My world

Falling

Colliding

Vapourising: invisible

Ten million stars

And trying to catch them all.

Madness

If I remember correctly (and I am too lazy to get up, open the book and check, so forgive me if I have got this all twisted) Osho said something about Picasso being a horrid painter because he vomited out all is madness into his paintings and therefore the paintings were madness personified. I am mentioning this because this blog post is going to run on similar lines: I am going to write everything I feel right now, and I am going to feel better after writing this. Writing a candid diary is no use because you never can be sure it won't be read; and if you have to be cryptic, you might as well make your writings public. So that is my justification for this piece, and in any case, the reader is strongly advised not to read further.

I feel vulnerable, like I am rope-walking, and if I am not careful, I might fall any moment. Don't you have this feeling sometimes that you have narrowly avoided disasters, and if you let your guard down for the tiniest amount of time, you might ruin everything you have? Like not being able to feel carefree, ever?

I know I have friends; I know I am loved. Yet I feel I am very close to dependence, or am already there. I am wondering what happened to the whole detachment philosophy I have been living under for so long. Will there be things that will be so frightening that they will make my life meaningless? I know it is within me to remain independent, mentally, not to need anyone to keep sane. But what if it all changes?

That's it, those are all the bad things I am feeling. The good things are that my life is a lot better than I ever thought it would be, but naturally, I want it to be still better. I see a very good future ahead, and lots of smiles, and lots of fun, not to mention success.

Life is good. Now.

The Waiting is Like Water

The water
Is ever-moving, flowing
Breathing life
Into a river.
Looked at from miles away
By an impassive eye,
The water is still
And the river is still
Like movement is unreal,
Stilled
And the waiting is like water.

The rock
Is steadfast, immobile
Giving shape
To the river.
Looked at from a broader spectrum of time
By a knowing eye,
The rock is moving.
It is being eroded
By the water
And hope is like the rock
And the waiting is like water.

Yet the water cannot be stilled
Unless I am impassive
And the rock cannot be eroded
Unless I know
Therefore
I choose to be impassive
And I choose not to know.

NO, I did not fail. YES, I am taking Arts.

Call it a black sheep, call it an underdog, call it The Road Not Taken: there is no escaping the fact that for the majority of people inhabiting India, taking Arts after tenth grade is distasteful, something to do when you have no option left, or when your marks (or grades, bless CBSE) are unmentionable.

Once you get used to this prejudice, though, and you learn to accept it, announcing your decision is actually quite fun. The politest reply I have ever got (excluding replies from people who actually know me) is "Don't tell me!" followed by a horrified stare. The most innocent one was, "But why?" and a look that suggested I had an answer that would solve all their doubts, that I wanted to do something out of the world. But after I shrug and say, indifferently, "I like it", they are just plain incredulous. "You like History? Alien." Except it's human History I like, in addition to languages, Economics, Political Science, Psychology and all the rest of the stuff. The very names of the subjects make me jump up and down in excitement and I can't wait to start studying.

People like friends of friends and aunties, who ask you what you intend to take for the sake of making conversation, find it either very unnerving or a closed subject when you mention Humanities. It's like the very stream is taboo.

I'm not writing this to enumerate the various career options Arts offers, or to bombard readers with examples of people who made it big "despite" taking Arts. I'm writing this simply to record my observations. There have been people, with the best of intentions, no doubt, who have tried to dissuade me. I have tried to be dissuaded, and have failed. I love Biology (the whole of biology, mind, don't go around getting narrow-minded ideas), but I love Arts more. And I don't even like Physics. I positively dislike Chemistry. And Maths, well, I don't hate it. I just don't like to practise. In other words, I'm lazy.

I don't have a well-charted career plan ahead. I am as clueless as the next man, possibly even more. But then life hardly respects your plans. All I can say in my defence is that if the world ends in 2012 (and it most likely will, if only due to global warming or an asteroid or an alien invasion), I will have studied subjects I enjoy studying.

