie. The question is, which pie is it to be?

And this is all a hypothetical, of course. Of course.

Sleeepy.

*sleeps*

'night, folks.

The Thing That Should Not Be

2010-01-29T03:48:00.001+05:30

I want your love and I want your revenge,
You and me could write a bad romance.
(oh-uh-uh-oh)

I want your love and all your lover's revenge,

You and me could write a bad romance.

Rah rah, ah ah ah,

Roma roma ma

Ga ga, ooh la la,

Want your bad romance

Yeah, I know it's Lady Gaga, but the song is stuck in my head and its tone fits this mood, somehow.

Just had a long, rambling conversation with Vrinda about work, law school, people, what we want and where we appear to be going. It's like I've finally managed to articulate all the things that have been bothering me for these past few days - the things that I wasn't able to put my finger on, or even find any means to express.

I am, by nature, restless. I can't deny that. Nor can I claim that I can make any and every situation work for me - I need to love (or at least care about) what I am doing for my best to come through. This has always been the case. I simply don't have it in me to put genuine, whole-hearted effort into something that I don't believe in. My time at law school stands testament to that. Anyone with half a brain can tell that I'm no fan of the law, and that I'm in law school because it's just something I'm doing in life. At the same time, I've kept at this enterprise fairly consistently (yes, I can actually claim consistency from second year onwards without any trace of bullshit), because I knew I was in here for sure. I guess I never really thought about it in this way, but I don't think I ever thought not doing law school, or not getting through it in five years, was an option. Much as I have hated the place for various reasons and at various times, I've no grudges against it. I'm okay. I knew I was here for five years, and (and this is important) once I've reconciled myself to something (anything - a reality, a troubling truth, a state of affairs that I can't change), I'm remarkably committed to it. I don't flinch, and I don't worry my head about the deeper questions. I can dismiss them, and just get the job, or the thing, or whatever, done. But only if I have reconciled myself to it. That's key.

At some point along what will eventually be a five-year long experience in law school, I made my peace with my being here. That's what's gotten me through everything - the thought that one day, it would be over, and there would be something new in my life. Something not this.

I'm not so sure, now, though, if that's how it will actually work out.

I've got myself a job in Bombay with a reputed bank; it pays well and has a fair number of perks attached to it. If I want to go into banking and finance later, it's a great launchpad and excellent for lateral hiring purposes.

I'm just not sure if that's what I want. At all.

And I've just realised that that's perfectly fine. All I need to do right now is give things a fair try. No-one expects any more from me. Transiting from being a student to working changes a person; my priorities will change in time. But right now, I know with certainty that I want to give this job a fair go, wherever I am (Bombay or Delhi) and that I don't need to continue doing it unless I'm certain it's not making me unhappy enough to quit. But I can't decide that I don't want it, or that I won't like it, without giving it a try first. That's for sure. Which city I will eventually end up in may be out of my control, but I know that I will do my best to make my preferences known, and to make this decision with the fullest information possible.

This is my life (not anyone else's), and I have to learn to make my own decisions. My familial situation in particular allows me to make my own decisions, and I am incredibly grateful for that. I have a year on most of my batchmates, which gives me more time to figure things out - and I am glad for that, too. I am glad for this freedom, for the fact that my life is indeed my own, to make or destroy as I choose.

I have to watch out for myself (because no-one else can, or will). It's not just money that I need from this job - it's the time I get to find out what I want from life and from myself. It's the little saving I can manage. And, though I'm sure it's difficult to have, it's the support structure I have around me, in terms of the friends, family and (eventually) colleagues I can rely on. I'm not ready to venture into the world on my own, and I'd rather make things as easy on myself as possible. I'd rather provide myself with the things (and people) who will make my non-work life bearable, or even nice, so that I can focus on making a good thing out of my work life.

So now, some of my questions have been answered, and I have an idea of how I can find answers to the rest. I'm terribly happy and relieved about that. It would be stupid to try to explain just how relieved, and how happy. Just grateful for people who help me make my world make sense, and for my mind not letting me down.

Fingers crossed, as always.

It's Sunny Outside.

2010-01-25T13:07:00.000+05:30

Dearly beloved are you listening?
I can't remember a word that you were saying
Are we demented or am I disturbed?
The space that's in between insane and insecure
Oh therapy, can you please fill the void?
Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed
Nobody's perfect and I stand accused
For lack of a better word, and that's my best excuse

- Green Day, Part IV, Jesus of Suburbia

I can't believe how much I love blogging. It's particularly fascinating to read other blogs and notice how reserved/open their authors are while writing. Considering that this blog has all my posts from way back when (all imported from Livejournal), I'm pretty sure there are posts in the archives that would make me cringe. But I'd rather be honest about the person I am and was than trim the unsightly things from my old online persona.

Anyhow.

I have to go sit in on CPC vivas in an hour. *cries* I'd much rather have been able to go home. Mehblahugh.

Tomorrow's chhabbees janvari. Doesn't feel like it. It's always been in the middle of long hols. The holidays should have been here by now. So much work there is, I don't know how I'll deal with this week (or the next). Fuck hone wala hai. Response paper likhne hai. Seminar paper start karne hai. CPC project correct karne hai. And some hazaar other things. Exam types.

Uske baad, there's do-I-don't-I-intern to deal with. Dilli jaana hai. I owe certain someones treats also; they'll kill me or something if I ditch them this time. Haw.

Employed!!

2010-01-23T01:15:00.000+05:30

Drunk.
Jobbed.
And broke one of my favourite shot glasses!! :( :(
Crap!
But I have a freaking job.
:-O

And there is so much good will in me right now for RCC people and my batchmates too. LOTS of love.

I'm so glad. Yay.

Chilling.

2010-01-17T19:19:00.000+05:30

Watched Sherlock Holmes today. Quite liked it, but I suspect I was too distracted to appreciate it fully. It had some great moments, though. The cheese popcorn at Inox gave me a little bit of a warm, fuzzy feeling though. Just a little. Yeah. I like that stuff. :-)

Were this a blog about food, I'd give a thumbs-up to Crepe Connection, at the food court in Garuda, for affordable, filling, tasty crepes (both savoury and sweet!) and yummy waffles. Very affordable, too! Me like-y. Will definitely go back there in the future. (Try the Italian Summer. I vouch for it.)

That aside, did a lot of window shopping. I love the jackets in Espirit and practically everything at Forever New (pretty!! *drool*). I desperately want to buy about three of the LBDs by 109F at Shopper's Stop, and have a feeling that the 500-1000 buck jeans from Westside are soon going to find their way into my wardrobe, given the slightest chance. The (upto) 60% off sale at M&S is rubbish for the most part, though there is a teal top that I have my eye on... (there's a teal top in every shop that I have my eye on, sigh - it's my favourite colour!) I need to buy new strappy heels, so Soles actually got some attention from me this time around. But the shocker was the sight of these beautiful black suede boots, costing upwards of six grand (!!!), in the window display at Samsonite. Yes, Samsonite. They apparently sell boots too (eh?).

Picked up one part of Div's BuddayGiftBasket as well. :-)

Eventually ended up chilling at the CCD outside Garuda for an indeterminate period of time. The weather was fucking perfect, there was light everywhere but it wasn't sunny, the sky was this amazing blue, and the breeze was so alive - almost playful, actually. I leaned my head back and just watched the sky reflecting off the glass panes of Garuda, and thought to myself, this is what I want to do every day. I want a small dosage of a moment like this, a moment of peace, in each day of my life. The inevitable sigh inevitably (!) followed. But had a nice unwinding/unravelling/venting session with Shore, getting weighty thoughts off my mind and letting them float on the breeze instead. Life's still complicated, I'm still quite fuggered as far as managing it is concerned, but I'm feeling a little less unable to deal with things. So the end-of-day assessment points to 'things are better'.

And the internet is back. Whee!

sigh

2010-01-12T16:44:00.000+05:30

Annoyed. Bugged. Pissed off. Irritable.
Ill. Hence.
And to top that, a good hair day. wtf, world?
And, that stupid moment of knowing that nothing boy-related is going to happen while I'm in law school. More annoying. Even upsetting, perhaps.
And then there's the idea that job interviews start in a week.
Argh.
Nonononononono I don't want this to happen. Too confused and scared and worried and unsure of my capability to be of any use in the real world. :(
Mama.
The urge to curl up into a little ball and whimper is strong.
But, can't afford to; not 9 any more; don't have a boyfriend who'll let me do that and coax me out of it any more. Can't indulge in that.
So, doing the freaking out here.
Sigh.
I really really hope I figure it out.

More in the Nature of Matlabi Things: My Wishlist

2010-01-05T19:26:00.001+05:30

So, it hit me today that my birthday is coming up in a couple of months. I've never done this before, but this time, I'm putting up an actual wishlist, for a number of very strange and unrelated reasons (such as "it's my last birthday in law school"). I don't know how the mechanics of this thing work (and I strongly suspect that I may end up getting two of the same thing from different people), but I'm (clearly) rather shameless and wouldn't mind one bit if you decide to let me know that you're going to be getting something or the other. And I know birthdays are about more than the gifts, but this here's just a list of things that I'd like if you got me (and a wonderful guide for people who have no idea what to get me). I've even been helpful enough to include a list of things you can safely avoid getting me. :-)
Oh, and since it's a wishlist, I'm including ridiculously expensive things. I just want them. Don't work yourself up over it. :-)

The "Things I'd Like For My Birthday" List:
1. A large, functional jewellery box (or two :P )
Some of my friends already know about this, but I have way too many trinkets and not enough space for them. I tend not to be able to find anything in the little boxes that I currently have, and it's rather frustrating.

2. An Atheist pin, sticker, or anything FSM-related
Now, this is rather personal, because I'm not sure how many people know that I'm an atheist, or that I'm rather enthusiastic about it. I'd really like to demonstrate that enthu in more obvious ways, and since I don't have the slightest idea where to go looking for atheist paraphernalia, I'm putting this out there and hoping that in a couple of months, I'll be the proud owner of a big 'A' badge or something just as cool. Only my closest friends will probably understand just how much this means to me.

3. A bangle stand
Okay, this is rather silly. :P But I'm turning into a girly girl, and while I might not be particularly happy about the effect that's having on my life, this fits right in with the jewellery box - I never wear my bangles or other "wrist ornaments" because they're tucked away so very carefully. A small bangle stand would be terrific, and I know I'd continue to use it for a long time. :)

4. xkcd Merchandise
I love that webcomic. Like, lourve it. Since I already have some xkcd posters (and love them), I've grown greedy and would love an xkcd-themed mug or a t-shirt or anything else that I'd use and adore. My favourite strips? Ask me! ;-)

5. An LICD T-Shirt
Well, okay, I know I'm not getting any of these expensive things, but this is a wishlist, right? So, yeah, I want this t-shirt. Because I Can. ;-D

6. Books by...
Jasper Fforde (the Thursday Next series), George R.R. Martin (book 5 of the A Song of Ice and Fire series - I've read the first four books (but don't own any except for book 4 (hint, hint))), and Arthur C. Clarke (I really want to read the Rama and Odyssey series but can never find 2001: A Space Odyssey anywhere :'( ).

7. These books:
Drood by Dan Simmons, The Wit and Wisdom of the Discworld by Terry Pratchett, and others that I'll add to this list once I remember their names. :P

8. Oh, and..
A pen drive with 1 GB + of good, new music that I haven't heard. I'm tired of listening to the same old stuff. But it's hard to find something that I'd like that's not already in my 45+ GB music collection!

9. Gift coupons to....
Blossoms, Mango, Westside, Forever New and Shopper's Stop. I know gift coupons are considered tacky, but I'd much rather you either took me shopping or gave me the money to buy things myself instead of giving me things I might never use, wear, or (gasp) even like.

10. Funky knee-high socks. Or socks, generally.
I'm slightly manically obsessed with long, knee- or thigh-high socks/leggings in different colours (especially the sparkly ones!!) and will buy them any time I see them, wherever I might be and however broke I might be. Must. Have. Funky. Socks. No baby colours, though. Strictly *funky* or sexy.

More later, when I spot more random useful/nice things that I'd like but am too broke/chindi to spend money on.

Things NOT to Get Me (on pain of death, I swear):
1. Random ornaments - wall, table, floor, I don't care. I have enough! And I'm moving out of college within the year and will not know what the hell to do with them then!
2. Candles. Unless they're pine-scented. Really. Then it's okay. I love pine-scented things.
3. Chocolate. I eat too much of it anyway. Unless it's from Thorntons or one of those exclusive chocolateries. Then, yum, gimme!
4. Alcohol. Specifically, no Smirnoff Green Apple vodka or Baileys. I'd love to try something exotic, though. Take me out and buy me tequila shots and I will love you forevermore.
5. Trinkets and jewellery. Unless you know exactly what my taste in jewellery is. It's a risky business, trust me. You'd be best off taking me jewellery shopping.

More on this list when I remember what my pet peeves are. *grins*

What You May Also Call as a Resolution

2010-01-05T17:59:00.002+05:30

For those of you who've been watching, you might have noticed that in the past few months, I've been paying a lot more attention to my appearance than I am generally known to. You know what I'm talking about - the new clothes, new shoes, overt make-up, actually caring about whether my earrings match my clothes, getting my eyebrows, hair and nails done, and the big black leather bag that has replaced my old Samsonite backpack. I've become more of a girly girl, so to speak. I'd say that this change has a fair bit to do with the diet and weight loss, and I know that it has a lot to do with the fact that I've unreservedly embraced my single status and am determined not to let it get in the way of my life.

Except that the girly girlness is getting in the way of my life.

*sighs*

Much as I would *love* to, I don't have a perfect wardrobe that will always provide me with clothes that I can effortlessly pair up and be dressed in in under a minute. As a result, I end up wasting a ton of time every day picking out clothes, figuring out if those jeans can be worn with that pair of shoes, finding the right earrings, putting on kajal and glossing my lips. I actually care if the outfit I'm wearing "works". And somehow, in all this, I've started to miss the old me, who didn't particularly care and threw on a t-shirt and some jeans every day (except when she wore a kurta to "spice things up" a little), wore the same earrings for months just because they were her favourites, only got her hair cut when her mum yelled at her to, and had never considered getting a pedicure.

