And That's The Way It Is.

There are times you wish you knew a person better. Indeed, there are times when you wish you could tear apart the person before you and turn him/her inside out. A glance, an untimely hint of a smile at the corners of the mouth, a smirk or the lift of an eyebrow for the smallest discernible faction of a second drives you into an insurmountable rage which you can but express.

At the other times, the same signs lead to a flash of realization, an awareness of the truth behind the facade worn by the person. The hurt then is so complete that you wish you never knew! There is no way to decide which condition you would prefer to be in.

There are innumerable occasions when you would go to an unthinkable extent in support of your friends while there are a few when you think you are capable to reach the same limit but this time to cause them a terrible insufferable pain. When you yearn for vengeance, a vicious payback for an injustice, a betrayal.

It’s inexpressibly relieving and bliss when your friends understand what you want to convey, disclose, without you having to explain it all, or at all, a task not enjoyable always. You can’t be grateful enough.

But then, when you understand too much, when you can see through, when you know, but can’t let on that you do, it’s suffocating. You can’t be disgusted enough.

There is a part who wants you to talk, perhaps to understand it all better, perhaps to ask for an approval, to gain an affirmation or perhaps to just share. Then there is a part who would rather you close in on yourself, be impersonal, unaffected.

You want to relax, safe in the knowledge that you can be yourself, that you can trust. You want to breathe easy. But you also struggle to free yourself from these bonds which threaten to strangle you, choke your belief and faith to death.

You have no way to decide which way to go.

What you want to be, you can’t be, for the sake of your own sanity. What is required of you is something you have never wanted to be, a person you would hate, detest, a mechanical and manipulative version of yourself.

This is the tension of opposites.

You hate and you care. You detest and yet you appreciate. You strain to hold on and all the while you want to let go. You get tired of people trying to be someone else. You get tired of trying to be someone else for them. You get tired of holding yourself up. You get tired of making efforts....

Writer's (Un)Block!

In the last three months that have elapsed since my last post, there have been times I endeavoured to pen down something for the sole purpose of posting on the blog. All that I came up with was either too personal, too much of a give-away, sometimes my thoughts would be incoherent even to myself, sometimes I found it too difficult to express and at other times it read as something plainly forced. And of course, there were times when I was plainly just...stuck. With the first paragraph written and an ending in mind, I would just stare blankly at the screen, reading what I had written, repeating what I had in mind and struggling to find any way to connect the two. The result is that I have seven unfinished posts and innumerable are the occasions which I thought would find a place of honour on my blog. Well, what actually happened is all too evident. My blog speaks for itself with nine posts in all!

I remember the day I put in my first post there. It was a big day for me, with everything typical of all these so-very-important days. I envisaged myself entering into an arena swarming with whom I had always considered, The Bloggers. The present looked agreeable and the future held a lot of promises. Oh yes, I was now one of Them. I could just see myself typing feverishly; I could hear my brain whirring inside me. I made a firm resolution to live up to the expectations from a great blogger and to dish out articles worthy of such a great place. That I would be regular was oh-so-obvious! Was there a doubt in that? Nope, not one in sight. Yes, I had made a good start at what I foresaw as a most fulfilling journey. I aimed at emerging a better writer and it goes without saying, a better person! Naive? Well, who is not at the start of anything new?

That was the day and today is one. With a year elapsed in between, there are only eleven posts on my blog including one which I did not write myself, minus one which I deleted.

What I then failed to take into account amidst my ecstasy was a fundamental flaw in my plan. I have the innate trait of being impulsive enough to send me typing at all random and required times but lacked what it needed to keep me at it, what they all popularly call patience and perseverance.

Though, in all fairness to myself, my diary has certainly seen better days than my blog! But that is another issue altogether....

I have now fully realized the difficulty of writing for a purpose. Most of my posts (Yeah, I know there are not many) have been a result of immense emotional strain and an urge to get something out of my system quick. There have been more of those, but as is proper, they are safe in my diary.

My writing skills, as I’d like to call them, need polishing, a job which I thought could be achieved to some extent with the highly looked forward to and now resentfully looked back at, creative writing(an elective) course. I was not completely in an illusion after a rude awakening to the truth of the HS department by a research scholar there. Still, my hopes of learning something were at least alive if not high. They were crushed after the first class.

