Going, Going, Gone, for 2012!

     It was afternoon already, and the feeling had started sinking in. The year was (and still is) ending. Possibly, this is one of the last documents I mentioned a 2011 date on.
     A lot has happened in 2011, must still be happening in many parts of the world, for it's New Year in Japan just now (yes, I looked it up :P). I am no record of history, but I am pretty sure many people were born in 2011, many have died    and many must have been stillborn. Many must have had windfalls, many must have gone broke, many must have got a means of earning, and many must have lost their means of livelihood. Many must have tried and succeeded, while many must have tried and failed    many must have got buried in the debris of their losses, while some may have found a way to rise from their own ashes.

Random, nice picture. :P

     Some may have found their God; some may have questioned Its existence, and some may have stopped believing . Many must have made new acquaintances, some may have 'taken it to the next level' and some may have split up. Many must have brushed people away, and while many got brushed away, some people must have watched, some must have heard.
     Some people must have learnt to tolerate, a few must have learnt to speak up for what they are, and many must have given up hope. Many must have numbed themselves to pain, many must have learnt to enjoy sadistically meting it out. Many must have learnt to converse in newer and newer computer-languages; some ancient 'dying' languages might have died while you possibly were at learning a computer-language.
     I think, a lot of people must have seen the eclipse take over the moon completely, while many must have watched Eclipse, albeit the twentieth time. Many must have got up at five in the morning to watch the sun rise, peek over the horizon, while many will have pined for a minute of sleep in their mosquito-infested surroundings. Many must have stared in bemused wonder at what the magic-word electricity is, and yet, many must have been unable to pay to see the magic happen.
     Many must have spoken, criticised, debated, argued, fought, rioted, killed, massacred, abused, raped.
     Many must have been spoken to, criticised, debated, argued and fought with, killed, massacred, abused, raped, begged for a better way of dying.
     Many, I hope, must have wondered at how beautiful life is, while many must have thought how pointless it is, for the Earth going round the Sun to finally arrive at the same place every 365 days.
     I am not sure which legion I have belonged to. Maybe I have been a bit of everything. I've done all I have, and I have tried, unsuccessfully, to peek into the future and I have thought and got nostalgic and sometimes regretful over the past. I've bettered myself, I think, at writing and singing, and have learnt to both love and hate myself    to have multiple points of view. I have learnt to hate Economics (and still having to do it,) have let myself fall for Psychology (and some other people :P). I've jumped out of a running train and have made out in the oddest of places, have been clingy and at times, (startling even myself,) courageous. I have had flings and have unsuccessfully tried blending in    all before finally agreeing to be    not stay    myself.
     I have hurt, I've been hurt, I've forgiven, and pretended to have forgiven. I've forged some excellent relationships, got some broken, and whatever it's been, it's been worthwhile.
     I've grown up a little, and so has Time.

Giving Without Another Thought?

रहिमन वे नर मर चुके जे कहुं माँगन जाय l

उनते पहले वे मुए जिन मुख निकसत नाहिं ll

(Says Rahim, that those that keep asking for, are dead;

but the ones who refuse to give have been dead for longer.)

     

     They say that the simplest words convey the deepest sentiments. I am not sure they remain simple ever after that. I was speaking to a friend of mine on Facebook and I, suddenly, thought I should write something I can, about Rahim's doha I've typed out above.
     I have been in a number of situations where I have had to ask for things from people, borrow    a pen, a pencil maybe. How dead am I? Is self-reliance above all other merit? It is a matter of killing your pride, a small part of it, when you go asking for things, when you don't have things you need. But how much is it your fault? In my case, it was, for I have just been careless. But what is it about the hundreds of thousands who beg on the streets of the world? They might be a part of rackets to 'loot' people. But I don't see how they have an option against it. It's like a magic trick gone wrong, like the magician losing themselves to their own game.

     At the same time, I have been at the giving end. A good ten people hopped into the First Class compartment today in the morning, and they apparently did not 'look' like people who would waste a bulk for something like a one-day train-travel by 'First Class' in Mumbai. A man refused to let an old man share some part of the extra-long seat he was occupying. Fortunately, there was enough place elsewhere, so the old man got to sit. The people had got in at Dadar and were about to get down at VT. That is quite short a distance, and there is hardly any crowd between the two stations. I wonder how different or difficult it would have been to give an old man some place to sit    in fact, only share a part of your seat. Many of those people might not get to see Mumbai again in their lives. They might not be able to pay a hefty fine if asked for by a Ticket Checker, but that is another story altogether. How much of a role does a poor person play in their 'attempt' to remain poor for generations?
     And another subhashita in Sanskrit comes to my mind.

एकेन तिष्ठताधस्तादन्येनोपरि तिष्ठता l
दात्रुयाचकयोर्भेदः कराभ्यामेव सूचितः ll

The relationship between a giver and a taker is demonstrated well by a hand above another, it says. I wonder what shows the relationship between the hoarder and the beggar    if there is one at all.

The Day Granny Cried

Her eyes blinked;

The thinking, moist eyes.

