'Who do you think you are?'

I'm always complaining about how I don't post often enough. And it makes me feel like a jerk. Cos if I'd really wanted to, I would've posted. But I wonder why that is not the case.

So anywayzz I'd gone down south to Visakhapatnam for a typical south-Indian style shaadi, which have now very conveniently absorbed ceremonies like sangeet and mehndi. Either way, it was fun. And boring. The girl was 20 and the dude was 24. And because I was the oldest girl after her, I got 'treated' to a lot of 'teri shaadi mein' comments. Like, a lot of them. And because my sister's only twenty, it made them all the more real. And I couldn't help but think of marriage. Needless to say, I did not like what I thought. I think it's a terrifying idea to live with some random person. A man, at that. And the fact that you're supposed to share your life(!), as opposed to a room or a bathroom or whatever. I have no idea how people do it.

I also went paragliding, and discovered it was rather overhyped. Well, yeah I was in the sky and just hanging around under a boomerang shaped glider, still, no thrill. Not much, anyway.

We're in a really chill phase at college; not much to do except project presentations, which are for us Law students, a very simple matter of bagchodi. Meanwhile, India has won 2 of three Tests against West Indies, and drew the third one today, very stupidly, on the last ball, because of the ingenuity *rolls eyes* of Ashwin. And Nadal lost to both Federer and Tsonga. Very bad time. Sports wise.

Also, listen to Priscilla Ahn, she's very pretty and has a great voice. Also Sheldon (TBBT?) is becoming more and more normal, and I hate that. Make him un-normal, please. And make him date Penny? 

The Problem

So this week's been sorta 'enlightening'; in the sense of self-discovery. I learnt that my friends think that confiding is not a natural thing for me to do even with those I hang out a lot with. And that I have a perverted paranoia of looking vulnerable, and so I don't (among other things) talk about my insecurities.  Needless to say, this is all very puzzling to me, as I'd thought I 'shared' nearly just as much as others. Iss khushi (yaa dukh, as may fit better) mein:

I sit at this writing table
Writing about the wonder in my mind
Wonder at the workings of the people around me
Astonishment at what makes me odd.

What was thought natural, is now
Against how it ought to be
What was believed to be sensitivity
Is now a sense of manipulation.

The fountain spews out water
As far as it can;
It thinks that's what it should.
It doesn't see the grimaces on the faces getting wet.

It seems like a flaw,
But no one's correcting it
Is it even wrong?
- But no one's judging.

Like a pentagon-sided ball
I roll around awkwardly
Another side will make me even
But no one's distributing.

Am I from Venus?

Today is Gandhi Jayanti so I think it proprietary to think about him for a moment. So there I thought of him for a moment.

So today I was telling a friend about this other friend. Now this other friend is well, a guy and he was seeing this girl. Now this guy is what in my opinion is a really great guy; he's very smart, witty, not slow, no weird accent, fun, entertaining, and not those sly types. But this girl is one of those typical ones who is fun and generally nice, but is clingy, excessively temperamental, acts dumb, and almost always makes a show after getting drunk at parties. When I was talking, I realised that I know quite a few couples (I hate using that word) who are exactly like that: awesome guy, irritating girl. And it always shocks me, when such relationships begin, that a guy like that could like a girl like that. But I guess that's just one of those things we'll never understand about the other sex. 

I now remember how my friend from school used to point out that the cutest guys have the fattest, ugliest girlfriends. Now she was not saying that out of just spite; it was true. Now this sort of thing does influence my opinion of the guy in question and honestly, it does seem reasonable, because people's taste in people reflects on their personality by a large degree. 

That's enough cribbing for today.

Love thy life.

So on a random webpage today, I saw an ad that had a video and it said 'Hover for audio'. And I did. And this may sound juvenile but I was struck by it's awesome-ness. Now I'm hardly what you'd call a tech-freak. And to be honest I have neither ability nor interest in all of that. But the idea of moving your mouse pointer to a specific place to activate audio is so, SO cool. And I'm not sure how hard that is to do, but it still seems quite fantastic. 

That got me to think about how our lifestyle is full of these amazing things that we don't necessarily appreciate.Now I don't want to start on the whole be-thankful-for-all-that-you-have and the world-is-such-a-beautiful-place sermon, but it's kinda sad that we humans get accustomed to things so very easily. At one point of time motion sensor games had me awe-struck: now I'm just like, haan, khud se move hoti hai, what so great types. And well, as much as I don't want to use this phrase, we take it for granted. I'd love to be able to feel the initial excitement that I did when such stuff just started. I mean even  the fact that I didn't have to use inkpots and fill my fountain pen everyday because ink cartridges became available used to make me happy. 

So I think we should - when we're bored, at least - look at the everyday things we use and observe how it's made our lives so much more convenient. Like typing here instead of writing a journal, which is such a pain. And ctrl+F, which I hope can somehow be incorporated in every place I go to, like my room, my drawers, a tiny store in a maze of shops, and even real books. 

So let me go think about the many uses of plastic now.

'I shot for the sky, but I'm stuck on the ground'

So I know it's been so loo-ong since I last wrote. Soz. Let me begin by saying that I HATE the new Blogger layout, it's probably why I haven't even tried to write here. The second reason being my super-awesome *rolls eyes* wi-fi at hostel. Needless to say, I'm home now, for the Dussehra break. College was excruciating the first month - three projects, the internal moot selection and first term exams. Now it's a 'lean period', so as to speak. But I've noticed I look forward to coming home on weekends, something I didn't do earlier. Even my friends have noticed.