It was evident I would need a lot more than what I previously thought would suffice, to sail through the sea I had thrown myself in. (I am bad at symbols I know.) The demon reared up its head. (Pathetic) Behold...the beast of a phoem! (Speechless with shame) As it turned out, that is all creative writing is about, poetry. Prose? Oh a child could like a story. Humour? Huh! Substandard literature! Poetry is the highest form of literature, the most respected, the most honoured. The poets occupy the pinnacle of literary achievements! They must, seeing as they are always least understood.

Poems have always been a wonder for me (frustrating too if I might add.), a mystery where anything could mean everything! I remember when in a class the teacher read out some lines of a certain person always having to smile for others, leading a fake life and of being tired of it. I took it to be a poem about a receptionist or an air-hostess but as is proper for a poem it turned out to be lines for an old man tired of his life!

It was a double whammy of writing as when required and commanded with the additional compulsion of it being a poem! Even during my four years of studying poetry as a curriculum part, I tried my level best to avoid them as much as possible. I always experienced tremendous difficulty in reading ‘between the lines’ as they call it. I don’t recall being able to comprehend what was there ‘in the lines’ for that matter. There is always this much-more-than-what-meets-the-eye aspect to poetry, a behind the curtains of words meaning which I inevitably fail to grasp unless helped by a teacher or a guide! I attribute this to my naivety in the subtle and gentler forms of expressions and a rather annoying, uncomfortable though rather convenient habit of being point blunt! The metaphors which poets derive from everyday life, the all time favourite moon, a rock, a leaf and what-not, always leaves me flabbergasted! In a habit of always seeing things as they are, it never occurred to me to personalize something as some other thing! Not that I haven’t tried, being able to write poetry is a privilege and lately more like a crucial survival exercise now that significant portion of my grade in the subject depended upon it.

They said it required strong feelings. Well, I certainly have a lot of those. Maybe it wasn’t so tough after all!

And so it came to pass that in a tutorial class, being surrounded by blossoming and established poets with the monotonous drone of our mentor ringing loud in my ears I wrote my first ever poem. That I was sitting next to a person well accomplished at writing this stuff wasn’t helping matters. It was with tremendous trepidation that I handed it in and with a critical eye passing over it a little too fast...it was proclaimed...good! I heaved a sigh of relief even when I was sure he had not understood it. But wait, there was more to come, there was a nonexistent flaw in my grammar in the very first line and I had to go through the trauma of explaining what I meant by its usage which was by the way, supposed to be obvious.

Anyway, the history repeated itself again in the end semester exams when in fifteen minutes I managed to write 10 lines which actually rhymed on a Child’s innocence.

So here I present...the silliest lines ever to be written by a 21 year old...

The Lost Innocence

To watch the world with wonder;

To trace patterns in the clouds, gaze at the horizon,

And imagine what's yonder;

To feel the warmth of sun inside,

To play with birds, frolic with friends,

And nothing bad enough to deride;

To forget all pain with the mother's kiss,

The time when ignorance was sheer bliss!

Growing up has left me with little to gain,

Oh! How I wish to be a child again!

Well...in my defence I would say that they rhyme atleast albeit like a nursery rhyme! In all honestly, it wasn’t all bad...the classes were fun with feelings escalating being those of ultimate elation and depression in tune with those of our legendary teachers!

With fond reminisces...I sigh and sign off here....

Happy 10^th dear blog!

Here I am...This is Me...

It was so familiar a sight, something I had been seeing for years, something a part of my routine, something so customary that it had ceased to be acknowledged, so much there it was that it wasn't there any longer, I never even noticed when it evanesced from my life. I was yet again about to pass by it acknowledging it unknowingly, unconsciously when I stopped dead in my tracks. I stood there transfixed looking down at the white orange flowers strewn on the ground. Harsingaar. It took me a moment to realize that here was a sight hailing back from oblivion. An oblivion I don't recall having entered into. So poignant were the memories it evoked, so intense the recollections that I had an immediate urge to stoop down and collect them. Of all the exotic forms in which harsingaar is quoted, mine is perhaps the most mundane, the most plain. These were just the flowers I used to find sprinkled on the ground forming an orangish white amorphous mesh, inviting us to feast on them. I was too young to fully appreciate the aesthetic aspect of it. For me, they were just pretty, sweet smelling flowers. In fact, even as I picture it now I am left paralyzed when I try to describe it in words. I fail desperately in trying to explain the contrast it presented against the otherwise brown earth. The peace of the sight against the hustle bustle of the kids around. I can just appreciate, revel in a beautiful view but can never recreate it through words to the same effect, much to my chagrin!

