Orange Sky.

Q & A: 2011.

2011-12-31T13:12:00.001+05:30

I have abandoned this blog for long for there's hardly anything to write. HARDLY. Nevertheless, I thought the end of the year tag is necessary.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Visited a totalitarian country, and lived there for eight days among people I'd never meet again.

Saw the Blue Mosque in all its splendour.

Travelled like crazy.

Learn(ing) a new language.

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

It doesn't work like that. Resolutions are meant to be broken.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

24th May - Lovely morning in Istanbul; the night had been ridiculous and tiring, and that morning was all we needed.

1st October - We celebrated A's birthday with mousse cake and home-made pasta and laughter.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Finally knowing what to do with my life.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Couldn't keep my temper in check. As usual.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Illness, yes. My nerves aren't very friendly creatures.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Mine. I didn't give up!

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Some professors in college. The director who didn't last one whole semester in college.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Food. Books. Plentyofbooks.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Minsk.

Revolutions in the Middle East.

Flipkart.

Doctor Who.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

I am the Doctor (with the Pandorica speech).

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Neither. I'm wiser. or so I think.

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Written more. Taken more photographs. Both of these make me happy but I hardly did get time.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Procrastination.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?

I had the most age-appropriate Christmas. Four friends, inadequate alcohol and conversation.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Yes again, with the same person. For the third time.

23. How many one night stands?

Ugh.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?

Doctor Who.

26. What was the best book you read?

Never Let Me Go, The Book Thief, The Hours.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Edith Piaf.

28. What did you want and get?

Work that I loved.

29. What did you want and not get?

Time with A. We travelled somuch, and in different directions.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

Inception. Never Let Me Go.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Was sober. The roomie and the Disney decorated my side of the room with photographs taken by me. Received manymany books. Not many people called. Had an entire bournville myself. Had an expensive but forgettable lunch with A.

Twenty Two.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

More chocolate. Free! Time alone with A.

34. What kept you sane?

Books, International Law and A.

37. Who was the worst new person you met?

None really.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

A couple of people I've met have become good friends.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

I can't remember anything of 2010, actually.

40. A song that sums up your year.

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf. Good things happened, as did bad things but I won't regret anything I did or did not do.

I have said this before...

2011-10-23T23:05:00.000+05:30

... I just absolutely adore the Tenth Doctor.

Don't you?

2011-09-14T00:37:00.002+05:30

I just realized I haven't visited my own blog in more than ten days. I know I had promised myself to write in it, and even taken on a (stupid) challenge that I didn't quite deliver. Blame it on the course (and non-course) readings, the random books I keep buying, the dreams of owning a KindleReader and the hapless idleness. I am also deeply perturbed about the whether further studies or job after degree question. I get my degree in about fifteen months' time, and I reallyreallyreally want to study further. If I could, I'd study all my life. The jobthing, the professionalismcrap I never understand. I'd really love it if someone would pay me to read and study and write and read and study... you get the drift.

Well, anyone. And I mean ANYONE who reads my blog out of curiousity or contempt and does or does not mean well for me, please drop a comment in here about LL.M.s/M.A. on Gender Studies or Transitional Justice. The process, the prerequisites, and the like. And people who know me know that my current love is Transitional Justice, so some information about TJ courses/summer courses/exchange programmes are welcome. Thanks!

Hmm, and since I had absolutely no idea how to end this post (because I have to pack; yes, I am home again, and I leave today for college - these days, trips home are incessant), I am putting up an excerpt of some gtalk conversation with the Boyfriend.

me: i am looking at central european uni courses
Lowe: ooo   kemon?
me: exactly what i want   =D
11:58 PM okay. almost
Lowe: ooo   :)
me: NYU = my ideal man. CEU = you. :P

2011-08-26T03:37:00.000+05:30

Poetry for the Other boy
must be written, clandestinely,
for the words may uncannily smell
of cigarette smoke, and rum,
and other cities, and ancient monuments;
and couldhavebeen orgasms.

Poetry for the Other boy
must be hidden,
always hidden from the lover.

Eight

2011-08-15T21:32:00.001+05:30

“To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.” – Virginia Woolf

Seven: Fraanseep Day.

2011-08-07T22:43:00.001+05:30

I'm quite behind on my 30 Day Blogging Schedule. This should've been my tenth day but then, there are things that keep me from blogging. For example, the Internet here conks off at twelve am, and I am a person who likes to write after the whole day is over, and the people around me have drifted off to oblivion.

Well, I have also been busy. And I'm also quite scared of things.

Right now, my laptop isn't with me, and I'm using a batchmate's laptop to blog, mail, etc. She gave it to me for formatting because I'm a computermechanicofsorts in the girls' hostel.

Also, today's HappyFriendshipsDay - which I think is pure and simple crap. If I have friends who are true and patient (I don't think I have), then everyday shall be HappyFriendshipsDay. In any case, I went out with A to Oxford and we treated ourselves to lovely chicken sandwiches and milkshake and chocolate truffle pastry. I bought myself a Neil Gaiman that I shall start reading as soon as I can.

I have also decided that I will read as much as I can this year. For two reasons - firstly, because there's noone that I can talk to without inhibition and secondly, who knows, I might just not get to hold a book up in a few years!

More later.

Six: Ode To Lowe.

2011-08-04T20:09:00.004+05:30

"Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V"

- Virginia Woolf.

I have always understood love as a very random emotion. Yes, there is strength in love, and there is resilience. But the fact that the L word in itself faces such an awfully enormous identity crisis is the damn question. Love is what happens when you're part loser, part superstar. Sometimes it comes all of a sudden when you're sitting tight with a Rushdie novel and very bad coffee; sometimes when you're avoiding it at all costs; and sometimes it doesn't come at all.

I can say with certainty that I've fallen in love a million times - I fall in love everyday. Sometimes with a song, sometimes with a character, almost always with food. I think people are bad with love; they either give it toomuch importance, or no importance at all. Not very often do I fall in love with people. I have fallen i n love with people exactly two and a half times.

But well, this person I'm in love with right now seems to be the best thing to have happened to me.

A big hug to A.

Five: To A and N.

2011-08-01T13:59:00.015+05:30

See, it's been four days only, and I'm bored of this Blogging Challenge, already. There was a time when blogging was an antidote. I genuinely felt happy when I blogged. However, blogging has now become like Orkutting and Facebooking - everyone has an account, and that just takes away the magic. I even know someone who paraphrases articles from The Hindu and puts them unto her blog because she thinks having a blog url on her Curriculum Vitae will get her a job.

Anyhow, this is my favourite song at the moment.

I watched the film with two beautiful ladies who share a crappy college life with me, and it's strange how I have become so close to them (I had never thought I would). Nevertheless, when we're a lil older, we must go on a similar trip - just us, and have all the fun, we can.

Signing off, now. =)

Four: Untitled.

2011-07-31T12:09:00.000+05:30

Not a particularly eventful day.
Conference finally ended.
I am all tired.

*yawn*

I will now sleep.

Three: "Motion clearly passes. Delegate, you, now, have the floor for ninety seconds."

2011-07-30T12:02:00.000+05:30

Well, the agenda, must be discussed. Procedural matters, you see.

And the agenda is short (and if I may mention, sweet), and (not-so) easy to follow.

The agenda will also test the delegate's patience. And resilience.

The agenda for the next six months:
1. Read, read, read - there is just so much you don't know yet.
2. Get thin.
3. Get pretty; fit into all your clothes and stop having somuch junk food.
4. Speak UP.
5. Get a damn scholarship and go out.

Until I can get a job, I will keep making lists. =)

P.S. - Model-United-Nations mood. :P

Two: Guess I'm a Fool.

2011-07-29T20:53:00.000+05:30

So I didn't write yesterday, not because I didn't want to, but because when you undertake a journey in a non-ac train compartment, while reading Kundera and thinking of samzidat and wondering why you couldn't manage to take back your usurped window-seat from a lady four times your age, the heart turns a little sore, and the mind doesn't work and well, the fingers don't want to type randomly at a keyboard.

I am home now, not for leisure. But for a type of conference that I should have undertaken two years ago. All of the last two years, I was a lazybum, being all philosophical, all crazy, all indifferent and now, it's fourth year of college, and I'm all scared, all worried, all onmyguard. But it's probably too late, now that I see. People have such gusto in them nowadays. People take flights to get back to their ancient cities, and sigh sigh sigh at the inability of their cities to move forward. Oh so-and-so city has cleaner roads, the airport is attached to the railways with a metro, the metro has revolving doors, they say.

While I, I come back home, run back if you must, blind to its faults, blind to the fact that the city is twentyyears behind civilization, blind to the fact that a flight would take me lesser time. I prefer to read Kundera on a muggy non-ac train compartment; I prefer to think of samzidat when the whole world thinks of free speech in general.

I think I'm a fool that way.

One: Tag.

2011-07-27T23:52:00.001+05:30

A
Available: Depends whom you're talking about.
Age: Two scores and one.
Annoyance: Practically everything, and everybody can annoy me. Because I have immense OCD . Most importantly, I despise dogeared pages. Plis to use a bookmark?

B
Beer: Coffee Beer?
Birthday/Birthplace: A day in September/The City of Joy.
Best feeling in the world: Lying down under the sky, hugging and talking random gibberish. With =)
Best weather: Sparks of rain, Chocochino in hand.
Been on stage? Yes, and no, didn't like the feeling of being stared at like that.
Believe in life on other planets? Yes, duh.

C
Candy: Yummilicious.
Colour: Blue.
Chocolate/Vanilla: Brownies, with Vanilla icecream and Chocolate sauce.
Country to visit: Rome, France.

D
Day or night: In betweenies. The evenings.
Dance in the rain? Kissing in the rain?
Do the splits? Heh, seriously?

E
Eggs: Yes, onda is my favourite food. Omlettes with cheese and chicken and Oregano.
Everyone has: been a loser sometime or the other. Some still are. Most always will be.

F
First crush: This tall boy who has studied toomuch Science and become a geek.
First thoughts waking up: Five minutes more please?
Food: Chicken, Cheese, Coffee, Chocolate. (In random order. Bring these when I'm PMS-y, and you'll be my favourite person).

G
Greatest Fear: I am NOT saying it here.
Giver or taker: Giver, mostly. People might not agree though.
Goals: Escape. And Travel, thereafter.
Get along with your parents? Yes, thankfully.

