happenings....

yes.. its been long... I feel divorced from the blog world... but there is a charm about blogging that makes you wanna come back... something like nostalgia... so, after much dilly dallying, here I am back after all...

am inPune now.. getting used to a dangerously indulging lifestyle.. not to say I am not enjoying it immensely.. though the loneliness gets to me sometimes... and I find that the fact that I am living alone seems to have suddenly changed my priorities... like i always used to like reading thought provoking and challenging stuff... now, I am scared to dwelve into such books... have actually resorted to harry potter and malgudi days... I daresay that I make every effort not to let dark thoughts weigh even heavier on my already heavy mood...

watching movies, talking to friends on phone, working, eating, sleeping... that about sums up my daily activities... I cannot say I like it... I am not even sure I can get used to it... somehow, I did not think my life will come to this.. was always thinking that something big is awaiting me... you know, the-I-was-brought-into-this-world-for-a-special-reason feeling... but as of now, this is what I am doing... nothing consequential... nothing that the world cannot do without... its almost like some grand disillusionment...

and I think its all because of a lack of competitive feeling (for which I am famous among friends)... I seem to have lost it... don't care anymore about performance, future etc... I can't believe myself... why am I so indifferent?? what should I do to bring my usual spirit back?? looks to me like I am just taking a break... not sure whether its well deserved or not...

but all said and done, Pune is a fab place... the area where I am staying is simply awesome... calm ambience, the misty air, tiny tea shops with dull yellow lights speckled across the streets, relaxed atmosphere... even the people seem to be happier... instead of being intimidating like bombay, its merely intimate... and I am falling fast in love with it... the osho commune thats nearby and all the sadhu type foreigners it attracts adds its own mystic effect... making it the perfect place for a lovely evening walk...

if only I had company.......

status quo..

at home now... for perhaps my last hols for quite sometime to come... its pretty cool actually.. the very knowledge that I may not get to be so lazy any time in the future helps me relax... otherwise, I am generally nagging everyone around me about how bored I am and how useless I fell lazing around...

Its my aunt's marriage on tenth.. so my entire household is in a perpetual buzz of activities... jewels, saris, dowry, deciding the shanti muhurtam (first night in layman's language), (incidentally it happens to be a one hour time slot specified by an astrologer... yes, people, tam men have to be that efficient ;-) ), visiting relatives, compliments (it so happens that I am the next in line!) about how grown up and (apparently) feminine I have become (from the brat they probably remember.. ), mehendi, makeup, flowers... the whole lot... ITS FUN!!

other than that, nothing happening here... doing the work of a handmaid for the entire family.. bank and bills for dad, grocery for mom and games and library with sis... its a really relaxed and fun life and sometimes I wish life was really as slow and uncomplicated as this... but probably, the proverbial urge to explore the new and the unknown will make shirk this lethargic life and help me get set and go...

so long...

pptch....

thats my last kiss to IIT...
Friends.. I am leaving this paradise today...
my last day here and I am not even senti.. just been fooling around the whole day. Guess, been unconsciously waiting for this day for long... been expecting this day from day one... was careful not to fall too much in love with this place lest I feel too bad the day I leave...

well, the day I leave has come and its ok... looking forward to better things in life... Enough I have taken from this place... can't take more.. can't give more... perhaps there's another place in this world which needs more.. ;-) wishful thinking...

anyways.. bubyee to ye all my friends... Loved being here and meeting all the people who I have come across, knowing a few of them who have made it a better place to live in...
my life has been certainly enriched in having come here....

LOVE YOU IITM... THREE CHEERS TO YOU!!!

adieu...

at last... at long last... the time is nearing to wave a farewell to what has been home for four prime years of my life... four precious years of my life... its weird... everyone knows where they are heading to... while on one hand the impatience to go ahead and take the new plunge has seized many, there are a few impractical senti god's like me, who heave long and helpless sighs at the thought of leaving the dear old place... just want time to come to a standstill... so that i can freeze in this minute... for there is nothing better that i would like to do than what i am doing now...

a lazy saturday morning.. a couple of hours at the lab.. sleep and fart sessions with friends... GRT treat with comfortable company... walk back from gate to hostel discussing nothing and everything... memories of the past... sweetness of the present and uncertainties of the future... and all the while cherishing the clean healing air thats unique to IIT... and then come back to a silent hostel and settle down to.... 'blog'!

