Me.

I think the world’s out to get me.
That includes him, her and you.
I fear the things that I do,
Things that may be taboo.

I’m a coward, a liar,
A weakling, a two-faced bitch.
I care more about myself,
I’ll let go off you in a stitch.

A lying tongue, a heart
That devises wicked plots,
I bitch, I gossip,
About you and what not.

Sometimes I think
I’m not cool
Sometime I think
This world’s mine to rule.

I feel yellow, green, blue
Even red, but I never feel white
But why don’t I still care,
Even if I know it’s not right?

I lust for power and wealth,
And have the greed for more.
Look down upon other people,
Feel like a cheap whore.

I’m afraid of the dark,
Of the unsettling melancholy,
Of cockroaches, death and failure,
And bad things that might happen to me.


I don’t think I’ll change,
Cause suddenly I see,
This is what I’ll always to be.
We’ll all be the same after all,
Him, her, you and me.

You

I hate the world today, a world without you.
I feel like an emo, I feel so blue.
If everything’s Technicolor, I live black and white,
No light over here, but 30 days of night.

July was grey, and august was brown,
It’s been the same, since you’ve gone.
The sun’s so dull; the moon seems a mess,
A world without you, a world so colourless.

Life’s blank, like an empty cheque.
Crazy, they call me, an emotional wreck.
I hate the world today, a world without you.
I’m scared that ill soon forget the things that you used to do.

Arghitect!

There was a boy in Bombay,
An aspiring architect was he,
To all you architects I say,
He was just like you and me.

Plans he had to build theatres,
Museums, walkways and malls,
With solitude points and extrusions,
And lovely intersecting walls.

He said to himself one day,
“This is all very easy!”
T’was about cool concepts after all,
Though some of it seemed quite cheesy.

But all was not well in our hero’s life,
Cause all good things come to an end,
What Architect boy didn’t know was,
T’were pesky Profs at every bend.

“”My subject’s more important”,
Spat each one higher and higher,
And our poor architect boy,
was caught in the crossfire.

There was design, and construction,
And drawings in perspective,
And history of architecture,
Of 1000 years before you lived.

The drawings came next,
And that was no child’s play,
He groaned, he moaned,
He hunched over his board all day!

He juggled his work like a circus freak,
But the work just bundled up more,
Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?
Thought he, as simple as 2+2=4.

Poof went all his plans next,
Of structures and forms,
Crushed, he finally decided to,
Build according to typical norms.

This story might seem familiar
I’ll be surprised if it wont be,
Cause this is the story of every architect
Us, you, them and me.