H
Hair Colour: Brown.
Height: Five feet, three and a half inches.
Happy: Sometimes unreasonably, sometimes not at all.
How do you want to die? Doing what I love to do.
Health freak? Nah.
Hate: Most people.

I
Ice Cream: Chocochip/Chocomint/Butterscotch. Double-scoop, usually.
Instrument: MP3 Player.

J
Jewellery: is hardly ever worn.
Job: Not there yet.

K
Kids: Are cute, but scare me.
Kickboxing or karate: WHAT?!
Keep a journal? Yes.

Love: Books, Chocolate. Sometimes several people at one time.

Love at first sight: is overrated.

Laughed so hard you cried: The reverse.

M
Mooned anyone? No.
Marriage: IS SCARY.
Motion sickness? Yep.

N
Number of siblings: One.
Number of piercings: Two in each ear.

O
One wish: Only one?

P
Place you’d like to live: Mountains.
Perfect pizza: Cheese-burst, and chicken.
Pepsi/Coke: Sprite.

Q
Questionnaires: are for empirical researchers.

R
Reason to cry: One never has a reason.
Reality TV: is veryvery UNCOOL.
Roll your tongue in a circle: When I'm nervous.

S
Song: Lobo - How Can I Tell Her?
Shoe size: Seven.
Slept outside? Yes.
Seen a dead body? Yes.
Smoked? Tried. Suffered an asthma attack, thereafter.
Skinny-dipped?
Shower daily? Yes.
Sing well? Yes, I think.
In the shower? When I'm happy.
Swear? Yes.
Stuffed animals? Sometimes.
Strawberries/Blueberries: Strawberry jam/Blueberry Cheesecake.
Scientists need to invent: Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak.

T
Time for bed: When sleepy. Mostly, an insomniac.
Thunderstorms: Allthetime.
TV: Boring.
Touch your tongue to your nose: My favourite person can do that.

U
Unpredictable: Who me?

V
Vegetable you hate: Tinda, Parval.
Vegetable you love: Potato, Carrots.
Vacation spot: Istanbul.

W
Weakness: Loving toomuch, and tooeasily.
When you grow up: Haven't I already?
Worst feeling: Losing.
Wanted to be a model?
Where do we go when we die? We'll all know eventually.
Worst weather: Scorching sun.

X
X-Rays: are eerie.

Y
Year it is now: 2011
Yellow: Coldplay.

Z
Zoo animal: Elephants.
Zodiac sign: Virgo.

Because I hardly blog and this space is so ill-treated, I am taking on the 30daybloggingchallege. Starting today. =)

2011-07-21T14:42:00.001+05:30

जब जब दर्द का बादल छाया

जब ग़म का साया लहराया

जब आंसू पलकों तक आया

जब यह तनहा दिल घबराया |

हमने दिल को यह समझाया

दिल आखिर तू क्यूँ रोता है

दुनिया में यूँही होता है

यह जो गहरा सन्नाटे है
वक़्त ने सबको ही बांटे हैं

थोडा घूम है सबका किस्सा

थोड़ी धुप है सबका हिस्सा

आँख तेरी बेकार ही नम्म है

हर पल एक नया मौसम है

क्यूँ तू ऐसे पल खोता है
दिल आखिर तू क्यूँ रोता है ||

- ज़िन्दगी न मिलेगी दोबारा.

My sentiments exactly.

2011-07-07T20:35:00.000+05:30

2011-06-06T23:01:00.000+05:30

Dilli roads are like The Law.
I'd want to take shortest route, and I'd want to avoid all that expensive travel.
But I, almost-lawyer by day and superwoman by night, am no match for these shrewd autowallahs, who like senior experienced advocates, make sure they find a loophole - nice and big - and take you through the longest ever route.

Everyday from Gautam Nagar to NFC and from NFC to Gautum Nagar, I meet a sweet Haryanvi autowallah who burns holes in my wallet.

Never Let Me Go.

2011-06-01T01:43:00.000+05:30

Istanbul. 8 am. White sheets.

And what I really wanted to say.

Haw.

2011-05-13T23:31:00.001+05:30

Dear Blogger,
Where is my last post? Did you delete it because I mentioned Lukashenko in it?

Yours sincerely,

P.S. - Delete this one too and prove me right?

Let's say Alexander Lukashenko and Orhan Pamuk shall be very very happy.

2011-05-12T19:49:00.000+05:30

Or so, I'm hoping. :)

2011-04-21T21:46:00.003+05:30

Deep deep deep down I am a little poetry; you are too.

Ae Herate Ashiqui.

English songs won't play in my head; no amount of eloquent lyrics can help.

I run upstairs, my hair wet from all that fervent shampooing; uncombed, unkempt.

I run upstairs. I find you. Amongst a horde of people, you are deep in conversation.

Whoever said poetry is the nascent, the youth, the inexplicable? Poetry is a man sitting in the corner, dressed in brown. Poetry is a man, tired and mature and resilient.

I pretend I don't notice you but in my head, I am having conversations with you. About the book, the notes scrawled inside them.

- 'Does it sound right?', I ask you in my head, 'Some are dead in body, rest are dead in spirit'.

In the corner, you don't stop talking but you glance at me the way men with words do. Head tilted, sombre smile.

And there, ripples of poetry in my bosom!

Several times, I try to say something hastily to grab your attention like a petulant child. I fail.

I am half-wishing you don't leave, and half-wishing that you do. Inside Ab na jaa plays maddeningly.

Things with poetry inside are dangerous, but.

***

Cut to four years, nine days ago.

A ganache pastry, a candle too big. A birthday celebrated under the streetlights. Someone with a camera takes a photograph of them holding hands with all that yellow light on their faces. They don't know. But the moment is quite full of poetry, quite full of a melancholy that one only feels when their hair smells of shampoo, and there's really noone to love on rainy Thursday evenings.

The moment is over. But the heart breaks every single time. I haven't had ganache pastry eversince.

***

Goodbyes are difficult. People welcome the future but refuse to stop looking back.

By this time, I am shaken back to reality from my uncanny reverie. You are still there, looking at me, wondering if you could excuse yourself only just to speak to me (perhaps - I am wishing!)?

I turn and walk away, my hair still wet, my bosom still heavy, and my head still in conversation with you.

2011-04-17T06:53:00.000+05:30

They sent me a letter

from your city;
They haven't mentioned you,
or how many girls you have fool'd
with your clumsy charming innocence.
They have carefully weighed their phraseology

- they have asked me about the weather, only -
and if I am losing myself amongst men.
It's a man's world after all, they add.
Quite so thoughtfully.

They only think they haven't mentioned you,

or how many girls have tucked at your hair

in passion.

But They do mention you in metaphors,

and you come back in words,

screams and conversations about radical feminism.

You are the reason why

History could not become hers;

and why Mary Ann Evans

became a certain George.

Or why it took Them nineteen amendments

to label us as political creatures.

They only think They don't mention you

when They write to me.

They tell me about equal rights,

empowerment and

mainstreaming of gender.

But They sign off telling me to be safe

in the Capital; to wear decent apparel in your

presence, lest I excite you!

Be chaste, They tell me.

DON'T GO OUT IN THE DARK; COVER YOUR HEAD;

YOUR BRA-STRAP IS SHOWING!!

SIT PROPERLY; DON'T STAY OUT LATE; BEHAVE YOURSELF,

THEY CAN DO IT, YOU CAN'T - THEY ARE MEN, AFTER ALL.

While you suck on the toes of some whore you just met,

I reply -

"The weather here is just about fine."

P.S. - For Disney who will make me some nice iced tea after she reads this.

2011-04-10T23:36:00.001+05:30

Some would say it with certainty. They'd look straight into your eyes, snigger and call you traitor. With certainty. Well, you were the concocting bitch, weren't you, their eyes would say. You obviously thought you left for greener pastures. But well well well, what goes around comes around, yes? And you can't shut them up because they are right!

Tomorrow and the one who pushed me to the edge and sent me off for greener pastures. Cake, presents, warm kisses and fireworks.

While my world - greener pastures - will slowly go up in flames.

PCOS.

2011-04-08T20:47:00.000+05:30

I am scared.

Fear of Writing/Speaking; Derrida/Deya.

2011-04-01T23:57:00.001+05:30

When I wrote the last post, I was really really happy. For no reason. Now I am back to being the irritated person that I am.Well, there are reasons - in the last three years of my life, I have seen some people walk away with opportunities that they don't even deserve. Similar incident happened today as well. Makes me wonder if Plato was right - there should indeed be a caste system on the basis of intellectual ability (obviously, the fact that the measurement of such intellectual ability would differ and that itself, would make this caste system a rickety one as well because of a lack of standardized procedure. Well, considering we are talking of Plato - let's pretend/assume we use a uniform standardized pure science to determine this ability).

Anyhow, I have always wanted to have a legal blog (BLAWG) but the kind of person I am (I have very diverse interests, and most aren't even remotely connected with law), I cannot have a blawg. Well, I started one and I haven't posted there since February. So, I have decided I should write law-related stuff right here under a different label.

Below is a post I had written on that blog - Derrida, writing and a wee bit of Freud. Not law, of course...

A constant demon that I face is the demon of speaking in public. Of being myself and saying what I believe in with assertiveness. DT addressed this fear with much patience a few weeks back, and told me (rather sardonically) that I wasn't being resilient when I was choking words inside me; I was just being plain stupid. Well, he was right, and how!

Sigmund Freud would attribute this fear of mine to a childhood incident (Child is the father of man, remember?) - being laughed at by close to four hundred people at the CNI Hall in school when I was on stage and accidentally messed up my Hindi elocution piece - that left a deep scar on my mind (Emo! Emo! Emo!). I would too but I'm not eminent authority, yet.

Well anyway, I was researching Derrida on Youtube, and look what I found.

This has been extracted from Derrida (2002), a documentary that contains footage of Jacques Derrida's opinion on various issues such as Being, Love, Deconstruction and the like. Here he speaks of his Fear of Writing, and this fear is of a completely different kind. Contrary to the fear I feel, his is the fear of consequences; of what might befall because he has criticized a certain person or a particular institution. He is terrified of speaking the truth but he knows he has to do it. He, too, makes a Freudian analysis - of how a little child's guilt takes form of stark nakedness in his dreams.