Not that the patch was left alone for silent contemplation! It was exploited fully, completely, much to our delight and satisfaction. Not for the sake of the destructive sense of mind kids are generally assumed to possess, but to be put to more gratifying uses! We stringed them together on longest possible sticks( I have no other way of describing what we did!) and gift them to our teachers. I remember the hurry to reach the school compound from the bus stand, the disappointment at finding the best flowers gone and the rest trampled upon. It was lame, stupid, dumb, and innocent, the happiness at being the first one to gift it to our teacher was genuine. There was a feeling of victory against rest of the classmates without a malice. There was no jealousy on a defeat. So innocent a quest, a battle and so pure were the happiness and disappointment likewise! Those were the only times I remember being glad about my relatively short height in the class as that put me near to the teacher, near to my target!

As I forced myself to move on, whole of my school life ran through my mind in an extremely quick flashback…with faces just flitting in and out of my thoughts. So rapid were these recollections that before I could concentrate on one face…it dissolved into another! Among these, the most prominent were those of my teachers. How glad I was of their attentions, of support, of hidden favoritism and of obvious love! I wonder how would I have turned out if not for the teachers I am lucky to have had! I remembered my sheer glee when I was told about my teachers arguing, each claiming me to be her student! Self obsession, narcissism, self importance and words with meaning in the same strain did not exist then. It was just a token of appreciation which spurred me to do better, excel myself and rise up to the expectations harboured by my teachers from me( and teach the ones who did not a lesson!). These fond reminiscences are what still keep me going in the most trying of times.

Coming to college has been good for most of the part but lack of good teachers is what I lament the most of all the grievances I have from this place. After passing out, if I ever get down to discussing the professors, I sincerely doubt if the discussion will encompass anything more than their eccentricities!

Apart from this, I wonder if my college life will gift me with memories so powerful and so moving as the ones by my school life…I wonder if my life here is actually moulding me into a better person? I wonder how has this place contributed to my life, in a good way, leaving aside the friends I have made…have I done anything worthwhile so far!?

On an optimistic note, I wish, pray that this place goes down in my memory as a treasured part of my life! I hope, yet again, that I will be able to retain in my memory all the best times I have had here and am hopefully yet to have!

On my way back I stopped and performed the old ritual again. I was happy, in a way I have not known for a long time now! I wished that this would permanently imprint it on my mind, with no danger of it getting lost irrevocably into the realms of forgetfulness ever again. Yet again, in an desperate attempt to hold on to all the memories…I pray that I am able to remember them all forever!

But I wonder, how many priceless ones have I lost so far….

P.S. I don't think its exactly a comeback…just consider it as a faint sign of life from someone just recovering from a near death experience! This explains the title of the post I guess....

Stuck In The Moments...

I never envisaged this place and its people so dangerously and disturbingly( talking of now) entwined with my life! Cribbing all the time about the hopelessness of this place and my blunder in choosing it...I never realized how and when it came to this where biding adios takes so much effort...

I leave tomorrow…with the memories of the gone by 25 days clearly etched in my mind….

These days had been special for multiple reasons, I saw myself Ghising as never before! Catching a sleep  of maximum four hours a day, up at 4:30 AM in the morning without any dilly dallying followed by a most convenient , plausible and well deserved black out during the exam!

The sessions in library gave me more than just whatever meager grades I have managed to scrape. I have never meant it more than now when I say, some moments are too special to be shared…anywhere, in the diary  or even with myself….