And drops of salt filled up,

And quickly disappeared.

They weren't pearls of joy.

They came from a land

Of discarded love.

Of let-down expectation.

Of the wooden stove

And of frustration.

Though wait I did,

For the tears
To flow,

Fall,

And be forgotten,

They disappeared,

As if by magic,

As some may say    

As if by courage

Or by all earthly power

She could at once muster,

Or, perhaps, absorption. 

Her strong, steel eyes

(For that they were.)

The thinking, moist eyes    

They looked out into space,

They hoped,

To find Hope.

They Live There

     As we stood facing a wooden artefact bearing words in an Arabic-like font, the man told us that it said you don’t bow before to anyone but before Allah; you don’t go begging to anyone but to Allah.

     And as I stood there, I also stood in one of the many shops at the marketplace at Mahabaleshwar, a hill-station in Maharashtra. Mahabaleshwar, I was always told, is famous for strawberries and cool climate. It is not that I had not visited Mahabaleshwar before, just that I was too young (I was about 2) to have concrete memories about anything then. What this recent trip to Mahabaleshwar taught me is something different. What I seemed to have been harbouring happened to be a 2-dimensional image of a township having a thousand dimensions to it. It started with mulberries, and it just almost never got less complex.

     By fortune or misfortune, you decide, we got to stay at a hotel in downtown Mahabaleshwar. And although the service provided wasn’t good enough (and I contradictorily also wonder if it ever is), I got to see the people of Mahabaleshwar—not just people who claimed to represent it, but who truly did. I realised, not because of any particular incident, but because of some instinct in me, that the peoples, diverse as they are, are bound by a caring love for one another. You cannot get one to scheme against another and you would not have people gossiping there (not that I tried to get them to). People of commerce may now disregard what I sensed as professional courtesy and that by safeguarding one another, they were preventing their own downfall, but I still will say it is amazing—it is something we city-dwellers haven’t yet perfected.

     It is also very interesting to note that the population in Mahabaleshwar is a mixture of people belonging to different faiths. The first day, I wondered if the people who existed there, merely survived or lived in harmony.

     I was at the shop I spoke of in the beginning—as we exited the shop an old Hindu woman selling combs came to a man cleaning that part of the shop where wares were colourfully placed. She extended her palm, clasped his palm, and said, “Kaisa hai, Farookh,” and smiled. I turned towards the road and smiled; they lived.

Saying No

     Psychology has taught me, and many others, that humans do what they do in order to experience pleasure or avoid pain. And along with that, since we are social animals, we do things not just for OUR pleasure/pain-avoidance, but also for others'.And during that process somewhere, we start accepting pain or giving pleasure a pass so as to please others. And that sometimes is tantamount to saying 'yes' to things you might detest and 'no' to things you might want totally.
     Take, for instance, this writing workshop I could have attended today. It was a continuation of another half of it that got done last Saturday (when it was actually supposed to completely get done), and hence commanded an add-on price. I have always been someone who is perpetually in a dilemma or another, and ends up saying yes to practically every second object of gratification. And I said no, with another friend of mine, to the rest of the workshop. That meant we missed out on a LOT. But we had learnt something. And that wasn't enough, but was a lot.
     So the next time you say no to tea or coffee or a smoke or a joint or any other crap, remember you aren't alone (that is if you find it difficult saying no in the first place!).
     

Cleanliness Before All

     I just got done with reading Ruth Rendell's 'Adam And Eve And Pinch Me' yesterday, and found it a very good book. A psychological thriller (that is what I would call it), it explores what happens when Minty Knox's delusions collide with the reality she lives in.
     My Sunday morning had brought in a fresh set of chores    mum asks me to do work a little every weekend    when she is out, teaching. And today, apart from serving food to my grandmum and feeding the crow and running a few errands here and there, I did not have much to do officially. However, I have always had a minute OCD for cleanliness. As if specially designed to be read one day before clean-up, Minty Knox, who has more than what people would simply put down as a penchant for tidiness, happened to me. I usually try not to take up tasks when there is too little time, for when I begin with cleaning and de-cluttering things, the cleanliness bug (Ouch! Is THAT a speck of dust there? *eyes greedily*) grows at its fringes and I start cleaning up everything. I cleaned the dustbin today and cooked something and also cleaned the kitchen counter. It's a thankless job, but seeing all the crap make its way into the dustbin gives me a sense of satisfaction.
     I haven't studied    needless to say, that. But when compared to other Sundays, I feel a little less worthless today. Why, I shouldn't be damned if I said I do feel worthy of joy today. And satisfaction. And a bar of chocolate. And some nice sleep.
     Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait. Is THAT a speck of dust there?
     *Eyes greedily*

P.S. The cleanliness bug got a bit too far today.