So something really funky happened yesterday. You may not agree with the term 'funky' when you know what happened, but let's not digress. I was hanging out with my wingmates last night, a group of five girls when the topic suddenly changed to guess what - me. So my roommate said something about me that the others didn't know about, and then they were all like, so how come we didn't know that types. And then my roommate said that I never revealed stuff about me to people. That even during the most elaborate conversations what I say is regular random stuff while people are actually talking more real stuff. That I talk trivialties and make people think I'm being friendly and also give them the feeling that I'm close to them.

I have to admit I was more than shocked to hear that. It was said in a jocular way, but I couldn't help feeling like I was some sort of a scheming, manipulative person who learnt about people without letting them in on anything. That got me thinking, and well, for the most part, it's true. I don't let people in on stuff. I don't tell them my feelings about the most significant things. My conversation thrives on humour and random comments. I have issues with expressing affection. I know that. But I never quite put it the way she did last night. Also, I don't think I'm vamp-ish and manipulative. But then that part is kinda subjective.

I hope that's not how people think of me.

But let's stop with the emo crap now. Have to go eat donuts!

P.S. The title is a song I love, and have been listening to non-stop since yesterday. No connection to the post.

And All Over Again,

I went to the Shani temple yesterday. Saturday's the auspicious day apparently. I have no idea why I subject myself to such things; I always come out of them complaining. I watched in utter blankness and complete marvel as tens of literate, most even educated people pour cups of oil and black sesame along with flowers on the idol. I can't begin to imagine the invasive, expansive reach of the concept of god, so much so that otherwise perfectly logical people can do such illogical things and believe that they'll have some effect.

It's amazing.

Meanwhile, I'm still surprised at how I'm forever looking forward to some sort of Hindi soap-like 5 year jump in my life. When I was in the tenth grade, I wanted to get to the proper studies of 12th. When 12th grade began, I couldn't wait to give my entrances and join college. Now that one year of college is over and I have a fair idea of what the rest of the stay is going to be like, I can't wait to start working. I try to remind myself of all of those Osho like sayings which tell you to live in the present and shit, but they're not helping. I don't like being dissatisfied with where I am, but this really peculiar want to just skip the bits that I can kinda predict - is unsettling. If this continues I'll be looking at retiring as soon as I start working. And the idea of that, needless to say, is not pleasant.

And so I'm listening to Puke - Eminem. Don't ask.

Yes, our idea of a DJ is a District Judge ...

I know it's been long, the stats of the page views showed me that. :P
But, I've been busy. I travel for one hour fifteen minutes, get to Tis Hazari, reach court after chamber work at 10:00 a.m. sharp, go about the day's cases, lunch break, work in the chamber and get back home just before 6:30 p.m. after another one hour five minutes of commuting. Once I'm back I'm usually too tired to do anything but watch tv like a bed-ridden patient.

So that's that. But the thing is, I enjoy it. I suddenly can't wait for college to end, even though that's a long, long way ahead. I can't wait to get over mere theoretical studies and the necessities of a degree and start working. I may have expected to learn a lot and enjoy the work, but I didn't expect this feeling of wanting to get out from where I am.

Though there are bad parts: the courts are hot and humid mostly, only the ones with senior judges have ACs. And we have to wait for what seems like aeons sometimes. But I try and listen to whichever case is being heard, so I get to learn even more. And I genuinely don't do much work and I can skip whenever I feel like, so it's pretty cool, all in all.

What I do love, even after two weeks, is the feeling I get when I see lawyer robes all around me; white and black suits and dresses, black blazers and white neck bands. It's amazing. I'm not even a lawyer yet but I already see the other people there, whose cases are being heard, as outsiders.

I'm glad I'm liking my first tryst with litigation, which is something I feel I should do, seeing as most people don't get into legal practice. Will be more regular soon!

All is One, One is All

http://opalodyssey.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/nee-nenaindal/

Do listen.

Credits: Sameer

Status Update

Holidays - good (since I returned day before)
Mood - bored
Internship - lawyer not picking up my calls
Hate - the new Blogger layout. Pathetic
Listening to - Alligator Sky (Owl City)
Watching - Vampire Diaries S1E1. Need to know what the fuss was about.
Reading - Wise & Otherwise by Sudha Murty
Thinking - #People who like summers are blessed with no grey matter

Of typos and plans

Folks!

I'm home. And getting used to typing on the ghar ka keyboard. I miss letters in between words, and I've to keep checking my spellings. I skipped the 'm' in the third word I typed here. 'Folks! I'm hoe' - would have seriously increased my traffic, though. :/

Anyway, so I'm going to be bored and all now. I always come up with a lot of plans for holidays, never have I once, however, even started on any one of them, however bored I may have become. General holiday inertia. But this time, I'm going to do the following things. Pakka.

1. Re-join dance classes.
2. Finish A Brief History of Time.
3. Read Not Without My Daughter, Redeeming Love, and more fiction.
4. Make random craftstuff. I've found blogs and sites on how to make your own notebooks and stuff, and being the environmentalist that I am, I have sheets of paper saved from old books. Most solid plan so far.
5. Swim.
6. Watch a lot of movies. Start with X-Men first class and Hanna.