I would never want to give them a clear expression of words even in my own mind, fearing that I might not do them justice and ruin their essence. And sometimes they start to appear so very melodramatic and sentimental when rationalized, precisely construed and explicitly expressed! I want them to remain just that, a blur of images, a conversation and the myriad of emotions experienced.

I reminisce and relive them over and over. If only they could be retained forever! But gradually they will fade away, leaving only a faint recollection in their wake.

There are times when I wish things were simple, all mathematics. Only one conclusion to be derived from a given set of conditions! All brains, no heart...( and that's a very Hindi filmy cliched line!)

I am unsure as to how the upcoming vacation will turn out for me…if my intern would be worth it and all. I am even more apprehensive as I try to conjure up how will it be when I return back to college. So many of those who had become a integral part of my life would no longer be there and what changes it will bring in the rest is again something I have no idea about.

But, things will change in any case. Typically, I do not want them to even when I know they should…It will be for the better perhaps, even if I can't see anything remotely positive about it right now….

You never want to shatter your world of illusion do you? When it is what you want the reality to be like...

IGNORE IT...That's what they all say...

A student of TISS was gang raped by six men…nothing new…nothing sensational…just another regular occurrence down the road…going by the statistics…it might be happening somewhere right now!

And what can I do about it?

Or can ANYONE do anything about it!

She will always be the victim, the rapist is never the one blamed!

She must have done something, she must be wearing a too-much-revealing dress, she might have gestured in a suggestive way, she might have smiled, talked or passed a glance in an inviting manner!

She wanted it…she had it coming to her!

How can wearing a dress, smiling around or maybe even flirting be same as saying 'Come and rape me!'

What kind of a mind functions behind such inferences?!

And if that's not enough, she is now…IMPURE!

That's all that is about her, everyone wants to be the first and the only one and now that it is no longer preserved, she is no longer considered to have anything human left in her.

She is a news, to sensationalize the gossips, to liven up the newspapers!

The more of it, the better.

Nothing would be more exciting than the minutest details of the ordeal(for her).

Her identity would be the icing on the cake.

This mentality is what the Mumbai Mirror cashed upon. Publishing her FIR, giving out every detail about her baring her name, staying just in limits lawfully yet exploiting every moral obligation.

There have been protestations, blogs(this one included), people voicing their fierce disapproval  but that's about it!

The harm is done. If the original wound wasn't bad enough, it has now been scratched upon more than once, grossly, thoughtlessly, inhumanly, perhaps never to be healed.

I wonder if in all this hue and cry, she lies somewhere, forgotten.

People are speculating upon limits of freedom of press and their moral duties.

She, as a individual, will stop mattering before long.

Everyone will move on when her life has been brought to a standing halt.

Whom can she turn for comfort, an assurance of her being as pristine as she was before when she has most probably been shunned by her own kith and kin…

It's the press that is being blamed but what led to it?

What kind of upbringing ingrains in the minds that it is supposed to be this way.

That this is the ultimate way out for everything, to give a vent to the frustration of a 'no', a let out for the anger at their being futile, a means of exercising control, something to assure them of their 'virility' to gain back their pride, a punishment to her for talking too much, showing too much, for trying to be a independent human, for being there when they happened to be in a mood for fun!

What was it that made this a universal phenomenon?

Happening in every street, mentioned in every journal, reported on every channel, encompassing in its clutches everyone from a six month child to a eighty years old  lady!

And how to undo it?

How to redefine and restructure something that has been handed down since generations!

Something that lives in every mind, perhaps hidden in its deep crevasses, unrecognized, unacknowledged, bursting forth in unguarded moments, as a subtle threat, as the ultimate way of retribution, something to make her regret through her life, something to make her accept her subordinate status, her fragility, something that will stamp that authority on her for ever and prove them the true symbol of manhood! Restore back their pride…

How to initiate the process of sensitizing?

How to make them understand the gravity, the trauma of it when all who don't do it, laugh about it?

And it's not just them, there are them of her kind for whom it’s a matter of mirth…the 'molestation thingy'…because this is all a feministic issue really!

Something they themselves and the ones in their know, the ones for whom they care are somehow excluded!

And what can she do to protect herself?

Or what can anyone do for that matter?