P.P.S. The cleanliness bug made me delete the extra 'friends' from Facebook. :P

Love

     Love is perhaps the thing we humans are most hypocritical about. We like to award that wonderful emotion brickbat after brickbat. I've heard cynical statements about love, and sometimes, a little reluctantly, have agreed to some parts. But when you are in love, you tend to draw exceptions     as much as you'd like to believe you are not in love, you end up knowing you are. I don't mean to say you always know when you are in love. And I am not speaking of spiritual, familial love. I am speaking of romantic love.
     And many times, that love is unattainable. It's been for me. And you hang on to it for some time. Hoping, the brainless romantic that you are, that you might as well get them 'back'. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. If you do, you explore a new facet of yours; if you don't, well, you again explore a new facet of yours.
     I've realised that love is not all bubbly, but rather confusing sometimes. Not careful    sometimes even ruthless. Sometimes 'perfect' (to others), and sometimes abusive and possessive. But it is what makes us different from other animals. We don't love to procreate. We love to love. And the stupid purist that I am, I hope it remains that way. 

La fête française!

     La fête française is 'the French (national) Festival', and in India, we celebrate it by doing what we do everyday. However, we students of the junior college in St. Xavier's, that is, people who learn French as our second language, we celebrated it with a skit, three songs, some food, and some unanticipated awesome guests! 

     Believe me, this is the shortest post maybe, but it was fun. 

     Les étudiants sont heureux, les proffesseurs sont heureux. Moi aussi.

MSM

     So, it's been long since I last wrote here. Anyway, what brings me to blog today? MSM. It's a disease in men, hitherto unseen in India    it forces men to have sex with other men and has no known origin. According to India's expert Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, MSM has been a regular power to reckon with (ooh) in the developed nations of the world and just recently seems to have moved base.
     And Mr. Azad seems to have no cure whatsoever for the malady, though he is very interested in how it will affect India. How can he watch as MSM forces India to become a developed nation, since that's what it did with the 'developed nations' he spoke about.
     A newspaper article said that it sounded better from Baba Ramdev's mouth. I differ, and care enough to say that it looks better from the mouth of a politician who needs no basic qualifications to get a post spread rumours in his (that's strangely true) country, than that of an uneducated Baba who propagates shaping your body strangely.
     The least I can say is I am not very pleased with what's happened. We could do with a new Health Minister.
     And oh, yeah. I have, and proudly so, MSM.

The Nest That Never Gives Up

It isn't long,

Before the wind will turn into a storm.

A storm of unchallengeable proportions.

A storm of carnal rage;

Of catastrophic desires.

A strange melody of a million notes.

A noise that can defeat music.

A want to drift into itself,

A want to reach out and destroy.

And as the wind challenges

the birds' nest flailing and waving,

It watches the nest fall to its death.

It walks in silence.

More for later, it says,

More, for later.

The May-Clouds Paradox

     I was at Marine Drive (amongst other places) with a bunch of  friends, and it rained drizzled. And well, I'd call it rain, because when we were inside the cab, the window-glass-wiper (or whatever that is technically called) was oscillating furiously fast. And I got to taste a raindrop. Well, it tastes like water.

     And no, I am not roping in a figure of speech just so that more and more people might come and read what I am blogging about. Not that I've known too many people mad for (not at, mind you) figures of speech. So, what is the May-Clouds Paradox?

     In May, the sky sometimes is cloudy. How else do you get rain, duh! And it is not pleasant still. It's as warm as warm can be. And then, it gets cloudier and cloudier and before you know it, it's rainy season. I sometimes wonder how things exist right before our eyes and we ignore them, and at other times, we search for things and never find them in spite of paying unadulterated concentration. Like, you are growing each day, but for some reason, it looks all the more obvious on a special day   uh   your birthday, perhaps?

बूँद बूँद से सागर बनता है।

The ocean's a result of many little drops, but doesn't look like it, does it. 

     Uh, today, I'll end it a bit abruptly perhaps. Change isn't at any one moment; and yet, is at each one. For change is one huge confusing concept. And what else is life but change. 

Places

     I am a fan of the beach. And I am a fan of a million other places you can give a visit to. Just now, I watched the 1995 movie Before Sunrise. And I realised that places are defined by much more than what they hold on themselves   that we like or dislike places because they come with a cluster of other factors.

     

     Two people 'with a connection' meet in a train coach.

     They decide to spend a night together, not knowing how else to remain with each other.

     They talk.

     In a bus. On their way. At a bar. On the lawn. They decide to correspond regularly.

     It's the next day.

     The girl has to depart. 

     They trash the idea of corresponding. 

     They decide to meet six months from then. Platform 6, at 6 o' clock.

     The camera moves to the bus. It moves to the road. 

     Then they show the bar. And then the lawn comes in view.

     And you just don't realise, they are the same places as before they were, 

     And they seem to have just lost something.

     And they seem all different. All new?

     That is what I meant to say. It is not the places that seem special, it's the things and people around that make the places what they look to you. 

     Uh, umm...what else do I say?

     Period.

From Amreekah to The United States of America

     Though we have grown as much as could have been possible with the amount of effort we add to what we do, our outlooks have more or less been alarmingly narrow. And this, even in the times of Globalisation, when the world apparently is to shrink into a global village. Well, at this rate of things shrinking, our minds are not far from becoming pea-sized organs.