Circa 06

Destiny and I sat at the table, sometime in 2006, sipping our coffees, eating our croissants.
She looked at me. I looked at her. There was nothing else to do.
“So.”, she started, after a particularly long pause in which I chomped off half of my croissant.
“So, what?” I asked her, on my guard. I never liked her conversations which began with that word.
“What do you want to do?” she asked me, nibbling at the crust of her croissant like a dormouse.
“I want to eat my croissant in peace.” I replied, rather rudely. I never liked to talk while I ate, anyway.
She stared at me pointedly, clearly not amused.
“Ha.Ha.” she worded, rather sarcastically.
“I meant, what do you want to do in life?” she questioned, her voice a little brittle, like glass that was about to crack.
“Oh.That” I said, as I wiped my mouth with a tissue, brushing off the flecks of crust off my t-shirt. My croissant was over, so I could talk.
“I don’t know. Maybe, I’ll become a chef.” I told her, while a waiter hurried up to take our empty plates away. He looked at me in distaste again. I followed his gaze, and saw that there still some crumbs on my t-shirt. I brushed them off, embarrassed.
“Uh-huh.” She said, as if I had said something that was low on intellect.
“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked her, defensively. Being a chef was cool, and I wasn’t going to give up on it so easily.
“Umm. For starters, can you cook?” she asked, a sneer on her face.
“Uh-huh. I can make a decent Spanish omelet, a chocolate cake, corn salad…” I trailed off, as she stared at me smugly.
“…and instant noodles. I can make instant noodles!” I continued, rather weakly.
“Wow. Imagine a restaurant that sells instant noodles!” here voice dripped with sarcasm.
She did have a point.
Being a chef didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
“Maybe I’ll become a sculptor!” I said, quite proud of my dash of brilliance. After all, I did in fact love to play with clay when I was younger. And anyway, how tough could that be.
She looked at me blankly.
“You can’t make a block out of clay if I asked you to” she snorted, quite deviously.
“I can too!” I interjected, quite lamely. “I made a miniature human figure out of clay when I was six!” I added. She didn’t need to know that my art teacher had thought that it was a spider.
She looked at me blankly. Again.
She did have a point.
“A food critic?” I asked, my muscles twitching.
“Our body’s not a temple, It’s an amusement park!” she replied quite dramatically.
“A pilot?” I asked my voice low and quivering.
She laughed out loud.
She did have a point.
“A National Geographic correspondent?” I asked of her, but I had already given up hope on that before she could say anything.
She shook her head.
Fifteen minutes, and a dozen career choices later, all of which were turned down, either because of my intellect, my physical health or my skill, she sat up straight in her seat, a bright glow on her face.
“It’s all planned out” she said. “You’ll do architecture, and you’ll love it!”
I stared.
She grinned at me, as if expecting to make me fall in love with her idea at once.
“Why?” I replied, monosyllabically.
“Oh come on!” she said, “You know you like it, you keep on playing those crazy simulation games everyday don’t you?” I twirled the salt cellar on the table.
She did have a point.
“And architecture will help you on your way to greatness!” she exclaimed dramatically, sounding strangely like the sorting hat.
“Try it out. You don’t want to be an engineer, right?” she asked, smiling, knowing that she had hit the target.
She did have a point.
“Uh-Huh.” I grunted. There was no way I was telling her that she had a point. No way could I see that smug look on her face. “It does sound pretty okay, but what next?” I asked, as she tittered away.
“Oh. Don’t worry about that. I’ve got your whole life planned out for you.” She giggled.
“You are sounding like one of those mothers”, I warned her, stressing on my penultimate word.
“Oh.yeah, sorry about that. It won’t happen again. So architecture, huh? It’s meant to be. Big bucks. All the glamour in the world and you just have to draw for that. After all, how hard can drawing get?”
She did have a point.
Now, three years later, I hate destiny.

I heart New York.

I miss it. I miss it all.
I miss the MUNI, the metro, the Bart.
I miss the one dollar egg rolls, the hot dog cart.
I miss the lovely doughnuts that I swore I would hate, I miss getting up late.
I miss Hulu, I miss Pandora. I even miss Taylor Swift and all the Black Eyed Peas hype.
I miss the wine tasting, the barbeque, and acting like a pretentious snob while we sipped the reds.
I miss Las Vegas, Circus Circus, the fake Eiffel tower and the fifty dollars that we bet.
I miss meetings friends, those that I haven’t thought about.
I miss the crummy diners and the wrap place which lied about selling the world’s best wraps.
I miss Gap, banana republic, old navy; I even miss those super expensive shops that we were too embarrassed to enter.
I miss Bridgette, who couldn’t add up 21 and 24 mentally and was 23 years old.
I miss the fact that Hard Rock café is just a glorified fast food joint and not all the bling-bling that it is over here.
I miss the 25 cent coins, and the nickels and dimes. The bills, the greens.
I miss the cheesecake factory with its beepers, and Gossip-Girl named waiters.
I miss their large portions which we could never finish but were still greedy enough to order our own entrees.
I miss San Francisco, I miss New York.
I miss God of small things, kitchen confidential, and the Shashi Tharoor book whose name I don’t remember.
I miss all the last minute shopping and the fact that I was selfish.
I miss the gorgeous people. The beautiful women and the handsome men.
I miss the lights of Times Square, the sights of Central Park. I miss the Upper East side and all the Upper East Siders.
I miss watching gossip girl with ads.
I miss, Little Italy and China town, and all the grit in and around it.
I miss the Meat packing district, its artsy galleries and kitschy people.
I miss the Chelsea east youth hostel, ten bunk beds in a room. I miss it being a multi ethnic soup kitchen. A culture curry.
I miss Harvard, with all its smart people and even smarter architecture. I miss the coop, and Charlie’s Bar. I miss Aiwen Lu.
I miss the crappy flights, with all the jet-lag.
I miss the Broadway, the cirque de soleil, and their ridiculously expensive tickets.
I miss the steak, the hamburger, and all things beef.
I miss the margarita, the mojito and the terminator topped with beer. I miss that I had to show my I.D every time I wanted one of these.
I miss the standard, its psychedelic elevator and all. I miss watching sitcom reruns in the morning while I had nothing else to do.
I love the yellow taxis, with all its stereotypical clichéd south Asian drivers.
I miss the office, Jim and Pam, and Chris Brown’s Forever.
I miss the fact that I did not miss Farmville, Face book, Friends and Family, though not necessarily in that order.
I miss the theatre where I saw half of Wake up Sid and slept through the other.
I miss the annoying "wateva" radio woman,and the ten odd songs that played all day.
I miss the Japanese place and the New York people.
I miss the city, with Manhattan. I even Miss Brooklyn.
I miss the joy, I miss the thrill.
I miss the sudden rush you get when you are on vacation.
But most of all, I miss you. :(