What could the father of that 15 year old do when she was dragged out of the train and raped on gun point by 4 men…

This reminds me of all the travels I have taken alone or with my friends…what can anyone do in the face of it…all of us are living counting on pure luck…that it won't happen to us…

I am afraid, suddenly reluctant to go anywhere, to trust anyone…it is short lived I know, life doesn't and can't stop. I will resort to my reckless self once again, I don't want to miss out more on my life, I can't stop being me and this is not trying to be foolishly brave( a notion frequently voiced…), I can't be a miserably dependant creature…I guess that's what the price they paid for this…yet, I can't see anything that I can, or anyone, can do about it…we all are just moving on…oblivious yet even more aware with every passing moment, of the ubiquitous peril…

I wish I could figure it all out.

I wish I could understand why.

I wish I could tell her she is still herself.

I wish I could kill them all.

I wish I could end this.

I wish I could do something….

 

THE ONE Hour...

'What’s the use of going on time for this one! Why not go, say...15 minutes late...maybe just flip through the 6th Chapter once...ChattArjee advised to do so, there must be something in that!

He is not what-he-is for nothing!'

But the last almost 16 years of giving exams has ingrained in me the habit of going for the ordeal on time, when there is nothing, apart from a few other things, I would like more than to flunk it! There was a time when making commensurate preparations to face the trial came naturally as well, but that seems so long ago now…And saying this I experience yet  another twinge of guilt…

Still, despite of frequent tugs at my conscience (came to know recently that I had been wrongly pronouncing the word all along!) , the situation stands at this…I have prepared one chapter out of three in the syllabus.

Am I worried? No, not me!

I am going around merrily, making fun of my predicament, trying to assure Yamuna that looking around idly for an hour won't be that bad! She claims that she is facing a similar crisis and though far from believing her, She is A Branch Changer for the uninformed, I formulate plans with her to idle away that one hour.

 I have resigned myself to the fate or so I convince myself to think.

There exists a small bubble of hope. You can never stop wishing for miracles can you?

Even if you can't figure out how on earth, or anywhere for that matter, can even the Supreme Power make it happen!

"One chapter, that's 33%, surely we will get two, or at least one question out of it?"

I make my way to the department. The sense of foreboding magnifies further as I enter the arena. Placing my trust in the Prof's ability to set a sensible question paper, I take a seat in Lecture Hall 301.

I have the question paper and answer sheet in my hand.

I pass a cursory glance over the paper.

"What the hell is this?!

Relax!

Stay cool, Read it again and perhaps you will be able to figure it all out!

Yeah right!

What is a converter, what…Patience!

First things first."

I complete the entries on the answer sheet much as I would like to leave them blank to escape the contretemps I know is on my way.

"Alright.

Go for it now."

I am reading…

"Transient circuits, that can be attempted…

Back to square one….

What is a Converter, Half controlled, Full controlled…Damn!

Chapter 6...

It is all gobbledegook!

Why didn't I heed ChattArjee's advice?

Chill…there IS one question for the likes of you…try it."

I get down to it….

"How is it possible?!

This question doesn't make sense! How can current flow in a short circuited circuit or a reverse biased diode?

I am missing something…I must be…."

I fail to see it.

I consume as much time as possible…better handwriting, slow calculations…but I still do not use scale and pencil for drawing the circuits. I have my limits.

15 minutes are over.

"Now what?"

DD's words resound in my ears…"Start explaining all what you know about thyristors, that will save you from the embarrassment of submitting a blank answer sheet and who knows! It might as well get you some marks!"

"Now What?"

I draw some random, and I mean random, graphs…a lucidly pathetic attempt!

"What ever!

I give up!"

The next problem arises….

"40 minutes left to go…."

I write my name on the question paper, on the back page of answer sheet, on the eraser and again on the question paper, this time on the lower part.

10 minutes gone. Yeah, writing one's name takes that much time if you do it my way.

I look at my jeans, bluish white strip on a blue background.

Blue pen in my hand, I start making the deft strokes…15 minutes later my jeans sports a graffiti... of my name!

15 minutes still left….

5 minutes later my eraser is all blue…or so it would seem to the observing invigilating professor from that distance. It actually has a crisscross design on it on all sides save one which has my name. I wish he would mind his business. He is the same one who knows that I read novels in class.

