On writing

Writing, I have always believed is something which just comes, involuntarily- a paroxysm of thoughts spread out on a piece of paper or as is the case here, scattered as little black pixels on a white screen. Somewhat like a sneeze which you have no control over. It just comes, when it has to come, you know- Achhooooo! I like succumbing to its power. Writing is my catharsis and redemption. Even when it's complete nonsense or crappy, sentimental, overtly maudlin bullshit. It relaxes me, cheers me up and it lets me be. It offers me those rare moments when I am not saying or doing a thing just because i am supposed to. Even somewhat lacking and a little raw, it's satiating. It's encouraging to see a piece of my seldom used mind and relieving to not have to conform to the usual rules. It surprises me sometimes to go over old posts- to feel it all again through the eyes of a stranger. I write because i don't want to forget, because i want to know what i think and also because i want to be read. 

I have been terribly missing my writing demon for a lately,scared to think that i might have been exorcised of it for good. Thankfully, it's still here and i don't know why it didn't make an appearance all these days. Much happened in the past few months- including me graduating. I could have written about college getting over. But there was no point in writing about it really. College and i had a weird relationship and it has ended like an awkward break up.I would rather leave it as an unresolved chapter than take upon the cumbersome task of getting a closure. I could have written about not clearing the final round of getting into a college entirely different from mine. I could have written about my annoyance at everyone wanting to marry me off at twenty freaking two.I could have written about my month long ordeal at having to cook and clean while mum was away,about the panic of being responsibilities suddenly being thrust upon my shoulders, about the feeling of pride at being called immature. Conversations, arguments, encounters- amusing and great for reading. Was it because i didn't want to revisit these past months? Because I don't want to feel the way i had been feeling, again? Because i was sick of my narcissistic musings? Or may be it was something less dramatic like lethargy.Possibly. I hit the snooze button quite a few times and it's nice to be awake. It's nice to be able to write again.

Silver streaks

“BOO”...a tiny voice called shaking me up from my alarm- clock- beating, self induced coma. “Wake up didi, i have come to wake you up” It was so different from mom’s usual shrilly cries of “COLLEGE NAHI JAANA KYA?” and so unfamiliar that i woke up from the shock of it. My neighbour’s son was standing in my bedroom...trying to make me do the right thing. I don’t start cooing when i see kids but I have to admit that some of them are so charming in their innocent self righteousness that it totally makes me forget my cynical old-lady self and this one had a chubby little cherubic face and a smile that would cheer even the grumpiest person on the planet. I sat up while he nonchalantly chattered on without any self consciousness, without worrying what i think of him, without hesitating that he might be being intrusive(and the similar sort of crap which has killed my social skills). He saw a stuffed doll hanging in front of my wardrobe and laughed at me “HA HA you are so old...and you still play with dolls?” The doll was a going away/birthday present from my ex roomie and bff with a peculiar note attached to her Vista desktop (My name is chatni. Mind it). She had always promised to set me up with a cutie and the doll was her way of living up to that promise. The doll is the quintessential boyfriend..blue eyes, flawless skin and a boyish smile. He is always there for me, is not demanding, doesn’t get bored with me and doesn’t ever complain about anything –everything that i had on my “my boyfriend should be like” essay (“You never said that he was supposed to be breathing”, she had explained). I dint tell Shubham all that of course!(Shubham, is the kid who said BOO). Instead I mumbled something about “Oh! I don’t play with him..it just hangs there for show”. I made a mental note to explain this to Darcy(yeah he has a name!) later. If he was offended he dint show it. “Do you make stuffed toys?” “Eh..er..no” “My didi makes them.” “What didi” “Shreya didi. She used to go to office and she used to go to college. Pata hi nahi chalta tha ki college jaati hai ya office jaati hai, fir woh sirf office jaane lagi.” Which was a good thing cause it ended his confusion and i didn’t have to explain why i couldn’t make stuffed toys. “Aap ab bed se uthh jaao...”,he commanded turning away and disappearing downstairs.

Dark Cloud: Kids are gooey and annoying attention seekers

Silver Lining: They are also pure, guileless sweethearts who you can't keep away even if you are the Grinch's mother in law

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“Guess What?”, My friend said excitedly from the other side of the phone..barely able to suppress his laughter.