I want to be able to feel that kind of fear. It is a fear that befalls only intellectual, intelligent minds. I want to fear myself at one point of time. I want to able to speak the truth, to speak what is on my mind and be proud of it. I want to fear my tongue that way Derrida feared his pen.

highspeed.

2011-04-01T04:59:00.000+05:30

I feel immensely happy today. Reading (Gaiman), after almost eons, with Coldplay playing on loop. This is ~~going to be~~ a nasty, nasty semester, I know and this part of the year is being mighty difficult. But somehow, I know things will be alright, whatthehell, things will be great. IAMSUPERGOODBUTIWILLBEBETTER!

P.S. - I might not believe I wrote this when I wake up later today!

The Sky is Coming Off in Pieces.

2011-03-13T01:21:00.002+05:30

Four years ago, I would have been proud of myself if I were the me then that I am now.
Now, we are just a bitter disappointment. Hiding behind sheaves of paper and a telephoto-lens.

Let's Pretend Nothing Happened.

2011-03-02T04:19:00.001+05:30

Four am, mid-semesters, screwed-up mood and Lady Antebellum on loop. Calls for flashback!

The Oshtomi that was so so so fucking screwed up. Just before I began my long walk home from Deshapriyo Park.

2007: Best suicide ever.

Sudoku (In the SBI near 8B) who traveled with me everywhere during college-admission season.

June, 2008 - How I fell in love with the Lake.

June, 2008 - the same day - KFC, thinner yours truly almost in tears! Let's not forget bad hairstyle.

Don't Panic.

2011-02-27T22:23:00.000+05:30

Insane urges to rant are always overcome by swallowing whole packets of chocolate biscuits (pure magic/dark fantasy) and never bothering about weight-gain.

But this week and the last, and everything in between makes me want to whine like crazy. Just like last week was spending building something magnificent, this week has been spent worrying about how everything might just be blown away. Even chocolate biscuits won't help.

There's just so much work lying around. I get over with one thing and something else comes up; it's a mad rush. Plus, there are no people. To talk to. To laugh with. To cry to. It's like waking up every morning and wondering if you'd survive this place today. Everything's a bloody fucking sham. Everything!

At this particular moment, Dido keeps me company while I pray for more work, more panic - just so I can try and be indifferent to this of absolute priggishness. In between having dinner alone in a dining hall full of people ecstatic about the match and roaming around desolate corridors searching for someone to talk to, it gives me the creeps to think that I might have disappointed DT in a tiny sort of way. Also, I dread staying with Whitesnake, Coma and Headless. I think I need a change of scene soon.

But that's not going to happen soon. *sigh*

Letter.

2011-02-11T04:19:00.001+05:30

If you read this letter,
before this summer is almost
over, know that I haven't peered
out and stared at you from
behind old tattered curtains.
In a bout of jealousy.

I have only gazed at you in awe,
at how on such wildnights
that I spend in vapid isolation,
you, dressed in darkblue, are your most eloquent,
your planner full, your spirit everfree.

If you read this letter
before my love for you
is buried under the rubble
of orotund phrases that don't mean
a thing,
know that six minutes
into Beethoven's seventh symphony
my love for you trebles,
and how soon after in my head,
I am a whore, my eyes
red with anguish, like
an abandoned stormy sky.

Don't remind me of how
I wear my heart on my sleeve, and
of how many times I have
rummaged through memory
to conjure up reminiscences
of your touch against the nape
of my neck.
And how these are only
mnemonics, just easy metaphors
for the queer shape of your nose.

If you read this letter before you
are gone, or I am (whichever is earlier),
know that I don't wait for
toomany words, or songs or sweetnothings.
Know that I love you, already,
like a man I have laughed with
but never smelt or touched,
for you are a man I have made up,
and felt, in my head.

If you read this letter before
this poem ends, know that my soul
is shriveled up already, and my heart, between my legs,
is already weary of working.

Note To Self.

2011-02-08T23:30:00.001+05:30

You are not here to be friends forever with inane people. You are here for a piece of paper that will give you a scholarship/job/both.
You have more work than ever, and very less time. So, utilize this time, you buffoon.
You are a beautiful person, and by no means, should you be judging yourself by the standards of these dimwits.
You're supergood and you'll get better and better and better...

Instead.

2011-02-06T04:25:00.001+05:30

Look, I could make copious notes

on how many times

they've hidden my traveling shoes,

and how many times

they've kept me away from

my dirt-speckled glass jar

of laughter.

But I shall not.

So, you're listening to the sound

of my breaking heart.

T r u f f l e l o v e

2011-01-21T22:59:00.001+05:30

Walking aimlessly. Evading gorus.

Dabble. Loiter. Ramble.

Conjure up words.

Place them side-by-side.

Such a befuddled string of thoughts.

Backspace. Backspace. Backspace.

I wish I could post a secret.

Wrapping it up in metaphors,

and pompous language.

But I shall post my love.

For trufflecake.

Will that suffice?

गलती करो |

2011-01-14T23:47:00.001+05:30

Is the lesson for today. For a lifetime.

Who hasn't stumbled and fallen and then, almost immediately got up and dusted herself/himself and ran even faster? Who hasn't loved and lost and loved again? Who hasn't made mistakes?

But you're too scared, aren't you? Too afraid to make mistakes? You don't want to stumble? You're afraid you might fall, and hurt yourself? Probably lose your limbs? Never run again? Never feel the wind in your hair, the breeze in your face? The cold, bittersweet winter that envelops you in its wake? You never want to make mistakes? You want to be perfect?

गलती करो| So says DT.

Chamber. Library in the midst of Jurisprudence books. Balcony overlooking the quadrangle. Gandhi was scared to speak in public. So were you, yes. So am I.

Gandhi became Mahatma. You became discipline, charm and gumption. And I? I shall start making mistakes from tomorrow.

जी हाँ, गलती करो| और सीखो|

Pehla Din. Pehla Nasha. Pehla Khumaar.

2011-01-10T23:56:00.002+05:30

Sixth semester. First day (technically; let's not count those three fervent days of the conference I did not attend).

Specialization - Eleven kids. Only. BEAT THAT! The next Blackhole tragedy shall be in the Business Laws section, methinks. Our section is cozy. Small. Though exasperating sometimes (to other people) how I behave like such a geek. A lesser audience and a professor staring into my face and asking me inane questions gives me a high. Here's to me shouting "ICJ statute" "Article 36" (instead of 38) "Jus cogens" for the rest of the semester.

Civil Procedure Code - Nevermind. Tch. Tch. I read The Hindu and FB-ed on my phone.

Family Law II - All I know of this at the moment is that property, inheritance and such is the substance of the course. And that Salmond's ought to be read. The rest is a blur - I was eagerly waiting for DT!

Corporate Law II - Aerosmith had been constantly playing in my head. A's to be blamed, I tell you. Crazy. Crazy. The wait between FML 603 and COM 602 was so amazingly long that I was wondering if DT was on holiday or something. Then, he entered - the same smile that he gave me in the Convention hall two nights back - Ah! Bliss. And I took down every section that he mentioned. Directors - 2(13), Officers 2 (30), section 7, inside-outside directors, fiduciary relationship is a general term! I'm turning into such a Corportae billi because of this charming man, I tell you! * meow *

No Taxation today. After lunch classes - Another CPC and Property Laws - I did not attend. Hounded Airtel office twice for activation of SIM. The second time, alone. And came back with the head out of auto, autowallah constantly admonishing me "Accident didi!" and my shampooed hair in a mess!

Ah! First days.

Whirlwind December.

2011-01-09T05:02:00.003+05:30


DilliShilly MootShoot ThandVand.

Little One Will Probably Become a Pro.

अजनबी आसमान

Toomuch of Colonel Harland Sanders!

"Girl, you got to change your crazy ways!"- Aerosmith.


Found Nemo.


And, we keep driving into the night It's a late goodbye...

I did not bid the perfect goodbye to last year, and neither did I welcome this year with much gusto. Because in my head, 2010 has not faded yet, and the new year hasn't begun. Maybe this is the reason I have an insane urge to pen down every single feeling I have at the moment, and yet I don't have words. The right words.

I'm back to the university. But I'm as disoriented as hell. It feels like July, '08 again. All of a sudden without reason. Maybe things will be alright as soon as classes begin from Monday.

Well sixth semester, here I come!

2010-12-12T01:51:00.000+05:30

I'm in Delhi for a moot court competition, my first (and probably, my last), and freezing to bloody death. I want to go home to my mother. I want to go to the university to my boyfriend. Anywhere but here. I'm tired of "obliged, your excellencies" and "proceed, counsel" and rebuttals and sur-rebuttals. I'm sleep-deprived and cold. Also, in my opinion, whirlwind December is rather intimidating.

Hopefully an update will be put up soon.

2010-12-02T23:52:00.002+05:30

Two years ago - "I think we're supposed to close our eyes."

Two years, thence (today, that is) - "Ei aami toke dower debo!"

Nope, we haven't changed a bit.

Love you. :)

2010-11-29T23:36:00.001+05:30

Womentimes: Iddat's finally over. Muslim law jokes, yes. But such painful times. Sigh!

Family Law I tomorrow.

And look, what lovely use of Post-Its! Company Law I can rot in hell. DT, however shall be back after a short break, with Company Law II - with charges and winding up and such.

Three hours in two weeks, and I think he's a sweet man who has made me believe (with his conviction, and gumption) that Bentham was right when he said that natural (human) rights is nonsense on stilts. Did he mean lame? Lame = nonsense on stilts?!

Anyway, pain makes me have like a madwoman. Methinks I should get back to studies. This is going to be rough, chap-ridden week.

5

2010-11-21T06:30:00.004+05:30

When a tornado meets a volcano.

2005-2010.

R.I.P. and not. Because, somewhere inside, it keeps me alive.

Pacta Sunt Servanda.

2010-11-17T06:14:00.000+05:30

Three words that Peter Pettigrew keeps repeating over and over again made me go over every decision in what we consider life. Pacta sunt servanda. People may come and people may go, but promises must be kept. Three words that can make and break all the laws of the world. Three words that make the world go around (You are old enough to comprehend that it is definitely not love!).

Three words.

NB - Pacta sunt servanda and Peter Pettigrew (Expression used, not out of affection, but because he is as shrewd and crafty and if I may add, ratty as the character) have been instrumental in my decision of removing my personal blog. My head tells me I should have missed that Human Rights class.

So It Goes.