I just had a discussion with my mom about Bollywood songs aajkal. After a while, after listening to Bhaag D.K. Bose three times, she said 'kalyug hai'. Discussion over. :P But, she mentioned how my nana would always refer to people as D.K. Bose when he wanted to abuse them. Just showing you our ancestors weren't all that golden. :P

Liberation? From what, I liked this place.

Exams got over today.

Somehow I never have that, 'Oh, exams are over', 'let's go crazy', 'let's party', and the rest of that crap. And hence, right now my friends are at hard rock cafe while I'm writing you this. It's probably because I don't get too stressed about exams in the first place to experience such relief when they end. But then, I like to believe that I'm not of those extreme emotions types.

Nonetheless, I went and watched Shaitan today. Anurag Kashyap, need I say more?
Anyway, so the movie was really cool. Very awesome, very snazzy, very my generation will love it, yours will gawk at us type, is how I described it to my mom. It's got Rajeev Khandelwal as the cop. He's pretty awesome. All the other actors are very good too, Kalki, Shiv and Neil come to mind immediately. It's a little slow, but the speed is not what you shoud watch this for.

The background score is simply splendid. It's an assortment of various artists, including Bhayanak Maut, whose earliest memory I have was through mtv. The camera work is simply awesome; they've used like every technique there is, it's gorgeous. And, like thegirlwithoneheart said (make that repeatedly said), there was so much emphasis on every little detail, it was like every scene looked so untouched and natural, totally unlike movies where plaster casts are on the right arm in one scene, and on the left in the next.

Good movie, watch it.

Oh, and and I'm going home tomorrow. For a whole month and a half. The best part is not having to pack all properly like the outstation people, but still, I have no idea how I got so much stuff in this little room in the first place.

Time for mosquito hunting, turrah.

Ahh ...

"I hereby declare that the answers written above are true to the best of my & my friend's knowledge & I claim no responsibility whatsoever for any mistakes. Whatever I have written is truly fictitious & any resemblance with the subject matter is purely coincidental."
This is what I did in today's paper. No kidding. This question came straight from an illustration for a particular section, and I got confused. And the dude sitting next to me, smart guy, but he got confused too. Life is easy, I go mess it up. The professor had told us to read the illustrations 'very' carefully, but who can follow such simple instructions? :P

So now I'm listening to Shine on you crazy diamond, whereas I should subject myself to ... I don't know, I just kissed a girl, I guess ...

You are just an ordinary man in a cape!

Two down, three to go. Yes, papers.
So since Nadal won and Schiavone lost, my exams have .. kinda got ignored. Exam toh hote rehte hain, right? Actually, French Opens bhi hote rehte hain, but let me not see you thinking that. Not that I can 'see' you thinking that, or even see you, for that matter, but whaaa I'm babbling.

So I saw this survey on the net about which superhero people want to be. So I got thinking. I think I want to be Batman. Reasons?

1. He's the only superhero I like; I detest Spiderman, Superman, whatever other funky names there might be.
2. Christian Bale.
3. More substantially, these other losers got these powers and all free mein, luck shine ho gaya. But Christian Bale Batman actually created well, himself. He developed his skills, acquired his machines, he's got the money, you bet, but he's played an active role in being who he is, as opposed to be standing in an entomological museum at the opportune time a spider is going to escape. So I like him.

If I'm something great, I'd like it to be because of me, you know, not because of random shit. Plus, Bale, as opposed to dumb little Brandon Routh and the loser Toby Maguire. But it's going to be Andrew Garfield in the next I heard, that changes things now, doesn't it? ;)

Anyhow, back to studies. Criminal paper tomorrow.

Eggjam aa rahe hai - Bhaago!!

Hey y'all,

It's not a happy day. Tomorrow begin the much-awaited end semester exams. Yayyy? - No. It's Contract Law tomorrow, the syllabus is huge, something we're not used to for this particular subject. Add to that, abhi yours truly ne kuchh padha nahi hai.

I've been reading magazines on the net. You'll be proud to know they were the Frontline and Vir Sanghvi's blog kind. As opposed to whatever you had in mind. :P I have two pdf's and two powerpoints open here, begging for some attention, but draft.blogger.com is like Nadal in front of Karlovic. Oh, did I mention Nadal is 6 time French Open winner??!! I'm treating it like my personal victory, but come on, after 6 years of supporting him ardently, against all opposition (chuckles), I deserve some credit, don'tyathink? Anyway, so he retains the number one spot, which would otherwise have gone to Djokovic . So, all's well with the world. His world. Mine, not so much.

I don't want to study! But then, like my (apparently good-looking) Crim law professor said, when you took up law, you said goodbye to weekends and holidays. He didn't mention awesome food, time to enjoy awesome food, reading, doing NoTh!nG, but yeah, you get the point.

Anyway, before my wingmates resort to physical methods of getting me to study {you're right in assuming verbal (soft < loud < threatening) have already happened} {observe the use of curly brackets} {jeez, whoever named them That, they're so cool} {stop now, Nidhi, stop} So yeah, I should go study now.

Give me joy in my heart, keep me loving, loving, loving

So tomorrow I have my political science presentation.
So tomorrow I have to get my term paper printed.