I see my internal assessment marks taking a dip, if they were still afloat that is.

10 minutes to go….

I look around…I surely chose a wrong place to sit…everyone in my line of sight was scribbling away.

"I can leave…I could have before also, but it will be all the more embarrassing, if there is any scope left for it. I need to know how others did…I am not leaving."

There is a new bubble of hope now…wishing for relative misery concept to come to my rescue.

Did I just say I was distressed?

"Is this how the underperformers in school felt?"

Another twitch...

I am wearing a string of beads in my hand. I get down to count them. The bigger ones turn out to be 35 in number and the smaller ones are a whooping 267! Never thought there were so many of them!

Time is up.

"Phew!

It's over…I survive, even if with a considerable loss of dignity!

There is always a next time…I still have end sems!"

I submit the answer sheet, relieved!

People look happy…happier than me anyway!

Even Mr.L has done better than me, but to do him credit, he did study this time, in Library!

A lot of people apart from me will bear testimony to it.

But still, doesn't mean that you commit the heinous crime of Discussing the Paper!

The most dastardly thing to do in the face of the likes of me!

As if there weren't enough of their likes around!

I am left stranded in the sea of well performers.

The Sage's also didn't go well, I come to know. Bad!

 He did study and much more than Mr.L….

DD has done the usual,that is, good.

I am supposed to be ashamed, I am not…and I am not proud of it!

I resolve to myself to do well in the end sems…as has become customary now….

This is yet another landmark reached…yet another one I would have never liked to encounter!

Declaring my vow to take whatever advice ChattArjee throws my way in future, regarding studies, I pass out into the sun, alive…but badly bruised!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inertia...

I suddenly have this urge to write…but I am clueless about the content I want to put in here. I met my childhood friend just a couple of hours ago…she is here for Sangram. This was like one of those…divine intervention things! Anyway, a later post will elaborate on this. 

Since evening, when I was first informed of her impending arrival, my mood was at its positive best! With all the vivacity I have in me, I was going around declaring my 'affection for life' to anyone who would care lo listen! Smiling from ear to ear, the world around was pleasantly complaisant!

The ephemeral reunion was one of the best things to happen to me in the last few days! There will be more of it though, if she manages to get away from the slave drivers she has for her team captains!

The thought itself is comforting, something to look forward to. Still, something is not good.

I am in this weird mood!

I am not low…still I am not exactly in high spirits. I am sleepy but I don't want to sleep. I would like to read 'Lord Of The Rings'(This book grows on you slowly, until you are badly smitten by it!) but I am not feeling like doing it. I pick it up and impatiently put it away. I can't laugh at the jokes DD is cracking, even though I want to. There is a write-up I want to complete but I am unable to think anything on those lines! I want to talk to my friends but still I don't feel up to it! Replying takes too much strength…I am feeling incapacitated. I am supposed to study but I can't get down to it, I am agitated and give it up as well. Still, I don't want to doze off.

At the back of my mind there is a nagging thought, continuously reminding me of my dismal performance in academics. I should work harder on this front I know, but I don't want to. I don't like to! Have I also fallen a victim to the 'too cool to study' attitude? I hope not!

I guess I am just plain lethargic yet I feel bothered by my joblessness. I am in elated moods when I am killing myself with 'work' as I like to call it, however useless it may be if it is something I enjoy. It is not supposed to be this way. I am supposed to study. I see people applying for interns, doing projects; I feel troubled. I have nothing to justify my presence in a IIT! Absolutely nothing. Am I doing the needful?

I want to do what I want to…but is this what I want or is this something I should want?

Should I do things because I should?

The sentence itself started from 'should'.

I have no idea.

I find talking to a complete stranger easy right now. Still, I am not in a bad mood.

Each one of us has a vision of a perfect life. Or I think it is so. But I don't have mine. There are a lot of things we would like to do, to get nearer to that vision still we don't bring them about.

There is a perennial conflict between what you think your life 'should' be and what you 'want' it to be.

You are constantly attracted and repelled by what you admire. Maybe self-doubt is the reason…

Or maybe I am just another victim to Procrastination...