     The U.S.A., along with some other countries in the Middle East, has been haven to many who fled poverty, monotony and lackadaisicalness in India. Or, as in some cases, to browse greener pastures, to broaden one's horizons of thought; to escape social stigma at times.

     It is but apparent that Indians have been a largely misguided people. Though I have been bombarded with the same crappy philosophy about the U.S., I learned to keep my ground. My hugely misguided grandmother always makes certain things heard:

• The U.S. is a country where you cannot visit your neighbours unless you are invited to.
• The U.S. is a country where people don't know proper codes of dressing.
• The U.S. is America. Plain, simple, America.
• If two different people go to the U.S., they have to be living close to each other    irrespective of the fact that one could be a resident of Alaska and the other of Hawaii. It simply does not matter.

     I realised that what is often spoken of about the U.S. is as fitting to the 'now' India as it is to the U.S., if it is, that is. Like, you can't visit your neighbours unannounced in a good, sophisticated Indian locality either, and that the term proper codes of dressing is rather relative in nature. And it is time we people started referring to the States as the States and not States. "He's gone to U.S." sounds so yucky. Moreover, if Delhi and Mumbai aren't close, you don't expect Olympia and Tallahassee to be close either, do you?

     It's about perspective. With respect to the misleading crap that is accumulating around me, I can only hope that the kids after me succeed in keeping their ground too. For the U.S. is more than just America.

Birthday Surprises

     I have a really weird theory. Ever since I stopped giving the juvenile birthday parties   the cake-cutting ritual   I watch out for day-spoilers, and specifically, birthday spoilers. They come in all sizes, sometimes singly, sometimes in hordes of hundreds. They can be nasty, and they *ouch* hurt.
     So, birthday spoilers are things, or events that always are out on my birthdays to spoil them. And ever since I turned 9, I've had at least one spoiler on each birthday. Sometimes, it's a small tiff. Sometimes, it's a fall-out with some friend. Yes, on a birthday. And sometimes, it is boredom, and at other times, it's mood swings.
     This birthday brought me all of them   gifts all right, but also fights, fall-outs, boredom, disappointment, bad news, mood swings. But good things are born from bad things, if one can and may categorise things and events as good or bad. I realised that one must live, not like creepers, forcing all of our burdens on someone else; or even like trees, accepting all the burden people around you try to share with you. That one must learn to say no, and that life's ours, to do what we may, with it.
     But the most important thing I realised is that I must live without guilt. And that does not mean living with pride. It is living devoid of guilt, avoiding conceit. And for the first time in who-knows-how-many-years, I empathise with Siddhartha Gautama. Maybe renunciation is not too bad an idea. 

Vishu A Happy Vishu!

     Yesterday was le jour de l'an. I don't know what today is, except that it is called Vishu. For us, it has little religious significance. But each year, we wake up early in the morning (read-way earlier than what early is defined as) and look into a mirror.

Meow! I get to live with all the gold. Fou, Shreya!

     Well, a mirror juxtaposed in such a manner as to reflect what is placed in front of it, to you   different things from different angles (well, that is easy-peasy). And the things kept in front of the mirror include almost everything ancient people might have thought essential, also holding in mind the fact that some essentials change over time, while some evolve. Like, there are fruits, jaggery, salt, flowers, and gold. Yeah, I don't think they used gold then, way back when this began. And there is money, another non-existent thing of the far-away past.

Dazzling  10 coins

A life filled with essentials

      Then you look into the mirror, see all you can, offer your prayers to those 'essentials' and (when you are I) go back to bed. When it is morning (like real morning, duh), you go see all the elders at home, and get money. Munnay, yeah, munnay. And today, I got, I don't know how much munnay (I'm guessing  27 ). And then I got an awesome summer hair-cut! Short-to-the-scalp. And am going to create another blog. Well, it's going to be a group-blog this time.
     And so, signing off, I wish tout le monde a fantastic Vishu, another day to bring a better tomorrow.

Home, Sweet Home

புத்தாண்டு  நல்வழுத்துக்கள்!

     For many Tamils, today is when the spiritual calendar begins. We   my family   twelve years ago, had begun a different journey this very day, had moved into this house. We had, consciously (our parents) and unconsciously (we, then-tots) taken up the onus of converting the confines of this brickwork-cement construction into home. Home.
     How comforting is that word? For once, the adage that the true value of things and people is known to only those who don't have them, would prove false. That is because there is no one in the world without a home. House-less, perhaps, but not homeless. For home is where the heart is. For some Rajput Rana/Rani, home is in the infinity of their palace. For a couch-surfer, the couch is home. For a beggar, the street, perhaps. Home is that place where you can rest when fatigued, cry when you need to break down, laugh your heart out for no reason, and lie on your back, thinking if the ceiling is the same you see each time.

  
     And so, we set out on a mission to keep home home. And while I know we're going to be successful, I realise my cousin is beginning a new life today, too   flying to the West, making a new nest, starting from scratch. And as we survived pretty well, we are sure, that she will win too.