Heart's a mess.

I lost my heart the other day,
I searched for it far and wide,
This usually does not happen to me,
In you, I must confide.

I searched for it here, I searched for it there,
I searched for it everywhere,
In all the places I thought a lost heart would go,
A blood bank, a gift shop, even St. Valentine’s Cathedral.

I was about to give up all hopes then,
All dull and dejected,
That’s when I saw it right beside you,
Beating, and blushing a deep red.

I tried to call it back to me,
But all my tries were up in vain,
Tried to use its own against it,
Nothing worked, neither artery, nor vein.
I couldn’t see what it saw,
Heartless that I was,
What else would I be now?
I had suffered a great heart’s loss.

As a last resort, I told it
“You wouldn’t survive without blood”
It stared at me rather pointedly,
And said, for you, it would even eat mud.


It wouldn’t listen to me,
I thought it would listen to you,
One look of your gorgeous face,
It struck, heck, for you, I would eat mud too!

iLike

Music and I never got along. You could blame it on the fact that I am tone deaf or the fact that I can’t seem to remember more than two lines on any song that I might like/ crave or want to hear.
There have been days when I thought that Pink Floyd was a person and thought that Eminem was cool. Back when Desi pop existed and the only bands I had heard of were Metallica and Linkin Park (probably because they were etched out on our class room desks).
But slowly, I grew older, and the music around me did too. I experimented. I tried. I tested.
The Hindi songs had been hidden, and the soundtracks deleted.
And so now, I seek redemption. So here’s a list of 50 songs that I like. Two words. Go listen.

Sour Cherry – The Kills
Breakfast in NYC – Oppenheimer
Boys don’t cry – The Cure
Don’t look away – Joshua Radin
Shut up and drive – Rihanna
Always Love – Nada Surf
Hot and Cold – Katy Perry
Stripper - Soho Dolls
Girl you really got me now – Van Halen
We used to be friends – The Dandy Warhols
This Modern Love – Bloc Party
Torn – Natalie Imbruglia
Apologize – Timbaland
Just call me angel of the morning – The Pretenders
Section 9 - The polyphonic Spree
Jealous Girls – The Gossip
Do You Wanna – The Kooks
Where’d you go – Fort Minor
Hallelujah – John Cale
Believe – The Bravery
Vertigo- U2
Sand in my shoes - Dido
Kiss me – Six Pence None the Richer
Nice Dreams – Radiohead
Let’s go to the mall – Robin Sparkles
I kissed a girl – Katy Perry
These Photographs – Joshua Radin
Something to believe in – Aqualung
Little Boxes – Death Cab For Cutie
Popular Mechanics for Lovers – Beulah
The Reason – Hoobastank
Walking on the sun – Smash Mouth
Trouble Sleeping – The Perishers
Young Folks – Peter, Bjorn and John
Beautiful Beat – Nada Surf
Thank you – Dido
Crime Wave – Crystal Castles
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps – Doris Day
Caught in the Rain – Preston School of Industry
Gorgeous Behavior – Marching Band
Opposites attract – Paula Abdul
I Miss you – Blink 182
Soul meets Body – Death Cab for Cutie
Boom Boom Pow – Back Eyed Peas
Everytime – Lincoln Hawk
The way we get by – Spoon
I’d rather be with you – Joshua Radin
Right Round – Flo Rida
How Good It Can Be – The 88
If You Leave - Nada Surf

Circa 08

Destiny was back.
And so was I.
The sky was a crisp orange, the clouds hung low and lethargic. It was one of those days you would have preferred enjoying from the confines of your room, but still weren’t.
Neither was I.
I was waiting at the same café, with a similar croissant.
She walked in like a breeze, her wavy hair askew. She looked different now; it had been four years after all.