2010-11-14T05:23:00.007+05:30

I am listening to a familiar song but strangely, it does not really have a nexus with anything - past, present or future. It is a not a She Will Be Loved that was sung over and over for me and I can't seem to know the voice any longer; it isn't an Ore Pia that played loudly two winters ago on my earphones in the bus from Campus 7 to Campus 5 while you smiled as you walked to KP 1. It isn't any of the songs that I attribute meaning to. In fact, it is a song that has no words, and yet it has been sung.

Today is a pleasant morning, and I report from my room. It isn't too cold, and neither is it very warm - The fan is at its maximum speed and I can snuggle tight under the covers when I finally decide to go to bed. I have just finished watching SlaughterHouse Five, and what has followed is another epiphany. My epiphanies strike me mostly after a solitary Saturday night spent watching a film, that noone intends to watch because everyone in the hostel wants "feel-good" or romantic movies, and then mulling over the characters for hours on end. And then I am stupid enough to bare them to the world - I put them up on my blog rather than penning them down in my journal. In fact, I have hardly written in my journal this semester, and I realize this blog's turning into a journal of sorts.

But I digress.

I wonder why life can't be only a string of moments. No beginning, no middle, no end. And thus, no memories. Like life in Tralfamador. Like Billy Pilgrim. Unstuck in time. Eternally embracing, eternally connected.

P.S. - SlaughterHouse Five is a book by Kurt Vonnegut that our Jurisprudence professor referred to in one of his classes last semester. I could not lay my hands on the book and hence, settled for the film.

2010-11-05T02:17:00.000+05:30

"सुना गंम जुदाइ का उठाथे हैं लोग,
जाने ज़दागी कैसे बिताथे है लोग,
दिन भी यहा तो लगे बरसतें समान |"

The song had left with the Sony Ericsson that refused to switch on. And Kishore Kumar did not sing it.

Now I see rolling eyes, checkshirts and green hangers on brown cupboards, it reminds me of how beautiful this song used to be. With or without Kishore singing it.

2010-10-31T06:39:00.001+05:30

All I did this Pujo was photograph dizzy, maddening lights. Little did I know that their dizziness would be me.

Have I ever been this busy in ages? I think not. Days pass me by in a haze. I cannot believe there are only just two months left for this year to melt into the next, and I can't, for the life of me, say that this has been an eventful year. Yes, may be I have too many expectations from myself. Or, may be I am an idealist wanting to do too many things, never realizing that you cannot really fit in all that into twelve months, seven days, twentyfour hours.

This semester, by far, is the worst. I do not particularly like any of the subjects, and also dealing with six law subjects is a pain! Moreover, I am mooting for the first time (YES! I vowed never to!) and you really have no personal life when you are mooting. I never believed this earlier but now I can vouch for it - I spent a Saturday night reading up documents on Westlaw and preparing arguments, and I have some footnoting to do but I shall pass, for Saturday night's gone, and it's Sunday morning already (sigh)!

Personally I feel mooting allows you no time to involve yourself in the politics of the world. I am socially non-est which is a great thing. At least, I can keep myself away from some very annoying people. But what I regret is that there is absolutely no time to read!

Well, it's six thirty am, and I need to get to bed. With the winters setting in, it's more difficult to get out of bed to start working! Damn.

from lawlawland to lalaland.

2010-10-09T00:22:00.000+05:30

After six all-nighters and six whole crappy exams, and still more work, and the little voice in your head singing to you - "Ghar aaja pardesi tera des bulaaye re", and watching a classic example of taming the shrew on the upper berth and getting off the train groggy and with a mark on your nose at five am at a very very crowded station. Priceless.

"It's a funny thing about comin' home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You'll realize what's changed is you"

2010-10-06T23:54:00.001+05:30

To the tallest and the prettiest person I know (and who just left my room completely furious), I love you and shall do so forever.

Mera mera mera Disney, dekho dekho kaisa Disney I love you love you Disney. (:
Love,
Dinku.

2010-10-04T21:25:00.004+05:30

On the inside (and sometimes, prima facie) I shall be a Maggie Tulliver. Not because of a whim, not because I always dreamed to be but because I live in premonition like Elizabeth Tulliver always wished it would be. I am afraid of slipping and losing myself to water, probably not to River Floss, but to water all the same. I loved Philip Wakem out of sympathy, and left him to allay myself. After all, who could love someone who was so spineless (almost a metaphor, yes.)? I still think my Stephen Guest will be offering flowers to my grave with a Lucy Deane beside him, and I shall only be a hapless epitaph, staring.

And I think St Ogg's has already passed judgment.

2010-10-02T00:54:00.000+05:30

Dear DT,
You told me to be the Supreme Court for an hour and a half. Now suffer - wrap yourself in a question mark, and cry yourself to sleep.
Vowing never to take up Corporate Law.
Yours truly.

21

2010-09-27T06:48:00.001+05:30

For 21st September.

Twelve o'clock - a gross fight ends. But things have already begun on a completely wrong note. I have already thought about you - तुम नाहि दूर तक, फिर भी पास हो| - and you almost always spoil everything! Birthdays, mine shall always go wrong somewhere.

The network is so crappy, I could die. I'm not in my room. Traditional hostel rule.

(This time, last year - cried. In front of the computer. Ate an entire large bar of chocolate. Missed you. And yes, you. You terribly, of course - you weren't there. And you - much, but history has taught me a few lessons I am not willing to forget.

What divided lives we lead no? Home and hostel. Dying city and Deadcity. You and you. There is vacillation, much. Even on birthdays.)

I want my bed. Enough already. I want my peace of mind. And my own space.

(This is where Disney in Oliver's Twist - will walk in and blindfold me. Now, I can neither see with my mind nor with my eyes. Terrible, terrible. Should have just gone home. Just slept. Acted dead? Whatever. But this! Do I have Fragapane Phobia?)

... And there are clouds? White marshmallow clouds on the blue, blue walls. There is me in this room, yes, there is me! Then everything is a blur, a swirl in my head - candles, chocolate cake, Disney, Woomie and so many people. And me? I am a tiny dot in the universe, and suddenly the centre of their universe. There are songs, happy songs and I have a fisheye lens in my eyes. I am a dot. Only a small twentyoneyearold dot (Not twentyone until 10:39pm).

Of course, most people are interested in the cake. Yes, mostly. I can hardly remember who wished me, and who wished for the cake.

People are warded off. I wash the cake off me thinking mostly about you (you/you?). Adult party (or so they call it!) begins. How much of an adult am I? The bottle still (half-filled) lies in a secret-place because I'm too damned embarrassed to say that I like chocolate milkshake more than adultpartystuff, and too damn scared to drink it off at one go. I see Disney and Woomie in the dim light almost high. Dancing, laughing, singing. I'm a tiny bundle of mess, here. Why? Because a (clandestine) drama queen always is! I talk to you, sometimes and at other times, I am losing it little by little.

Awake till seven. Birthdays are not made up of sleepless night, are they? Then, missing college voluntarily. Vacillation about the afternoon. Treating myself (and you) to a grand expensive Chinese lunch, and then, Oxford. Books (OMG!), and Cha-bar. And chancing upon one of the biggest examples of beauty-and-brains - most beautiful than ever, still referring to radical feminism as her religion, still getting all worked up about university and allthatjazz. This is life, I think. Coffee and conversations of feminism and global politics. Is she an incarnation of Arundhati Roy? An architect of the mind, feminist, leftist. She makes me forget about how badly I want Chocolate Truffle Cake. So powerful, so magnetic she is. There is a photograph, several pregnant pauses and a million smiles.

This is what I want. Twentyone, or Eleventyone. Identity, intellect and idiosyncrasies - all mine. Coffee and conversation without things holding me down - mine, someday. The money and time to travel - mine mine mine, soon. Love, the kind that lets you fly yet keeps you grounded - mine, now and always.

Thank you. Disney, Woomie. For the clouds, and for your love. And for loving my name with me. And thank you Debu, for making me feel that sanity is overrated.

Thank you for having disappeared. And thank you for being there.

P.S. - She will be loved played, by the way. Twist of fate, perhaps?

2010-09-20T05:24:00.000+05:30

Because I'm crazy and moody and teary-eyed (few hours to the birthday - this is like tradition!) and the weather reminds me of how my heart is not one colour, I miss you. It doesn't matter if all I have is a smile of you in my head that I carry wherever I go. It doesn't matter if I haven't heard your voice in ages. It doesn't even matter that sometimes it is almost impossible to close my eyes and remember the shape of your silhouette. I miss you.

This is stupid and impulsive and I shall regret this post hours later. But I just miss you today.

She will be loved, yes? Bleh.

Get Off The Bus

2010-09-15T23:20:00.001+05:30

"Because lonely, misanthropic drug addicts should die in bus crashes, and young do-gooders in love, who get dragged out of their apartment in the middle of the night, should walk away clean."

Change of Timetable.

2010-09-15T04:10:00.002+05:30

Words are somuch better in the head, I say. The moment they reach the throat, they become polluted, adulterated, and poisoned even. In the head, words are like pictures, photographs. Almost perfect and flawless. The throat is such a faulty organ. Words out of the throat can never be taken back. Words in the head, stay in the head. Like good children - almost good children? Sneaking out into forbidden territory when noone's looking but coming right back before their parents turn to spy. Perhaps, this is the reason why writing can never do justice to thinking, philosophizing?

Writing is even more difficult when there isn't a window, when there isn't a bright, bright (and sometimes, a cloudy) sky to stare at. Writing is difficult when the whole concept of lawlogic is breathing down your neck all the time. Shouldn't I stop writing? Because thinking, creating things in the head and then destroying them is far easier than putting words side-by-side, blowing sense into them and then pressing backspace (for my words seldom make sense!).

Impossible, writing is when there is always a sense of exigency, and things you do are almost a blur. First class is sometimes spent in a daze, but mostly are spent in bed dreaming that I'm spending them in the well-lighted (and hence, extremely mundane) classroom in a daze. Second class, DT's, is a stupefaction also. How can a thickbook of statutes be perception? Perception is fragile, like the ideas in the head. One puff, and the things in the head have dissolved somewhere, shrouded, perhaps, from humdrum, insipid reality. See, how you ruin the train of thoughts? Putting them all in order, and numbering them and then, publishing them in a Taxmann hardbound. And then, considering them a part of some twisted jurisprudential (modern? postmodern?) idea of a corporate person. Second classes are also used to fall in love with obsessive-compulsiveness, and observing how a nose can become a mouth, and how words can be discipline.