The Parting Shot

     The other day, Rekha Srivastav, our Psychology teacher, told us during a usually boring lecture, "It is one of my last lectures with you people this year." This year, she said with a bit of deception, and I saw almost through it. Sharvari told me today that Rekha expressed her sadness at her not being our teacher for the next year. And apparently, Sharvari 'appeared' to be sad. Did she see through Sharvari, too?
     Sometimes, I am the I-hate-psycho-with-a-vengeance person. And for things she has done, she is rightly being cast off like snake-skin. But sometimes, I, like Devansh, tend to want to think a bit differently. Think of her as a human. An erring human, but a human nevertheless. She could not teach properly most of the time. She had a really high-pitched voice, almost like a squeak. She would throw killing glances of youdidit at random people. And she taught us the steddy of Psychology. And she said 'yays' for a 'yes'. And she was, indeed, very nosy.
     But be as it is, I will miss her once she is gone. The irritating way she taught in; the dabbas of nuts and brownies and pastries we've had in her lectures; the 'chwenchy-choo's and 'chwenchy-three's. And I won't be missing her because she was the person who selected me for the Obama rendezvous. Who knows, now there is going to be a change. But for good or for worse, we don't know. The next year, we could as well think about what a huge waste 11th Psychology had been, or contrastingly, how much of a worse teacher we've got. And it is only human nature to miss things he/she has lived with, amongst.

"When one lives in hell, and is offered the notion of heaven, nothing else petrifies that person more than the thought about how badly they'll miss hell."

A Bagful of a Year

     So, there are hardly fifteen days left for us FYJCs to call it a day  er  a year. And then, we shan't be students of FYJC. Neither will we be students of a long (read : short in comparison to what we've been through) vacation. Thanks to the virtue of having chosen the oft-ignored B-division, we students are immune to things like holidays (read : vacations without a thought on mind). And so   where was I   yeah, we will be students of SYJC. At least for Maths, or so Mansi tells me. Mansi is my just-SYJC-exams-given/giving friend. Awesome friends tell you fiendish things sometimes.
     And because I must do limits, derivatives and integration, and because I must bask under all the glory of Boo-something-mian algebra, and some other crappy things, and must have a complete set of books (used and preserved for further use for FYJCs or the raddiwala's inventory by Mansi). And so, I set out on a journey, a much-feared journey to Walkheshwar. (I am currently afraid of South Bombay because I might get lost. Again.) And so, I went by bus no. 41 to many places in South Bombay. And yes. Many places means I don't know which.
     That was till I was in front of the Chowpatty beach, which was a thing I had least expected but found anyway. After that, she picked me up and we went to her house and I did some gupshup about teachers' stupidness (and Pravin Sir's helpfulness). And then, with a heavy heart (I had to travel back to VT) that was heavy because of a heavy bag   the heavy bag, I left Mansi's home, bidding her really sweet mom adieu. And then, I realised, and pretty truly so, that I was carrying, practically, my 12th standard in my bag.
     On other days, it would have been a most absurd thing to think of   stuffing an entire year in a schoolbag. And yeah, it was a schoolbag. My sister's. Today, it seemed so easy, to transport months of scribbling-in-books, doodling-away-to-glory, cursing-teachers-and-the-system and things I can't possibly write within the limits of this post. And it was a life that stretched over about 9 months.

Holi Crap!

     Holi has immense meaning. The festival of colours   of breaking barriers of colour   the coming together of people of various colours and the forgetting of Fair & Lovely and Fair & Handsome for a day, if not forever.
     However, of late, the festival has assumed dangerous proportions   and dismally, in totally new dimensions. I wonder if whatever the dictionary says about the origin of the word 'hooliganism' is true. For me, 'hooliganism' came from 'Holi', obviously, not long after people forgot what the festival is about. And as I stood at my hall-window, looking at the hullabaloo-creating crowd on the road, my mind munching over a lot of food for thought, I realised how unholy Holi has come to be. Well, in time, the 'gagagoogoo'-screaming (I have no clue why they do that) crowd moved on, I was relieved.

     Interestingly, from the opposite side of the road, a dog, an uncoloured dog, came out of its hiding, looked right and left, and crossed the road. And I was convinced that the Creator hasn't created just morons. 

Where Any Change is Addition

 न चोरहार्यम् न च राजहार्यम् न भ्रातृभाज्यम् न च भारकारी ।

व्यये कृते वर्धत एव नित्यम् विद्याधनं सर्वधनप्रधानम् ||

( No thief can steal it; it is unconquerable for kings; it can't be divided among siblings; it gives no burden. Any change in it is its flourish   the wealth of knowledge is the best of all. )

     The other day, I wrote a paper, as a writer for a certain person. While writing the paper, I realised what the above subhashita means to say. I was writing while 'it' dictated. And when 'it' was not, I thought. And somewhere, in that paper, is a tiny little part of me. Somethings that 'it' had for 'its' portion in the paper was what I have studied on a very preliminary level. And yesterday, though during a period of 2 hours I mustn't have connected much to what I wrote, I know somewhere deep in my heart, that yesterday's paper has presented me with new horizons.