Magic Cauldrons

If I talk about fantasy (punning's really not my thing, so you can stop saying, "Aha! I knew she wasn't Little-Miss-Innocent!) anymore, I risk being called an obsessed, repetitive keyboard-wielder who thinks she can type meaningful sentences. So I'm talking about magic. Magic cauldrons, to be precise. Containers in which you can add eye of eel, scale of dragon, liver of frog and fingernail of rat, stir it a bit, and hey! Here's Conglomeration of Success, which you can drink up at leisure and strut around town with your head held high and without a care in the world, except maybe the nagging question of which publisher you would honour with the manuscript of your autobiography.

Or maybe you could throw in hair of maggot, colony of plasmodium with a dash of decayed spring onion, shake the whole thing and gulp it down to be fully hit with the effects of Draught of Don't-Give-A-Damn. Following which you can smile at disapproving looks, dismissively nod at betrayal and ignore attempts made to make you famous as 'The Girl Who Never Stopped Crying."

However, magical cauldrons do not exist. Which is why imagination is so important. One must imagine one is drinking up Stir of Security or Potion of Peace or whatever it is that one wants. Whether you can actually feel the effects or not depends on how much you believe in your own magic (if you don't, drink Broth of Belief).

But do I much like the taste of eel-eyes? I don't know, never having tasted something so revolting, and I'd rather not try. Ditto for rat fingernails and maggot hair and all the rest of the trash. I don't even like to imagine the taste. I'd much rather stay miserable, oh yes. Alternatively, I could get the success for myself and stop caring myself. I don't need a cauldron. I have my own, and it's called people. I get this odd feeling of everything being all right with the world when I see people around me. The best part is, people don't want spring onions, decayed or otherwise. They just want you to exist...and be happy. Essence of Happiness, anyone? Put in people, lots of love and care, and smile at everyone.

Why I will miss Delhi

There's a group on Facebook called "Once you have lived in New Delhi, you cannot live anywhere else in the world". While that may not be all true (there are Delhiites who go gaga about Canada and Florida)and I can live in pretty much any part of the world, I have to admit I am going to miss Delhi. Because there are some things you won't ind anywhere else in the world, at least not in so pronounced a way, so definitive of a city.
These are just some of the things I'm going to miss (in alphabetical order, none of them is in any way more important than the other):

1.) Cycle-rickshaws
2.) Delhi Metro
3.) India Gate, Red Fort, Qutab Minar, etc. (the fact that you can go centuries back in History whenever you feel like it)
4.) Oxford Bookstore
5.) Parathe wali gali (Chandni Chowk)
6.) Punjabi (mixed with a plethora f other languages like Awadhi, Bundelkhandi and whatnot)
7.) Sarojini Nagar, CP, Dilli Haat, DC Janakpuri, Lutyens
8.) Schools which are more like meeting grounds for abuse-experts, models and people with (alleged) connections in the underground, despite everyone's insistence that they are 'temples of learning'.
9.) Stuck-up, pretentious and happy people (yes, that is praise).
10.)Tagging on either 'ji' or an expletive to every other word.
11.)Velapanti :P
12.)Winter

Then again, who can rival Mumbai?

Here I go...

People have been telling me to blog; people have been telling me not to blog. That's just how people are: always contradicting each other, and leaving me in a confused state of mind. That's my favourite state of mind, in case you wanted to know (different people, different wants). Blog posts are supposed to be either funny or intelligent or (if Wodehouse started blogging) both. You don't know who Wodehouse is? I banish you from my purely Wodehouse-loving territory! Go and read some boring blog about a woman ranting about how her kids don't listen to her or something...

However, if we started talking about how blog posts are supposed to be, don't be surprised to know that I DON"T care how they're "supposed" to be. If you know me, or if you are risking your sanity in going forth and getting to know me, you would be content to read whatever insipid and uninteresting things I post here.

Then again, my heart's not completely in this. I have the Board exams to worry about, and somehow I can't think of them without simultaneously thinking about the oft-used phrase "Bhaad mein jaye". I shouldn't talk about exams, though. I didn't start blogging to talk about examinations. Certainly not. I swear I didn't. Really.

Parting warning: expect sarcasm, raillery and venom from me in future posts. Toodles!