Remember we used to sing/recite these really corny songs when we were in junior school? I just remembered one that ended with 'Thank you God for everything'. I still remember how we, as little children, with cute voices used to say those lines in the same tune, in the most bored, yet eager to please tone, the same things every day in assembly. I hardly had assemblies in middle and senior school. But I miss singing the national song and 'We shall overcome, someday' - the angrezi version of Hum honge kamyaab. Oh, and marching class, which we all used to crib so much about. It feels so weird to think of those things now; they seem aeons away, like a different life. Perhaps it was a different life.

When people say things like I miss being a kid, and I want to be like that again; naive and trusting etc., I can't quite agree with them. I mean, you're smarter now, and you're allowed to do more things (lol), then why would one complain? We lose our sense of carelessness, they say. Accepted. But about the rest, it's just that we become more insecure of ourselves. That is the only change that really makes us different from how we were when we were kids. From insecurity come jealousy, envy, competitiveness, cautiousness (so you don't lose your position of superiority) and other 'adult' issues. We probably think we have to prove ourselves and our worth to others, but I fear that it's mostly ourselves we want to convince.

Just believe more in yourself, and don't always quantify everything, and you'll be cool.

Try karo.

P.S. Nadal beat Murray, yayy!

Oh, we'll find comfort

The waves flirted with the sand
The snails lost out
They rolled over rocks and turned foamy white
But retreated again,
And the crabs waited.

The clouds play hide and seek with the sun,
You can hear them saying ‘I spy’
While the sun feels cheated.
That moment of no heat is so sweet,
But the sun doesn’t back down; it shines. Again.

Two birds fly behind each other,
Looks like they want to pluck each other’s feathers,
But they circle around in merry paths,
Circle the big tree,
That just watches the fun.

A lover is like that sand, that crab, that sun, that tree,
Forever waiting, wanting the patience to wait,
Not knowing what to wish for
The sweetness of bitter longing,
Or the bitterness of requited love.

'I will meet you yet again'

Today my mind decided on doing no work. Don't ask me, ask it.

Somehow I always get very interested in people who retain so much individuality, it shocks you how they survived, and even lived (differentiating on the basis of spirit, I guess) in the same world you're so fed up with. Or not. Point being, that they just stick to what they think yaar; it's pretty impressive. Like Amrita Pritam: woman lived in Pakistan and India, independence time, left the dude who was giving her a hard time, had two love affairs, wrote two autobiographies, ultimately lived in with a guy younger than her for nearly 40 years. Is that impressive or what?

I wonder if I have the same conviction in myself, at least a similar strength to just do what I want, what I feel like - right or wrong. I wish I do. I mean, obviously, na. But then comes in that whole issue of collectivism versus individualism. If I have this conversation with my parents or anyone from their generation, they're going to have a very typical Oriental response of society before yourself. Crappy hai. Bahut.

Anyway, now I've got to work on not listening to Carnival to Rust on repeat. So bye.


It's all a game, avoiding failure, when true colors will bleed
All in the name of misbehavior and the things we don't need
I lust for after no disaster can touch, touch us anymore
And more than ever, I hope to never fall, where enough is not the same it was before.

P.S. The title of this post is the title of a poem by Pritam. Translated, of course. Here it is.

Uh .. Again?

It's that time again, when final exams are near and studying seems impossible. One would think we'd get bored of leaving everything till the last minute, and prepare early just ONCE, see what it feels like, you know, but our obstinacy knows no bounds.

I've said this before, and I'm saying it again; I can't believe I've spent a whole year in college: this college, this hostel, with these people, in this place. I'm soon going to be a grown-up senior, in second year, probably seem intimidating to my juniors, and people still in school, and yet I have no sense of how so much time went by. How, and where.

Life's been kinda decent. Political science ka project finally khatam hua. Exams from 6th. Party on 10th. *wink*

Nothing great, but nothing bad either.

The cooler's blowing in my face, and I can feel my heart-shaped pillow under my elbow. It's hot outside, and tense in. It's two o'clock; I should be studying. I've just realised, through talking to others, that I don't care about most stuff. It's like this perfect detachment, or indifference, whichever you like, to most things. Food, marks, social circle, clothes, all these things that people spend so much energy over. I don't quite know if that is a good thing or bad. What I do know is that it's always been like that; I've always been like that. I now get what my dad meant when he said I wasn't ambitious; it's like I don't have that drive that makes people do stuff, work hard, achieve, envy, even. It's weird.

Oh also, I read The Wandering Falcon, by Jamil Ahmad. It's set in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's mainly about the shift of civilisation from nomadic cultures to settled townships. It is a series of stories, many stories, many people, and yet there seems to be this continuity, this thread that links everything in your mind, and you can't quite identify it. It's probably not as great as Thousand Splendid Suns, but the story has this easy flow to it; it's not heavy and laced with emotion. The emotion is laced under every simple line, an emotion that stays with you, even though you don't quite realise you're that involved in the story. It's beautiful.

Anyway, back to studies now. Turrah!

“All good things must come to an end, but all bad things can continue forever.”

