As the darkness closed down upon him, the much talked about vivid flashes of memory started making their customary attack. The sunset on the half-made housing society, Brahmani kites riding the thermals and putting up quite a show for anyone who cared enough, the barges making their daily dough, people celebrating yet another goal in their daily futsal routine.
He wanted to end it all, to give up. He could see no reason, no rational thought behind continuing life as he knew it. He burnt quite a few gray cells in trying to figure out where it all went wrong, and then burnt a few more in realizing that nothing of much avail was to happen through that particular process. Sounds of a sisterly concern rang through his mind, but he was positive the world wouldn’t stop turning. He vaguely remembered childhood tales advocating perseverance, and discerned how trivially he’d let them go. Somehow, the distant memory of walking under a flyover, on his way back home, and clenching his fist in determination and vehicles screamed past him played over and over again. He thought of the many who’d take great pleasure at the consequences, those who’d day would be made. The cellphone in his pocket was a dead weight, pulling him further down.
It would be so marvelous letting go. Something new, the change he’d been waiting for. In difficult times too, there is change. And in change, there is a challenge. Completely oblivious to the rat-race in progress, about a hundred meters behind him, Daniel believed it was time to let go. Fate, although, had other plans. For that was when his cellphone buzzed with the delivery of a text message. The one liner caught him by the scruff of his neck, inches away from the abyss and dumped him back onto the cold hard floor of reality.
“Free Coffee?” the message had said.
He felt the warmth seeping in. The overwhelming darkness felt lighter, and the bad taste in his mouth seemed like it would go anytime soon. He saw beauty around him.
He was soon to realize that in times like those, he was a dent in the happy lives of those who are perfect. If underachiever was not that clichéd a word, he would have thought it. Cold as metal, with all the performing capability of a dodo on tranquilizers. A dampener of spirits. But at that moment, he was happy. There were a few things that could act like global anesthesia, even for a few moments. And free coffee was one of them.
I'd never thought I'd say this, but it's staggering when you realize the full implication of the phrase "Lite can be taken". Every day, every moment, new facets show themselves, and one simply wonders whether whoever came up with the phrase had any idea how much power that one phrase has.
And the best part is, you need to use it, overuse it and abuse it, only then does the significance hit you. How lite has nothing to do with slacking off, with giving up, with reclining, and how it perfectly describes the state of mind which invariably leads to something good. Never have I been this excited about learning the entailment of whatever the phrase has in hold.
I have an insane urge of stepping on something and breaking it. Very specifically, a flip-phone. I'm certainly not doing it to mine, mostly because it belongs to Abha and she'd kill me.
Butt I almost sat on it a while back, and I just wondered about the crack, about the sound it'll pass. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. As stupid ass it seems, I just had to post it.
It's just about 20 days to go, and we're all gonna scurry home to comforts, more baths, washing machines and generally more livable conditions. And I don't claim life won't move on, but there are people on campus who will certainly be missed. This post is dedicated to all those people who've left lasting impressions. To all those final year people who I've grown accustomed to seeing around, and passingly wave to. To all those people who'll definitely prove to be sources of inspiration everywhere.
Rohit DeSa. The commanding presence, the guy who I've looked up to as THE person to be, taking life so awesomely yet excelling in everything he's set his feet in. Never have I seen anyone else who has a solution to everything. Er, except for how-to-get-stuck-tunes-out-of-your-head, of course :P Pralav Dessai. Just, being Pralav Dessai. There will be only one. The overflowing energy, the overoverflowing energy, the rotten-lovable humour, the cunning looks, never a dull moment! Oh, and the guy who uses my room as an encore room :P. Gurdeep Singh. Guru. Coke. Nescafe. Bad Doggy :P One chap who's just about always there to engage in extreme vellagiri with, one chap who's gonna ensure you're laughing your butt off at his array of expressions, yet has the most profound ideas and thoughts. Sohini Manna. Manna manna manna! The incredulous laughter, anecdotes always up her sleeve, so full of life and energy, and just pushing little snippets of senior-advice towards me. (Yes Rao, I do take Manna's advice too :P ) Sharan. Although I've moved away from this guy this semester, we've got the most wonderful memories, with the best music always playing in the background. The calling-up-when-listen-to-awesome-songs-when-in-public-place was a sooper thing to do :D Many many others too. I haven't spent all that much time with these people, but guys like Gill (Sir Flashalot, the name says it all!), Bapu (The Firang guy, always a riot to have around), Subbu (Nobody will ever take you on in drinking dude, your legend will live on!), KB (Yes, the guy who learnt never to tell Manna anything about his life :P ), Jazzy (The flattener, the legendary statements, just jazzy!), Prakhar (Team Vella, yoyo, notsovellaanymore in IIM :P), Popat (Poops! Fofat! Poaps! Convener saab! Annnd a godlike music taste!) and anyone else I've missed out on.