I wouldn't really have a problem with the new me, except for the fact that I'm deathly afraid that I'm becoming shallow (or shallower, if I already am - am I? I can't really tell. :-( Help! ), and would really rather get things done than "look fabulous" (though I would love to be able to get things done and look fabulous at the same time). My TA-ship is currently at a rather rocky stage, I'm fucking terrified that I'm well down the road to flunking Aparna's seminar course, and am seriously considering throwing in the towel as far as Nick's project is concerned (because of which I've lost tons of self-respect). To round off my basket of worries, I'm currently fending off a full-fledged panic attack about jobs and the future and things of that nature. And buried somewhere in there is the vague fear that I'm going to die alone, with seven cats (keep in mind that I do not like cats, and am more of a dog person, really) in some creepy house out of a story.

But I digress. All this prancing and preening has distracted me from the fact that I'm in law school to get law school things done - to work, get good grades, and grow the hell up into a capable human being. I need to pull my socks up, put my nose to the grindstone, and do all the shit I've been putting off in my self-induced haze of "look-at-me-I'm-so-awesome"-ness. Enough's enough.

So, in addition to the several other things I've got in my sights for this year, let's toss this in:
I resolve not to let anything get in the way of the truly important things in my life.

Dawn

2010-01-04T06:49:00.002+05:30

I've been up all night, drinking Red Bull and listening to peppy songs to keep myself awake, doing my Ethics project. It's that hour of the morning when the world is just waking up, and the (almost eerie) silence of the night is being broken by birds chirping and animals calling to one another. It's the time before you start to hear the rumble of traffic or the underlying bustle of those living around you. It's the perfect time to go up to the terrace to savour the majestic sight of dawn.

As I climbed up the stairs, I thought to myself, "I don't do this often enough." The small sadness that I felt at this thought lost itself in a powerful rush of wonder and awe as I climbed the last few steps and walked onto the terrace, shivering a little under my sweatshirt and scarf.

The morning was velveteen, green of different murky shades blending with the light mist; my breath fogged in front of my face as I gazed at a serene and tranquil campus. To my left was the dawn, the sky a freshly-washed pale blue scattered with wispy clouds, some of which were still pink from the rising sun. To my right lay the remnants of the night, a vague hint of a reverse-twilight sky, an intangible darkness to the heavens, with the moon shining down on me mistily from its perch. Campus was still. A pair of guards exchanged quiet words by the library walkway as I attempted to capture the look and feel of this morning on my phone camera (failing quite spectacularly to get my lens to render the milky, dewy texture of the landscape in even a vaguely true-to-life manner). Quickly conceding defeat, I stood on the terrace a few moments longer, hands shoved firmly into pockets, enjoying the stillness for just a little while longer, before descending to my room with a strangely beautiful acoustic version of I Gotta Feeling playing in my head.

facepalm

2010-01-03T23:30:00.000+05:30

Just when I think I have myself convinced that I don't really care about debating so much, controversy breaks out at Worlds and I spend an hour reading every single blog post, tweet, and facebook status update that's talking about it. Clearly, I'm not very convincing - even I know I'm bullshitting. Sigh.

Nights Out, Black Dresses, and Nights In

2010-01-03T20:39:00.001+05:30

Tyres screeching, she braked hard. We shuddered to a stop barely a foot away from the car in front of us. The smell of burnt rubber filled the car - something I'd always wondered about but never experienced. We shared a look of omg-WTF, didn't say anything, and took deep breaths. She put the car in first gear and got it moving, looking a little shaken, a little uncertain. I couldn't believe what had just happened. But I took it in my stride, as I am wont to do. We were soon laughing at the corny Hindi music playing on the radio and cracking mindless jokes, calling two-wheelers "Kaushik!" and being our usual silly selves.

[Well played, Div. Well played.]

The meal had been reasonably enjoyable, the cocktails yummy, the dessert delicious and the bill difficult to come to terms with. The music was too loud, but made me want to go clubbing with an urgency that I haven't felt in a while. The conversation was pleasant, and even funny at times, but on the whole that feeling of rightness was missing. Pity. One would think that Spiga on a Saturday night was a recipe for a good night out.

[Here's hoping I get to meet Thomas in a different context before he leaves.]

Two days prior, I'd been wondering about my dress, feeling next-to-naked (but at the same time, strangely, great) and hoping I'd be able to pull it off. I've never been stared at so much, nor been as amused by the attention. The absolute hash that was the party didn't really bother me much, at the end of the day, for reasons that I can't really fathom. Some part of me wasn't really in the mood to drink/dance in the new year, I'm guessing. But sitting by the drained-out pool, comfortably buzzed, I felt oddly calm about my life, and in those moments knew that everything was going to be all right. That's all I've ever needed to know. It was enough.

[Much love to all my friends for sticking by me this year. I'd never have been able to become the person I am today without your support.]

I've never enjoyed reading about nursery rhyme characters more - and oddly enough, I don't find that strange. My newest love in the world of books happens to be Jasper Fforde, and I have Vrinda to thank for introducing me to his wonderful, wonderful books. They are perfectly written, and are, in that brilliant way that very few writers have, just right (like Goldilocks' porridge). Happiness.

[Couldn't have asked for a better back-to-books experience than Fforde and Martin. I have hope now. :-)]

Now, at long last, I'm off to tackle my Ethics project. As always, I am that reservoir of could-be's and other varieties of potential that would make most people click their tongues in exasperation - except that I hide it very well, and there are far more (let us say) extreme specimens of this "wasted potential" out there for anyone to concern themselves with little ol' randomly-haphazardly-achieving-things me. Hooray.

;-)

Clarity

2009-12-24T02:59:00.002+05:30

As I've said on other forums in just minutes past, I love the pace of my life right now. I'm at Div's place, 3rd drink of the night in hand, beautiful music playing, the smell of freshly brewed tea pervading the air around me. We've just come back from a lovely drive on Old Madras Road and the Koramangala ring road, preceded by a slightly-drunk-yet-melllow visit to the Barista at Leela. Where we sang. A lot.

I'm happy. :-)

Fifth year is finally going just the way I always imagined it would.

Flying

2009-12-23T02:13:00.000+05:30

Today, I literally flew. At 95 kmph. My eyes watering from the speed of the air rushing past my face. My fingers frozen from the wind chill. My jaw muscles hurting from the manic grin that was plastered across my face. I fucking flew today.

Much love, and thanks, to D, for picking up on my mood and giving me that experience to remind me that there are more beautiful things in life than law school and its limitations would have me know.

Interesting Things

2009-12-21T23:10:00.000+05:30

Apparently, keeping your fingers crossed works. :-)

So:

They are:

Meteor shower.

The NYP dress fits.

Watched Avatar. In 3D!!

New black shoes are to die for.

Stunning Californication season finale.

My Secret Santa is unexpectedly awesome.

Friends' lives provide much-needed perspective.

Really funny, ironic telephone conversation with the ex.

Pedicure, resulting in flashy, (so-not-me) blood red toenails!

Re-discovery of what I had thought was my forever-lost motivation.

Discovery of pink nail polish - and subsequent application to (!) my fingernails.

Long-awaited completion of pending CPC work. Ensuing relief and draining of tension.

Looking forward to my first out-of-law-school trip with barely concealed hyper-enthusiasm.

This Life

2009-12-13T22:16:00.001+05:30

Let's break it down, shall we?

I currently spend my days trying to complete two large chunks of work which are purely for other people - one is research for a project one of my old seminar teachers has undertaken, and the other is the preparation of the reading material for the course for which I'm a teaching assistant. The days and weeks have passed by, all a blur, nothing really standing out, apart from occasional drunken rants and reflections, two outings to town involving Shore, a bike ride outing with Deshmukh, and the discovery of George R.R. Martin's beautiful, captivating works.

I have made bowl after bowl of soup for myself, each more laden with vegetables than the next, with chunks of bread and bits of chicken breaking the monotony every now and then. Many eggs have I boiled; many yolks thrown away, many whites salted, spiced and consumed. Vitamin and calcium supplements have found their way down my gullet on a regular basis, with buttery, sugary things consumed once a weak as a guilty pleasure. New clothes have been bought, enthused over, shown off, and grown used to and tired of. Compliments have come frequently and as a pleasant surprise. I have talked about my weight and my diet till I (and everyone around me) grew sick of it.

And now I have realised I have nothing much else to talk about.

My life is utterly boring. I could fall asleep this instant, wake up a week from now, and not have missed a thing.

I could scream from the utter monotony of the existence. Even my interactions with those around me seem to have started blending into each other. Every night, I go to Cheta at around 11.30, and hang out there for an hour, before coming back and wasting time online instead of working. Every morning, I wake up, time my tea-making, cereal and milk-pouring, and grooming perfectly so as to make it to class on time, and sit through between two and six hours of class, mostly in a daze, making lists of things to do or reading Martin's books. Occasionally, I read for class and participate in it, something I consistently avoided doing in the first four years of my law school life. On those days, time seems to fly a little, skipping along on buoyant feet, where on other days, it drags itself along, as listless as I am. On days when I have my teaching seminar, I sit on display before a class of uninterested juniors (whose lives, I know, are infinitely more engaging and interesting than my own), cautioning them about talking too loudly, subtly waking up those who've fallen asleep, and making frantic eye signals to those whose phones might be visible from the teacher's lectern. Occasionally, I teach them, palms sweaty, stuttering and stumbling over my words in an effort to convince them that I can actually educate them in the one course I happened to somehow manage to get an O in. Save for one day, class is over by lunch, and I proceed back to my room to make a sandwich of some sorts, always with the same seasoning and the same condiments. I start my laptop up, fuck around online for a bit, and have GTalk conversations with the same friends I'm likely to run into at Cheta that night. I stalk people on Facebook and read nerdy comics and articles online. I try to start work, only to be distracted by music or something on the great big expanse on the internet. If I remember to, I go to the gym, break a good sweat, feel alive for a minuscule portion of my day, only to come back and scrub it all away, and get back to making myself that ridiculously wholesome bowl of soup. If I don't, I sit around in my room, fidgeting, perched in front of my laptop, having banal conversations with other lawschoolites, all of us pretending that we give a shit. I play around with my clothes, my hair, my shoes, trying to find another favourite outfit to wear. I make some more lists. I watch the digits on the clock on my laptop slowly change, watching as more and more of my life pours down this yawning black hole that seems to be banality itself. I clean my room, wash my dishes, and think about needing to put my posters up. I give juniors and batchmates their fixes of Grey's, Gossip Girl, Glee, Housewives, Mother and House. I walk across the corridor to V's room to check my weight, never really expecting it to have changed. I go for walks alone, or with company, always trying to find something to fill the hole inside me, always coming back feeling emptier than before. I curse myself for not finishing my work yet. I talk to my mother, hearing about changes at home while having nothing new to tell her about. I relive old moments of happiness, past outings, and the best days of my life, remembering all the while how very fucked up my life was through most of them, and wondering why, then, I never felt this way at those times. I wish and hope and cross my fingers for something interesting to happen to me, and sometimes it works. Sometimes things stay so very much the same that I force myself to go to sleep, telling myself that tomorrow will be better, that there will be something more than this limbo, this grey cloud of nothingness, this faded existence.

What I would give to be in conflict with someone or something; to have challenges and impossible deadlines to address; to undertake a risky enterprise; to create something new.

I miss De Minimis, sometimes wishing that I hadn't quit. I miss committees, sometimes, because they had responsibilities attached that made me stronger and more capable. I miss having seniors, sometimes wanting them back here to give me grounding and a sense of my place in both law school and the outside universe. I miss intensity of feeling, sometimes wanting sharp pain and surprise and deep emotion to crash through me as they oftentimes did. I miss the exhilaration of performance, the pressure of a rock-hard deadline, the tired pride that comes with a job well done.

Someone else live this life for me. I want out.

-------

EDIT: Just found this, and am mildly taken aback at how it resonates with me in these moments.

Shine On

2009-12-10T01:17:00.000+05:30

"Safety pins
Holding up the things
That make you mine
About your hair -
You needn't care,
You look beautiful all the time."

[Saw the look on someone's face as they said a Gate Two goodnight tonight. The lyrics fit.]

Perspectives.

2009-12-09T01:29:00.001+05:30

I'm avoiding work with surprising ingenuity. Or concentration. Call it what you will. I'd very much like to abandon it all and let it go fuck itself, but it's unfortunately of the variety that needs must be done, more's the pity.

I'm missing connections, joy, laughter, interest and excitement in my life. I feel hollow on the inside, like a plastic doll with the features painted on, nothing of substance within to offer the world. Now, I know that this is not true, but I can't help the feeling that something is just not right with my world. I love my friends, am glad for the improvements and forward strides I've taken on the personal front (yay weight loss!), and have made my peace with my plans for the future. These are all good things. Regardless, I find motivation hard to come by, joy a scarce commodity, and this great big sense of loneliness difficult to dispel.

Maybe I'm just tired of holding myself up on my own.

It's not that I can't do it - or that I won't, if it's just me on my own. It's simply this: I haven't made my peace with this lasting, constant demand that life makes of me to manage on my own. I mean this at a very personal level. Some experience are remarkably one-dimensional when you lack someone to share them with. And there's only so much you can share with friends (and that idea comports deeply with my constant fear of imposing myself on people), making it all the more difficult to carry on on your oddy knocky, knowing that you're missing out on a richer experience of life. That's a small but bitter pill to swallow.

Cutting it all down to the basics, I just want to meet new people - new, interesting people who fire my synapses differently from the folks I know right now. New people who'll expose me to new things, new ways of thinking, new music, new books and new perspectives. I want to be intrigued and challenged and ripped out of my comfort zone by some (preferably ridiculously hot, male) person who I've never met before.

Law school is tiring. I'm always in the market for a good shake-up. ;-)

Nu.

2009-12-07T00:33:00.004+05:30

Enjoying Wolfmother immensely these days. Can't believe I didn't give it a listen before. But then again, I suppose every song and every album has its own time, before which there's no sense in listening to it. I like to think that I stumble across music at just the right time. The right time, for me.

Wolfmother became my pet obsession a week or two before SF. All I could think about, every day, was that I'd die to hear someone playing a Wolfmother track at SF. It was all I could talk about, and a lot of people were essentially forced by me to give the band a listen. Feedback was generally good, though, so I'm not unhappy that I spread a little chord-wrapped love. Sadly, I didn't spend the SF weekend on the field as I am wont to; work and other shenanigans kept me away (blast them all to hell). So I haven't a clue, really, if there was anyone who put music that sounded as good live as I'm convinced Wolfmother would out there for the meagre crowd at pre-finals SF to hear and be mesmerised by. Perhaps it was better that I wasn't there - I'd like to remember SF for the magic it was for me - for all the noise and the heat and the cold and the lust and the freedom and the sheer life coursing through my veins. SF memories have always been intense ones - intense love, intense pleasure, intense pain, intense anger, intense highs and lows all.