     I don't really know if what I want to express has come out well, but what I want to say is that whether we are in our house sipping tea, or dancing to the song on the TV, or playing video-games, or doing dishes, or writing papers, or doing absolutely nothing in the college foyer, we are gaining knowledge...when I get hurt by a stray cricket ball, I get to know that a cricket-ball can hurt. When I don't get attendance on account of not being attentive, I get to know that attentiveness is necessary, that no attendance sucks.

     All in all, knowing is fun; whether you like it or not, know what you are doing or not, you know. You may feel, you may think, you may sense, you may get intuitions. But out of every stimulus that comes your way, you become a little less ignorant of the giant vastness lying around you.

Pray to God. She's Powerful.

     A century and eight decades ago, a girl was born. Married away at 9. Started imparting education to a girl when she was my age. Started a school for girls when she was 17. Had people throw dung-balls and stones at her when she had the guts to go teach girls. Fought against child infanticide. Even after her supportive husband had died, when Pune was under a stupid Plague Control Board, she, with her adoptive son, attended to the affected. She contracted the disease herself while getting a child to a health-care centre, and died of the plague. She'd performed her husband's funeral rites, the onus of the supposed lion-son.
     Savitribai Phule. What makes her different from any other woman who lived when she did? I totally believe, that in Society (with a capital S to show its 'significance'), the cause of a woman's distress is oftentimes another woman. Consider 'another woman' to be a mother who buried her baby-girl because her husband asked her to; a woman who 'just chid' her daughter-in-law and left scald marks all over her body; a woman who sells her daughter so that 'the future bread-winner' of her family, her son, may live off all the drugs and bidis he covets; a woman who sees her daughter being repeatedly raped by her own sire and brothers (read-pimps); a woman who pushes that little angel to live the life of a devdasi or a courtesan.

    But I prefer to still call it a Happy Women's Day. It is not a day for those hags who kill their own species in an effort to make hay while the sun shines. It is for those women, who flowed against the current, fought with that pimp, rescued that daughter, made her a lady    it's for the Sitas of the world who, rightly, did not think their husbands worthy of their testimonies of purity; for the Mother Teresas    the saints of the gutters; for the Phoenix, that rose from her own ashes. The last part, I am very sure of. 

Being SPORTive

     It was today, after a long gap in between, that I realised that I don't hate every sport. I'm notoriously famous for having shunned every form of sport for a good part of the decade and a half I've lived on Earth (except chess, which I still love very much).
     I spotted some kids in my building compound playing badminton. And I can conveniently call them kids. The eldest was what...12? So, no, no. They were not all kids. My bad. They were   I don't know what. I was returning from my music classes and though I could've gone, paying no heed to my hidden desire of many years, I went and played with them, albeit for only around 10 mins. And the small child within me was out then. I played to my heart's content.
     Now, if that is what they call the fruition of one's past desires, this was that.

That Old Box Near the Arches

     One sees in the various phases that change ushers in, the old usually are not cast out. They are just cast off. Like when you pass out of your current grade, you don't just throw your books away. You just put them away. And today, of all days, I was walking towards the first quadrangle at college. And I walked past something. And then, I shrugged. I wondered if something would work, function well, if at all it did.
     And then, I realised it wouldn't. A thing that was covered in pigeon-poop wasn't supposed to work. It is that yellow coin-box telephone. It is that. After I had walked past it, I realised it deserved more than my walking past. It demanded a photograph. And so...

The bottle-holder-ex-phone-box-pigeon-poop-bearer

     We all have our walkie-talkies now. Our very, very own mobile phones. But seeing the phone-box in the appalling condition gave birth to a seed of thought. Now that our college has been 140 years, surely, there has passed a time when the cellular entities, that live and throb in our hands, did not exist. And at that time, students like me and my classmates and friends and college-mates must've fussed around that telephone. Father Frazer wouldn't have had to keep his eyes as open for mobile phones as he does now. Chits and chits after chits must have been what texting-in-class today is. And for once, that telephone must have felt like a ruler. (No pun intended.)

And then, on the streets of Mumbai,

Fisherpersons were all the people.

Warli was all the art.

Oil never flowed into the Great Arabian.

There were no fires.

What a time that was.

What a time, that was.   

Texting Away to Glory

I have added u as a contact on WAY2SMS.COM to send Free SMS. (to stop receiving SMS, email

unsub@way2sms.com) - Sent via WAY2SMS.COM

     That is how I had woken up. My alarm had incidentally been a message. Not now, long back. And that, I guess, was Virgil, my choir director who had added me on Way2Sms. What exactly is Way2Sms? It is a website that allows you to text for free. And I was sure of some catch somewhere, cynical that I always am. But I found none, except that you could type only 140 characters.
     As much as I might be sounding like an advertisement agent, it is a good alternative for people like me, who are  fed up of their mobile service-providers trying as much as they can, to burn a hole in our pockets.Well, my average monthly bill for the last four months is a four-digit-number. And not that I can afford it really. My texting allowance for the Rs.35 that my dad pays, allows me to text 350 SMSes per month. But when a textaholic teenager is at the SEND buttons, you never know how it is.