She smiled apologetically, but I knew she didn’t mean it. She never did.
She looked at me. I looked at her. There was nothing else to do.
“So.”, she started, after a particularly long pause in which I chomped off half of my croissant. I had a strong urgent feeling of Déjà vu.
I stared at her pointedly.
“All’s well?” she asked, acting innocent. Typical, I thought.
“No!” I replied, monosyllabically, a bit louder than I should have had, making the couple on the table next to ours jump up a bit.
“Uh-huh, so what’s wrong?” she asked, nibbling at the end of her chocolate tart.
I stared at her pointedly.
“Architecture” I said, as she nibbled at her tart again, “Remember that? Big bucks, all the glamour in the world and easy drawings?” I drawled sarcastically, putting in the drawl, so that she would understand that I was not happy.
She didn’t.

“Uh-huh” she said again, twirling her paper umbrella in her sweet lime, “ So let me get it straight, you don’t like it now, do you?”, she continued.
I would have had liked nothing better than to take the umbrella out of her drink and thrust it up her nose.
“News flash!” I said coldly, trying to keep the contempt and hysteria in my voice to a bare minimum. “Three years. No money. No glamour and I am not even going to tell you how tough the drawings can get!” I continued, noticing the slightest amount of derision in my voice. “And it’s third year!” I added in an exasperated tone, half-annoyed, half-surprised as to why she wasn’t getting my point.
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried to look away.
Her cell phone started ringing. “Question, tell me what you think about this…” crooned the phone. Destiny’s child’s Independent Woman. Clichéd.
She cut the call, as her forehead creased up with wrinkles. “Not important” she told me, dismissively.
I stared at her pointedly.
“So, where were we?” she asked.
I was sure she was out to get me.
“Oh yeah, I remember”, she said, calmly, taking a small bite out of her tart. She twitched her nose,” It’s too sweet for me, anyway, I think you should stop making a big deal about this, This year’s going to be fine!”
“Yeah?” I asked forcefully, “and how would you know?” I continued, not quite able to mask my irritation.
She stared at me pointedly.
“Uh-huh” I said, apologetically. She was destiny after all.
“Yeah, chill it”, she said dreamily, as if the last two minutes had never happened, “it’s going to be all right in the end. You’ll finish your work, have a great holiday, and not to forget, fourth year’s going to be a breeze!” she continued, smiling the dazzling smile of hers.
“Easy peasy”, she said, acting as if it summed it all up to that. “Trust me, I know!” with the air of someone who seemed to know a lot more than I did.
I stared at her pointedly.
Now, one year later, destiny doesn’t seem all that bad. :P

Are we there yet?

The thing about a relationship is that I have never been in one.
Being single in the city can be a lot of fun, the condition of sour grapes being left otherwise. Imagine the amount of alone time that you can get, and all the reading, writing and other things-that-I-can-alone-only you can achieve. But you sure do tend to miss out on a lot. A lot meaning free entries into pubs and clubs here.
Blame the hundred odd TV shows that I watch or the relationships that I have seen friends go through, I feel I too can write about them. So what exactly is a relationship about? Is it about a hundred violins, a dozen roses and two people and three little words. After all, Relationships don't work the way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won't they? And then they finally do, and they're happy forever.
For a short time, though.
So at which point do you decide to move on then? When do you finally decide to search for new signs? Is it as easy as trying to fill up a requisite checklist, because surely there isn’t any such thing as a mail-order relationship, is there? (there is, but that is another story.) Or is it as simple as wearing an “I am with stupid” t-shirt?.
And finally, when you do manage to find someone, at which point in the relationship, do you ask the single-most important question, “Are we there yet?”.

Gossip, Girl and me.