All in all, it was an excellent last SF to have. The aftermath is tinged with the haziness that only alcohol can bring, making the memory sweeter, somehow.

Ach.

This isn't really what I want to write about. This is what I want to address right now:

I just can't find the words to. Gah.

Music is so much easier to deal with. And yeah, I meant everything I said. Just not as intensely as I meant that tweet.

Clearly, happiness can't be rationalised. Otherwise, some people wouldn't be happy, even on the outside.

Fuck this bitterness. Fuck it all. I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow, as I keep telling myself, has got to be better than this.

Finally.

2009-12-01T01:04:00.000+05:30

So, at long last, this blog is up and running. :) Welcome!

I've migrated from Livejournal to here, so all my old entries are all here. But the new stuff should start rolling out soon. :)

Glad it's finally done. Was tired of cowardly anonymous commenters, so I switched over to a more controlled medium.

Here's hoping good things come soon.

Playing: Wolfmother - Tales.

Today.

2009-11-04T17:40:00.001+05:30

My family is going on holiday together this weekend after over six years.

We're going to Pondicherry.

I'm skipping a day of class on Monday (assuming I have classes that day) because of it. I don't care about that. This is too big a thing for me to care about silly stuff like that.

I'm starting next trimester with new goals (health, happiness, and achievement), a new outlook (life is scary but beautiful), and a new agenda.

I feel good today. Beautiful, too. (And they are different things.) Let's not mistake that for upbeat, or positive, or happy, even. Just good.

I feel like dressing up and going out tonight - turning heads, causing distraction, and earning glares from women who just cannot be everything I am. I feel like setting the dance floor on fire.

Familial responsibilities dictate otherwise, though, so I'm going to spend the evening at home instead, making polite conversation with the guest we're having to dinner.

But I still feel sexy, and powerful, and awesome. I feel like I can take on the world.

Fuck, it feels good. Today really feels good.

Not the girl you think you are

2009-10-30T00:27:00.001+05:30

My mind is on fire.
I want to run, laugh, scream, live
But not love.
I want to be me
Just
Me.

Visions make me gasp.
And they must bloom, burn, soar, speed
But not stay.
And they must be free
Just
Free.

Sleep's as far off as morn.
I waste not, want not;
Merely seeking
Inspiration,
I walk
Laugh
Cross my fingers
(for I will not pray).

On Pain and Automation.

2009-10-29T23:43:00.000+05:30

Someone reacted to my last post with a concern that the bits talking about liking pain were a bit disturbing. Or at least worrying. Part of my response to that was: "And didn't you know about the pain thing? I don't mean actual bad pain - I mean good pain. The sort of hurting that feels good because you're glad you feel *something* and it reminds you that you're capable of feeling real honest emotion, and not some fucked up pseudo-cynical law-school give-a-shit response."

I think that's the beginning of something I often think about. Two things: We embrace pain on a number of occasions, out of necessity, the acceptance that the prize is worth it, and, yes, sometimes, mania. And, law school turns us into fucking automatons. (Hat tip to Surd for first noting and protesting against that, way back when.)

So, the first. Pain can be good. My best reason is that it reminds you that you're still alive. Happiness doesn't do the job nearly as well. The happiness high fades after a while, leaving you grasping at the last wisps of it in an exercise of futility. Take an example that women can relate to: waxing. The stinging (or burning, or many other varieties of pain) that cuts through layers of tissue when the woman at the parlour rips the strip off your body cannot not give you the certainty that you're alive, no matter what the other feelings and thoughts it gives you (my usual: argh why why why am I doing this, I hope all men die for this the bastards they're not even worth this, ah I wish I was dead help it huuuuuurts oooh wait cool ice oh lovely lovely ice I love you I want to marry you and have your babies ice ice baby hm *giggle*). You cannot but be aware that you're alive, that you hurt, and that you want to be doing other things in that moment, other things that hurt less and make you happier. Pain spurs you on. Why else would "no pain, no gain" make any sort of sense? (Hello gym, here I come. Ma won't let me hear the end of it if I don't.)

People also turn to pain for other reasons. One way of dealing with grief is to embrace the pain it's causing you. Closure tends to follow acceptance - eventually. And sometimes the pain is fucking worth whatever you're getting out of it. This is the root of compromise.

Now, the second. Having reached that part of my law school life when I can rarely feel true happiness for another's success (and don't really remember what it's like to feel truly happy at all) and when caring enough about people outside of my immediate circle of friends to do something for them is far beyond my capacity, I find myself both a little less and a little more human, but in widely differing ways. I believe now that Law School doesn''t, in fact, inspire you to do anything "different" - it just sets out paths to 'done things' and common achievements that you can add to that wonderful thing, your CV. You really aren't doing anything wonderful - you merely follow in the footsteps of others who did the exact same thing (and this can be traced all the way back to the first time the thing was done, which was the only time it was anything new, different or beautiful). You're taught to react to things in a particular way, told that, say, mooting is a good thing to do, a difficult thing, a great thing because look at all these Law School studs who're doing it! (and so on and so forth with debating, client counseling, MUN-ing, whatever. Oh, and committees. Let's not forget the mindless morass of the goddamned committees).

So not only are we in this insanely competitive, punishing, repetitive and sapping matrix of madness - we're also conditioned to react in a particular way to certain things. Such and such is slime, so and so is shady, this and that is awesome, or stunning, or just plain cool. I'm positive that I lost a lot of my individuality directly after first year. That's as long as it takes. We all become seasoned Law School veterans after that - and are misguided and beguiled enough to think that that is a good thing!

This is not a post railing and raving against Law School - the kind that ends with a resounding "I fucking hate this place!". No, it really isn't. Truth be told, I don't hate the place. In fact, I'm indifferent; would rather not have an opinion about it; couldn't be bothered to exert my brain that much. It's not an important question. It's irrelevant. I've used it. It's used me. I'm what it wants me to be. I'm giving the standard cynical responses. Automated responses. And that is the real tragedy.

Which is why I embrace pain the way I do, when I feel it. That, or any other real, honest emotion. I embrace genius. I embrace the life coursing through my veins. For I don't feel it very often, and I treasure the times when I'm aroused from the waking illusion that is law school. Because the one thing that I am unequivocally sure about is this: I love my life. I love being alive. I love the experience of life. I love living. And I'll do everything I can to keep feeling these things.

Contemplating vodka, smells, and songs.

2009-10-29T22:28:00.000+05:30

So there's this band, Low Level Flight, and they've sung a song that's running through my head in bursts right now. It's beautiful. I don't know what the words really mean - I don't know (or care) what they're really singing about. But... you know how it feels when a song just jumps out at you, the words blurring and sharpening in a flash against a wall, painted there in sharp relief, stunning you to silence? I'm there. Right there, right now.

So these words... "Would you change for me, as I close my eyes? All alone I see... why did you change sides?" They mean nothing in the ordinary sense (heck, they make no sense if you just read them out aloud). But there's a tone, the tone, in which they're sung - and the way the guitar hurts you as it bursts out in the last part of the song - that just gets under my skin in the most wonderful way. I like the pain it gives me. I forgot that I like pain, sometimes.

I realized a couple of days ago (it might have been a week, I don't recall) that something I honestly never thought possible has finally happened. It's a simple thing, maybe (or maybe it's complicated - I don't know. It seems like a simple enough thing, if I were to say it out loud, but I know it's huge, it's got to be fucking ginormous, or else, and all that), and it struck me in the most ordinary of ways. Not as a big realization would, you know. Just in the most unassuming way.

Enough with the preamble. I realized after weeks of thinking about it, and then weeks of not thinking about it at all, that I don't love him any more. Not one bit. I don't even retain that fondness that caused me to write soppy posts such as this one (and it was soppy).

I'm free. Hahaha.

And I was blissfully unaware of it for the longest time. That, I think, is the best part.

Oh, more words jumping out at me:
"I caught you in mid-lick
With nowhere to hide
So why're you denying
What I saw with my own eyes?"

Stunning.

Now, I get it. What the words mean, that is. The song is...beautiful. "change for me" - what beautiful, fitting words! Cynical, cutting, biting into me. Makes me feel alive.

And that's even better than being free.

I'm alive.

I don't need anybody to do that.

I'm fucking alive. Take that.

Ramble.

2009-10-05T23:23:00.000+05:30

So much to say, so much to say.

After the rather disastrous effect of my last post, which shall go down in my personal blog history as an epic fail moment, I've been a bit wary of blogging here. As a result, my awesome anonymous blog has three drafts currently awaiting completion (one is an awesome, embellished tale of one my more daring exploits - I originally intended to write about it here as a semi-fictionalised account, but realised that the truth/versions of the truth, more honestly and earthily(?) told, would fit way better in with my anon blog), and this poor thing was lying unattended and ignored. Meh.

So anyhow. Week's stories:

Had a good long weekend at home; returned to insane amounts of work to be done; procrastinated and avoided work; missed deadlines; made excuses; had deadlines postponed; freaked out repeatedly and most enthusiastically about my job interview; ran around like a headless chicken looking for clothes suitable for said interview; practised and prepared for said interview; gave said interview; was a criminal waste of time, space and atoms thereafter over the weekend; learnt how to play teen patti; most enthusiastically wrecked my sleep cycle; started sleeping in the evenings; tried to pull all-nighters; gambled most successfully on probabilities, hence giving a good PIL viva; began to feel the effects of sleep deprivation kicking in; found out that I didn't get the job; tried, unsuccessfully, to get past not getting the job; gorged on chocolate to get rid of the feeling of absolute uselessness thereafter; went to more meetings about jobs; felt happy for a friend who's finally seeing someone after a long, unhappy empty period; consoled myself with other people's crappier lives from FMyLife; made myself cold coffee; wrote awesome nearly-finished story for anon blog; considered dropping out of law school to become a full-time writer; realised that I don't have class on Wednesday, which means that that's the day I find salvation, see the light at the end of the tunnel, etc. (i.e. get to sleep); stalked people across FB, blogs and Twitter; decided to post here.

Some random thoughts about EMD practice and more pending work have also fluttered through my head. Fuck 'em.

Boys

2009-09-18T23:52:00.000+05:30

First off, am quite buzzed. Excuse all that comes after this.
So there are these boys. I like them a lot. I want to dance with them and do other things, too. I just don't have the guts to - it's actually very sad. I spend the evening dancing alone and then they went off with other women.
F my life. Someone help me.

Urges

2009-08-29T00:31:00.000+05:30

I've been missing Delhi intensely lately. The need to go back to the city has been growing stronger of late. I miss walks in CP, late-night drives around India Gate with Raman, pani puri, Khan Market excesses, visits to Sarojini, momos in the colony markets in winter, dealing with stupid lecherous men, remembering how to speak unbroken Hindi, paying less for transport, navigating the Metro like a pro, exploring monuments and ruins with Archana, meeting lawschoolites, avoiding lawschoolites, and actually meeting all my otherwise-only-online Delhi friends. Sigh. (And yes, I admitted to missing stupid lecherous Delhi men. Sometimes, you need these things to remind you of who you are.) Oh, and if I were in Delhi, I could sneer at everyone living in Gurgaon again. The bliss.

Been rediscovering good music and books again, after a long time. I'd gotten so wrapped up in floating along in law school that these things had faded, lost meaning, and gathered dust in a corner. I'll admit this grudgingly, but - maybe these hols have been good for me, after all. I've no doubts that I'm going to go stir-crazy the moment I get back to campus, as responsibilities rush back to fill the unexpected void created by the forced shutting down of college, but I think I'll be just a little saner than I was when I left.

Oh, all right. I'll be a lot saner. I was a wreck the last day I was on campus.

Led Zepp is just beautiful. I'm at a loss for words to describe just how much I'm enjoying the music right now. I love guitars. *grins* I'm so glad they exist.

But then again, having gone back to my music, I'm reminded that I need to buy a new set of headphones. Good ones. That will, however, cost money. *shudders* It will be worth it, I know, but I wish I didn't have to work so hard and so much to get nowhere - to have to spend my hard-earned money on these things. :-( I want to go to Turkey! And that will cost a lot more than I've managed to put together so far! It's a fucking tragedy, it is. *shakes head*

Sometimes, I feel like a firang, not knowing enough of any language other than English to get much done. Yeah, I can speak Hindi - enough to get along, and understand about 80-85% of the things people around me are saying, but not enough to join in and carry a lively (and this is important) conversation forward. I hate being the (silent) spectator. I also find it it frustrating when I can grasp what people mean when speaking in a language I don't know the first thing about, but have no way of communicating with them. I suppose that what I'm getting at is that I really really want to learn more languages. My best experience was with Gujarati when I was in Bombay - I was staying with family on the Parsi side, and when I got there, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. By the time I left, I was muttering "su karech" and "kemcho" under my breath without realising it, and could follow a conversation with only minor difficulty. It was heartening.

On to other urges: I want to go somewhere where it's easy to fall into a trance, lose a little bit of your identity, and just be a girl someone wants to spend the evening with. Companionship calls to me. There's... there's nothing wrong with wanting someone to take a walk with in the evenings, is there? I'm still my own person. I've...made sure of that.

And... sigh. I want the cold back. Lovely cold coldness. Wrapping up, layer after layer. Snuggling up under blankets, enjoying cocoons of warmth. The best bit about that is that good company suddenly becomes a lot better in the winter - a lot cosier. :-) I'm a lot more inclined to share stimulating conversation over a cup of hot chocolate. Oooh, spiced hot chocolate at Chokola. Mmmm.

So. Delhi. Reminds me of all these things. Music (memory: Cafe Morrison, dancing and taking silly pictures), Hindi (memory: beating autowallahs down to less-than-meter rates - and actually getting them to take me by meter. It worked over half the time.), Companionship (memory: ruminating about life and love while lounging against the car, parked on Rajpath, facing India Gate, on my last night in Delhi),and the Cold (memory: manoeuvering to make sure I was sent to court the next day so that I could wear layers of warm woollens and still look good, sneaking out of office to grab hot momos with ingredients of questionable origin even as bird flu spread).

Good memories.

The urge has grown stronger. Sigh. I must go to Delhi. Soon.