About a week back, it suddenly struck me that all the poetry I write is always the grave and sad kind, like ALL of it, and the thought didn't really make me happy. I wondered if I was so sad inside that all I wrote was morose and contemplative. Then I tried to write something happy, and it was kinda positive initially, but became serious towards the end. It felt somehow that sadness is deeper than happiness; all the poems that I love are the sad kinds too. And then I was telling a friend about the theory that cold and darkness are not really entities, as they refer to conditions where their more substantial opposites are absent; heat and light respectively. [Cold is not really something that exists, it's just a name for the time when there's less heat.]

Then the idea struck me that probably sadness is the real thing and happiness is just a condition where there's less sadness. Because, sometimes on the face of it, you might be feeling happy, or feel what you think is happiness, but as soon as you go deeper, think about some stuff, think about your aging grandparents, or the rising unemployment levels, or even the poor salaries of policemen, there's only sadness. So happiness is this shallow, on-the-surface concept, which comes and goes, and when you do remove its thin layer, you'll find sadness; and it's sadness that doesn't go, it stays, always, under every feeling. Sounds about right, no?

Who am I speaking to?

I've recently started going to the temple with my mom on weekends. It's fun. Really. We walk about a mile, the walk being the main purpose, the temple the incentive. I'm not religious, and not too much of a believer either, so all I do there is listen as she recites prayers for one god after another, beginning with Vishnu and ending at Hanuman. She knows a lot of mantras, and says them in reverent whispers, so as to not disturb others. The sequence is the same; always. Another reminder of how I love routine.

There are other kannadigas there too; and I love listening to people other than my family speak kannada. It makes me feel different, feel good. Probably because I've never lived anywhere in a place where the local language is kannada. Strangely enough, when I come back to Delhi after a holiday down south, I feel like I'm home. This duality in the lives of people living in a place not ethnically their own will always remain. I used to find it quite peculiar initially when I used to support South Indians when people criticised them here, but I supported North Indians when people down south would criticise them. Delhiites call me a fake Delhiite, kannadigas call me a fake kannadiga. It was confusing earlier, now I'm just used to it. I don't quite mind contradictions, like a very wise friend said, we don't have to label everything, it's simpler, but in other ways, life is harder if you categorise and sort every single thing, every person, every trait, every habit.

I also think duality keeps us self-sufficient. It might sound like a very narcissistic idea, but it's pretty logical: don't we always say that you need opposing elements for balance? Same way, more traits and more opposing traits keep us balanced, we can be what we like, without really changing. It's like yin and yang all inside you; so you have the flowing energy of the female and the rigid tensility of the male and can switch between them. If you have either, you need the other externally, so you're dependant. Right? I think I need to develop on this idea. :P

Also, it's Holi today, and the streets are flowing pink. Pretty awesome when you're looking down from the third floor. Happy Holi!

India Gate

Sunrise

Hands on hips.

Tera Zikr

Yeh khudai chod ke
Phir aaja tu zameen pe
Aur ja na kahi
Tu saath reh ja mere.


(Wa fa fa-wey)
To go beside you
Is where I want to be
(Wa fa fa-wey)
To laugh, to love.


Teri fikr hai,
Ya fakr hai
Jab jab karta hoon
Machalta hoon,
Uchhalta hoon
Phisalta hoon
Pagal ki tarah, mastiyon mein
Tehelta hoon, Uchhalta hun, Fisalta hoon.


Tonight with words unspoken
And you say that I'm the only one, the only one, yeah
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning star?

Walking down the boulevard ...

These are the entries on my calendar last year while in college. No editing. :P

August 2010

New college
Hostel
Excessive PMS-ing
Strange food
Late-nights
Academics (!!!)
New people

September 2010

Month II
Let's see.

October 2010

Holidays
Vizag

November 2010

Fun
Food
Cinema
Projects.Are.Depressing.As.Is.Life

December 2010

Exam time
Sem's going to end
Shocking!
Will intern soon ...

Tat tvam asi - Thou art that

I watched this dance programme on TV today, Dance India Dance Doubles, it's such a wannabe name, na, but the show was pretty okay. Point being, however, that Mithun Chakraborty said a really cool couple of lines:

Khud ko jala de itna
Andhere mein rakha kya hai?
Tu hase, toh duniya hase
Akele muskurane mein rakha kya hai?
Banna hai toh suraj ban
Koi aur sitara banne mein rakha kya hai?


The last two lines are the best, it's like this one line I read in a story a very long time back, anything worth doing is worth doing well. I've always had that feeling about things, if you can't do it well, and justify the 'doing', and the effort you put in, what's the point, then you aren't justifying anything at all .. Most people tend to criticise that sort of view, saying it's subversive to trying anything new, because well, since you're new you can't do it well, but my point is, then you work harder and make sure you do it well, also, there is a concept of beginners' luck. :P

The weather right now is just gorgeous; this is spring time, but vestiges of winter remain, and the confusion in the sky over what to be is apparent, and that makes it beautiful, I've seen celestial shades of oranges and blues in just one day. I wish it could be like this forever, but then, maybe I wouldn't think about it this way. 