It's just gonna be different without you guys. Everything will move on. Just, different :)
And, the inevitable cheesy line at the end of all this, you guys have been a big influence, shine on! :)
PS - Third yearites, I'll be seeing you guys around, so I really can't come to terms with the fact that it's your farewell :)
My blog, today, turns two. It's been around through everything major, it's been my canvas for everything nice. The only place I have to show some creativity in an otherwise talentless existence. And the blog has seen me change from what I was in Junior college, to what I am now.
Before I get carried away like once before and pour emotions out on the blog in a stupid manner, I'm just gonna say Happy Birthday! I never thought I'd be the person I am today, two years back, but I knew I'd have the blog! I knew Random Thoughts would stay with me. The same fears that haunted me in the first post haunt me today. Not much has changed on that front. It's a happy day for the blog, but I'm not sure I'd say the same about me!
On a much, much lighter note, I do wish I get to keep the blog forever! Random is now cliche, and criticisms are much in vogue. Someday, I wish to look back at this post and laugh at how stupid I was. But not today. Not today.
As an afterthought, I must mention Bing and Pubby. Through all the times in college, through everything smart and dumb, these two buggers have been constant ports-in-storms and inspiration. There's tonnes of others who've been crazily important parts of my life, but them two deeks have just, well, been there. Non-judgementally, steadily. To another year of corridor-mate-ness!
I cannot, for the life of me, write poetry. Except for the ones I write with Suramya, which REALLY doesn't count. I just read 15-odd blogs in the space of the last hour and a half, and everyone's been shelling out random poetry. I tried to get the deep inner meaning and all that, I really did. No dice. Maybe it's the PoM report.
Bleh. Feeble attempts to blow dust away. Mostly resulting in choking on it. Nothing attempted, nothing gained.
There’s something about heights. It just takes the idea of being on a “higher plane than the rest of the world” to a completely new level! And when she was on her terrace with the diamond-like stars looking at her with that benevolent gaze, there was nowhere else she wished to be. The stars had always been special to her. She was called the lady with eyes as beautiful as stars. That evening on the terrace, she could let her thoughts run completely astray, with nothing to bring them back to life. Her thoughts could reach out to all the infinite spaces she could see above her, her thoughts could fly!
She spanned her vision across the sky and saw every star that twinkled up above. Each one of them had its own staggering beauty. She had never imagined why the sky was so remarkable to her, but it was. The moon stood righteously in its place, ceaselessly moving towards the horizon. The same journey every day, the same purpose forever, that unending strife. She wondered about the journeys of life.
Why was the human race, she mused, so fascinated with the sky? So fascinated with that dark mist studded with gemstones of unspeakable beauty? Why so many before her times had spent their lifetimes looking at the sky, trying to find meaning out of it? Something she’d heard about the human tendency of being inquisitive. Some conversation she’d had in the past. Something about wanting to know more than what we do already, all the time. The thoughts swirled through her head, and the very idea of that fog gave her immense happiness. If this is what being high felt like, then she wanted to look at the sky forever. She saw one of the stars winking down upon her and she looked away, with a slender grin.