Quick-Shot Music Round-Up

2009-08-27T00:55:00.000+05:30

Music that has caught my ear recently. Inspired by the awesomeness of the first song, I decided to make this quick list. :)

- Current New "Old" Favourite: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Free Bird. This is one awesome piece of work. The guitar work on this track is phenomenal. It makes me want to be at SF, up in the law school enclosure, going wild, out-of-my-mind happy crazy fulfilled listening to three days of live rock, funk and metal. That's when I feel like I have a place in the world. And I can't get over how fucking brilliant this song is. I first heard it during one of the most poignant scenes of the TV show Californication (irreverent, lots of nude scenes, powerful yet awesome in a you-just-gotta-hand-it-to-these-motherfuckers kinda way; watch it) and it fit like a glove there. I was hooked. Can't seem to get myself unhooked. Don't care.

- Current New "New Discovery" Favourite: White Lies, E.S.T. This one's classic Brit rock. I love the haunting background beat, which dominates the first thirty seconds of the song and really sets the tone for the rest of it. The track has a lovely haunting quality to it, and I doubt any American band would have managed to sing it in a manner that resonates with me so. First heard during a bittersweet moment on the TV show Gossip Girl (which has quite the excellent soundtrack).

- Current New "Bling/WTF Was I Thinking" Favourite: The Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling. It's mindlessly repetitive, has banal lyrics, and adds nothing to the quality of my life, but I can't help but have this song play over and over in my head. It has David Guetta written all over it (and he even features in the video, it seems!), but is still chirpy enough to make the cut. I blame Star Movies for using this in their promos - it crept into my brain without realising it! Must admit though, Fergie's got a damn fine ass. (Watch the video!)

- Current New "New-age Rock Anthem" Favourite: Green Day, 21 Guns. First heard on OST Transformers 2. Better than the Linkin Park song that the movie seemed to have to have. Strangely, brings to mind young love, naivete and hope. I like how the song grows on you - it's very 'polite' while building up. I like that.

- Current "I Want To Do This A Cappella But My Group Will Kill Me If I Suggest It" Favourite: Green Day, Before the Lobotomy. It's beautiful, harsh, and swings wildly from note to note without any concern for propriety. It's a saga, and one of the tracks on 21st Century Breakdown that really affirms the rock operatic nature of the album. True-blue Green Day.

- Current "omfg Sheer Brilliance" Favourite: Green Day, Peacemaker. Irreverent, cheeky, careless, and sinister. It sets a frenzied pace, breaks once in the middle, and is very smoothly executed. My favourite part, however, comes right at the end, when Billy Joe draws out the word "serenade", softening the first half and then executing the last syllable in an almost-snarl. Perfect. Genius.

More, later.

On Death

2009-08-18T12:23:00.001+05:30

My grandfather died of Alzheimer’s when I was in the tenth. I don’t remember much of the time, partly because I don’t have the best memory of personal events, and partly because I think I actively strove to forget, in the days that followed. But these things I do remember.

The slow deterioration of his quality of life. How he would get disoriented. How he always wanted my dad, his son, in the room with him. How his stubbornness remained through the various stages of his illness, making things even more difficult to deal with than usual. How, one evening, my parents had to go out somewhere and left me to take care of him along with the nurse, and how he would not stop calling for my father. I remember, oh-so-painfully-clearly, how I scolded him and yelled at him as my father had told me that I must in order to make him understand that he wasn’t at home and that he would be back in some time. I also remember going back to watching TV after that. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven myself for that little episode. Even if I didn’t do something terrible. It was bad enough.

I loved my grandfather. He was strict, but kind, and loving, and he was the one who started giving me pocket money while I was in school. It started off with Rs. 2 a day – this was a reward for packing my bag the previous night. :) I remember petitioning to my mother and grandfather to increase it to Rs. 5 a day when I started listening to more music and wanted to buy tapes. I was SO kicked when they agreed and my pocket money jumped from Rs. 60 to Rs. 150 a month. I’d find a crisp five-rupee note tucked into the cover of the book topmost on my pile of school books each morning after that. I also remember the day I asked that the money be given to me in weekly rather than daily instalments. He was a little upset, because then my mother took over the allowance-giving, and his role in it gradually faded.

Now, earlier memories come back to me. Him driving me to school in our Maruti Van as a little girl. (A really little girl). He did it for the longest time, while he still could. My parents were working themselves to death at the time, my dad working at four different hospitals and my mum working insane hours at her hospital. My grandfather would pick me up after exams and take me to Arun ice-creams for a Krunch Kone. I remember how the price rose from Rs. 15 to Rs. 18 to Rs. 20 to (gasp) Rs. 22, and how he would tell me, you’re going to make me run out of money, you always want the expensive ice-cream, and how I would grin mischievously and kiss him on the cheek (he was a very tall man, though that may only be because he appeared so to my childish eyes) with ice-cream sticky lips. He never protested.

He watched over me while I went through many years of restless sleep, placing a chair right next to my bed so that I wouldn’t roll off at night. We’d both read a book before going to sleep. He would listen to the BBC radio every evening (I remember hearing of Princess Di’s death on it) and would have a small drink every night with dinner, which would be a table-mats, place-settings and coasters kind of affair (it’s stunning how these things changed after he died). He was an anglophile, and taught me how to eat a mango “like the Queen does” – with a spoon.

He wasn’t the fun kind of grandfather, but I really really loved him.

When I go, I want to go quickly, and quietly, not fade away slowly. But I want to die old. I don’t want to be dismissed as the confused, elderly grandmother who won’t stop talking about things she did when she was young (which no one in the family believes), mixing up stories from different times, having to be tolerated instead of anything else. I want to retain my faculties, watch a couple of grandchildren be born and grow up a little, and then go, quietly, when I have to. No fuss. No long, drawn-out, painful illness. Somewhere, I think I’d choose euthanasia over that. I’d like to die with the people I love, and who love me, around me, if possible. No tears. No sorrow. Just happiness that I’ve lived a full life.

Letting Go; Moving On; Living

2009-07-22T18:59:00.000+05:30

Taking old conversations, old memories, old happinesses, and pressing them close to me, I try to imbibe the essence of what was - that which died a slow death, and which, at the end of this long, long time, I cannot see even a spark of. I see two different people, and I hold on to the one that I loved. Tight.
The memories - I make them into a mosaic, weaving them tightly together, to form a screen that I can lean on, and rest on, when I am unhappy and exhausted.
The old writings, and confessions and declarations of love - I put them away in a trunk under my bed, which overflows with little scraps of paper - and this are affectionately read every time I clean my room and dust off the trunk. They make me laugh, loud and long. They were always that good. *smiles*
Bon Jovi's Always comes to mind. Not the sentiment of the song, but, as is more common, certain lyrics that jump out in one's mind:
All the pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some they made us laugh
Some they made us cry
*irrelevant-to-current-emotion rhyming lyric here*
I'm trying desperately hard to be fair to what was. And to forget the long, drawn-out unpleasantness. Really forget it, and the details. I'd rather have a dark haze over my memories of two years than recall unhappy details. I'd rather just accept that I did have some dark years.
And now... where am I now? That's a question I'm having difficulty answering. It's been so long since I was alone and lonely that I don't remember what I'm supposed to do. That's curiously ironic; humorous but not funny.
Strange... I can't bear to think about what was, except in the very best terms, any more. Too...numb...to go beyond that.
-----------------------------------
Dear Time,
Please heal me.
Love,
Asma.

Hear ye, hear ye.

2009-03-30T11:17:00.000+05:30

I now have an anonymous blog on Blogger. This doesn't mean that I'm abandoning LJ, though it may appear so for a while until I get used to maintaining two blogs. I'll still blog here about the things that I can blog about here. The anon blog (and that's how I intend for it to remain - anonymous) is for all the things I have to censor out of my LJ posts. Hee hee. It shall be fun. :)

Completus.

2008-12-13T00:38:00.000+05:30

Fingers slightly numb, warming up in the cosiness of my room. The outside is cold, it made me shiver, and made my voice quiver and break into little hesitant stutters as I tried to explain to four guys why I'd decided the debate the way I had.
My heart wasn't in it today, either. But I went and did it nonetheless. Because I need to know how far I need to go, myself. Because I'm pushing myself that little bit more because I joined this particular race at a later stage. I feel like I have to play catch-up. But mostly because I need to find the confidence in myself and my abilities to take me through the tournament with good performances. I'm looking forward to it, yeah. But there's a lot more tied to it. I want to do well. I want to break at the Worlds. That would be frickin' awesome. And I wouldn't feel like doing this weighs me down, any more. I'd be vindicated.
Now that I've opened my mouth and put every one of those quivering, flighty feelings down in writing, I'm a little mindfucked. See, now I'm worried I've jinxed it.
I've decided to adopt a 'never erase' policy - once I've typed out something, be it online or on my phone, I don' t erase it, and send/post it as it is. Let the world deal with the repurcussions.
In any case. The debate. Was rather dreary. Maybe I'm just exhausted; and what with getting only three hours of sleep last night, it's no surprise. I've been pushing myself in strange ways, lately. Pushing myself to the edge in different ways, to see if I'd teeter and fall, or totter and regain my balance. Wondering if I'll ever gather the courage to just jump off the edge. I've contemplated it often in the last ten days, but what it implies scares the living crap out of me. It means complete loss of control. Doing something without caring for the results, or the consequences, or even the talk that tomorrow would be sure to bring. I can't ever bring myself to do that. So I day-dream about doing it instead, each action a deliberately planned spontaneous loss of composure and dignity. I've had to curb urges that threatened to take over my soul, every day. Every damn day. Damn, I'm spontaneous, yeah, but every bit in control of the situation nonetheless - I know that if I'm not in control of it myself, someone I trust is, and will take care of me. But yeah, I can't let myself go. Too much pride - and potential self-loathing - at stake for that.
Even when i don't give a fuck, I still give a fuck. How strange.
This post is going to make no sense when I next read it, I can just imagine it.
Goodnight, cruel world. (Heh.)

Interruptus.

2008-12-12T22:25:00.000+05:30

Feeling nothing about feeling nothing - what is to be done with such a situation?
The tempting answer: nothing.
But, no.
I shall attempt (attempt, mind you) to write about it.

...or not.
Got a debate to judge. Later.

Being wordy.

2008-12-10T01:05:00.000+05:30

What kind of work befits the application of the phrase "finishing touches" to it? I mean, when would you say that you're putting the finishing touches to something - does it have to be a work of art, a masterpiece, or just something you're doing?
I think it all boils down to phraseology. You don't give any old thing 'touches' - some delicacy needs to be involved for that word to be appropriate. And, dear me, if no delicacy is involved, I don't very well see reason for 'finishing touches' to be applied, either. If you're going to randomly throw something together, you don't get to put finishing touches to it. Period. Create something with grace and beauty and intricacy, and you're perfectly entitled to do so - it's you're rightful place to be the artist, to look upon your work with a critical eye, and to change a little something here, and erase impudent errors there, and to bring that work ever closer to your idea of perfection, ever closer to completion.
And then there is the thought that that something needs to be somewhat complex. Unless you can convince me that the thing you are creating is so complex that it is simple, or can come up with some other such strange explanation, I'm not budging. Work hard to get to put finishing touches to your creations. Make them worth it.

Letter 3, or, "For when I need anger"

2008-12-08T17:27:00.000+05:30

Morning.

Woke up feeling like crap today. Not the usual kind of crap, a different kind. Something new to it. Dunno what, couldn’t taste the flavour. I think I dreamt of you last night, dreamt that you messaged me. My dreams were strange. Of the disturbing variety.

Did I just become boring to you? That’s my new fear, my new justification for why this happened. I’m still brooding over it. I know that I couldn’t have let this go on, even when I play out events in all prisms and from all facets, in my head. I was deleting your messages yesterday and saw all the ones you sent in May and June when we were crap. And I remember that the end of last trimester wasn’t much better. Maybe I overreacted. But I think that even if I had been reacting correctly, what you did would have still been as wrong and awful. If you can do that to someone for six or seven months (I don’t know how long it was, really – “May” doesn’t help much. And while we’re on that, I often wonder if you celebrated a six-month anniversary, looking into each other’s eyes and promising to be there forever and ever. Gah. It kills me.), then I don’t know how you can be trusted at all. If you can do that to someone with no qualms and no feelings of regret, that scares the fuck out of me, what kind of person are you that you could do that?

When I think back and realise that you and I were only getting good over the past two months, I still feel that I deserved better than this – I at least deserved to know these things once things between us had started working out. And really, when I made up with Akanksha, and I told you about it, and we had that talk – that’s when I really deserved to have the truth out from you about the two of you. I deserved to know every detail. Because the only way we could have forged a way forward was on the basis of bare truth and trust and hope; you didn’t give that a chance. Because you were too scared. Fuck that. It was because you couldn’t find in yourself the willpower and the motivation to do the right thing and move out of your comfort zone to take the flak.

And then you have the audacity to be pissed with me for checking your email. What the fuck? Let’s just put it this way: 1. I had no choice, because I had been told that you’d been lying to me and hiding the truth of things, whatever that might be, from me for a long time. If I asked you about it, and you’d been hiding things from me, there was no guarantee that I’d get the truth from you. This is not about whether I had faith in you to tell me the truth, or not. It is about the fact that if you had indeed been lying to me so far, there was nothing I could count on to know that you would tell me the truth if I asked you. There would have been no logic to that expectation, only emotion. So I did the only thing I could. E-mail doesn’t lie to you. It shows you what is, exactly as it is. As horribly painful as it was, at least I found out the truth. 2. I believed, at the time, that if you had given me your password, you had little reason to worry about what I saw in your inbox. Because we both know you’ve been in my inbox often at times, and I’ve never had anything to hide or anything to say about your being there, I was totally cool with it when you did it. I expected the same from you, somewhere. The reason you’re now getting all upset about what I did (and there are two reasons, one justified and the other so not) is because a) you had something to hide, and I found it, and you had to face the music because of that. b) three other people knew your password for a whole hour after that as a result, and your identity could’ve been compromised. The latter, I’ll admit, was massively stupid on my part, because I know that no-one would like that, and it wasn’t justified. If I ever were to apologise for it, I’d say also that I wasn’t thinking about the consequences at the time, and just retaliating, something which was wrong and stupid, and pretty much what you did with that other woman. Whose name I can’t even write out, because it crushes me.

And because I can only rely on your email to be honest to me, I still don’t know if you’re broken up with her. I don’t think I’d rest even if I had conclusive proof of it, because knowing that would bring no peace to me, because it wouldn’t take away from who you are one bit. It would only save you the indignity of being the guy who not only lied to me before I found out, but after as well. That doesn’t make any difference to me.

When I think about it and contemplate the course of events, I realise that this has happened. Definitively. And that that means that it’s over. Definitively.