Can it get any teenier?

     They possibly make money through advertisements on their website(?) But anyway, better any day, than 160by2 or whatever. So, I've joined it. And my friends see the message I saw months ago.
     But I'll have to come online for that?! And I can't do that. Texting, is like a motive now (Psycho on my mind). Like feeling thirst or the need to use the washroom. So, how on earth do I text when I'm in the train?
       Way2Sms needs to work towards that. Ultimate satisfaction. But then, stupid Jai, wouldn't that be like zaqaat everyday? Whatever.

(For those whom it interests   this was a post I wrote only for the sake of trying to write like an INTJ, while I am actually an INFJ. Those who don't know what that is, and are interested in knowing, may visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ )

Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Naa Karo...

     This is the first time I'm using a Hindi song, to be specific, a ghazal as a title to a post. I find the song from Monsoon Wedding to be of some relevance to what I am trying to convey here. Not sure what 'some' means. We have all listened to people narrating King Bruce's story an umpteen number of times. We saw the spider try each time it fell, to get to the ceiling   and many of us have done it in our English course-books and forgotten about it. What we saw (actually told to see) as the moral of the story was that one must try until one finds success. But look at the story from a different angle. It's that moment of realisation that makes or breaks things. As long as the fish is in water (and it indeed is only in water), it does not acknowledge that water is what it covets, craves for, lives by   each day, every moment.
     Fr. Terence, our college counsellor, tells us, you can learn a lot in this world. It isn't necessary that you learn morals from a morally correct  source. It could be a drug-addict telling you how not to ruin your life. The moment you realise, your upward journey (to what, I don't know, but it still is upward) begins. So, how do I not re-commit the errors I already have? Yesterday, I learned from someone, that you don't go and draw from history   from what wrong you have done. Just chalk out a brand new today. Like a new page in a book. I must have hurt I-don't-know-how-many people. I must have sent chills down many people's spine sometime. And perhaps, many of those hurt have distanced themselves from me. A select few have perhaps stayed back, with hope   that what I did was just a bad dream after all. And thus, now, all I can do, the best I can do, is not let that hope be proved false.
     And thus, like fish out of water; like an oasis without trees; like Yudhisthir without his brothers, wife and family; like a drunk without his ability to stay conscious; like a bird without wings; like a planner without any way to bring to reality his/her awesome plans, I begin. Not introspecting. Not retrospective of my faults. Just in view of the fact that I must not lose what I have at hand, before it all disappears, when it will. 

गाण्याच्या शोधात - In Search Of Music

The following poem is a translation of a Marathi poem by the above Marathi name, whose poet's name I still am searching. I have made a few additions and a bit of editing which I thought were necessary. I shall soon upload the name of the original poet.

The union of notes leads to music born.

And music is the support of life   of living.

And like a stream, life flows to its destination,

When there's music.

And when there's a lull in that music,

The stream encounters a path

Of stone. Of rock. Of thorns. And pains.

Ask the legion of people

That's been going on and on,

Since the Wake of Life,

Where they've set out to.

And you'll get your answer.

The Answer.

In search of Music.

And then, you'll soon know,

All of us mortals,

We're a part of the legion, that legion.

In search of Music.

Try...Come What May...

You might need 

  To drink some water,

   You might need 

     To nurse that knee,

      You might want to experience 

        The tree's shade,
         But before that, try, earnestly...
          You may face a thousand bolts at once,
           And a score of terrible fears may spoil your night,
            But before you succumb to what you might call Fate,
             Don't you, my friend, forget to fight.

And The Nostalgia Is Reborn

     Just around this time last year, we students of standard X were adding those final 'touches' that would, and did, apparently, do a lot to the final picture.

     And yet, as a student of a college, I can see the excitement, the tension build itself   among students, teachers and exam centres (my college is one) alike. The future is expensive. The present seems cheap. But one's past is either hidden or treasured   as skeletons in one's closet or as the secret event that led to one success after another. How I remember and miss the hundreds of friend-circle unions (meetings sounds better?) before the board exams, b****ing about the SSC board (pardonez-moi pour mon mauvais français), talking about the philosophy of missing and being missed, to teachers at school!

     And , as Maddy Razz correctly points out, it all boils down to one thing   moving on. Moving on is the act of putting behind oneself, all the rancour pent up inside of us; is building bridges where earlier were walls; is growing up, when we understand the clear distinction between growing and growing up. Moving on is akin to learning to never say never. There is always a "Hi!" after a "Good-bye!".

     Thus, many of my senior friends will be moving out of college   moving out of the nest we were in   some because they found better colleges, some because they have some other reason. On the other hand, most will stay in college. We'll become SYJCs soon. The SYJCs hitherto, will get newer lives, newer identities. 

     

   It's all in the movement.

      We are all on the move.

Not Without My Splendid Suns

     I completed reading Betty Mahmoody's and William Hoffer's  'Not Without My Daughter' (non-fiction) today. A true-life story of Betty, it is sure a story to move the stoniest of hearts. Well, I had completed reading Khaled Hosseini's 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' (fiction) about two years ago. They are books of a genre. And thus, I had started subconsciously AND consciously comparing them, only to realise today that to do so was no mean blunder.