So fly like a G6

The background of this blog is now a picture of ballet shoes hanging by the window. Yes, you have noticed it now, and probably mentally felt the silky softness of it on your skin, without meaning to. Ballet shoes do that to you. They're gorgeous, aren't they?
I've always thought of ballet as a very, very beautiful dance, and always felt miserable about the fact that I never did learn and will never learn it. How do I know about the future, you ask. I don't. But this is one of those things that you need to have ingrained in you since a very tender age; no movement of the body will be as graceful if learnt at twenty. Because your body needs to be molded and trained like that; you can't fit it into anything and everything, in the case of ballet, literally too: who'd be ready to slip into a tutu randomly? Lol.
I could learn now, I mean, there is time, but I wouldn't want to do something as heavenly with earthy mediocrity. So yes, I've given up on that department. But I can't help wondering how they feel, when they take those pirouettes, fly with those leaps, and practice plies. And wear those clothes and look like that. It's a dream world. 


Coming back to the one I have, the very solid, un-beautiful world that isn't full of ballet academies and theatres, I've been thinking about a lot, arriving at no conclusions, and reaching nowhere. Apart from being uncharacteristic, it's also annoying in its confusion and so I've been left pretty unhappy and muddled. I don't know what the cause of this is, and so all the thinking has failed. I think I'm mentally not adjusted to being back in hostel, with people, pretend-friends, and studies. Also, yesterday I had a discussion with two great guys about the country and that just worsened it, like we're both moving rudderless, wasting a lot of energy. 


I need some inspiration, let's try this poem by Fran Wyant:


Eat rice.
Have faith in women.
What I don’t know now
I can still learn.
If I am alone now
I will be with them later.
If I can be weak now
I can become strong.
Slowly, slowly, if I learn, I can teach others.
If others learn first I must believe they will come back and teach me.

That face

The music resounds

The beat fastens

The moment heightens

And then there is quiet

Then, it’s that one face in the crowd

That one shining, glorious face

Looking at you

You looking at him

And then you dance. 

Kitni dafe dil ne kaha, dil ki suni kitni dafe?

Have you had those times, when suddenly you feel overwhelmed by emotion, and you have to turn away, or move away, and just .. go away from that place? This emotion is of no particular nature, it could be a remembrance, the sight of someone, it's usually never words; I've noticed. It's also neither happy nor sad, it's just strong, and hence the above mentioned responses.

I had one of those in college last week, sitting outside, very randomly ... So I walked away rather suddenly.

You have no idea how healing looking at a road is. Now that the weird statement has been made, let me explain. In my previous house, my room had a balcony attached, and it overlooked a main road, NH-8, no less; so quite invariably, it was a very busy road. People used to ask me, beta, shor se disturb nahi hote? - Being in 12th the purpose of our existence seems to be to study. But I always denied it. Fact is, the constant drone of the cars was ... like music to me, it was a part of living in that room. It didn't seem noisy, disturbing, discordant; it was regular, melodic, and soft. All I had to do was raise my head from my desk, and I could see the endless rows of shiny lights, red and yellow. I'd got so used to it that those odd moments when there was no car on the road, I'd lose focus of what I was reading and wonder what was wrong. But why the magical calming effect? It's probably the fact that no matter what's happened and no matter what's happening, the road is one place that doesn't stop. And people move, quite literally, but also figuratively, brushing aside everything else. Some are born, some die, some lose, some win, but whatever the reason, people travel nonetheless. We don't stop moving just because some project didn't go right, or even if there's a bomb threat in the nearby area. The road's busy, all day and all night.

And sitting there, looking at those people driving away, some of them Punjabis, with very, very loud music playing, it was like the road is the route to escape, that they're also moving away from their problems, probably to another problem, and the drive in between the problem and the destination is the part that offers most solace.

So I went to this little hill in our college, honestly, it isn't a hill, just shaped like one; and I sat, and stared at the road. I saw cars and bikes and cycle-rickshaws, and they all looked so busy and so occupied, like work is the one thing that gives us relief from thinking, and to avoid dwelling on possibly morbid topics, that each one of us seems to have in so much abundance, they'd chosen to concentrate on driving, and on the road. And in a matter of moments, the emotion in me had subsided, and I was ready to go back up to my room and face the next thing life threw at me. 

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up."
— Neil Gaiman (The Kindly Ones)

Because

Ah, because the world is round, it turns me on
Because the world is round, ah

Because the wind is high, it blows my mind
Because the wind is high, ah

Love is old, love is new
Love is all, love is you

Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue, ah, ah, ah, ah

- Because

Dana Fuchs, Jim Sturgess

So be it.

I woke up at 9:30 today, my mother's aim has been fulfilled: it was because of a false alarm that the police were towing away our car (so random!), but I did wake up, and didn't go back to bed. So now I'm fully ready, waiting for 12 o'clock so I can go meet some pals. Like, finally.

Yesterday was a bad day for all us Nadal fans. Very, very bad day. You know, Federer has the style, Federer has the charm, but Nadal is the man who epitomises all that talk of mind over matter, and the power of believing that you can do it. There are countless instances where he picks up shots, or hits shots that you'd never think were possible. Just impossible shots. Just mind-blowing; every single time. It's a common rumour that he plays on two courts when practicing, so he covers double the ground, making a single court look like a kids court. Yesterday also, we saw one man fighting against his illness, fighting against himself, and fighting all the forces that were against him. In the peak heat of Australian summer, he was sweating thrice as much as a normal person, but he continued; he probably knew he was going to lose, but he finished the game nonetheless. Yes, he never going to be second after Rod Laver for his streak of Grand Slams won, but he can surely keep up the number one rank. Kya yaar, aadmi ko aaram se fever hona bhi allowed nahi hota sports mein! :(

Also, I saw The Social Network yesterday. It was a good film, nothing extraordinary though. I also felt that they made Zuckerberg out to be this golden boy, forever cool, never wrong. And Saverin the bad guy. There can easily be made a movie making Saverin look nice and Zuckerberg really pathetic. So I think it wasn't a very neutral film, with emphasis only on the story. Otherwise, pretty decent. And Andrew Garfield is cute, as always.