I’m also freaking out these days on the fact that you wanted me out, and couldn’t say it. You didn’t have the fibre to let go of me, and you let me hang on to you for as long as I did. You let me (assuming you didn’t want it too).

You might be fucked up – heck, you are fucked up. Really fucked up. But that doesn’t mean that you fuck me over, too. What happened to all your sense of fairness and sense of right and wrong, all that stuff you kept preaching at ME? Why couldn’t you treat me with that same sense of good? Why the fuck not? Why are you now a selfish cowardly bastard who uses people to make himself feel better? I really can’t think of you as anything better than that; you’ve given me no reason to. You did use me. Because if you did want me around and did want to try for something, then you used my trust to play out your sick revenge, and maintain your relations with Akanksha, and continue your relations with Rachita. Which makes me believe that you didn’t want me around, and didn’t want to have a future anything with me, because what I wanted of you seemed to be worth nothing to you. It made no impact on what you chose to do eventually, and you just careened off on your own merry path to self-destruction. And all the signs point in that direction – everything you did that wronged me, you did because you didn’t care about me enough to NOT do it. If your fear stood in your way, it caused you to care less than enough. If your ego stood in the way, it caused you to care less than enough. And at the end of the day, despite your intentions, you were STILL in a relationship with someone, after all that I’d said to you about how I felt about that, and what would result from that. Something caused you to not care enough about me to do that. And your motives for doing it reek of weakness, pettiness, cruelty and selfishness.

I think I’ve achieved my purpose. I’m now angry with you again. And the senti shit has gone away. I’m waiting for the day when I feel nothing about this – nothing about you, nothing about the past three and a half years, just nothing. The day when you’re just my second relationship, with the dubious distinction of being the first guy I fucked.

Letter 2, or, "For when you die"

2008-12-08T17:24:00.000+05:30

For when you die:

I shall tell the world that I once loved you. And then I shall tell the world who you were, and who you became after that – who you have remained.

You were a special person, once. Now you are a common commodity, a fatally flawed human being, just like every other person who does horrible things. You are nothing great. You do not deserve the pedestal I reserved for you. Nor do you deserve the strength I tried to imbue you with. None of what I had to give, and did give, was yours. You used me, and made a mockery of my trust and the foolish hopes that I entertained. You knew everything of me, for my eyes were open and my heart an open book, and so you closed your own to me, throwing me a line now and then, because it was convenient, and easy, and a system you enjoyed.

You are the villain of the piece. No matter the price you have paid so far. If you hadn’t hurt me and pulled me down with you enough last year, you had this chance to truly make me fall. And you took it. You seemed not to care when the truth came out, and your tears, no matter how you cry them, can never be enough for me.

I hope you wake up one day and realise exactly what you lost when you lost me. When that day comes, and I know it will, I hope you feel all my pain in all its hues, in every fibre of your being. I hope it hits you hard, and troubles your soul. I hope you lose peace over what you have done.

No matter how much good I wish for you, it seems you only wish me ill. With your ego, your wounded pride, and your terrified mind goading you on, you haughtily decree my actions to have wronged you. You have no idea of the wrongs you have done to me.

No matter the lessons you taught me, you failed miserably when it came to remembering them in your own life. I have benefited, and I am strong. I shall come through this, while you struggle with your inner demons – and I hope they torment you.

No matter what I have you to thank for, the pain you’ve caused has obliterated every last trace of gratitude I have left for you.
You, who were once perfection to me, are tarnished, worn and stained, a common person, just like any other person. Another could be lying dead here, and I wouldn’t know the difference.

Your special status is no more. You are not infallible. You are not trustworthy. You are not strong. You are not the bastion of integrity, or the protector of the victimised. You’re just fucking human.

And now that you have reached the death you once so feared, you shall not be anything more.

Letter 1, or, "It's about closure."

2008-12-05T18:39:00.000+05:30

Vipul,

I write this letter still confused. Confused about my feelings, confused about the hope that still clings to me on the inside, confused about the anger that resonates through me, confused by what I want and by the frustration I feel at not being able to get it.

We spent a wonderful (almost) two years together. I know that the other night I trashed everything we were and everything you are. Please, please don't take that as the truth of how I see you. I was angry and hurt and upset, and the need to anger and hurt and upset you burned through me so strongly that there was nothing else, except the need - the greater need - to get through to you, something I haven't been able to do for the last year and a half. In our three and a half years of knowing each other, we've given each other cause for pain, hurt, anger, frustration... we've caused destruction and chaos in each other's lives. But we've given each other love, and pleasure, and many, many beautiful moments, so many poignant goodnights that I can't count them.

In the last year and a half, though, I've gradually lost you. In so many ways. It hurts to think about how many ways. You've drawn away from me (though that was, at times, very much of my own making) and I have drawn away from you. You've pushed me to limits I never thought I had, almost like you were getting back at me for what I did to you in the time we were together - and I had to get away from the madness that you brought into my life. I didn't want to pay the price you were asking me to pay - I had to keep myself together, even if it was just to be able to try to be there and hold you together.

But you insisted on self-destructing, despite all that I did. And you made me feel like I was the one to blame for it all. You did what you had to, with your priorities all messed up, and I watched helplessly, because somewhere I thought that love would be enough.

But Vipul, you don't love the person that I am. You love the person that I was. And I don't know how to get that person back. I'm not the girl you met in first year anymore. I don't go on guilt trips, or have massive blowouts with my parents, or throw my phone at people any more. (And I have you to thank for much of that change.) I'm also not innocent, and hopeful, and naive in the way I was. Maybe that was part of the charm - part of why you loved me so. I've never understood, and I'm being honest here, what I meant to you - when you said I'd saved you, I have never known or understood what that meant. I know you have loved me, but I think that over time, that love has lost its way, as has my love for you. It isn't the wholesome, cherished love of two years ago. It's a cynical, somewhat bitter, painful love. At least, it is for me. I still love you. But that thought no longer gives me joy. It doesn't feel like I'm in love any more. I just love. They are two different things, you know - and I hate the difference between them. It makes me sad, and angry, and decimates hope. You can't force yourself to stay in love, no more than you can force yourself to fall in love. The way I love you now is, perhaps (I don't really know), the love that takes in all of our time together, and is the inevitable result of caring the way I do for you. It is love, I know that much. Just not the love a relationship between the two of us would need.

What I was trying to say there was that you don' t love the person that I am. Not this me. You want me to change, and you want it so desperately and so hopelessly that it has marred your love forever. For who can go through life with a person you wish were different, so you could love them truly? I don't understand that, and I could never do that. That's why what happened had to happen.

I still don't know for sure if you were telling the truth about her. When we spoke that night, I eventually believed you, through your words and actions, and believed that you weren't really going out with her. But that's where all these problems start. That's the beginning of the end, Vipul. I can't believe that you, of all people, you who I loved for being a strong, good man, would do such a horrible thing to someone. It reflects everything about you that has changed. Everything.

If only you'd given me the chance to stay. If only you'd given me an iota of hope that I could truly believe in. If only you hadn't fucked us both over so completely, so intentionally, so helplessly, all at once.

Why did you have to lie? And when did you become a coward? When did my strength, and its execution, misplaced as it was with regard to AK the first time (though now I know I was not entirely wrong), have to cause you to collapse? Actually, call it my strength, or call it my weakness, but it was the only thing I could do to protect myself. Because I have a self that I am aware of, and will do whatever I need to protect it. I have a self - not just an identity, but an unchanging, gradually growing sense of self. I don't think you have that.

I have always loved the phrase "fatally flawed" because it seemed so tragically poetic. Well, it's not. It's a fucking tragedy, one that leaves nothing good behind. You are fatally flawed, because your sense of self is a ghost that whispers around your ears, it never settles down long enough for you to believe in it, or know it. You have an identity, true, but we both know that you're a chameleon. That's where so many of our troubles began. You were too willing and too quick to change, and I'm a slow mover. I take ages to understand and adapt, at the deeper levels, even if I seem to have understood and begun to change much faster at the surface. So you were the one who changed, did all that I asked, and never protested. You erupted when things got too much to bear, but kept things so well-hidden under the surface that when you finally started voicing your concerns, the eruption was due, at best, within the week, and often the very next day.

I could never bring myself to blame you for that, because I couldn't imagine changing the way you did, so your state was the most incomprehensible thing to me. I couldn't very well blame you for doing something with all good intentions (forget that it backfired), especially I had no idea where you could be coming from.

But the other night, I had to blame you. I had to, because I couldn't find anything in myself to blame for what you did to me. I can't believe that you see all those things as things that affected me, but were not done to me. That flows from the way you view the world, and how you have refused, implicitly and explicitly, to let me in to see all of who you are, over the past year. And how you've changed in that year! It scares the living crap out of me. You don't want me to know you, that much is clear. The fact that that not wanting stems from fear of how I'd react speaks of your lack of trust and faith in me. Maybe my reactions to you, and my criticisms of you, over the past one and a half years, and all those many things, have made you lose faith in me. But you have to understand this, now: I act the way I do - criticise the way I do - react the way I do - because you have, through your own actions, caused me to lose faith in you over the last one and a half years. When we broke up right at the beginning of that time, I believed that you were infallible - that you were a rock, radiating strength, integrity, honour. You had a wonderful sense of right and wrong. And if that sense then told you that I was not who you wanted to be with then - that the person I was then was not the person you wanted to be with - I hated myself and guilted myself no end for that, because your perception of me was unquestionable. That's how I felt about you. But through third year, and part of fourth year, I watched you become undependable, weak, unsure, deceitful, and evasive. I saw you running away from your problems, and doing whatever you could to escape them, even if that meant having them destroy your world a little later. So, I lost faith in you. What else could have happened?

I have often thought about a future with you, and cried for the painful joy it brought me. Painful, I say, because I was never certain that that future would ever get a chance to be. But I wanted it to have a chance. And over time, slowly as only I can, I fought my pride, and I fought my ego to 'try to try' to become the person that you wanted me to be. I've lost my way a million times. But you've persevered. And we were slowly building a foundation for a relationship. I know we were. I had not felt so safe, like I belonged, with you in over a year. It was a lovely feeling and it gave me hope. But that was only at the times when you were here. Most of the time, even if you were physically present, you were somewhere else in your mind, and knowing that hurt. A lot. What was I to know that I wasn't the only person occupying your thoughts? I trusted you so well and so completely that I never thought you would lie to me, or do something that you knew would hurt me, or continue to do such a thing after finding out that it would hurt me.

But it has happened, Vipul. You have done all those things.

In the height of your personal crisis at the end of last year, you started something which caused us to end, with shocking finality.

I can't be with someone who would do that to another person, in revenge and petty cruelty. You were NEVER the 'tit for tat' guy. When I'm not crying because of what you did to me, I'm crying because the guy I used to know and love has vanished, to be replaced by someone I really don't know, someone who lies and cheats and hurts people, people whom he says he loves. It's like every bad cliche I've ever known - if you love me, then why did you do this? Were you mistaken when you said that you would do anything to make sure you didn't lose me? Were you lying when you promised me that we'd try?

Was I a fool to never let myself ask you where we stood, to never assure myself that we were in some way committed to each other and to us? Was I fool to make myself forget the conversations when I knew you were hiding something? Or the times when you refused to tell me what was going on, instead just leaving me feeling like an unwelcome stranger to your life?

Was I a fool to trust you so?

I feel, now, that I was, somewhere.

I'm devastated that things have ended this way. But you really left me no other choice. You admitted as much, yourself.

Maybe we weren't meant to work out this way. Maybe this was not our time. I'd like to tell myself that closure and looking forward to our own lives (if I ever manage to disentangle myself from everything I've put into you) is what we need right now. Perhaps one day, years (and I really mean years) from now, we might have our time in the sun. Perhaps. I don't want to put any hope into that. I have no hope left to give for you, beyond these slightest of things:

I hope you figure yourself out. I really, really hope you do. And as a result, I hope you become a better person - a stronger, braver, better person, who can keep his promises and really stick to his principles. I hope you figure your principles out, as well, and are no longer at war with yourself over them. I wish you well. I've watched you go through a lot of crap in your life and I know you deserve better. In fact, you deserved better than me at many times. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the happiness you asked for. I'm sorry we're both so fucked up.

This is the end of an era. I hope and pray that we can get through the end of this world. And find new ones, each on our own. If it's meant to happen, our paths will cross again in better times.

Though I'll fall apart over and over again, everyday as I see you in the corridors, and every night when we practice our debates, and God knows I'll fall apart when we go to Ireland - and though this is by far the most difficult thing I've ever had to do, I'm still saying goodbye to you. This time, love wasn't enough. Maybe love ought to mean more than that.

For what it's worth,

Love,

Asma.

A Mirror to the Soul.

2008-12-03T16:46:00.000+05:30

I can sense the madness
It's just around the corner
Waiting to engulf me
If I gave it the smallest chance.
The madness -
The twisting, changing madness,
The fount of hysteria,
The loss of self-control,
The utter loss of self -
It is here.

Root and stem, a Mobius strip
Of cause and effect -
X follows Y follows X
With no discernible beginning or end.
Madness and loss and hatred -
All of self, all of me.

A small, lonely figure
Stands on a scarred, shattered landscape
Beside a torrentious black river;
Afraid to take a step,
Afraid to wet its feet,
Afraid to swim across,
Afraid to move at all.
Life, or death -
No way to tell which -
Lies in the current, and beyond.

Mired in fear,
The figure stands alone.
The madness takes its chance,
And makes itself at home.

Status Messages: A thought.

2008-12-03T14:28:00.000+05:30

Status messages: what we use to tell the world about ourselves - sometimes too much, sometimes too little, and sometimes just enough (when we get the mix right). They are the arena we use to crack our private jokes, have a superconversation, and do and be things right under people's noses, in full public view, without their realising it. A status message is our secret identity, our own private universe, a creature of fantasy.

The Art of Seduction. Again.

2008-11-11T21:09:00.000+05:30

The last time I took that quiz, I was something else - the Libertine. I'm quite fascinated by the results this time. The questions haven't changed; only my answers have.
Hm. Interesting.

THW be outrageous.

2008-11-01T22:50:00.000+05:30

So, folks.

Been adjudicating the NLSD the past couple of days. Awful debating, hashing and rehashing of arguments, ghastly behaviour at weirdly-drunk-people parties and general arbitness aside, I think it's time to really do it: it's time to discuss The Droolworthy.

All those toy boys and cute faces that I've had on my radar the past couple of days deserve their due. It's about fuckin' time.

Oh, and 's far as I care, They could read this. They should know!