Looking into the depths of space, she knew she wasn’t the first one to look into its profundities and be in awe of its beauties. She knew how much it meant to her ancestors. It was those very stars that had not just stood as the immortal markers of direction to the ones lost at sea, but as a sign of hope to many a writer who lost his source of inspiration. She pictured the generations before her staring into that very sky, those very massive bodies giving out that very light, imagining how it all came to be, imagining how much of the universe there is to understand, imagining how much beauty there is in the world.
“There’s just WAY too much beauty to be unhappy!”, she wondered aloud. She realized how the advents in physics had come to change the opinion of the world about the sky. How, for some, the sky was an object of study to implement mathematical equations. For most, the sky was just a hundred and eighty degrees of a blind spot. For few in every generation, however, the sky was obdurate beauty. An ideology which beings of the earth could never reach, but always strived to. She felt the happiness inside her on so many thoughts of beauty revolving around her together.
She wanted the happiness to linger. She wanted to be happy. Forever!
I've never really done this here, but this song happens to be one of my favourites. Hearing it live recently made me drown neck-deep into it.
So here's to you, Bobbo!
Old pirates, yes they rob I Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I From the bottomless pit But my hand was made strong By the hands of the almighty We forward in this generation Triumphantly
Won't you help to sing These songs of freedom 'Cause they all I ever had
Redemption Songs, Redemption Songs.
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds Have no fear for atomic energy 'Cause none of them can stop the time How long shall they kill our prophets While we stand aside and look Some say it's just a part of it We've got to fulfill the book
Won't you help to sing These songs of freedom 'Cause they all I ever had
Arka started the trend(?) of posting the 25-things facebook thingy on the blog, so here goes. Facebook being blocked in hostel, it's a darn good idea. Besides, the now-usual dust on my blog was becoming too thick for it's own good.
Took me quite a while to come up with these.
1>The best roots of thought-processes and ideas come to me while I’m crapping, followed closely by when I’m bathing.
2>There does not pass a single moment when there isn’t some sort of music playing in my head. I cannot, for the life of me turn it off. Not that I want to, I’ve just tried to.
3>I’m obsessed with big machines. I’ve always preferred the mighty motors and the loud hum of the transformers in the electrical lab to the cute chips and suave CROs of the electronics lab.
4>Somehow the obsession of big machines never extends to cars and bikes. I’ve never really known anything and everything there is to know about any car or bike. Honestly, I just think it’s a waste of time knowing stats you really can’t do anything about. The rated value of a DC motor, however, is a different matter!
5>With all the risk of including a very clichéd line here, I’m addicted to caffeine.
6>I will stubbornly continue moving my feet (the kind you do in an exam or supposedly, when you’re nervous) when I’m thinking, in spite of different techniques tried by different people to change that. These range from simple slaps on the thigh to exasperated threats to amputate my limbs :|
7>Oh yes, before that slips out – I adore, respect, revere and unconditionally love the straight-face smiley. It’s the single most used smiley when I’m on any IM service. By FAR. The most used smiley on text messaging too.
8>I’m known to be really, really fast while texting and I like to show that fact off. Although in my private moments, I would agree that using similar models of phones for about four years now and a “10 paise a message” are very much to blame.
9>I’m very phobic to discussions about vague, discreet facts – facts about weapons, planes, animals, cellphone models. Such discussions pertaining to music, however, I completely dig!
10>Ever since I started writing this, I’ve been trying to put it in words, but I cannot possibly stress how dependant I am on music. It’s heroin-addiction-level. It’s there with me every minute, in my mind every passing moment. I’m as much in love with Hindustani Classical Music as with Rock Music or Jazz or anything else. My mood depends on the music, and my music depends on the mood. The obsession deserves a separate post altogether.
11>I love cheese. I love it like a child and I love it like a lover. I love it like any love the world has ever known.
12>I rival a Japanese tourist on a seven wonders trip when it comes to photography. My digicam allures me in a way that very, very few things do. And in most times, it’s not people I click.
13>I’m still superstitious, completely by choice and stupidly so, about stuff I care about. I still skip steps, cross my fingers and wear particular t-shirts to particular exams. Which is why I didn’t put any of the stuff I hold dear on number 13.
14>I fall head-first for women with a sense of humour I like. Nothing matters much after that.