there is nothing more that i want from this life but these peaceful existence.. though i would like to travel far and wide once in a while... which needs money... which i have to earn... which implies, I have to leave this place... to earn enough and do the few things on my to-do list... and hence this note of farewell...

so, I am seriously lost... between a living a peaceful life with few wants.. or a fuller and a more demanding life... with more luxuries... and thats what i mean by the uncertian future... when one's wants are not clear... one's future is unclear too... but i am still doing fine with my haziness... nothing matters... the present is too sweet...

so I shall just enjoy this place... and kiss it goodbye.. when the time comes...

ancient promises..

i always had an uneasy feeling that somehow my blog will turn into a mere book/music review one day.. looks like my intuitive powers are strong.. for yes, I am going to write about a book i read this morning and which seems to have affeted me pretty profoundly...

when i read the short sketch of the story(Ancient promises, by Jaishree Misra) on the cover of the paperback, i discarded it as yet another love story by one of those commonplace romantic women(with a degree in English literature, I may add..) who believed in twin souls and star crossed lovers.. but the fact that one of my batch mated was doing a term paper on it for Indian Fiction, made me read bits and pieces of the novel here and there (i have this very bad habit of reading the last page first... its still a mystery to me how inspite of breaking the suspense I end up reading the book anyway) .. And lo, the Acknowledgement( the very last page) brought tears to my eyes... and after the author's note (last but one page and which again melted my, as I am now sure, weak heart) i was determined to read the book...

A fabulous read straight from the honest heart of a brave woman... the accuracy with which the author has observed and penned the reactions of the characters.. the simple elegance of her writing.. and the touching storyline... squeezes the heart of the reader... bringing out waves of sympathy for the heroine (the main character and the narrator of the story... ) which turns into a slow admiration for her undaunted efforts to break out of what can only described as a hopeless situation...

Its a must read for Indian women.. i seriously believe that Indian women allow themselves to be dominated not because they like it, but because its convenient... assessing whether they are happy with their lives seems to be pointless to them, as they are not gonna do anything about it anyway... coz its too much effort to change the pattern established by the society... to stand up for what you want and believe in still seems to most of them, a revolutionary thought...

The author has done a truly commendable job in writing this semi-autobiographical story, giving hope to many that such things are indeed possible...

SADDEST POEM
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

-- Pablo Neruda

aah, this precious commodity called time... if only i knew how to use it....

thanks for all the tips ppl... i have come out of it... not bored anymore... i just realised something that a few of you who are as bored as I was can maybe use... it goes like this. We live at different levels simultaneously... the physical and the metaphysical... the mundane and the abstract... in the inner world of the self and the outer obvious world...

the answer to all kind of abnormal behaviour is excess indulgance in one of this. a balanced life seems to need equal measure of input from both these spheres of existance... greed of materialistic pleasures corrodes the inner self, till you reach a point where you have forgotten what you are living in this earth for... while a quest for inner glory makes you slack on the physical plane till you loose your edge and worth and again end up disoriented...

hence, a healthy combination of effort, but intellectual and physical is what returns lost sanity. so, the solution to boredom in simple words is "eight hours of value addition, in terms of reading, working anything to keep your mind occupied and maintain your competence... and then leisure.. for playing or meditating or finding meaning to existance or whatever..."

I feel enlightened!!

courtesy: german studies

eight semester blues....

i was awaiting the eight semester with an impatience i could scarcely conceal from the day I came to iit... prime of youth, totally jobless, loads of equally jobless friends, cash in hand (parents sympathetic enough to be generous to me in this final sem), all the time in the world... YES, I was really looking forward to this sem... started dreaming about it in the third year... it become a yearning in the seventh semester... (my longing to 'freak out' runs truly deep ;-) )

neways, coming back to the present... now that i live in my dreams (figuratively speaking) i realise that 'noooo.... its not supposed to be this way... ' all I am feeling is a certain listlessness... heaviness... an inertia that seems to be pulling me backwards... curbing my enthusiasm to do things... stealing all my energy... leaving me with nothing but an air of melancholy which I am not able to shake off...

yes, I sleep more than required... read newspapers and mags for most of the day...I even travelled around a bit... i am relaxed... which is one thing I cherish... but the euphoria.. the joy of living a happy, truly unconstrained life seems to have evaporated in thin air...