“What?”

“I am going to be so successful in life”

“Uh huh...” i said wondering whether he had met a psychic or a pundit with a parrot.

“I was in the practical lab and then i heard that a company was coming without any eligibility criteria. So i sat for the aptitude test topped it and totally conquered the PI. It was such a rush. Ha Ha. I had so much fun. I was talking back to him..giving superb answers. He asked me What guarantee do you have that you will join me and not your family business. I said “I don’t give you any guarantees sir! I might totally change my mind and so he had continued having the most honest interview of his life, speaking his mind out (stuff I used to think of saying while preparing for interviews but never actually mouthing it). It was totally hilarious the way he had given the rest of the interview. I want to give a total transcript, but he might sue me for “copyright infringement”.

“Give an example of a time when you were made to do something you didn’t like”

“four years’ of engineering”

I rolled with laughter, recalling my own interview last day and how different that had been.( I did have an honest moment there when he asked me what dbms i would use and i said SQL because it was the only DBMS i was familiar with). It was not the jokes that had me laughing so hard, it was the happiness, the thrill of not needing to prove one self, not needing to impress, of not needing to do a job that you would never imagine doing as a kid, not having to give weird circuitous answers to uncomfortable questions

“Why should we take you”

“If i knew that i wouldn’t be sitting here giving this interview i would be somewhere else taking it.”

Dark Cloud: The world is of the hypocrites, for the hypocrites, by the hypocrites.

Silver Lining: An honestly screwed interview makes you happier than one in which you have lied your way through. Our highest points are those when we let ourselves be our true selves.

* * * * * * *

I was walking to the station like a zombie. No expression on my face, my senses shut down. The world ain’t very pretty from the perspective of a single girl walking alone. She draws stares, rude comments, sniggers, taunts..stuff like that. A voice pierced through my defences...it was one of the kids who play in the field outside my colony ( Okay this is another kid moment here, but it’s true and also kid’s always take me by surprise). I walk in absolute terror when i pass through this playground, cause the kids nowadays are very precocious in a very unflattering way. I look at them as budding eve teasers, the ones who go to some local excuse for a school. Typical anti kids who learn cussing before they learn the alphabet. So it took me some time to register that one of them was calling out Didi, didi, like a digital alarm clock. Shoot...i braced myself for some rudeness, my fists clinched automatically. Time kya hua hai? I blinked. Was it a joke? Was it a trick? Was it a sincere question?

“Paanch bees”, i yelled back

“the kid, he was gangly. Wore a tattered shirt and by the looks of it spent all his time in the play ground. He nodded thoughtfully and i walked on partially relieved, when he shouted out

“thank you didi” and his friends joined in as well “thank you didi”

I smiled. I felt sheepish for dismissing them as riff raff while they were probably as adorable as Shubham. I smiled again and walked on. Not fearing people for once.

Dark cloud: the world is full of ugliness...people who revel in your misery

Silver lining: chill its not that bad...:-)

Done all Wrong

The first storm of this year in Bengal.

It starts with a gentle wind, which gradually gets fiercer and then menacing, throwing dust at earth’s face, while the lightning looks on cackling with spite.

It’s a depressing night today. Or so i feel as i sit on my terrace, facing the storm, the wrongs, the injustice, the failures. There was a time when I believed that nothing ever could go wrong with me, that i was the luckiest person on earth, that i was a part of God’s great big plan. There was a time when i had faith. Was. Had.

It’s not that my personal disappointments qualify as any major tragedy. The world is faring much worse. I try to reason with myself (half heartedly) and fail at that too. My eyes keep welling up with my selfishness, and shedding it doesn’t unburden my heart. It’s dark now...and the sky is falling, its pieces sharp, soaking everything.

The Valley Of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A book review

Spoiler Warning: Contains Spoilers. Proceed at your own peril.

Sherlock Holmes intrigues and impresses. He demands a reverence which i would never offer any other detective fictional or otherwise. So when I was made aware of the fact that there existed a Holmes novel which i hadn't read, my soul became restless. I hunted the book down and immediately started wading through the valley of fear. The first few lines and it takes only one word from Holmes to think that i had missed a very important novel.. Moriarty. So i brace myself for a spine thrilling adventure of deductions and danger. But Holmes disappears after a fairly easy case and the remaining book is spent in forming the backdrop of the ridiculously easy case(set in a beautiful castle though, all with moats and drawbridges) and ends without Moriarty making an appearance. This was so much like Study in Scarlet, yet not as heart tugging.