Anyway, phone calls coming in, friends are arriving, till tomorrow!

We can start over again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL3ZbNRH1Wc

Reel-ing

I'm typing this right to left, for no other reason than the fact that it's quite cool. And new. Obviously. There was  this one time when I owned a diary that had the dates and names of months in English and Urdu, and I actually traced those in Urdu and learnt how to write the names of the days of the week and months in Urdu. 

Anyway, so yesterday I saw this Japanese movie called love Letter. Utv WorldMovies is quite cool, yes. It was, a very, very beautiful movie. It was about this woman in one town of Japan whose fiance dies while mountaineering. His name was Fujii Itsuki. Now while going through his junior high yearbook she sees his address in another part of Japan and just out of impulse, mails a letter there. What she doesn't expect, however, is a reply. So continuing the correspondence, she finds out that that Fujii Itsuki is a classmate of her fiance. Curious, she asks the other Fujii, who's a girl, to share all her memories of junior high with her. Fujii does that, and the memories turn out to be a little unpleasant as the boy Fujii was quite unfriendly and queer. Hiroko, the fiancee asks Fujii if there ever was a romantic relationship between them. Fujii denies it saying that the same names actually caused them a lot of problems, making them the centre of a lot of jokes by their classmates.

Eventually, Fujii starts remembering more and more about her junior high years and starts seeing her classmate in a new light. Ultimately a lot of incidents and discoveries make it apparent to her that Fujii actually liked her. This gives Hiroko the impression that Fujii proposed to her because she physically resembled his classmate. She thinks that the love at first sight wasn't really love at 'first sight' for him. She doesn't get upset though. What happens is that both the women, through the correspondence, fall in love with Fujii Itsuki, a dead man. 

In the end, Hiroko pretty much rejects a friend of Fujii's, who's interested in her. And the movie ends with nothing definite. It was a really gorgeous, abstract, artsy film, with a lot of places where the viewer's interpretation fills the gaps. This reminds me of a lot of people's reactions to Dhobi Ghat; the whole unclear, vague thing. I find it quite interesting how different people, based on their personalities, experiences and temperaments can attribute wholly different meanings to simple incidents. It's the true meaning of art to be able to be interpreted in diverse ways; poetry, paintings, instrumental music, there are so many examples. Let's hope Indian cinema also becomes more like that, and less rigid in its story-telling. 

Lastly, I can't WAIT for Kiran Rao to make a movie on Delhi. Lol. 

New Directions

Check out thenthperspective.blogspot.com. :)

Tick tock

I love the mornings. Specially when I can spend them in bed. But my mom doesn't. Her best mornings are probably those when I'm up early. Hence the undying, unhindered, unbeatable demands of getting up early 'at least now!' So what do I do - not get up till one pm daily. Amazing fun.

But today was a different day; I woke up at ten, three hours before usual: I had my dance rehearsal today, and needed to practice. When I wake up early I love standing in the balcony and watching the humdrum of the people who do get up on time. The office goers in their suits, the vegetable sellers with their thelas, people buying them, people washing cars, with large slops of water that probably leave the road cleaner, and random people on cycles. I see a lot of beauty in routine; there's such unbelievable security is knowing what is going to happen, in knowing exactly what you're going to do when and when you're going to finish that and do something else. Initially I used to feel surprised when people said they had difficulty in following their timetables, for me life is so clear and easy when I have a plan, once you have a plan you just follow it, pretty much unquestioningly, you don't have to think about what to do with your time, whether you should play or sleep or listen to music or study. And I'm not talking about automaton, machine-like obedience, you can always change the plan, there's full flexibility, what I'm questioning is the need; if something out of the ordinary happens or if you don't feel like doing what your plan says, change it, but just do it before the day is over.

So yes, The Pendulum of grade ten was one chapter that I totally understood. Lol.

I danced properly after a very long time today. And I cannot explain how totally awesome I'm feeling right now; like our friend would say, my heart is all warm and fuzzy. I've always wondered why I love dancing, what exactly I love about it, but there's a new answer every time. But more on that later.

Yes, I'm there

The gate has crashed
Has my hand got stuck?
In my mind it has.
I cry over it
I shriek with pain
I've lost my hand
And there's no solace
... In my mind.
The gates to my consciousness open.
The dream bursts,
My essence has prevailed
I am more than I expected
I see my hand,
And it's beautiful.

Along the journey ...

I'd gone to the library today. To start on my projects. It's funny how things are always interesting when you begin and invariably become boring towards the end. But that might just be my Gemini ascendant making it hard to be too stable.

I change two buses to get to Indian Law Institute, Bhagwan Dass Road. And I feel very grown up and very independent when I say stuff like oh, you know, my first bus came like 15 minutes late so I missed the second one and got late. Don't mock, the first time I changed two buses was on 3 Jan 2011. So.