Short-breaks. Sometimes fifteen whole minutes, sometimes not. They are spent sleeping. Giving bhao. Observations. Munching on biscuits when breakfast has been missed. The stuff that ideal short-breaks are made of. Third class is not my favourite class either. An hour dedicated to staring at the obviously queer classmates, or reading Rushdie, or planning how to rule the world when my time comes (Oh, it shall!). Family law, before lunch, for me is generally counting backwards or looking forward.

After lunch classes are more often than not bunked carelessly. When attended, they are subjected to the scrutiny of the clan I live among. How their voices have an unbearable staccato, or how their diction changes the release from (police/judicial) custody into the Bos taurus! Evenings are spent either in acute anxiety or in perpetual laughter or in suspended animation.

Days become nights, nights become day. Then, one day suddenly - the classes are shuffled.

Known Unknowns.

2010-09-10T04:44:00.000+05:30

I'm too sleepy, and have no words. I'm (almost) doing something that I always wanted to do. But it's tiny, too tiny in comparison to what I had in mind. I have to say it here but I really love A for trying to do this for me. If this works out... that's for another post.

P.S. - Orange Sky turned one on 7th, and I have been foolish enough to forget. It is my fourth blog since 2006 and that's why the stepmotherly treatment.

2010-09-06T19:34:00.002+05:30

We have shifted. Yes, FINALLY!

Bigger room. In fact, we have the BIGGEST room in the batch with two fans and enough space in the room to dance and prance around. There's one catch though - we don't have the wifi connection installed in our rooms yet. But that should be done in a couple of days, I think. Internet can be accessed from the dinning hall, though. So my late-night net surfing and reading random scraps of writing and blogging have gone for a toss.

Nevertheless, it's easier now that the academic block is just beside the hostel. The bathrooms/toilets are nicer. Food is same ol' messy, though. I have an entire fan for myself. And have I mentioned our room is the largest? The campus is in the middle of nowhere. But the view is great, and there's no pollution. I have some great photographs of the place - they shall be uploaded when we have a stable net connection.

Birthday in two weeks. Hopefully a trip shall happen. Classes re-commence from tomorrow. And the laptop needs to be charged. So, signing off.

2010-09-03T23:47:00.000+05:30

This Sunday shall speak of genuine paradigm shifts. Excited, and not. September always means changes and big ones!

Picture taken during Summer internship at the CBI Special Court Building.

2010-08-27T23:07:00.001+05:30

Michel Foucault came in a desperate attempt to immortalize DT in the fifth semester notebook that has class twelve The Importance of Being Earnest notes in the first few pages. Other pages have loose words that may never turn into poetry, and faces of people I shall never meet. I take no notes. Not even in DT's class. I listen intently to all that company law talk - from Salomon's 40,000 shares to Macaura's timber estate and how the company is an entity in itself. But I just cannot capture DT's expression. In fact, I think noone can. DT has a countenance that would give voice to any Rorschach inkblot, a twisted smile that is neither charming nor hideous and hence,absolutely impossible to put on paper.

DT has OCD. Major, major OCD. I have seen the colour disappear from his face when there is no 'raise of hand' in class or a chair is not aligned with another. I think I am in awe of people who are obsessive-compulsive. Probably because I am one of them.

I have lost the will to continue writing the post simply because there are too many people around and there is just too much noise. I still haven't read up the cases DT has sent on the group, and neither have I finished my company law project. I have started reading Foucault's The History of Sexuality instead of doing any college work. Now, I shall stop because I have nothing else to talk about.

Of Wants.

2010-08-21T23:59:00.002+05:30

This is a ridiculous Saturday night. I am listening to Coldplay on loop and reading nothing. I have a desperate urge to clean the shelves but there's a weird black lizard staring at me from the bookshelf, and it's not funny. Yes, I am shitscared. And I also have OCD. I have to have to have to tidy my bookshelves before I get to bed. I also miss A terribly. He's on the train right now, snoring blissfully. These four days shall seem like eternity.

I want to watch a nice movie, but alas, there's nothing warmfuzzy to watch. I want to read Gaiman but not on the laptop. I also want a holiday away from anything that is home or hostel. I want to write wonderful liberating poetry. Also, a net connection that doesn't conk off at Cinderella's curfew.

Birthday coming soon. And I shall be here. Hopefully there shall be a holiday before the birthday. Hopefully. The hills or the beach. Or both. Or ANYTHING.

Right now, I want that stupid lizard to leap out of my way. And Neil Gaiman hardcopies. Plis to help?

Alpheus and Arethusa.

2010-08-18T23:58:00.002+05:30

I might run away and hide in a fountain of tears, but you'll always always find me. In mythology and reality, you shall find me and we shall be united.

2010-08-16T03:26:00.005+05:30

I know I am going through a strange phase in my life when I see photographs of a school batchmate's Trip to Gangtok with her husband (No, contrary to what you think, I don't think I'm old enough to get married but I think she thought she was), and I wonder if these were the exact places I visited when I went to Gangtok a good four years back, or if I have just dreamt about these places. Because we didn't really visit all the places, and even if we did have time, we visited MG Road too often and there were too many old people in the group who felt sick or had vertigo and the whole purpose of going to the hills was defeated. I think I shall go the hills later this year and I am really hoping it happens. It should be a trip alone. There is noone else I can visit the hills with (though if I go there, I'll be staying there with a friend) - most of my school friends are sissies, my college friends are out of the question considering they are the ones I am trying to avoid oh-so-desperately, and A might just intern that time.

On an unrelated note, I was having a conversation with a senior in college (Let's call her SA - I'm not referring to the Nazi Strumabteilung) about how we are so not meant for law. And such a depressing conversation it was, too. Like a post-mortem of old (wrong) decisions. Moreover, I still have no clue about what to take up as my specialization subject, and considering I will be making the decision, History will repeat itself.

Among other things, I am reading Chicklit at the moment because the current stressful schedule does not give me time to read anything worthwhile or do anything purposeful. My current obsession is Edith Piaf. I have been reading a lot about her for the past couple of days, and her music is oh-so-soulful. Anyone who hasn't watched La Vie en Rose, should do immediately. It has an IMDB rating of 7.6 and Marion Cortillard is so beautiful (as the protagonist) in the movie that you mustn't miss it for the world.

And yes, the movie and the song (the wait for which was absolutely worth it) in the end makes me wonder - In the end, when we are frail old women knitting to keep warm and singing to keep happy, when the love we so treasured has been nibbled away by fate, when we know that we couldn't be all that we wanted to be - in the end, how can we still not regret, how can we still love?

Non, Rien De Rien,

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

2010-08-12T23:06:00.000+05:30

The newsletter is finally done. Phew!

2010-07-26T02:17:00.001+05:30

"... but let's not talk of love or chains and things you can't untie
your eyes are soft with sorrow
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye!"

There is never a good way to say that you're leaving. Even if it's only for only a while.

Well, I am back to the city from where I habitually borrow sleepless nights.

Spinning Top.

2010-07-22T03:57:00.001+05:30

I have been a Freudian follower even before Psychology classes in school. Whether Freud has been debunked or not does not matter to me. All I know is that what Freud spoke was not entirely trash. Some of it actually makes sense. I believe that deep inside our subconscious - the part Freud calls the Id - knows nothing but hunger, sleep and sex, and that it has taken humankind billions of years to find ways to get out of labyrinth of primitive urges. It took us ages/eras to change from a Homo habilis to a Homo sapien sapien, and in the process we have added so many layers above the Id that all we can see from up here, is a plain raw unreasonable and distorted subconscious.

In my opinion, enveloping the Id by the SuperEgo and then putting the myelin sheath like layer of the Ego in between has turned us into rationale, understanding modernists. And I more often than not believe that the modernists had nothing better to do than fool the world with their petty rationales and lies.

Nolan has made me want to read Freud again. And again! Freud's Mental Iceberg is one thing and dividing the subconscious into layers, and building strata into the preconscious is entirely different. Several liked the movie for the script that, mind you, took eight years to pen down, others liked DiCaprio, some appreciated Hardy's comic timing. But for me, it was Freud all the way!

I have already watched Inception twice. And won't mind if I'm made to see it again and again. I love it when the space between the reality and the dreams gets blurrier and blurrier.

Run.

2010-07-10T02:04:00.002+05:30

All I remember of this place are its red gates. They are still quite red, and now when I pass my childhood shrine, these red gates seem to be looking at me in a Kafkaesque manner as if to tell me "Before the Law stands a doorkeeper".

I've been very indifferent to these red gates and all that was inside them. The only part I loved was sunbathing in my navy blue sweater in winter. While the world took off their navy blue sweaters, I left mine on. And watched the languid winter sunshine.

Most parts have melted into forgetting. A kind of deliberate comfortable forgetting. But sometimes I feel insecure. The colonial corridors, the navy blue sweater, the maddening laughter (which was never mine), the quadrangle that echoed songs of blue and white were never wrapped in sepia. For me, they were a black-and-white photograph. With too much light on it. So much so that little by little, the photograph dies a painful death.

The trees beside the wishing lake, in the photograph, shrivel up and die. The girl in the photograph takes off her navy blue sweater and runs out. The red gates rust and disintegrate.

This memory was never meant to be forever. Deya Deya Deya, Don't turn back so much. Doesn't your neck hurt by now?

Füsun.

2010-07-07T03:19:00.013+05:30

Füsun has just lost something. something she never considered valuable. in fact, nothing is precious to her. for her, things are, well, things. she had lost her favourite pencilbox when she was eight. it was pink and it had blue stars on it. it was her favourite till a classmate stole the blue stars off it. and then, she just lost it. her favourite pencilbox. when she was about sixteen, she misplaced her dolphin-shaped silver pendent. she was sure she had it kept it safely in her tiny trinket box, but her mother knew she had lost it while playing with the urchins. she was sure until she found out that she lost it. Füsun doesn't remember her dolphin-shaped silver pendent anymore.