Debate's the time when I feel I can really allow myself to lech. It happened at OxBridge, and I swear I was hot for those Irish blokes who lost in the semis while proposing to bomb the living crap out of some bunch of ethnic cleanser-type folk. They were a feast to the eyes, and even more attractive when drunk. Oh, and orators - and I mean real orators, the guys who have you enthralled, hanging onto their words, feeling almost obscenely involved with them on a crazy no-one-else-exists level - are super-sexy. 'specially if they have sandy brown hair and keep rising to a crescendo in their speech (and taking you with them, in more ways than one). Even if they are American and are wearing gloves indoors and their trousers don't go with their jackets. I thank Cambridge for its hotties, the wet-dream worthy crowd of intelligent young lads who made my day. Though I didn't speak more than two words to any of them, they made an impact. Of a lasting kind. :) Much love to you, boys.

Ah, and coming to the action right here at home. I've been confused. Here, the cute boys aren't just cute, y'know. They're intelligent, too. That makes the mix so sweet it's almost sinful. Heck, it is sinful. Heheh.

V's spoiled me for men - I expect them to be good-looking and sinfully intelligent and nice people. Well, two out of three isn't bad if you just want to look. And there was enough and more to look at.

My highest speaker scores have often gone to the good-looking Boy on the team. Not without reason, though, and most often because it turned out that he wasn't just a pretty face. Score!

So, DD - you got it because you were a really pretty face, and refreshing at the end of a long day. And because I liked your hoarse voice. And the fact that you told the Opp to 'chill' every time they PoI'd. Maybe this indicates that I have a weakness for the younger crowd. Ha. So be it.

The second guy - let's just call him HinduGuy for now - caught my attention because of the lovely pink-turning-purple bite on his neck, and his slow, steady pacing up and down the corridor. He was a good speaker to boot. I really liked his eyes. These men are the reason I don't fault Delhi for its bimbette chicks, who are annoying but made irrelevant by the men who don't completely turn me off when they open their mouths. (Ref: disappointing first years who stopped being eye candy pretty fast.)

Then there is my own personal debating almost-God, who's the only person who comes vaguely close to where Sumati stands in my books - though the charm has kinda worn off because of a bad decision he gave today. But I like the steadiness, the obvious intelligence, and the live-in-kurtas philosophy which works for that lanky build. He's the kind of guy I'd trust. Reminds me a little of Naseeruddin Shah, oddly enough. Hm. (Anyone understand that?)

And then... there are my 'standards'. They form part of the team I've been rooting for, the 'good guys', great speakers, and the kind of boys the eyes tend to follow without meaning to. I totally want to adjudicate them again. Like, totally. I'd have a tough time deciding best speaker.

This post reflects, somewhere, what Raman calls my potential to be that 'hot fifth year woman' that the juniors talk about when they're back in their rooms and the night's drawing out. The ease, however, with which I can talk about all these boys, though, comes only from the fact that I never mean to do more than that. I drool, and I whisper excitedly about it to my scandalised bunch of girl-friends, and secretly admit to more than that to my less fazed guy friends, and it ends at that.

These are all those half-finished thoughts in my head - wishful fantasies of seduction, most often followed by alarmed thoughts about my wild imagination, that run through my mind when I'm in a contemplative mood. These are all those what-ifs and careless maybes that I allow myself while I stick to being a relatively well-behaved, staid woman who'll never work up the nerve to approach a guy she thinks is cute. It isn't my thing.

Am I happy? I don't know. It makes for interesting thinking, livens up boring class hours, and gives me opportunity for a quiet giggle when I realise how scandalous most of us secretly wish we could be. And hey, I know I don't have the guts to play anything but safe. So that's how it's going to be, I guess.

Ta!

Notes and Thoughts on "That Guy"

2008-07-15T01:14:00.000+05:30

"So you've become That Guy,
The one who puts his arm around the girls
Who clutches his drink and *rocks* slowly to the music
Like it's his Summer of '69."

This poem was never really intended to be taken literally, even though it refers quite literally to certain things happening. There's a lot going on beneath the surface, and that's what the piece is REALLY about.

"You're That Guy now
And I'm glad I don't know you any more.
I'm glad I don't have to feel ashamed
Because you aren't what I wanted you to be -
I'm glad I can laugh at you instead;
And now as you and your too-loud voice
In this smoke-filled room ring with incongruity,"

I looked at times in the past where I've been torn between being ashamed and being ... something else, and first experienced a bout of relief at the fact that I don't have to make excuses in my head for things I'm not comfortable with, anymore. I'm also somewhat glad that I don't have to feel guilty for finding certain things funny, which I earlier would suppress in myself and not allow to be expressed. I'm not really sure if not having to suppress that is a good thing, but I find myself unable to move back to a situation where I can think about him in any other way. The bridges to the past have been burnt, and burnt most ferociously. I honestly believe that there is no scope for going back to anything we were before. The line "I'm glad I can laugh at you instead" is really "I'm glad I can laugh at you freely instead of having to hold that back, have it fester, and unleash it on you at a different point".
And then there is the underlying awareness throughout - the most crucial aspect of the piece - the fact that it actually focuses on myself and how painfully aware I am of the sick, twisted situation I am in. I almost helplessly use all those words knowing that I am nowhere near being whole or sane or complete or healthy - that I am jagged and torn and broken and am at a place where I can't be fixed. I'm not crying out for help - I'm just aware in a terrible manner of exactly where I am. When I start thinking about us, I don't know where to start or what to think about that will make any sense. It's all so very complicated by all of the things in his life, all of the things that he is, and all that has happened TO him in the past year, that since I have decided to refuse to deal with those things any more and ever again, I find sudden blanks in WHERE my thoughts allow themselves to take me. There are some things I have still just NOT thought about, on purpose, so as to allow myself to keep going. I have not thought about his losing the year because somewhere everything I did (which I can never forget) could not conceivably still result in it and then that leads straight to things that I don't let myself think about.
Struggling to find a way to get out of the hole I'm in, knowing that I don't have the will power to do what would perhaps be the "best" thing - turn away from the hole altogether and not become that kind of person. I don't want to become a hateful/hating/spiteful person but somehow I get the feeling that I don't really have a choice in the situation - and the situation may only LEAD to my being that kind of person, while I find no reason whatsoever to pull myself out of it and take a different path because I really can't think of anything worth hoping for, or fighting for, or trying for. I can't convince myself any more that the cause is worthy, and can't put any more into this. I'm just terribly tired and can't go on being the person I was - when there's nothing worth fighting for in him, I can't do it any more.
Perhaps I think I'll be better off abandoning the sunk costs and getting out while I still can. If I still can.

Too sleepy to talk about the rest of the post. Will attempt to do it later maybe. Comments have been disabled because I don't really want to read responses to this - it's more to help me put down my thoughts than to provide you with something to read. If there's something you simply must say, please comment on the poem itself. Will respond there.

"That Guy"

2008-07-14T00:58:00.000+05:30

So you've become That Guy,
The one who puts his arm around the girls
Who clutches his drink and *rocks* slowly to the music
Like it's his Summer of '69.

You're That Guy now
And I'm glad I don't know you any more.
I'm glad I don't have to feel ashamed
Because you aren't what I wanted you to be -
I'm glad I can laugh at you instead;

And now as you and your too-loud voice
In this smoke-filled room ring with incongruity,
I lean back, forget that I wanted to drag you into a corner,
And breathe in the music,
Bit by bit
And close my eyes to the world
and to you.

But in those moments that I am not strong,
I can't help but let it get to me
And I can't help but want
To haul you into that corner
And do you repeatedly;
Hating myself all the while.

---------------------------

And now, to close: Some lines from Robbie Williams' "Sexed Up"
"Why don't we talk about it
Why do you always doubt that there can be a better way
It doesn't make me wanna stay

Why don't we break up
There's nothing left to say
I got my eyes shut
Praying they won't stray
Oh, when I'm sexed up
That's what makes the difference today
I hope you blow away

Screw you,
I didn't like your taste anyway
I chose you
And that's all gone to waste
It's Saturday
I'll go out and find another you"

2008-05-20T17:52:00.000+05:30

I want someone to write my LPD project for me. And no, I'm not kidding - I really, truly, desperately want someone to volunteer to help me write the wretched thing, or offer to write it all by themselves. I'll sell my soul to that individual, I swear.
The reason for this madness is the fact that the submission deadline has just passed me by right now as I sat wondering about the results of the CLAT (yes, the CLAT), and I felt nothing. No panic, no feeling, nothing. I just turned to my laptop and made an attempt to absorb the UNDP Human Development Report I was trying to read. When that failed, I resumed my curious day-dreaming.
Perhaps it's the fact that V is in the same position I am in - the point at which "slipping it under" has become your only option - and he's not threatening me with the end of the world if I don't finish it and submit it by 6 am tomorrow.
Perhaps it's the fact that the world did, in fact, end, sometime in August last year, and now I'm just floating along in limbo.
Perhaps it's the fact that I've been blog-silent, imposing this upon myself because I felt no bursting emotion at all any more.
Perhaps it's the fact that I've behaved like absolute law school slime over this project sub, abandoning all principles and ideals in order to get.things.done.
Perhaps it's the fact that I haven't heard my mother's voice, or my father's, for weeks.
Perhaps it's the fact that I feel that I'm afloat in a sea that's deceptively calm, waiting for it to take me where it will, even though I can see an island in the distance and want to go there, knowing as I do that that island is where home is, where hope is, where a future is, and not being able to care enough not to abandon it.
Perhaps it's just the fact that I'm approaching the end of my third year in this institution, and have long ceased to care...
... but I can't seem to bring myself to work on this project.

Which, by the way, was supposed to be submitted about an hour ago, today, two days after the 6th day of project submission, because I went to Dhaka and judged some debates.

If ONLY life could be a dream, where I would take you up to Paradise.

2008-03-28T21:31:00.000+05:30

Warning: NEVER - never never ever ever - wake me up badly.
'Badly' includes the use of squeals, yells, sudden and intentionally focused bright light, vigorous shaking, annoyingly cheery voices, and complete and obvious lack of respect for the fact that someone is asleep and probably wants to stay that way.
Do not wake me up if you don't know me. If you are close enough, I will throttle you. If not, I'm going to hurt you very badly at some later point.
Do not switch on tube lights and simultaneously yell my name and say it's time to get up. Or ask me if I want pizza. No, I don't want pizza, I want to sleep, dimwit. If I wanted pizza I wouldn't be asleep, now, would I?
I begrudge you this intrusion even more if you pulled me out of a dream. You fuck with my dreams, I fuck with you.

Well, enough of that.
Waking up when I wasn't meant to this evening has left me feeling empty and purposeless. I don't *want* to do anything, because it all feels very wrong. It's like I was meant to live this day in a particular manner, but now I can't, and no alternate vision of the now has presented itself to me for me to slip into. It's just this: I'm simply not meant to be awake right now. I'd thought about it and accepted that I would remain asleep, possibly till tomorrow morning. It was how things were to be. Without them, there is emptiness.
And emptiness brings out the very worst parts of me - all those things, those thoughts that I have put away and suppressed in the past, hoping to be mature and ready enough to deal with them in the future, have come rushing to fill the void, though this is not their time. I find myself disoriented, a sudden tear on my cheek, a wetness on my pillow. Memories of days gone by fill my mind. I can see them in front of me, and I can see the parallel realities they could have brought. The visions then vanish, and the emptiness comes back, bigger and hungrier because it can't find the right things to fill it up.
I can see the effects of reading Dune here.
I am fatalistic.
I'm vulnerable when I sleep. Please don't abuse the trust I place in you when I sleep in your presence by waking me up, and badly at that.

I've lost a dream.
And I can feel the place
Where it was wrenched from me -
All the broken bits of me
Lurch at the thought of it
And the remembered feel of it.
I sorrow for it.
It was in my care
And as you joyously sunder'd it from me
I saw it die.

I felt magnificently and spectacularly alone.
There was a void, a big black void
And though I saw it
It saw me too.
It liked what it saw
It knew, as did I
That I could not,
And would not,
Turn away.
Into this void
I fell.

Conversations

2008-03-22T13:22:00.000+05:30

"Hey.
Just talked to Boy. I hear that the party's going well and that the alcohol is making it even better. :-) Hope you're having a good time. I also hear that PC's very high and that K's wearing a dress that's making you look very happy. :P
It's just strange that Boy never seems to let go when I'm around. I've never seen him let himself get high or let himself drink enough to say things that he otherwise keeps inside. I used to be his go-to person; he used to be able to talk to me. About ANYTHING. I used to be the person who would listen to him. I wish it wasn't that he can only be candid and unguarded when he's high. I wish he wasn't so afraid to lose control when I'm around. I wish he wasn't so afraid of me. Sigh. Life is a real fucking BITCH. I hate this situation; it makes me really, really sad. I love him more in these moments because I see the real him in these moments - I see the person he spends the rest of his time trying to hide away."

---------------------------------------------------------

What saddens me the most is that I understand why he needs to be this way - I understand that the situation is now such that he really can't do much else. I can see the path that brought him here; I can see some of my part in it. I understand the reasons and I get it all. But it just makes me incredibly, incredibly sad.

I love V. I love him fiercely and I love him in terrible ways; I love him in ways that are terrible for both of us.
But I love him.

---------------------------------------------------------

T: Boo.

me: Hey.

Sigh.

Feeling very low.

Posting about it on LJ.

T: Why?

What happened?

me: Was talking to V, he's at an MCS party at Gopalan mall.

Free beer and biryani.

So he's had 20 mugs of beer

And is very high.

T: I see.

And why does that make you feel low?

me: I'm just feeling incredibly sad about the fact that he was more himself and less guarded during that conversation than he has been in... years.

I'm really sad that he's had to turn into this person with me.

I used to be the person he could be himself around;.

I'm not that place to come back to any more.

And that makes me really, really sad.

T: Really, though, it's a function of what he's become, rather than what you are.

And to a large extent he does bring it on himself.

He just doesn't understand that sometimes it makes sense to open out.

*up

me: That's who he is, and that's how he is. It's not possible to change his inability to understand.

And I think I'm in it for the long haul, and I have to look beyond that inability.

--------------------------------------------------------

I don't want to change that inability, or him. Enough change has been engineered. All I want is for him to able to be himself, whoever and whatever that person is. Just... want him to have that.

I want to change things enough for him to know, with certainty, that he can be that person.

I know things are far, far from that right now. I still want to make that change.

Don't care about the young folks.