Wondering what's missing... will get back when I figure it out... till then, I am gonne be sunk in this abyss of nothingness...
bye

music..

whats with this music?? so much magic...



there is no worry so great that it can't be drowned in the touching strains of a string...

there is no joy so wild that it cannot be tamed by steady rhythmic tune...



music both intensifies and nullifies...

it sometimes lets you forget your sorrows...

or sometimes just lets you dwell in it...

sometimes even cherish it...



like a friend... always with you.. knowing how to react to your mood...

helping you escape the ties of reality...

flow in the air... fly in the sky... soar into space...



I love music...

the magic of music...

the eternal timelessness of it...

the feelings it evokes...

the memories it invokes...



just amazing....

Pablo neruda...

When my friend asked me if I have read Pablo Neruda...I said no and didn't particularly care... except that after I read one or two, I wanted to read the whole lot... amazing guy... here's one I liked for its simple style and honest expression... for all the guys (and girls of course) who still give a fig for soulful litanies...



Book, let me go.

I won't go clothed

in volumes,

I don't come out

of collected works,

my poems

have not eaten poems--

they devour

exciting happenings,

feed on rough weather,

and dig their food

out of earth and men.

I'm on my way

with dust in my shoes

free of mythology:

send books back to their shelves,

I'm going down into the streets.

I learned about life

from life itself,

love I learned in a single kiss

and could teach no one anything

except that I have lived

with something in common among men,

when fighting with them,

when saying all their say in my song.

need of the hour...

the farther i walk in this lonely route of life... the more I realize how easy it is to fall in the trap of cynicism... how easy to reject everything that we have ever held as true and sacred to be a mere maya... a triviality... insignificant... its easiest to give up... call the juice of life sour...



where is my rose-colored glasses? i need them now... for I realize that the whole secret lies in retaining the child-like quality of marveling at the beauty of life... the magic of expectations.... the sanctity of curiosity... how precious these things are that give meaning to life... that divert our thoughts from an impending death (well.. thats what awaits us all, at the end of the day, right?)



JAM

one more thing...

i think i forgot to add 'for the last time' in my previous post.. final semester... much as my friends are studiously trying not bring it up in any of our discussions, i think its better to acknowledge it and even start looking forward to leaving this place instead it coming as a rude shock when you are actually kicked out of this place :-)



was hoping to do some fun things this sem.... to make my stay here a more memorable one... but already beach is banned, MGM closed... BTP pressure... hmmm... let me wait and see what turns up my way...



in any case my travel kit is always ready!

just a matter of hearing the gun shot for the 'get set go' ..

back in iit....

back in iit.. back home...

yeah.. feels good... makes me wonder how attitude changes with time.. i remember tears swelling up in my eyes every time the train crawled silently away at the trichy junction... my beloved hometown.... and this year.. its quite the opposite.. i am impatient to leave.... want to go to the hostel... meet my friends... start work... yes.. home felt empty... devoid of work... devoid of feelings.. i just wanted to run away...



hope this year is enlightening... it has to be.. cause for the past 22 years of my life i have been doing things without much conscious thought or rather what I had to do next always seemed obvious... but this year.. is different.. i have the freedom to choose... the responsibility of making a choice... not that what i choose is going to affect anyone... maybe my parents in a small way, cause living in India, would mean seeing me more for them.. and it seems to matter to them so much... to be able to 'see me'.. otherwise.. i am left to myself to take the path i have to tread... and i am treating myself to time to decide on this...



in the meanwhile.. i am here... and hopefully in form too... yet to unpack my luggage... yet to start on my BTP... yet to contact a few of my friends... have not yet said even a hi to quite a few of them... i seem to be doing only a lot of thinking till now.. hope i stop this stupid thing and start doing something... yeah.. thinking only leads to more thinking and then even more thinking.. till you get actually get addicted to thinking like i have done.. and at the end of the day, you realize that bloody you have done nothing but thinking fultile things and wasting time and energy when so many things could have been accomplished...



after a wasted 2 months, I am looking forward to a more productive semester ahead...

much as it was an experience to me.. i can't afford the luxury anymore...



cheers