     NWMD is a real-life story, and thus, realistic in approach. Betty, here is an American woman, and her values, thus, differ from Laila's or Mariam's, in ATSS, where the writing is so very perfect, you cannot not think it is non-fiction. Both the books are however, similar in some respects   they tell you the value of freedom like no other book I know of does. 

     Am I speaking too much, revealing too much? Maybe! Go get the books. Awesomeness personified, they are; rays of hope, they are. :)

Of Death

When the smells of the body and the earth make stench,

When the sounds of blood gushing and wind blowing create noise,

When the king enjoys his silken bed but the beggar has none,

Death, You arrive.

Riding on the horse of Grief.

And with a whip of sudden pain, 

Separate the soul from its cage.

Some call it the cage of life.

You are selective of whom you take.

You work in your own crazy paradigms of functioning;

Your whims decide how you take them.

The person sees black or blue or white or nothing at all.

And you come to them.

They come to you.

You perfectly complement Birth,

You bring pauses where needed.

And the smells of the body and the earth turn one,

And the sounds of blood gushing and wind blowing mix,

And the king enjoys his bed now, and so does the beggar.

Boredom

Boredom, boredom!
Yes, Jai...?
Want a phatka?
No, Jai...!
Sod off then!

No, Jai...!
Chaila...aata boredom pan shining maarayla laagla!

A true-blue INFJ!

INFJs are conscientious and value-driven. They seek meaning in relationships, ideas, and events, with an eye toward better understanding themselves and others. Using their intuitive skills, they develop a clear and confident vision, which they then set out to execute, aiming to better the lives of others. Like their INTJ counterparts, INFJs regard problems as opportunities to design and implement creative solutions.

Nothing much to tell about what is oopar. :) Tres bien.

INFJs are quiet, private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind the scenes. Although very independent, INFJs are intensely interested in the well-being of others. INFJs prefer one-on-one relationships to large groups. Sensitive and complex, they are adept at understanding complicated issues and driven to resolve differences in a cooperative and creative manner.

Tres bien, again.

INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them. Nevertheless, they are congenial in their interactions, and perceptive of the emotions of others. Generally well-liked by their peers, they may often be considered close friends and confidants by most other types.

Soothsaying statement? Nah! :)

 However, they are guarded in expressing their own feelings, especially to new people, and so tend to establish close relationships slowly. INFJs tend to be easily hurt, though they may not reveal this except to their closest companions. INFJs may "silently withdraw as a way of setting limits", rather than expressing their wounded feelings—a behavior that may leave others confused and upset.

I can actually think of the many times I have actually done that!

INFJs tend to be sensitive, quiet leaders with a great depth of personality. They are intricately and deeply woven, mysterious, and highly complex, sometimes puzzling even to themselves. They have an orderly view toward the world, but are internally arranged in a complex way that only they can understand. Abstract in communicating, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. With a natural affinity for art, INFJs tend to be creative and easily inspired. Yet they may also do well in the sciences, aided by their intuition.

Science + Jai = NULL SET :P

My Pride. Our Pride.

     The Queer Azadi Pride March was on the 29th of last month. And since I am just going to be seventeen, I missed it by two years. Two whole years. But never mind. Sometimes, the spectators derive more joy than the participants themselves. I don't know if I could compare the participants' joy with mine, but I was euphoric the whole day, for it was a day that my community walks. Walks for recognition. Some sources also tell me that this time, the parade witnessed a lesser number of masked people   people have been coming out of the closet.
     Walks for the right that one can love across all boundaries, least of all, gender. The sun shines brightly and gives as much life to one as to another. When there is no discrimination of any sort in nature, except perhaps in ability, it is evident it's we who've built walls in place of bridges.

The rainbow. My rainbow. Our rainbow.

     But I believe that one day, we shall, if not completely, stop being stereotypical, and see the world in a new light. Speak of the dawn. It's just there. Just there. :)
     

Rite of Passage

     I read a friend's blog recently that had something to say about the gender-stereotyped nightlife in the part of the world he lives. He wondered whether it was he who was going senile or was it really just a phase of transition  a rite of passage in the life of the people he saw. Well, I don't know. But yes, I love the phrase.
     It is indeed surprising how one changes. From being an infant, to being a toddler, to travelling through years of childhood; passing years as a primary school student, to realising that you are no more that child who went to school. Everything changes. They say,

Change is the only constant.   

     So, is change good? Is it bad. Is it not. After about a good five minutes of starting to write what I intend to write, I have realised that the quality of the rite of passage from boyhood to manhood, from girlhood to womanhood, from childhood to adulthood is variable  just like the course of a meandering rivulet. You decide to take the path of transition. The transition must happen. Good or bad depends on you. I might have a number of people asking me why I'm how I am. I could have been worse, could have been better. But I chose this path of transition. This rite of passage. And I choose to live with it, walk along it. Well, now that I have decided to, I have to. That is where the joy of transition is.