Füsun is eighteen now, and again, she has lost something. and it is weird, she feels. when you've just lost something, a lump of emotion immediately forms in your throat. and doesn't go away until you've found the thing you've lost, or perhaps you've forgetten what you lost. Füsun knew in time, she'll forget. for she wasn't one of those determined ones who don't give up unless they've got back what they've lost.

she closes her eyes. she can see her favourite pencilbox, and her dolphin-shaped silver pendent but not what she's just lost. Füsun is confused. it isn't a new thing for her. Füsun has always been a confused little girl. not the confused-intelligent types, but like the confused-befuddled ones. nobody thought she was important. and mostly, people forgot her. they simply lost her.

but Füsun just can't understand how to get back what she just lost. it is a rare thing, you know. Füsun closed her eyes with a determination she has never felt before, and created a mental map. she closed her eyes tighter and remembered the penultimate moment she had the thing, she just lost. Kemal Bey right in front of her, his face so near that she could smell the raisins in his breath. a sharp pain, a wince. and Füsun screams. Kemal Bey shrieks, and calls out her name in ecstasy. Füsun is dragged out of her reverie like a corpse . somehow the name doesn't sound like it's hers. am i really Füsun? who is Füsun?

... and, there! that is when Füsun lost what she did.

4th of July.

2010-07-04T23:17:00.000+05:30

Things are bad. But these bad things aren't for blogger.

Seriously, aar paarchhina. I still don't get it - why do fat-disgustingly-greedy men get to be happy? Why?

Why not listen to my prayers sometimes?

* looks above *
Are you up there?

Thank You!

2010-06-29T00:22:00.003+05:30

Thank God for small mercies!

You, Chocolate Truffle Pastry, Mudpie and Words.

You have no clue how much I've grown to love you.

Thank you for just being there. For just being you. For giving me all the love and affection in your own silent way.

Prof. Eff.

2010-06-20T20:21:00.006+05:30

I had never for the life of me known that Prof. Eff was cock-eyed until today when I saw his (a)musing profile picture on Facebook. I, for one, always knew that there was some kind of brilliance in his eyes especially because he is so good with words, you know. The type who'd never know a single thing about a particular subject yet, conjure up an opinion. Prof. Eff is ~~a very learned man~~ biased, arrogant and arbitrary and there is always a handful of students around him to 'attract his attention' - try and get internships confirmed, get articles published and suchlike. I have never been even considered running around him because during the first week of college and several times thereafter, he has caught me outside class (yes, LATE!) with my MP3 player. And, according to him, I wasn't a 'good' student (he has never noticed me for obvious reasons!) so, I never managed an internship or get a paper published under him.

Yes, I have never ever been a teacher's pet and it really really hurts, sometimes. Yet, today when I chanced upon his profile and saw his photograph, I wanted to point at him and laugh sadistically. I'm probably insane, yes but during the first couple of semesters in university, I have felt awfully left out because I wasn't one of the few who mooted, or stood up in the auditorium to ask a question that was 'brilliant' by Prof. Eff's standards but rather sad according to mine. Also, I wasn't 'A Tout le Monde' turned constitutional enthusiast. I was and still am very normal. Despite the fact that I study law, I am very very normal (you should just see my geekazoidclassmates!). I still read literature that is not written by any IIT passout, I still listen to music and I do not ward off people because for the record, I do not do constitutional law for leisure. Yes, by Prof. Eff's (and his constitutional battalion's) standards, I am NOT a law student.

To tell you the truth, I, in fact, enjoy studying but I do not study all the time.

Also, because of the toomuch 'law' that I have to keep up with now-a-days, I have lost the zest to write. I really thought that these holidays would be utilized ~~properly~~ creatively but sometimes I end up working during the weekends too which really tires me out.

I really really wish I do not end up like Prof. Eff (and a few classmates of mine) - cock-eyed, desolate and in an uncanny way, obscure. Yes, I want to be successful but what is success if my family leaves me in the middle of nowhere? What is success if I cannot tell my loved ones how much they mean to me? What is success if I cannot choose a novella over a book on Indian secularism?

Disclaimer: This may or may not be fiction. The author takes no responsibility if the fictional character of Prof. Eff bears any resemblance to any person, living or dead.

the scientist.

2010-06-18T00:39:00.001+05:30

there are so many people in here that you'd hardly believe that it is a courtroom. the black-robed and the colourful. the colourful are the unfortunate. this poetic justice gone very very wrong.

milonmukherjee, half-fact half-fiction, enters the courtroom. colossal, like a monument. laughs. argues. leaves happily with a bail petition accepted. milonmukherjee is the black-robed.

sknaskar, half-fact half-fiction again. twenty years of his life wasted. and no milonmukherjees could save his life. maybe he did forge the documents in 1989. maybe not. who knows?!

here, i am in the courtroom. no logic works really. yet, i am trying to find a pattern about he system. i am the scientist. half-fact, half-fiction.

2010-06-13T15:46:00.000+05:30

I wish I had a more powerful machine that helped me stall time. All I have is a metal box - the very badly treated nokia 3.2 megapixels. Also, a black fujifilm.
Stalking a lawyer all over the HC is tiresome. An internship should be like a roadtrip.
Love is quaint nowadays. Yes, football is to be blamed.
Also, I should be busy. But I'm not.

2010-05-29T14:14:00.003+05:30

all that divides us is an autoride
and a rainyday in july.

and how all that is left of me
is a flawed landscape,
a desolate city
only meant for fanatics and wayward boys?

bachem

2010-05-17T22:30:00.006+05:30

An old post. Put it up because the New Alipur House, that made me wish I was a Honda City riding like Vrooom, now has a gate on it and I cannot access the staircase. Also, I see you in every person on the roads of Calcutta.

for a moment today, i thought that the scarlet sky, blushing like a bride, was in your eyes. your dreamy-eyes eyes were like the sky on obscure, rainy evenings. crumpled tissue paper clouds on the canvas of sepia. and then tears. rain.

i wanted to kiss the rain away. fill your eyes with the sunshine they deserve. is it loneliness that fills your eyes with rain? is it the feeling of living alone, nowhere to cry? whom will you run to in the end? will you be the vagabond, you aren't supposed to be? who will play hide-and-seek with you? who will call you names and run back to you at the end of the day? who will stare at those eyes?

today as we stood in the darkened shadows of the abandoned wall, i could see your eyes. scarlet eyes. tears. today we didn't chase cars. instead we sat in the corner, on the stairs of the old building and saw life scurrying by. somehow the tunes in my head made sense. and i was wishing it would last. last forever?

things change. hope melts into despair. but somehow in your eyes my faith in myself, in life and the world remains intact. hope lingers. your eyes. never let them fill with tears. the glitterglitter is what makes them unique. what makes you unique.

i don't want to go away but i am. i hope i don't lose those eyes, bachem.

Nothing Else Matters.

2010-04-25T00:55:00.004+05:30

I'm going home in a matter of four days for a long long long vacation and nothing else matters.

I've messed up most of my exams and there's one more to go. I have an insane backache because I think I've pulled a muscle. I cannot sit properly or lie down in peace. My back feels okay only when I'm walking or standing. I'm waiting to be home. To eat and sleep without worries. I won't have to wash clothes or get up early in the morning to attend a whole day of classes without a break. I won't have to run around in circles feeling like an idiot because there's noone normal to talk to. I can read whatever I want to whenever I want to without feeling guilty about how much course is left. I'd be close to my baby brother whom I haven't hugged for months now. I can go on long walks with Sudoku and call up Sweety whenever I want to. I can meet Bhai all the time. Mostly importantly, my dad is home this time around and I'm waiting to be talk to Ma. The only lacuna here is I won't be able to see A as much as I want to but that's okay we'll work something out.

I'm waiting to be home. I am waiting to have proper food(because mess food is worse than anything in the world). And I can finally read all I want. Of course, there'll be the internships but that's okay. I need work too. :)

Exams

2010-04-21T03:57:00.001+05:30

make me go crazy. Period.

blindlove.

2010-04-12T00:45:00.004+05:30

his hands.
i think i fell in love with his hands. his eyes were morbid. dead, almost. like he was living a borrowed existence. and so, i never looked into his eyes. i always kissed his hands. i needed him to hold me in cupped hands. i needed to be protected, to be shielded. we never talked because, well, hands cannot talk. and we never made love because i hated his eyes.

he scooped up my shattered childhood with his hands. and molded my life with his hands. then, many days later, one day those hands were in a fit of rage and they destroyed my perfect sandcastle world.

i have loved his eyes eversince.

Thamma

2010-04-02T14:03:00.001+05:30

All I hear are sounds of the life-support system in my head. All the songs you have taken with you.
I wish I had boxes of your fragrance and your voice with me.
In all the hustle of dying out, withered life, the last I hear of you is a life-support system?!
I miss you. Please take care, won't you?

R.I.P.

2010-03-30T01:38:00.002+05:30

For now, everything's a blur. People and places and poems.
Blurs are better than Rorschach blots, and blackouts are better than fuck ups.

faasley.

2010-03-11T02:22:00.005+05:30

she has found another city.
another beau.

there are no sudden bouts of passion
on lazy summer afternoons.
there is no poetry, no
conversation.

she is living
a could-have-been,
only just a could-have-been.

he lives
six hundred and ninety seven miles
away.
devours every memory of her.
in anger. in shame.

the distance is their loss.

See Me, See We.

2010-03-05T03:19:00.004+05:30

The world revolves around just two alphabets - C and V.
I might sound hypocritical (because I update my CV, too) but then, the CV is overrated.
Law school is a mad rush, a crazy place because of these two alphabets. And I hate it all. I haven't had proper sleep for the past one and a half months because our university (like most) believes that the CV is more important than education itself. For the past three semesters, we have appeared for exams knowing the basics only. Yeah right, basics! I bet noone remembers a thing.

I'm dying to go back to reading. I haven't read for ages and I don't even have no time to write in my journal. These two alphabets have ruined my life. I care a damn about who employs me later. I want to read goddammit. I want to know Wittgenstein and Freud and Derrida. Yes, especially Derrida. I want to gulp down Rushdie with soupy noodles and coffee. For once, I don't want to care about checking the server for my attendance. Or, being jittery before a presentation. I don't want to be scared of forming opinions. I don't want to be bothered of how I would be in the bad books of so-and-so professor (who is douche, mind you) if I said I didn't agree with his smartass idea of teaching us just the basics. Is making your own point a crime? Why is education so commercialized? Why is the CV such an MRP tag?

I don't want to sell myself. I don't want to live in this illusion that my CV makes me what I am.
All I want is some peace. My books. And chocolates. The world is made of plasticine. Damn you, world! Damn you, law school!

little april boy.