2008-03-21T03:04:00.000+05:30

The sound of breaking glass. Fuzzy moving pictures of people moving towards each other. Goosebumps. Gradually letting the music dictate the mood.

Ah, well.

It strikes me as a matter of comfort. Of ease. It's strange how I want to share, dictate, pull and push at the same time.

Innate, taken-for-granted comfort.
Surprise hugs from behind.
Instinctive understanding of what was going on.
Unspoken, intimate communion.
No pressure. No walls.

Watching them being built, the pretty walls.
Building some myself.
Sticking something out because it was the kind of something different that tasted good, that felt good.
It sometimes seems to boil down to a matter of perspective.

Short, hard-to-decipher sentences.
That's me, for you.

Why can't I have my teddy bear?

2008-01-19T23:14:00.000+05:30

In Delhi, hands very very cold. But still thinking about it all. Didn't really mentally prepare myself for coming to Delhi, or for the massive change that has taken place in the way I feel about this city. It's changed from CWBL to just "C". (Some of you know exactly what that means. To the others - sorry, but I'm not telling.) The charm is gone, and my automatic love for it that endured despite my bitching and complaining has also faded. This city now has to earn my love, and earn my attachment to it. There is no longer reason for me to give it easy going.
Yeah, I'm like this - sentimental and weird. I don't ask for you to understand it; in fact, I don't really care if you don't. This isn't for your understanding - it's for me. And that's the way things are.
One thing, though...I find myself longing for, as I put it not so long ago, a "nice boy to hold me and be with me". While I'm at it, I wouldn't mind him being good-looking, firm-bodied and intelligent, either. It would be nice if he were a good kisser, and had a nice singing voice, also.
Ah, well. One can only hope. :-)
It's just that there are a whole lot of dumb good-looking Delhi boys I've seen in the past two days. And somewhere, I wonder why the idiot Delhi boys I know from college keep going on about the "stupid Delhi women." As I said, idiots. This place is just like every other. Just because you're bigger and have Factories like RKP doesn't mean you're not like every other place.

Oh, blah. I still want me a nice boy to cuddle with. Sigh.

Some Thoughts.

2008-01-04T22:21:00.000+05:30

Watched all of the first season of Grey's Anatomy today.

Things are mucho wierdo. Spent all of last evening on Brigade Road, not even wanting to be there, doing inane and absolutely infuriating things like getting brain-moronic computer shop people to give me a working laptop charger. I have never felt so alone in my life. These days the feeling is getting worse, what with V being busy with his moot and therefore barely ever mentally present, if he is by some lucky chance physically there. It's numbing, somewhere, to feel even the tiniest emotion I used to feel for him slowly disappearing. Like a fruit which has had all its juices sucked out, with only the husk remaining. I'm not used to being alone anymore. I used to freakin' enjoy my solitude, for heaven's sake! Now I have to put on that happy face, that brave mask of oh-yeah-I'm-alone-and-I-don't-care that used to come so much more naturally earlier. Being with V - all the time, every hour of every day - has spoilt me. I can't live my life on my own, without company, any more. I have no one to talk to but myself.
But then again, I think it was those conversations with myself, those long lonely walks, which made me who I was, and made me the kind of thinking being that I was. I just need to get used to my solitude again.

And as far as V is concerned... well, I really don't know what to do about him any more. Life is easier to live without having to think about him, and to spend hours in such a state of mind. But I know that I can't even pretend not to care about him, or to stop doing things that display that amount of caring. The only problem is, I desperately wish that I could talk with him about something, anything... and that ain't happening for a fucking long time. I don't know if it's a desire for closure, or a need for some amount of emotional honesty, or something else - I just know there is a need, and I just fucking wish it wasn't too much to hope for. But it is. And there's not much I can do about it.

I just hate this life and this misery and this painful clutch of memories that just hurt inside me all the time. I hate this pain and this longing and the amount I miss the feeling of belonging and the happiness that was real. I am tired of being angry all the time, or regularly going into depression for an afternoon, evening or night, and of having nowhere and nothing to let it out into. I can't live like this any more!

And V, oh V... V with his stupid answers to the most important questions, the meaningless drivel which could never touch my heart or my brain even if it went through college and got a degree, V with his false starts and his might-have-beens, V with his pseudo-philosophical psycho-analytical babbling bullshit that we both know inside out and which only a vague acquaintance would try to pass off as a decent response to someone who's upset, V who just makes the anger and the pain and all of this misery piercing-hot and worse... oh, dear, dear V, with whom I spent those years of my life, with whom I had happiness, with whom there was trust and somewhere to go home to, with whom I grew up a hell of a lot, and with whom I thought, just for a bit, that I would grow old, the same V with whom I grew bitter and pettier and more selfish and more screwed up and more perverse, the very same V with whom I can no longer stand to be.... oh, V, you magnificently fucked-up boy, what are we coming to now?

I constantly run away from you, because it gets too much for me to bear. Somewhere I snapped, and when I left because of it, most of the me you knew went with me.

2007-12-16T21:47:00.000+05:30

I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered.
Ha. I love these songs right now - Untitled and Welcome to My Life, both by Simple Plan. Untitled is just beautiful.
I'm fighting to keep my priorities and not let emotional turmoil overwhelm me. I'm fighting to keep from thinking certain thoughts, to keep from going down the many roads that seem to keep swerving dangerously close to the narrow path I've been navigating. With difficulty.
Wish to be two and a half years younger, having locked myself safely in my room, music on wonderfully loud, in a way that it washes over me, emotion and melody and pain and words all crashing into me like stormy waves on a shore, whilst I try to disappear into a corner of my bed, letting the angst out in bursts.
Musically, perhaps my best years. Worldspace was new, it was a privilege, and it was mine. There was still good music to be found on Radio City, at about 2 am. Everything wasn't available everywhere. Things were special. I was me, and I held my pain by the hand, and walked around with it. Perhaps like a best friend, perhaps like a pet dog. I don't know.
To be on the edge of breaking down, with no-one there to save you.
Hunh.
Yeah, I want to be somebody else.
Yes, I'm stuck inside a world I hate, I'm sick of everyone around, with the big fake smiles and the stupid lies, while deep inside I'm bleeding.
I'd forgotten that I could have a 'deep' inside me. Everything was so momentary, so superficial, so unimportant. So intensely on the surface.
Reaching deep down is just something I don't know how to do anymore.
I don't want to look at him ever again. I don't want to see her, either. I want to avoid them, run when I see them, not attend class, quit college, not intern in the same city, not have to plaster a fake smile on my face, or pretend to care, or be civil, when all of everything is tearing me apart. And it is.
My life isn't about this. I'm sick of coming out of day-long stupors to find that parts of my life have just passed me by, all meaningless and sickeningly simplistic, hours full of nothing and its brothers, all because of a glance or a thought or a word or a moment of lost control.

Lovin' each day as if it's the last

2007-11-16T10:12:00.000+05:30

I'm sitting in the Keynes Library at the Cambridge Union. Have been struck by the strangest thoughts over these past few days. Maybe I'm being overly emotional, but this is the colour with which this part of my trip will be tinged. Was supposed to go out and explore Cambridge today, now, but my company is filling out her Linklaters application form, so I'm hanging around. Will cut in a bit and take a stroll.
It's positively freezing here. There was frost on the cars this morning when I was walking to the Union, and I thought it quite spectacular. I'm going to go punting and see the market over here. See the Mathematical Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs and everything.
Coffee pots and Irish Cream everywhere and I don't know what to get people and I want to hold on to my memories of Phantom of the Opera and all the soft, majestic beauty of Westminster Abbey.
I'm lonely, though, and some part of me really wants to go home and spend time with people. These ten days of absolutely no work and tons of living has been the most wonderful thing. I refuse to go back to the usual law school life. I've spent horribly large amounts of money here, and have realised that I've just been letting life pass me by in law school, living nothing each day, just sitting around. I'm going to go out and do all the things I keep looking at and wanting to do, and I'm going to take my camera with me and take photos of it, too. I'm going to live. I refuse to let law school reduce me to a meaningless existence. This is my life, for Pete's sake!
Perspective is lovely, sometimes.
"Baby, I want you right here next to me..."

2007-10-11T21:21:00.000+05:30

I'm glad he called. It was good to hear his voice. And a relief to hear that he's 'okay'. I know he's not, but if he's all right enough to be able to call and talk at all, then it's better than him not being able to speak to me.

It was also quite awkward.

I'm stopping myself from letting myself believe that that phone call changed anything. Nothing's changed. That phone call might have even been a try-out of how distant he can be. I've seen him talking to other people, seen the effortless spinning of conversation that occupies no part of his mind.

But I really doubt that it was that. He sounded genuine. And... he wouldn't speak that way if it didn't matter to him. He wasn't faking it.

Hope this works out. Sigh.

2007-10-11T19:10:00.000+05:30

Shocked. He's not going to Cambridge, or for that moot, or even for the Asians. god, I wish he could go somewhere! he's worked so hard for these things. He killed himself for them. Put his soul into them. But I know that if he's not going, he's not going, and that's not going to change. It just isn't.
Strange, how I was wondering how we were going to deal with Cambridge, considering the current situation. Now, that problem's been taken care of. But yeah, I can't bring myself to ever look at that as a good thing. I'd rather have had this 'problem' than have to know that he can't come to Cambridge. Any day.
Christ, Oxford has been meaningless to me for so long now because he wasn't going to be there! Jesus Christ.
I miss him. I miss the good times. i miss us being able to talk to each other.
God, I miss really talking with him.
I feel so bad about this entire thing. Like shit. It's not a guilt complex - a 'he-doesn't-need-this-in-addition-to-everything-else'. I just feel terrible. Period.

But yeah, he needs to get his life on track. Maybe a trimester without so much to do will help him. If he uses it the right way, it really could.

It struck me as I was turning off my laptop that...

2007-10-10T23:41:00.000+05:30

Just finished watching the episode of the first season of Heroes that's called "Company Man". It was stunning. This is the kind of thing regarding which I'd normally call Vipul up and have an hour-long, enthusiastic conversation about. But the way things have been lately... sigh. Recent events have really fucked things up a lot - the way they panned out, especially. Today's results make the situation worse. It would be highly inappropriate to try to have something like that after all of that. Unfair, too.

Sometimes, you jump the gun. Sometimes... you just have to deal with the mess you've created.
|
| -----------
|
| We moved downstairs today. I'm sleeping in my new room tonight. It should be good.
|
| -----------
|
|-----> Edit (11/10/07): Realised, just as I was going to bed last night, that I'm not even likely to be allowed to get close now, let alone close enough to do something like that.

All the anger and frustration of the past few days had dissipated by about that time.

Couldn't sleep for the longest time.

Still feel trapped.

When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy in you dies...

2007-10-09T22:07:00.000+05:30

It's good to have somebody to love. Somebody who is right for you. Somebody with whom you can be easy and not have to be another person for.
It's good to have somebody to love.

[Cut to Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy, singing "Somebody To Love"]

Fire, burn bright for me, and burn me up tonight.

2007-10-08T23:11:00.000+05:30

Just want to cry. In fact, I am. Horribly upset and angry, and I'm not even entirely sure why I am.
I think of all that I've lost, and I am angry. Angry that I am treated like this by life, when I'm damn sure I deserve better out of it.
I deserve happiness, and someone to love freely and happily. I deserve to have a sanctum of peace somewhere, and I deserve not to have my hope that home would be that much-needed sanctum dashed to bits.
I deserve to have parents who know how to disagree but still be good to each other.
I deserve to have a clean break-up, and not have this messy mindfuck.
I deserve to live unplagued by jealousy and insecurity.
I deserve not to have important choices taken away from me - choices that are my right to make - just because you did it by talking nicely.
I deserve to be safe when I walk down the street, or go out.
I deserve to be treated like an adult who can make her own decisions about her wellbeing and security wherever I live.
I deserve to have friends I can really talk to. I'm gad I have at least two people who are looking out for me, and just me, when they talk to me. Who don't dismiss irrationality, and give it its fucking worth.
I deserve not to have stupid bitches who make my skin crawl talking to me like they know me at all. Like they have any right to do so.
I deserve to have my space. As much of it as I fucking need. And I bloody well deserve not to be taken for granted.
Oh, and yeah, I deserve not to be made to feel guilty about being who I am.

2007-08-28T14:56:00.000+05:30

Skies are clear, and my eyes are dry... for now. Silly tears and meaningful ones - they've all been cried, the way they wanted to be. Everyone wants their day in the sun. Why not these useless tears of mine? *shrugs*

Take a nice, sharp blade, and nick me good. At least it'll be real.

I'm deeply ashamed and disgusted with myself. I don't know how to behave, now. I do blame myself. I do berate myself.

When the walls fall, they're broken, and shall not be rebuilt. They aren't like the covers which you can conveniently pull back up over yourself, to cover and shield yourself with.

Soft. Silently, let it come, let it be, let me see.

2007-08-13T15:22:00.000+05:30

Calm, cool, very well-thought-out words. I should've seen them coming, they were there, ephemeral, ethereal, for so very long. I've never seen him speak after having put that much thought into anything except times like these. Yeah, it's times like these you learn to live again, times like these you give and give again, times like these you learn to love again. Times like these too many times, and you're at an end.

I've cried a lot in the past twenty-four hours. An awful lot. But I still feel like there's an ocean of tears within me that's waiting to pour out. That ocean will flow, and flood the land, for many, many days. Then, the tide will recede, and the rebuilding will start. 'tis the way life works, eh, mon?

As

tame_wildcard

put it so very well, I have to learn to enjoy being with myself again. That's one of the things. Not by any means the most important. Oh, not by far. But 'tis there. Yeth.

Can't write honestly right now. Will try again later. The words are there, and they'll find their way out when the time is right.

Maroon 5 songs are always around. Better off this way, better that we break... baby.

2007-07-14T23:12:00.002+05:30

Dedicated to

tongsinanpei

carboxymoron

, and

tame_wildcard

Perfect. Simple. Perfect.

2007-07-14T21:42:00.004+05:30

This hit me so very perfectly, especially after the events of today. After all we said, and all that I thought about.

It just fits.

It's perfect.

What made me like this?

2007-06-28T12:33:00.000+05:30

I have such a warped world view...
There's so much resentment in me.
I hate with abandon, and with a passion,
But all of my heart is in my despair.
Yea, I despair whole-heartedly.

It's... so easy to give in to extremities
And I do so with unerring aim
And not a thought to the alternatives
To all those... *smiles tiredly* "better lives"
That I go on about so.