The thing about having more female friends than male friends is that you end up knowing a lot more about chick-lit and clothes than you should.Yeah; You’ve seen enough chick flicks to give you fodder to make one yourself and know exactly what a girl means when she says that she’s having a bad hair day. You also end up knowing who Carrie Bradshaw is and also know where in Bandra, you would find the cheapest imitation clothes. Bargaining comes easy to you too. Not to mention the ability to wait outside a restaurant for a little over an hour when a party of about ten girls comes late, nonchalantly

That, and the fact that I have a fashion designer, a hair stylist and a fashion journalist as female cousins in the family, and also the fact that my sister is an, in need of a better word, avid “Gossip girl” and “Sex and the city” fan. Plus the fact that she has whiled most of her Bombay life in Bandra, where I have not very bravely been her shopping companion. But that is another story.Not to mention, another cousin too.
Well, this one’s for all of you.
There’s S, There’s T. Engineering whizzes. Co-Harry Potter freaks. Train companions. Friends in Junior college who made those two years worth it 
There’s B, self-proclaimed Drama queen, an agony aunt in need of an agony aunt herself.
There’s A.S, part-time blogger, part time Mtv VJ mimic. That’s when she’s not groaning about my blog and meat, that is 
There’s M, mall-accomplice and gossip girl.
There’s I., who sees the right in being leftist, a Che-loving feminist by heart.
There’s Ri and there’s Re, sugar, spice and tempers that rise.
N, somebody who I love scoring “brownie” points. Pun intended.
There’s S.B, regional buddy, hyperventilator.
K, coolness and craziness personified
A.T, materialistic pig, just like me. A Delhi aunty.
There’s M.A, a winner at being a whiner ;)
There’s S.G and S.B, confidante and crazy butterfly.
And who are they?
Well, that is a secret I can’t tell. You know you love me. (At least, I do)
XOXO
me :)

Villains

It could have had been a day like any other.
My dad went to office. My mom did her grocery shopping. B chilled out with friends. M studied for an exam. X spoke on the phone for an hour straight. C, Y and K played hide and seek within their apartment complex. And I, slept on.
It could have had been a day like any other. But sadly, it wasn’t.
Yes, I am speaking about the much-blogged about horrifying day of the 27th of November of this year. There, as hostages were shot and killed, we stayed glued to our T.V sets, blaming the government, the police, the terrorists and the media. But we still watched. We blogged. We posted photos. We discussed the events on online forums. And we started I-too-have-the-spirit-of-Mumbai- groups on social networking sites. We started “Hate Pakistan” campaigns. And then some more.
Criticizing the government which we had chosen.
Hating the media whose every word we listened to, and gossiped to friends about.
We spoke about the spirit of Mumbai, only to get back to work, and our lives the very next, as if nothing had happened.
Then it came to me.
We were the Villains.
There’s a villain in every one of us. In the 11 year old, who hits a girl classmate with a steel ruler. In the middle aged professor who smiles with maniacal glee to see her students suffer. In the old man who kicks the neighborhood dog every morning. In me. In you. In everyone else.

One of Us, One of them

A few days ago, I invited a few friends over for lunch. We were all loyal non-vegetarians. Well,almost. Save for one. She was a vegetarian.
And as the six non vegetarians loaded their plates with different parts of a chicken, coated with gravy, she cringed.
and cringed.
and cringed some more.
And then I thought.
What separates us from vegetarians? sure we tend to enjoy a few morsels of meat a little more than those leafy veggies you seem to find everywhere, But apart from that is there anything really different? Nope, we don't have pointy incisors like most carnivores do, nor do we have claws to tear out the meat. For every one of us, there's one of them. Well, sometimes there's more of us, but I don't think we should get into details.
Its not that we are heartless and don't think about the hundreds of thousands of fluffy yellow chicks which are reared to be slaughtered to feed us, we just swallow the guilt, which may or may not contain a bit of the chicken too. :)
Whoever needs to worry about what came first, the chick or the egg, when you can eat both.
And as one of my frequently-worn T-shirts rightfully says, "Why call animals meat, if you cant eat them?"

The bright and light side of my plight.