2010-02-27T00:20:00.005+05:30

"kaleidoscope eyes and a half-toothy grin and aimless crawling. falling off the edge of the bed and crying and bumps on the head - "maathay aaloo hoye gechhe!". toilet training and little dancing feet in the bathroom. finding worlds in starshine, sun beams and moonlit skies. giggling. tears. cerelac kisses. first tooth. first smile. first word. sound sleep on hot, balmy afternoons. licking biscuit ends. teething woes. the beautiful scent of johnsons' baby powder. all this makes my world at present. it is a small, small world, hardly noticeable. the day begins with the little april boy's giggles and ends with his sobs while he fights sleep. i hardly sleep. every hour at night, i wait for morning to arrive so that i can have a look at him, so that i can feel him grow. all this, camouflaged from others. nobody knows i stare at him through the blinds when he is asleep, or when he crawls throughout the house making new discoveries. i have often seen his mother bundle him up in her arms and hold him close to her bosom. sometimes when somnolence holds him tight in its gripe, i have witnessed his mother rush up to him and kiss him gently on his face, oftentimes brushing her lips against his eyelids, as if to gift him sound sleep. it makes me cringe sometimes. cringe out of envy. i want to love the child, you know. to hold him in my arms, close to my heart..."

this, pressed in between the pages of my class twelve 'the mill on the floss' notebook (which i now i use for random notes), reminded me of a time when i attempted to write nineteen letters for someone's birthday. this was around three years back. letters, brown diary, red roses wrapped in blue wrapping paper, tears, cigarette smoke, little april boy all come twirling back to my mind.

the past is never behind you. the past is your passion. it always, always becomes the reason you are living.

Something That Happened.

2010-02-16T04:31:00.007+05:30

A and I have been wanting to co-blog for a long time now and we created a blog, too. But we'd been wondering what to blog about. Because he doesn't want it too much emo , and I don't want Man. Utd. updates all over it.

I finally did blog though it isn't the dream first blogpost but it is a misadventure all the same.
This is the blogpost.
http://becausewenevertoldyou.blogspot.com/2010/02/id-rather-be-hammer-than-nail.html

So...
=) Enjoy our Freudian Slips.

a tale of two cities.

2010-02-12T03:00:00.004+05:30

he is.
somewhere else. living parallel lives. loving, hating, living, dying, killing, breathing, smiling, crying.
the protagonist, she is.
not different, per se. trapped by ideology, opportunity and lack of expression. there are certain songs that make you cry; she doesn't sing them. she plays them again and again and again in her head.
he. never believed in fairytales. she. wanted to.

he. doesn't know her but thinks of her all the time.
she. sometimes writes poetry about him.

i have often had dreams of them. meeting on a rainy day with fourteen red roses. walking hand-in-hand to lonely alleyways. making love behind neighbourhood walls. rushing to park street. smelling of the rain and each other and chocolate mousse.

they would've probably been in love had they been in the same city.
but she is trapped in ideology, and he in his mundane life.
and they don't travel.

loss.

2010-01-30T23:15:00.006+05:30

the last time i lost you,
i didn't lose you to death.
i lost you to the memories of rain,
and to the moribund music of my soul.

i lost you,
but i never did love you.
i loved the city you loved.
the city that reeks of loss.
your loss and mine.
the city that smells of a muse,
i so long ago immersed myself in.

when i lost you, i lost your city.
the city slipped away
from my fingers like sand.
and, when i tell myself
that losing you meant
losing the city you loved,
i conjure up your fragrance,
and taste the city in my dreams.

they say it rains fireflies
in your city,now.
it echoes poignant verses of loss.
your loss and mine.
and, though i have never loved you,
i have loved the city you loved.
and now,
i have learned to lose it.

now, the city is only just a city.
only a memory that,
like a phantom,
will never leave me alone.

Nemo Dat Quod Non Habet

2010-01-30T03:42:00.002+05:30

Home.
What I have never had, I can never barter away.

2010-01-21T02:03:00.004+05:30

I made this non-bake cake for A last Sunday with biscuits, milk powder, chocolate paste, coffee powder, and it would have all been a petty mess without Anjali's help. The cake turned out to be pretty delicious (No, I'm not blowing my own trumpet). This is actually an adaption of a batchmate's recipe.

Among other things, there are no great things happening in my life. Besides what I read, there is nothing really interesting. There are no particularly lovely memorable moments. Hostel is basically a mess, and I am more of a loner than anything else. Now-a-days, I love spending more and more time with myself (I think that is a great thing, though). I have missed out on all the fun at a cousin's wedding recently, and though I am trying not to show it, I miss home terribly. All the fun, the cousins, the food. God knows when the next wedding shall be! To add to everyone's troubles, our midsems have been postponed - Gah! I can write no more. This post was a whim, and all I wanted was to display my culinary skills.

2010-01-10T12:51:00.005+05:30

The only accomplishment of the entire day remains the capture of the cleanest bathroom everyday after lunch. While people are trying to catch up on sleep in the one and a half hour lunch break, I am running amok trying to reserve a bathroom which is funny, really. How I manage to eat and take a bath in such less time and still retain my sanity amidst all these sad excuses for human beings is the ultimate moot question.

Hostel bathrooms, by the way, are the best place to observe what a paradox these people are. It is easy to see how they are changing every day, yet remaining the same. There are two kinds of people here, at least in the girls' hostel, one group that probably has learned to worship the placement cell (that, mind you, does not exist yet) and the other for whom worshiping the goddess of marriage and makeup will get them closer to salvation. The former group believes in the curriculum vitae, while the latter in vital stats. I realized in the first semester itself that I belong to neither - I can neither be the 'corporate queen' juggling everything, nor can I fit into the size zero conversations of love, marriage and blasphemous sex. I have been a painful in-betweeny sometimes, but a nobody most of my life. So out of pure joblessness and amusement, I observe.

I observe their incessant urge to please. In make up. Fancy clothes. Made up accent. In thinking that knowledge is uncool. In discussing the plight of marriage, kids and domestic work at the age of twenty?! I observe their sick display of ridiculousness at wasting everyday with such calm that it bothers me sometimes. Last semester, I worried myself sick that what if I became this way... whiling my time away in mindless waste of time and knowledge. These people prove that in all their lives human beings use only 5% of their brains.

Yes, I would seem like such a workaholic, won't I? But the point is that you can have fun and be committed to work as well. Striking a balance is important. And the make up and the CV are both facades. What counts is how much you want to know. Taking the professional ladder is easier - you might have copied three entire paragraphs from my original article but I still got published; you might be talking of undying love and things suchlike but look you are such a hypocrite; you might be topping class since you were four, kiddo but how much do you really know? Also, 3 Idiots, I believe, has motivated people in my college not to study at all. That is, of course, for no fault of Aamir Khan's preachy character but because of my batchmates' very sad interpretation of the message that the movie wants to send out. Aamir's character believes that running after the bitch-goddess will get you nowhere really (Thank you, Sourav for your lovely gtalk tagline), and not that it is okay to waste time and make merry all the time.

Well, in my undying efforts not to be a shallow hypocrite like the people of the International Hostel, I am turning into an intellectual snob burying myself in Dworkin, Feminism, Derrida and Jurisprudence. Which is better, I think. :P

Maddening Year.

2009-12-31T21:48:00.005+05:30

Even after two decades, the craze for new beginnings does not end. 2009 - a disaster for many - is going to give way to 2010 in less than two hours, and I am wishing that the New Year does bring new sunshine for everyone. For many, 2009 was a disaster. For me, it was not a disaster per se; it was more like an eye-opener. This year wasn't really as insignificant as I might consider it to be. 2009 was the year I grew up. I have learned to live on my own, and I have promised that I will never ever be a pushover. I will never let people trample all over me.

2009 has taught me patience and perseverance - both in love and work. It saw me through my first internship in an alien city, and my sixth nerve palsy problem because of my maddening determination to take stress for no reason. The year saw me change rooms and then, hostels. Now the new hostel is in this weird little campus further away from the main campus, and though, traveling, working, studying are all very taxing, I enjoy (and sometimes, resent) the distance. This year gave me work - conferences, papers, articles, although I ended up taking academics for granted, and my 3rd semester exams were a complete disaster. 2009 gave me an A, I not only love but respect immensely. He's been there through all my major blow-ups and tiny glories. And if 2008 was the beginning of his determination to do a moot on sexual identity, 2009 will see him felicitated for the contribution he and his teammates made for the election commission to take a grand step. I'm so so proud of him.

2009 was a year devoid of communication. I lost friends. I was barely in touch with anyone. Or, for that matter, myself. But 2009 also gave me a gem of a person who stays in room 106 and reads to herself almost all day (and night), and takes pride in washing clothes *winks*. Funny as it may seem, we became friends because of a cigarette. The year saw the resignation of a beloved professor, Afroz Sir, who made me believe that being a knowledge fundamentalist can never be a crime(or qualify for being a geek!). My tiny brother turned ten this year which is BIG achievement by his standards and mine. This year has seen my love for food and travel. Photographs, poetry and bouts of rabid writers' block. This year has made me see that it takes all kinds of people to make the world. Most importantly, the year has helped me truly move on - I know what not to do in 2010.

I wish for a better, more productive and definitely more creative 2010.
Happy New Year everyone. :)

2009-12-26T02:06:00.005+05:30

There is a song that used to remind me of a heartbreak. That same song, as beautiful as before, now reminds me how I am not heartbroken anymore.

"Kabhee tum jaise zeher, kabhee tum jindagi
kabhee tum shabe kahar, aur kabhee roshni
milke chain se sath reh naa sake, aur judayi bhee seh naa sake

lamha lamha jalte rahe han iss pyar me
girte sambhalte chalte rahe han iss pyar me"

End-of-year Tag.

2009-12-24T22:25:00.005+05:30

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Grew up. Worked in an unknown, alien city. Learned to trust and respect the person I love. Learned to mind my own business, and live by myself.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Duur! Bullshit.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What places did you visit?
Delhi (for internship - though no visiting, only working and eating).

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Peace of mind.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
2nd December, 2009. :) Mocambo.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Love and survival.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Creativity. Academics. Inability to befriend like-minded people (because of the lack of like-minded people).

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, my nerves my nerves. :|

11. What was the best thing you bought?
The few good books I bought.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
A's. He has taken every tantrum of mine with a smile. <3
Baba and Ma. :)

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?
My own. I let a lot of things get to me.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Photocopying and food.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Mostly academic stuff. Also, photography.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Please! The year was hardly memorable.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Sadder. Nothing, absolutely nothing, went the way I had remotely planned.