Today I ended up giving my seat to old women on all four buses. But I like standing; standing there and looking out of the window, standing is super fun. Except when there are too many men around. I've realised that men are quite hate-worthy, in the general sense. On second thought, I'm probably shifting hate for one man to his whole creed. But when I think of some incidents, and believe me, these aren't few and far in between, it's probably right to feel that way. But then I think of some men I know; and these are truly few, and I can't get myself to think anything negative about them. Not even on the worst days.

Also, I've finally got a copy of Mein Kampf and I'm going to start it Today. Yippee.

To Say or Not to Say ...

Hello, yo!
It's a bright, warm morning; nice enough to get me into BlOgG3r mode.

You know those times, when some incidents happen, and leave you feeling weird. You think you've dealt with it fine enough, and then some little things happen, and kick that raw nerve, and you realise you haven't really pushed it under the carpet all fine. And the worst part is, that you want to tell someone how you're feeling, but you can't really tell someone without telling them what happened, and you do not want to tell anyone what happened. So it's a vicious little circle, if I may. So obviously, you do the whole 'woman of substance' thingie and 'draw upon your inner resources' and kick the problem in the face. And pray that teeny-weeny remembrances don't break the wall. Sigh .. how we make up problems of our own ...

Sometimes I wonder why humans do half the things that they do: I seriously suspect a very strong, though latent element of masochism in all of us. It's true. We love; people, cities, pets, anything, when we know for a fact that it isn't going to stay, the people will disappoint, as a rule, the cities we'll leave and the pets, well, will die. I know - Streisand says in The Mirror has Two Faces that we love because while it lasts it's the best damn thing, but the question remains - why. We trust, again knowing that it won't be held always unless you're one of those types who trust with naivete. Again, I'm calling that trust naive, when indeed my point is that all trust is naive. SO we love hurting ourselves. The worst part is, that when people who refuse to love and trust are called heartless, and the ability to indulge in the above-mentioned activities is called being human and all that crap. Logic has died an undeserved death.

Another Vindication of our Rights

About a month back, I was travelling from college to home in a metro. Because it was rush hour, and more because its empty than other reasons, I was sitting in the ladies carriage. The other coaches in the metro were so full there was barely any space to stand. So a lot of men started entering the ladies carriage and standing, initially near the interlinking of the two coaches, later they came in nearly halfway. Needless to say, this was considered a violation of womanly space and everyone felt very uncomfortable. Old ladies started whispering to each other, but no one really said anything out loud. Then at the next stop came in this middle-aged lady who asked the men to move as soon as she entered. The men didn't, quite typically. She repeated, to no effect. By now her action had given everyone else the required spark, and all the women started talking together and shouting at the men. Still no effect. Then the Bond lady took out her phone, and proclaiming that she was calling the next metro station, she dialled a number. Men started moving out immediately. But there were still the obstinate types, confident in I-know-not-what who stuck around. The call went through and the woman started complaining; turned out there's a very heavy fine for entering the women's compartment, this amount on being spoken out aloud by the lady, nearly all the men moved out.

And so the Bond lady saved the day. When this incident began, I was hesitant about saying anything as I didn't expect them to come in halfway, plus I had to get off in 10 minutes. But after that particular woman shook things up, I felt immensely ashamed, and I thought that this inertia, and this reluctance to take initiative is what plagues Indians, and more so women. And I, an educated woman of today, fully aware of this situation, again chose to not do anything to change things.

Coming back to the point, the attitude of that woman, and her zeal is worth emulating, and indeed is what is required to direct change in society. All this might sound very preachy, but I know of no other way to put it, and yet I have to say it, if only just for myself and nobody else.

I'll end this post by saying, very simply, that I will try to not sit down and accept everything, and will take action and show strength.

After the Sojourn

Yes, yes, I know it's been long. Very long indeed. Through project submissions to project presentations to the end-all of exams, the semester's come to an end, and I'm still wondering where it went. But the holidays have been good. The birthday on 10th was different, none of the usual fluttery celebrations or childish gift-shopping this time, girl's turned nineteen, time to act grown-up. Lol.

Have you ever woken up on a morning brighter than usual, the sun ablaze and yet not warm, woken up to the sound of someone playing sweet music in the background and just felt incredibly light, and incredibly new inside? Well, I have. It's like nature is giving you a signal that bad things have happened, and bad things are going to happen in future too, but this one morning, this one moment, it's all good: life's beautiful, and you need to see that beauty, you need to recognise that you can make it all okay just by wanting to make it okay.

I read Osho occasionally, on one such occasion Osho said that when you're feeling an emotion, however pure or strong, don't label it. Don't say 'I'm happy, or I'm ecstatic', because words have a certain meaning and therefore a certain scope, happy means a feeling which is more than dull, and less than festive. He said when you're just feeling an emotion it doesn't know a range, the feeling can change, grow, or lessen. but when you put a label, you confine it to a range from where it cannot grow. And that's obviously not good when you're feeling good. Somehow I see great truth in this simple logic, and I do try to follow it. Not when it's a negative feeling, of course, and you want to stub it right there, when it's a little unpleasant so it never gets too big.

So that's what I did that morning, I just looked out of the window, saw a bright day, listened to the music, and  then, with my heart full of colourful butterflies, I turned and went off to sleep again. That was a nice day. :)