15>A lot of my humour is spontaneous. I can never “tell a joke” when I’m told to do so.
16>I drink tons of water. I’d read someplace about how it makes you live a better life, and it’s become a habit ever since.
17>I love theatre, and acting in general. All kinds, all languages. (a translator would be nice, however) There are quite a few movie character roles I so badly wanna do, and I get into those characters when I’m in my room sometimes.
18>I talk to myself a lot, and I know we all do. So let’s stop associating that with being nuts, shall we? :P
19>I’m a comic-book freak and Batman more than the others. There is nothing more intriguing and cool than the mind of the Batman.
20>Words I use a lot – brilliant, insane, wrong, seriously, kinda, noice, anywho, accha, na, re,
21>Phrases I use a lot (on chat, mostly) – “haan haan”, “cool cool”, “I mean” “no no listen listen listen!”, “btw btw btw”, “dude, no.”, “.. and your point being?”, “so..totally…wrong!”, “oyya!”
22>I love my hostel. With all its quirks and idiosyncrasies. I try very hard not to imagine life once I’m kicked out of here with a degree. And I’m gonna be murdered for this, but I could not possibly have hoped for better corridor-mates than Bing and Pubby!
23>I’m an all-out connoisseur of bad jokes. There’s the good bad joke and then there’s the bad bad joke. The good bad jokes are the ones you really REALLY can’t stand, and the bad bad jokes are, well, not worthy of reaction.
24>I can never write for myself and then put it up on a public forum. Somehow, it just makes me feel like I’ve slipped in the standards I’ve set to my imaginary readers! I’m not sure whether that’s a bad thing entirely.
25>I am by all means more of a lonely person than a people’s person. I can spend insane amounts of time alone, and I enjoy every bit of it. As long as there’s music around!
And I tag everyone who manages to go through the list. I'm hoping this time around, the dust doesn't accumalate to the amount it had.
Slowly but surely, they wound up the road, dust swirling around the cars. There was a mist of anticipation and nostalgia surrounding the cars. Eyes darted around the green meadows, looking for any sign of their destination.
The clouds had chosen the day to practice formation flying in the sky and the sun was busy cooling off somewhere. The perfect day for a family outing, and four cars they took and pushed out! Driving down the highway on that perfectly lazy day, there was hardly anyone who could resist breaking into song. Away from the hustle-bustle of the Big City for a day, the weather could not have been better!
And now, as they drove down the road that didn’t seem to end, their enthusiasm grew every passing second! The fields around them swayed to the tune of the wind and the beauty of the scene was nothing short of dazzling! The serenity, the repose, the calmness in the air was enough to tranquilize everyone into a peaceful state. This was the life in the Indian village, the life hundreds of millions of Indians lead today. Enough to spark more than a few volts of envy! This, fifty years ago, was life as they knew it for Grandma and her children! Today would be a drive down memory lane for all the members of the family who lived this life, at the very grassroot level of the Indian lifestyle. Eighteen members of the family were out to look for the old house which the older members had once lived in, and the gusto could not have been stronger!
In its days of glory, the house had been a railway station, with Grandpa being station master. The house and the surrounding countryside was life as they knew it! And what a life it was! Waking up to the first ray of sunshine to the sounds of the 6 AM locomotive’s breath. Studying under the banyan trees, playing hop-scotch at the edge of the fields as the cows grazed. Helping their mother out in the daily chores as she sang to them, and later brawling to be the lucky one to sit on her lap while she read out the story for the night! The long-forgotten Indian countryside was rewinding and playing itself in the minds of all the siblings who’d lived there. The adults were surprised at how things had not changed at all! Far away from encroachment, the trees were still there and so were the boundless fields! The birds still chirped the same melodies, the field still whispered the same wisdom. The kids, however, were simply blown away. That a life in the village could be so beautiful and so worth living in, was something they’d never even imagined. The metropolis was the whole and soul of their existence. To think that their parents lived in a place like this, with all its peacefulness, was beyond belief!
And all of a sudden, like a shot from the blue, the house came into plain view. Nobody could have anticipated that what they saw.