It takes great strength to fight a fully grown tiger, especially a hungry one, with you your bare hands. It takes great skill to solve a nuclear physics equation (even if you are a science whiz, that being likely.) it takes great patience to operate on an unconscious person while your hands tremble and your brow sweats.
It takes all of these to write up an article on the pros of being in the architectural field.
After days of procrastination (several of which included drafting spectacularly superb sheets of building construction and working drawing), I began.
I soon realized that doing the sheets was simpler.
After about fifteen minutes of thoughtful pondering, I realized that the smaller things about architecture make it what it truly is. Something that we all like to crib out, but not want to leave.(this still wont convince most of you, but now that you are here, you might as well as try to accept it.)
After all is there any more fun than to wait for those once-in-a-week history lectures where you can catch up on blissful sleep while centuries brush past and temples arise on chalkboards, or those landscape and interior design classes where you can sit with your colour pencils and crayons and render away like a gleeful kindergarten kid. Then those hundred of studio lectures while you roam around class, “trying to find your creative muse” for your design while your sheets, and most of your work, lies forgotten on your board.
Who else has truly understood the importance of a truly free weekend or the joys of getting a lecture off? And even if you hate to admit it, isn’t there some pleasure in being the proud owner of an extremely neat well drafted sheet (not forgetting the fact that marks are of no concern to us at all.)
And this just restricting yourself to the six hours you spend in college. (Not counting the hours in which you tend to socialize/mingle/ hang out with friends, which is another story by itself.).Sure, most of us prefer to stay back in college over the night, obviously agreeing to the fact that these mentioned hours are just not enough. But that is another story too.
Architectural school also has this weird knack of converting students into nocturnal beings. Which of us won’t agree to having stayed up all night to do work, and still having the ability to turn up to college the very next day, a little zonked but very much in the race. It’s during these nights that you appreciate how quiet it actually is and what those solid six hours can actually mean. (A wide selection of bollywood numbers which would make auto rickshaw drivers proud and you cringe with embarrassment, if your friends find out you listen to them, are of great help too, not forgetting the gallons of coffee and green tea that you chug up.)
Study trips form an integral part of our curriculum, maybe because we never get around to any studying in it. Most of us agree that the five grueling years that we slog like donkeys are totally nullified by the four yearly study trips that we get. That and the fact that we can be completely sure that we wont have to spend our nights worrying about lack of sleep and submissions and reports in these four abovementioned weeks, somehow forgetting that no one gets around to any sleeping anyway.. Study trips are all about laughing at the list of rules and sniggering as each of them is broken, about long train journeys and longer discussions, (several of which include a group or several groups, if the need persists, of people hushing together about cupids and villains and all those things school girls giggle about).
Study trips offer you insight into a lot of things. From the volume an empty soft drink bottle has to offer, to the capacity of a harmless shoulder bag (these consequently offer you insight into the capacities of slightly tipsy friends, but let’s not stray away from topic, shall we?). Study trips allow you to ponder about exactly how many photos-of-the-same-set-of-people-doing-the-same-set-of-things can you actually fit in a 2 GB memory card while at the same time it gives you the skill to creep across corridors at untimely hours of the night, with the agility befitting an international guerilla spy.
Architectural school speaks of friendships that last forever (what else would you expect; we all practically wear each others clothes, don’t we?).The ups, downs and merry-go-rounds of all student relationships can make any television soap producer’s eyes brim over with tears of joy.
Then there are those infinite chai sessions, phone conversations that last throughout the night, fancy group projects which embody mini-scale world wars, late nights and funny fights, and all those gazillion things that, in the worst of times, still make you lift up the HB pencil and draw that extremely thin plaster line.
So while architecture might make you contemplate dope, make you mope, not make you cope, or in some cases, even think about using the rope, sometimes it all comes down to hope.

The way I were

A conversation with a friend on the phone about world domination and politics randomly steered to my childhood and before I knew it, there I was standing in my grey and white uniform, with a blue belt around my waist and shiny black shoes that would make any shoe cream company proud, in a very JD-esque daydream (Scrubs does affect me a lot. trust me, it does.)
I haven’t always been the messy hair-sporting, kurta-clad snob that I am now. I am talking about those days when social networking sites didn’t exist (Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?), back when Star Plus was an english entertainment channel (It really was, for all those who think I have gone loony and need a good mental check-up. and no, I am not an escapee from an asylum if incase you been thinking about it.). For you to get a clearer picture, I am talking bout the time when I was two feet shorter and a hell lot cheesier (which is saying something if you know me).
I remember being the cheeky little kid who asked his parents why he wasn’t invited to their marriage. Someone who thought that he started blinking at the age of six (A lot of my stories do involve me being at the age of six). Someone who his nose pinched by a cousin with a clothespin and begged others to remove it, in a Himesh-ish voice, forgetting his own two hands. Who fell inside a manhole and still got a scolding for it. Who thought that the world was black and white earlier, like they showed in old movies.
Someone, who thought that there were only three stars in the sky.
I was the boy with the He-man castle, the robot dog, the classic toy cars and the hundred G.I Joes. And someone who was still greedy for more. Who wanted to be a cook, a writer and a national geographic correspondent just because it was a long word and sounded cool. Who thought essay was spelled SA and dressed up as a Chinese woman for a fancy dress competition just because he had stitches near his eyes. ( I still don’t remember why I didn’t become, ahem, a Chinese man.)
I was the boy whose greatest worry in life was whether school would be open on Monday or not (It still is!)
And then I realized that there’s actually being no change in me at all. I still am here, happily sipping my tropical iceberg, being completely at peace with life, the universe and everything.