Hypocrite, dear girl -
That's what you are.
'tis true; it always was.
And yet, and yet...
You are taken
And understood
And yes, loved.

Do not dwell
On what it takes.
Dwell, instead, on what you can give
And delve into yourself
To know if you can give, at all,
Or if your cold, dead heart
Has truly stripped you of all humanity.

*Laughs, sardonically*
Guilt should never play a role in these things -
But look at what its lack has done.
Look!
And, curse you, understand!
Do not dare to speak of that which you do not understand
Or care for
Or know of.
Do not dare to speak as though you are an authority
Or a judge of this matter.
You are the accused.
You know of your crimes -
Aye, you know them so well that
You are blithe in your indifference to them.

You, my lovely...
...are the perfect monster for me.
You are the perfect drain of my happiness,
And the perfect thief of my peace.

The Devil's Haircut?

2007-06-20T21:41:00.000+05:30

"Hey. My heart hasn't been into living today - more like I've been heartless and unfeeling, and not in the mood for most things. I haven't been depressed; nothing's happened to upset or annoy or unsettle me - but all the same, I've been sorta unsettled. I can't think of a reason why I should be least interested in doing anything, and finding no satisfaction in whatever I did do, on this day, of all days. It makes little sense, and, true to today's mood, I couldn't care - or have the heart - to make sense of it. What little engagement I do have with this is most detached. What strikes me as most cruel, though perhaps fitting... is that my heartlessness pierced me most when I hurt or upset people I love. You, too."

Rain!

2007-05-30T16:42:00.002+05:30

Oh, how I love the rain! It brings out the best in me - my most contemplative and considerate side. It's the only weather for me.

I want to dance in the rain. To dance like no-one's watching me. To dance like I don't care.
To dance free.

2007-05-28T13:48:00.000+05:30

I am me, on my own. Not related to anyone else, or anything else - not adding to myself anything as a result of associating with it - I must understand who I am as a result of standing alone as an individual.
I must realise my value as a singular entity - if I have any.
I must realise why that value is ascribed to me.
I must learn to value the fact of being valued.
I must see myself as the world sees me.
The world's perspective is important, at the end of the day. To that extent.

Looking back on the things I've done...

2007-05-25T23:48:00.000+05:30

Sublime happinesses have, pleasantly, retained their mellow flavour for me. I find myself quietly happy again, these days, and that really does make me feel good all the way from the very inside of the inside. Unhappiness, and pain, when it's been a-calling, has been so very different from the way it was a while ago, that the distinction keeps it way apart from any other emotion. The unhappiness has not been with myself, after a long time. It's not guilt, or frustration with the totality of relations, but with who another person has turned into.
I'm just surprised. And... the entire thing hurts.
I'm not sure about this, yet. It just feels wrong, and I know that much. I don't know much else. Let's just see.

Everything's so blurry...

2007-05-16T10:45:00.000+05:30

Am completely exhausted, every morning, the moment I wake up. The day's this gray blur of busy rushing here and there and breaking out into moments of Oh-FUCK-things-are-fucking-up.
Everything's moving too fast. Except my projects. I need to submit Polsci on Friday, the day of WMD, because it's the very last day of submission. TP's still being written out, and I hope to submit it today.
WMD's driving me nuts.
My body's driving me nuts. It's giving out on me, and I can no longer push it to do anything. I just keep collapsing at night, and I keep having to stop myself from sleeping the morning away every single morning, which is why I haven't attended at TP class in days. I've gotten proxies on a regular basis, but that's no help to my general depression.
I think one of my permanent teeth is attempting to fall out.
My eyes hurt.
WMD's still driving me nuts, and I'm being absolutely mindfucked by the fact that I need to submit Polsci that day.
My brother's graduating tomorrow. I want to be there so badly, it's not funny. It's another stress factor, to add to projects, fatigue, WMD, and lack of time to do ANYTHING.
It's getting too much for me. I want to curl up and cry.

Everything is good for you - if it doesn't kill you.

2007-05-09T16:10:00.000+05:30

We shall all withdraw into ourselves, relishing alone-ness and solitude, and the peace of mind that comes with it.

I think.

Walking towards Nags. Quiet all around me. Faint classroom sounds echoing in my mind. The wind rushing past my ears, a wonderful wall of silence. The kind of silence you just have to respect. The wind quietly sliding into me. Its peace quietly sliding into me.
A buzzing interrupts my reverie. Back in class, still quiet inside. Turn, and smile, truly feeling like it.
Walking to the library. My friend the wind is back, a susurrus stirring my heart. Stirring me into motion. Into emotion. Crunching my way across mellow shade and starkly sunlit areas. Calm.
I am alive again. Just as empty, but alive.

Like the shell is finally strengthening, so that something can be put in it again.

Maybe.

The susurrus stays in my mind. Somewhere, the wind is blowing.

All these days I spend away... I'll make up for this, I swear.

2007-05-03T16:20:00.000+05:30

It's one of those brilliantly sublime afternoons, the cloudy sky and cool breezes a very welcome relief from the blazing sun we've had this summer. I'd grown quite weary of looking at the sky and seeing a vast expanse of parched blue, a glowing ball in the middle, soaking all the will out of me. Hence, I love the weather right now.
I've started work on my TP project - I'm doing a case study, and we'd covered that case in the pre-midterm portion, so I have a decent idea of what is going on. However, there are two rules of law that the case laid down, and I have a vague feeling I ought to be paying more attention to the rule under the section we didn't cover before the midterms. Anyhow, let's see what happens - I'll go for consultation tomorrow, and try to get some sort of rough idea going.
My Polsci project, on the other hand, is still in hibernation. I just don't want to look at it for a bit. Not motivated to do it. By anything, least of all Fee Dot. I didn't do so well in my TP midterm, so I'm trying to make up for it by giving a good project in. I just don't care about Polsci, despite having a so-so midterm. I'll get around to it, sooner or later. Let's see. Hopefully, or at least, for my own good, that'll be sooner.
I'm getting a little nostalgic. And am questioning the rationality of some people. Because when things like today happen, I'm actually mindfucked. Wait. When things like today happen, and I can see no reason for what happened to have happened, I am actually mindfucked. Completely. I'm going to keep trying to figure this, or some part of it, out, just so that I know where the flying fuck I stand.
Going to watch Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron tonight, at nine. Univ Month/Week is going to be fun. I hope. :-) I'll get projects out of the way so that I can actually enjoy it, this time.
Must talk to parents. Looking forward to going home. It's been a while. I'll try to leave early and have a nice time, too. Fingers crossed (as they always seem to have to be).
Visions from the past keep coming up. My eyes aren't really in the present - I seem to be seeing things like The Blondeness. My emotions are just as mixed up - there's an anachronistic feel to them.
And something grates about the entire affair. It's not right, and that calls to the heart of me. That wrongness is very palpable. Maybe that's why I'm reacting so strongly. Dunno. Let's see what happens.

I don't want to be.

2007-05-03T11:09:00.000+05:30

I get this feeling lately that I've been doing things for other people, things which I might have otherwise enjoyed doing, but which turned out to be less than fun at the end of the day, things that gave me nothing except an empty pocket and the lust for a good time with people I care about who actually care right back. A lust that claws at the inside of me, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. A lust that fills me with despair when the realisation that it is unlikely to be satisfied hits me. Sigh.
And I've been feeling guilty about not having talked to my parents for so long. I've decided to go home this weekend, to make up for it. Fuck projects. I just wanna go home. Even if it is under renovation. So there.

Tired Starling.

2007-04-17T11:13:00.000+05:30

Mouse-ling, even. Babies are adorable, even in concept. But children glow. So bright. Such a joy!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thinking about what humans are capable of. And the misconceptions taken so horribly far. Sickening thoughts. Sickening people. Ought to be wiped off the face of this earth, such a typically stupid "Delhi" furry stuffed animal ooh-take-my-twisted-mind-and-give-me-attention-and-sympathy-I-can't-take-pain-and-am-moronically-delusional bitch. Grow up. Pronto. Or I'll match your list, just for you. Ishpeshul Delivery ass-kicking with a complimentary putting-in-place. I promise.

New respect for the strength I see in him, to be able to take all of this, more, and everything else, too. Stunning human being. Stunning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Been listening to some excellent music, these days. Steady old rock 'n' roll. The kind of stuff that makes you want to find a good couch, grab a steaming cup of cocoa, and just chill, with the surround sound on. A spectacular prospect, mm?

Closer to this heart than anything else has ever been.

2007-04-16T00:20:00.000+05:30

Been thinking about a lot of different things today. Today was an experience of many different emotions. So much.

Coldplay's Amsterdam and Better Than Ezra's Closer played many times. They were a comfort, in the midst of everything else that was going on. And, after the fruitless search this morning, finding, downloading, and listening to Lift by Poets of the Fall was also very nice.

I saw happiness today. Promise, in a husband and wife, a beautiful house, a gleeful grandchild, and a naturally lovely daughter-in-law. In beauty, and the collected memories of a hundred different places, all brought together into a coalescence of just exactly what they wanted it to be. All of it, theirs. Theirs, their happiness. Theirs, each other. Lovely. Gave me reason to believe in a future I desperately want to see come to be. A future I now know I want to bring about, by my actions, by my hope, by my optimism, by my resolve, by my strength, by my love of a dream, by my love of reality, by my love of a man who is everything to me.

And the morning light was breaking
Slowly moving across the bed
He gets up without her waking
To the voices in his head

Through the shadows in the hallway
To the room they painted blue
And on the inside he is frightened
At a loss for what to do

Until he opens up his eyes
And the angels all look down

Did I see angels today? Perhaps. Maybe not, though. It matters not. It's not about individuals. It's not about ideals, or thoughts floating idly in the air, or music, or perceived emotion. It's about actual emotion, real and palpable - the truth and plain straightforwardness of every single word and thought. It isn't even about me. *smiles*

It is gentle.
It is true.

It's those little things, like seeing your birthday circled on a calendar, on every single calendar in the house, that bring a warm feeling to you.
But it's the unmistakable connection between two people, the unexpressed feeling that the other is cherished and treasured, that make you feel loved. Being wanted, not for utility, but for love, and happiness.

Oh, happiness!
In a tear.
In a laugh.
In a shared whisper.
In a sparkle.
In the magic.

Finding it in me will be hard. But... I want it.

Wonder.
Beauty.
Magic.
Purity.
Being true to this.

Not lost. Just... not here. Soon to be back.

I want it. So much.

2007-04-10T22:27:00.000+05:30

Sigh. Tired, and sticky, and wet, and uncomfortable. And in a bloody awful mood.
Can't make myself work. Can't seem to force myself. Want comfort, and company, and am alone, instead.
I detest myself right now for being bloody stupid enough to postpone work today. Some special kind of nincompoop. Fucking hell.
Gaaah.
Fuck you, world. I don't want to be cheered up right now.
Have to think of birthday gift for Mamma.
Have to think of why he won't be on.
Have to think of too much. I want someone else to take over, for a bit. Just want to collapse. And cry.
I'm exhausted.

Carefully...

2007-03-26T22:14:00.000+05:30

All empty inside. Need something to place there - a fruit, a seed, a hope. Something that will grow and fill me and sustain me. A hope that things actually go well for once, that truly good things can happen to people.
It's so easy to feel drained dry in this place. All it takes is ten minutes; sometimes, even less. And then it hits you, hard, and though you don't feel it at the time, all the air is knocked out of you, and you lose yourself, a little at a time, from that moment on. It's like a silent, murderous wind that passes through your body and quietly kills the core of you - that part of you which was still safe and warm and, somewhere, content with the little things.
I was happier coming back this time than I have been in a long time. I don't know who to blame, now. Good times are not always good for you, especially when they are not shared. You sometimes feel out of place - or like you've crossed a line and are the villain for that moment. How easy it would be if we could share our exuberance and zest for life with each other! And how ignorant I would be of the pain that comes with not being able to! Ironic.

So many people. Breaths. Quiet, though not entirely silence, pervades. Old clothes, snatches of meaningless conversations overheard. How we limit ourselves. How we choose the easiest way to be. How amazingly easy they have made it for us to do so. And how we thank them for it, for they have done such a great job that we don't even notice our loss. The loss of the free mind, the free spirit. The loss of time without burnt wrists. No danger of impotence. No danger from your neighbour or your roommate or your batchmate. We care so little because it doesn't help us in their system to do so. So much to gain from another's ruin that it soon becomes commonplace; accepted; expected.

Where can the truth be found? Who is its preacher? And will he speak?
Questions I need to ponder.

Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well

Unsubtle Pressures

All of My Love

Scribbled: Words

Musings/Music

You Never Can Tell

The View From Down Here Really Sucks.

Dreams

Birthday Wishlist 2011

Causing Ripples

Blogsessing Part II: People read this blog. Fuck.

"Come on, oh my star is fading..."

Everything is noise.

Not just yet.

"I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again"

Home is Where the Heart is

Endings

Only in Dreams

Worth a thousand words, eh?

We'd Be So Fantastical.

More on Wishlists

Badmaash Company and Illness Blues

The Music of West Side Story (and Other Titbits)

Here's marking 200.

Wishlist, Part n

Wishlist, Part 2: Steeped in Luxury

Rediscovered: Crowded House

Blogsessing

Drift.

The Thing That Should Not Be

It's Sunny Outside.

Employed!!

Chilling.

*sigh*

More in the Nature of Matlabi Things: My Wishlist

What You May Also Call as a Resolution

Dawn

*facepalm*

Nights Out, Black Dresses, and Nights In

Clarity

Flying

Interesting Things

This Life

Shine On

Perspectives.

Nu.

Finally.

Today.

Not the girl you think you are

On Pain and Automation.

Contemplating vodka, smells, and songs.

Ramble.

Boys

Urges

Quick-Shot Music Round-Up

On Death

Letting Go; Moving On; Living

Hear ye, hear ye.

Completus.

Interruptus.

Being wordy.

Letter 3, or, "For when I need anger"

Letter 2, or, "For when you die"

Letter 1, or, "It's about closure."

A Mirror to the Soul.

Status Messages: A thought.

The Art of Seduction. Again.

THW be outrageous.

Notes and Thoughts on "That Guy"

"That Guy"

If ONLY life could be a dream, where I would take you up to Paradise.

Conversations

Don't care about the young folks.

Why can't I have my teddy bear?

Some Thoughts.

Lovin' each day as if it's the last

It struck me as I was turning off my laptop that...

When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy in you dies...

Fire, burn bright for me, and burn me up tonight.

Soft. Silently, let it come, let it be, let me see.

sigh

facepalm