I didn't like it much and this fact alone disturbs my conscience. But oh, what could I do? There's so little of Holmes and Watson is absent too, as i am forced to wander alone in the murky valley of the Scrowers, who revel in organized crime. They have a secret brotherhood, requiring a mysterious branding on the arm too.But where is the fun in that? No deductions. No logic. No big revelations. The brotherhood, with all the fancy rituals is simply a gang of criminals murdering mine owners. The best thing about Holmes' stories is the bright warm glory of realization. The feeling never came, even when I had reached the last line of the novel. I couldn't be convinced that the novel had ended(i had to cross check to be sure that my copy didn't have pages missing). Immensely dissatisfying

Home Alone

[Image courtesy: notcot.com]

I sort of have a tendency to draw myself into a shell when people are around, but not having them around me doesn’t go too well with me either. I don’t know what this post is going to be about. I am writing only to distract myself. Six months have passed since I relinquished my hostel room for the comfort of full meals and a vast bed. And now that I am not maniacally preparing for MBA entrance exams, the loneliness pangs are sort of getting to me specially, on days when college is off. With Mom gone, it’s worse. I wonder how bad it is for her-staying indoors day in and day out. How does she bear these lazy, enervating, empty afternoons? Practice, perhaps.

Solitary musings are not a very great idea; the temptation to reminisce is utterly strong. We used to make a lot of crazy plans in our hostel rooms, snuggled together. Sometimes we even went as far as carrying them out. None too wild of course! We are all very well behaved, guardians of propriety, umm almost. I say that because at this very instance I can see myself and Fodoo walking over the hostel boundary wall to avoid wading in rain water and jumping over the gate. Fodoo went first while i stood hesitating. I was thinking of the time when i had done a similar thing but the gate had not been very kind to my clothes. But, with friends, you cannot but take the jump right? So i took my chances. The hostel owner saw this. She rebuked us for giving ideas to guys. We were er... compromising security. As if the guys wouldn’t have figured out that the wall was low without our help, duh! So we stood fighting back laughter and looking rather sheepish. But once we escaped from KAKIMA’s basilisk eyes, we were rather pleased. But I knew that our paths would cross again. She was so Dolores Umbridge¹ . The second Dolores Umbridge, I had happened to encounter. The first one was my biology teacher in higher secondary. We were jubilant when she left. Biology in our school was as cursed as Defense against the Dark Arts. The teachers never stayed for more than a couple months. We were not complaining though. Biology classes used to be boring. No, boring doesn’t quite cover it. They were soporific. The teacher used to read from the text book. It was the best lullaby, i had ever heard, almost magical. Infact the class had only looked lively once, when we were covering the reproduction system. I swear I wouldn’t have laughed or found it amusing but then she had to go ahead and explain how this was “all very normal” and then I couldn’t stop it. None of us could and we all exploded at the same time guffawing. But I am digressing. It’s funny how all these memories are coming to me from all corners. So coming back to Dolores Umbridge II, the lady with the basilisk eyes. So as i was saying, I crossed her again. Or I made her cross. Whichever is appropriate. It was raining, not just drizzling. Raining, beautifully. Large drops, consistent shower and my roommate chatni managed to drag me to the terrace for a rain dance. We were joined by a few more but the others refrained and were they wise to do so. A girl came up running, “SHE IS COMING FOR YOU”. Immediate Panic, we couldn’t go down to our room, she stayed on our floor. We took refuge, but she came for us wild eyed, enraged, hurling absurd accusations. She even said we were trying to kill her daughter’s baby. [Try to work out the logic here...rain dance => wet floor =>wet stairs => slippery stairs. Slippery stairs + pregnant daughter => the perfect murder] . The roof was banned for an entire year after that and we were labelled as the prodigals. I was not really comfortable being so tagged, but chatni helped me get a perspective. She said “Matiaao! No one can make me feel guilty for having fun”. That alien word worked like a balm and so we just chucked the thing off. Though I do thing “Matiaao” implied burying the thing. But who had time for funerals?