Avanti and I.

A few months ago, in a crazily sun-lit class, I played a game with my friends.
As we sat there, hiding from the monotonous drone of an irritable professor,we discussed emotions that we had never ever experienced.
amidst giggles, snatches of the abovementioned professor's voice and frequent shh-es, I pondered over the question in mind.
Anger,nope.
Love,nope.
Hatred, definitely nope.
Happiness,nope.
Greed,Nope.
Jealousy,nope.
The list was infinite. The lecture wasn't. The closing bell brought an end to the lecture. And to my search as well. Knowing that I had exhausted all possible emotions, I settled on acceptance.
Three days ago, I realized that I was wrong.
Losing someone who you were close to is nothing compared to the way it's portrayed in television soaps and romance novels, its much worse.
Twenty years of knowing her and I realized that whatever I have known about Avanti can't be summarized in a post,a blog or even a dedicated book.
Sure, we all knew about her love for Shahrukh Khan, (it almost bordered on obsession if you ask me) and her hatred towards Yuvraj Singh ( another obsession,if you ask me again!). Yeah, beneath this hair-loving,shopaholic, critically-acclaimed film expert lay a girl like no other.
A girl, who at the age of six, pinched my nose with a clothespin and pushed me onto an overly ripe jack fruit, (though not simultaneously) just for fun.
A girl, who at the age of eight, dressed up as a fairy for a family fancy dress competition wanting to spread peace and harmony across the world.
A girl, who at the age of nine, had a imaginary kangaroo friend named maya.
A girl, who at the age of ten, knew more about the world wresting federation than most boys her age did.
A girl, who at the age of eleven thought that flouroscent green tights and an Undertaker T-shirt were cool, and who was gutsy enough to still think they were.
A girl, who at the of twelve, gave up on meat, because franky speaking, she thought that being a non-vegetarian sucked.
A girl, who at the age of thirteen, loved songs from B-grade Bobby Deol movies, and had the guts to admit it.
A girl, who at the age of fourteen, wanted to become a Miss India Coordinator, and who, in her own cheesy way, wanted to make a difference in the world.
A girl, who at the age of eighteen, said, and I quote " Charlie and the Chocolate factory is a classic Tim Burton movie. Its a movie which says" Come, watch me!"", with a straight face.
A girl who at the age of nineteen, paid for the hundreds of times we went to Mochas or CCDs, telling me that she was going to get pay back when I started earning.
A girl, who at the age of twenty, took me along to see artsy plays at the Prithvi, after which we discussed them rather pretentiously outside the cafe to seem elite.
A girl who at the age of twenty one, obsessed over high heel confidential so much that she could exactly pinpoint a dress in a fashion magazine into the blog's archives, date,name or designer wise.
To the girl, who always wanted to stay tall.

Avanti, this one's for you.

Me,You and my blog.

It all started when a friend commented on my blogging style a few months back.
" when are you going to blog next?" she asked.
"Soon" I answered,trying very carefully to rub out a smudge on my sheet (trust erasers to rub more than what you want to during these times.)
" Okay....But make sure its not one of those senti ones again!" she drawled.
"what?" I replied, with bits of irritation and some amusement.The smudge was still there on my sheet.
" Yeah, isn't that what you go on about all the time anyway? life and everything?" she said.
"what?" I said again ( Here,the reader should note that i am absolutely horrible at coming up with decent comebacks and usually resort to repeating words or making whiny high pitched noises)
" No I don't!" I continued.
I stormed off , the smudge and the sheet lying unaware.
Easy for her to say this,I thought, while all she blogged about was missing her old friends.
But she did have a point.
I was going to blog about my trip to Delhi first.
But I blogged about this instead. :)