The house was entirely unoccupied ever since Grandma and her family had moved out! The place was in ruins, but what beauty those ruins shot out! The house looked like an old wise man, smiling knowingly at those who knew him in his youth! The shine and polish had long gone and exchanged for a look of maturity, of age. The maintenance of the house was poor, but nothing could replace the grandeur, the magnificence!
It was like the memories stored inside the house had flooded out in that one fleeting instant and Grandma couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. Emotions welled inside everyone and Grandma’s children went inside in a reunion with the house they knew so well! Every wall, every staircase, every window, even the little cowshed to the side, worn out with age smiled at the family in unmistakable recognition. Time took them back, and the familiar sound of a train passing by the station was the only one which reverberated in their ears.
As for the kids, they were just thrilled to be in their parents’ house. The older ones who understood memories couldn’t help but smile at how rejoiced their parents were. Some kids had missed more interesting prospects of a Sunday evening to make it to the trip, but the house made everything worth it. This was a Sunday they weren’t likely to forget for a long, long time.
Y'know one of those days, when nature tries to be funny?
The weather at campus today was arguably the best we'd seen since the beginning of sem. The clouds had made the perfect veil to show just the good side of the sun, and the omnipresent sweat was . There was a calmness in the air reminiscent of a summer vacation evening in Pune, with only football, a lime juice and a Pizza dinner to look forward to. The usually lithe breeze was draggier than ever, the dogs were lazier than ever.Your generic always-in-a-hurry chap, late for a lecture and rushing across the B-wing plaza was nowhere to be found. Pubby was humming "People are Strange" while Bing and I nonchalantly sipped our coffee. The Egrets were invading Nescafe, though I doubt that had anything to do with the weather.
It was THE perfect day to actively do nothing. Not laze around mind you, that would be the sunny day where Mister Apollo decides to blow some steam. Those are the brain-on-standby days. This one, it was a day where you'd dynamically look out for the perfect ways to do all the fun things which would fall neatly under "constructive randomness". A day when the library with it's feeble Air-Conditioning did not feel like a haven. The beach clearly would be the ideal backdrop for all of this, but campus wasn't all that bad an option either.
And we spent most part of this day inside a Chemistry lab, measuring the pH of Acetic Acid while adding Sodium Hydroxide to it. Dropwise.
As a perfect end to the pain, a few moments after I rushed out of the lab to soak in what was left of the day, the clouds decide to vanish into oblivion and I'm left stranded in the middle of the Library Lawns, the sun beating down upon me.
Campus restrictions, a sucky public transport or whatever else I might choose to blame, I never actually got a chance to explore Goa in the almost-three sems I’ve been here. Even being the haven that it is, the tourist thing just never happened. But then suddenly dad decides to show up, claiming to get bored at home, and fully equipped with plans of a super 3 day vacation. Our idea of a super 3 day vacation – Hire a bike, hit the highway and just travel. No usual Goan shit - going and buying those highly weird flowery Goan shirts, visiting Stereotype Shack on Runofthemill Beach, none of that.
I’ve had my share of quality time with parents, but never has it been SO much fun! Guess it’s the whole distance thing, not being able to hang out with dad as much as I used to back home.
They say Goa’s about the beaches, I say no. Beaches, they’re all the same, you’ve seen one you’ve seem ‘em all! No, I am NOT biased about this! Honestly, there’s just a small many beaches you can visit without getting riled! I mean, WHO goes beach hopping?! For the love of Christ they’re just sand dune thingies, it’s like visiting different parts of the desert! Bah!
Ok maybe I’m a little biased.
So anyway, being the irritable self that I am towards beaches, we decided to explore that part of Goa which doesn’t feature in “Goa for Dummies”. The green Goa, the Goa with its raging forests and the never-ending foliage, the wildlife, the sanctity in the core interiors of Goa, WHY does nobody talk of these things? I mean, foreigners in no clothing is all very fine, but there are things beyond that! Very rarely, but there ARE!
I guess we took the whole journey-and-not-the-destination thing to a whole new level! Although we could feel the effects of the insane biking on our rearsides, it was totally worth it!