P.S: readers should note that the friend in question has been made to appear more malicious in this post. In reality, apart from the parasite claw and random rudeness, she's quite a sweet sane girl. But she does blog about her old friends quite a bit. :)

Couch Potato

When you have one month of nothingness to celebrate, you turn to that one thing in your life which you are pretty sure will never leave you, the idiot box.
While I struggled to keep up with counter-terrorist agents, superheroes swept in discovering their powers, as a New-Yorker continued his quest to find his wife while suburban housewives schemed and teamed.A medical resident trudged through seven years at every body's favorite hospital, while a private investigator finished high school.A family who is more yellow than they should be continued being dysfunctional while i watched. And watched. And watched.
For a month i watched.
And then i realised.
Sometimes life's greatest lessons can be learnt through the words of a character who isn't even real.Like the way J.D sums up life, or Mohinder Suresh discovers it, Or Mary Alice Young, who remembers it.It can come while Ted reminisces about his past in his future, or when you realise that you aren't ordinary at all.It can come through to you when somebody goofs up. And then ,what do you do about the solution,you ask?
you wait for the writers to come up with the next episode.

The wizard of us

Ten minutes through the wikipedian page of "the wizard of oz" ( Don't ask me why, when you have all the time in the world, wikipedia can pretty much get you out of the doldrums) and I realised that the book spoke about a blonde who was in desperate need of a brain, a man of steel who wanted a heart and a macho chauvinist with an overly sensitive side.Throw in a girl who partied late and was too zonked too get back home, ( thus the feeling of being in a tornado),a few wicked witches into "weird" gear and you get your own modern representation.
The strangest thing happened to me last week.I stood at the doorway of my classroom, and took in the sights for one last time. It sure did look like a hurricane had struck somewhere ( when you combine 60 kids with crappy final submissions, things like these tend to happen). As I stumbled out of class,cursing myself over my foolishness, I dropped the sheets of filecard I was holding in my already-full hands. And then as I walked over the sheets of yellow paper which I had strewn over the floor, I walked into the isolated hallway, clutching three extra-large plastic bags in ways otherwise impossible.I thought about the epiphany of wanting a better brain, or maybe a better heart, or maybe even the courage to do things, but the thing which I wanted most was to just get back home.

The Morning After.

It is that time of the year again.
the sheets have been rolled, papers stacked in piles, distinguished from each other by the crease lines and coffee stains and the stationery all arranged, stacked away in order in bulging boxes.The pencils are in the pencil cases while the models have been neatly packed , old fading newspapers depicting the latest in the bollywood circles.
And that is when you wake up.
Picture this.It's the first day of your vacations, and you wake up when the sun's already halfway up, hungover because of the bliss and sheer pleasure of not having to do anything , and I repeat anything for the whole day. but who says happiness lasts long anyway ( well,it does in fairy tales and classic-how-we-met-each-other-stories where everything ends with a "happily ever after")
There you are,having hopped,skipped and jumped across your room, not as a celebratory jig, but because of the sheer lack of space to move about.layers of sheets flood your room,a tsunami of subjects crawling all over you. pieces of paper flutter by, carrying remnants of old conversations and made up games.You see a pencil here and a broken set square there,and as you sift through the almost fossilized layers of junk, you unearth chocolate wrappers and crisp packets that helped you through those exam nights while you crammed in an years worth of notes in an hour.
you flash back to the present,wishing that the junk would have had mysteriously disappeared, having had fantastical visions including a self cleaning mop and a robot which eats rubbish.
But it doesn't.
A vacation,indeed.

Juvenile Junk

As I perused the last few entries in my blog, i realised they were full full of juvenile junk, after all what sense do psycho squirrels and chameleonic colours make?And so, after a mild bout of disgust which I cured by my own dose of self pity, I resolved to write better. ( I do that quite well if you ask me, not the writing, the self-pity part, well, you can include the writing bit too.)
( not considering my sudden urges to give up on my resolutions. I still remember just completing a measly four of my twenty resolutions of 2007, again not considering the fact that two of them were going to happen anyway.)
So there I was, resolving to write better. Not today, maybe tomorrow.