18. Thinner or fatter?
Bordering on the in-betweeny.

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Reading. Writing.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time. Procrastinating. Trying to fit in where I absolutely don't.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?
I *am* spending Christmas alone.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Yes, yet again. With the same person. <3 :)

23. How many one-night stands?

24. What was your favourite TV programme?
House M.D. Fabulous, itis. :)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Oh, yes! I still do.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Teardrop by Massive Attack/José González and Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine.

28. What did you want and get?
Love. Patience.

29. What did you want and not get?
Peace of mind. Academic satisfaction.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Birthdays lose their charm after a certain period of time.
I turned two decades old this year. Went out, watched a movie on alien prawns with my brother and missed A. Next year on my birthday I shall either work or sit in Oxford.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I don't know. Only if I had been intelligent enough to go to Kashmir for the Criminology Conference. :( I should've gone, I should've gone. :|

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Bleh. :| I keep repeating teeshirts so that I don't have to wash toomany clothes.

34. What kept you sane?
A. And whatever work there was.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

36. Who did you miss?
My brother. He is growing up and I don't see much of him. It's sad.

37. Who was the worst new person you met?
Noone really.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Can't remember.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
That it is your life and you cannot depend on anyone but yourself.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Still falling
Breathless and on again
Inside today
Inside me today
Around broken in two
Til your eyes share into dust
Like two strangers turning into dust "

2009-12-14T00:50:00.005+05:30

For every winter day that I lived between 'o5 to 'o8, I embraced life a little more, refusing to let go. Whether it was hysteria or not, it maybe difficult to tell. There were too many moments, too many words, too many feelings I'd never be able to analyze. In the end of it all, life became all-so-random. There is too much nihilism now. Winters are not winter enough. Coffee is not warm enough. People are like much too shallow. I may be an extreme case of misanthropy, yes. Humanity is overrated.

Truth be told, I was a childwoman during those three winters. I grew up, I lived life, I made mistakes. I was happy, I was sad. I fell in love, I fell out of love. Everything happened, nothing happened. Three winters of life. Three winters of living.

Now, I have grown up toomuch. Too much introspection, too much caution. And, there are hardly any people to meet. Hardly any friends to talk to. And, almost no human-pillows to bury my tears in.

Life should really not be this random. Life is only passing afternoon, now-a-days.

Winter Stories.

2009-12-11T00:43:00.003+05:30

City freeze. Kombols. Sniffling. Colourful stoles from New Market. Mugs of Coffee. Sweaters. Ol' memories. Photographs. Early evenings. Love on a cold, winter's day. Hugs. Wandering around holding hands. New books. Ends. New Beginnings.

Intuitively, I feel that this winter is going to bring in happiness. I am loaded with work, this semester. And, I have made up my mind not to get into too much of college hypocrisy. Also, wasting time is BIG no-no! Going home in a about ten days. But more than that, I am looking forward to a productive and happy academic year. This year has been ghastly but it has wiped out an entire phase of my life I had been burdened with so long! There aren't any resolutions but I don't want to waste time or get into unnecessary haggling with people (read: hypocrisy) and then, as a result lose my cool.

I seriously cannot wait to start anew.

2009-12-06T01:35:00.009+05:30

"For the rest of us, the body is the temple.
The truth is godhead is tangible.
Smellable. Tasteable. Penetrable. "

you mark territories, not

with your words but with your tongue.
and when you peel off
the petals,
i have wrapped myself in,
the city, the deadcity, glitters
with a happiness that never belonged.
(ephemeral glitter)

...

are you a soulplayer, a vanquisher,
who uses no language, no phrases;
only his sword, his charm,
to pulverize a city
to rob it off its innocence?

i am not a mere silhouette
on a map.
i am a city.
you can chart me.
you can destroy me.
you can also show off
the spoils of war,the exploits,
the prisoners of war.

or, you can worship me
like a ruler does his kingdom,
disregarding how many beggars
i have sheltered,
or, how many wayward boys
have yielded their bodies to me.

...

you euphoric warrior of darkness,
you mark territories, not
with your words but with your tongue.
and i am your city of ashes and anarchy,
of scathed passion.

As I Have Been Tagged.

2009-12-04T23:37:00.006+05:30

Being tagged is a great thing. Especially when you have nothing to write in the blog at all. Meri pyaari Angali tagged me. So here goes. Rules are, use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice.

1. What is your name:Deya.

2. A four Letter Word: Dear.

3. A boy’s Name: Daneil.

4. A girl’s Name: Diti (This was the other name that was shortlisted for me by my parents, by the way)

5. An occupation: Dentist.

6. A color: Dark Blue (This is cheating I know. But I cannot think of colours starting with the letter D)

7. Something you wear: Dresses.

8. A food: Dairy Milk Chocolate.

9. Something found in the bathroom: Dental Floss (Yes, I most certainly love my teeth.)

10. A place: Dallas, Texas. (No, never been there!!)

11. A reason for being late: Dogs (actually puppies) near the director's car were really really cute so was taking pictures of them. :P

12. Something you shout: Deeeeeeeeeplaai ki korchhish ta ki?!?

13. A movie title: Dirty Dancing.

14. Something you drink: Diet Coke. (Angali drinks, I chorify!)

15. A musical group: Dire Straits

16. An animal: Dolphin.

17. A Street name: Deshopriyo Park. :P

18. A type of car: (Lamborghini) Diablo

19. A song title: Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis.

20. A verb: Dance. :)

2009-11-22T00:23:00.004+05:30

Two exams down. Two law papers, actually. Four to go.
Then, the end semesters shall come to a not-quite abrupt end.

This semester, and maybe I'm assessing it too soon, has been such a disappointment, really. Academically and otherwise. I have felt more than unproductive because it feels as if I haven't really been able to achieve anything substantial this semester. There has been a lot of paper-writing and conferences, and a hell lot of work. I have been in denial most of this period. Plenty of work I have not taken seriously. Plenty I have done half-heartedly. Even coursework, that would have easily been interesting had I been a little more patient, was read up with no vigour whatsoever.

Also, I have lost people. Been a nomad shifting to a hostel that sucks a little less than the last one. I have done more of mechanistic reading of provisions and sections than exercising any creativity and curiousity. Been mad at my favourite person almost all year for no fault of his. Been only an unproductive lil person this semester. And now, the not-so-sudden blow to my already injured ego were the two law papers which could have been my passport to a great grade (I hate the cumulative grading system, by the way). Well, this semester has been an utter waste and will most probably destroy all I achieved last year but no worries, next semester will see me as the quintessential workaholic 'cause I am best that way. Doing nothing and losing time makes me even more disappointed.

November Rain.

2009-11-13T00:42:00.005+05:30

Deadcity remains suspended in the murk that I had brought as treasure from home. A murk that manifests itself only in the winter rain of November. A murk that breathes its way into blobs of words that could never make it to my brown diary I never possessed. A murk that is unfinished poetry and trapped feelings.

November rain happened today, and not only metaphorically. I got drenched but there were no tears. There remains none. But the city still lives and dies a million times in my head and the murk from home, from the poetry that was never written, from the words that were either never used or used too much - the murk that I carry with me everywhere, remains within me like a bubble in my womb, like a song in my head that never died.

November rain evokes remembrances. November rain lives inside me like scattered thoughts.

I am too lazy, perhaps a little too cautious to gather you up in words, or better still, in silence and burn you like I burnt myself.

Onda

2009-11-05T22:45:00.006+05:30

You wouldn't believe me I know, dear reader, but I have a pathetic life. A sad sad life, yes. I live in a hostel that is situated in the most isolated corner of the entire campus and has a background akin to farmville pastures (yes, I have had my days of farmville obssession!). We have the authority wallowing out for the 'protection of girl students' on the campus, and such sissy people, them, they have the boys living in a protected campus while girls are left to be superwomen in the international school hostel (which was made for boys, initially) with the guardwale bhaina leaving no opportunity to ogle. Also, a couple seen anywhere near the hostel will be deemed to be married within six months of their passing out of the college.

Dear reader, have you ever considered acrobatics during excretion? Of course, you haven't. But we, in the international school hostel, have. Each one's anatomy is slowly growing accustomed to the practices of the circus owing to the amount of creepy-crawlies in the hostel and the advent of 21st century western toilets (To every hostel authority in India, we are Indians. Most of us don't even know how to use a western toilet and believe me, we love to squat... helps with the pressure, you see!).

Also, an average non-schizoid person without any cause for hallucinations and suchlike has seven days in a week - five days of work, one Saturday night to have fun and a Sunday afternoon to sleep late. We have a day less, it seems. There are no weekends, and the line between Monday and Sunday is nowhere in sight.

My batchmates (all but a handful) do not read, and it is not only difficult but impossible to have a proper intellectual conversation with them. Plenty of them are cramming an H.M. Seervai or a D.D. Basu every single day but no, they aren't in love with the law. Not even remotely. There is no passion for the subject; it is only that their kiss-ass attitude (for the lackof a better phrase) helps with the student publicity. I could say more about my batchmates but I have a private blog, yes! Moral of the story: We are drowning in hypocrisy and priggishness.

Lastly and most importantly, the food! Two words - It sucks! First few weeks in the new hostel we were basking in glory of 'good food' and 'proper chicken', and how our seniors are suffering (our old hostel makes the best trash and passes it off as 'food'). However, the quality of food is dropping here, too. And I am nagging every second of every day that I can't wait to go home to eat normally and excrete like a normal human being, and not like a circus clown on a unicycle.

So, dear reader, my life is hardly enviable. In fact, it is like onda. A rotten egg swimming in the yellowish masala fluid served fresh every Wednesday afternoon in the mess.

2009-10-30T14:01:00.002+05:30

There is so much too be explored, to be sought, to know and acquire. And we are here in the outskirts this godforsaken city where ignorance is way more than bliss. Congratulations.

2009-10-27T20:02:00.005+05:30

The city will turn a
emerald hue this winter,
and memories shall become
only just become a windsong.
Your quaint blue-black eyes
will be the music
I never played.
And, the burnt aftertaste
of your embrace
will be my sky filled
with silver stardust.

The city will be different this winter.
There shall be life
wherever you go.
There shall be sunshine.
There shall be song.
Our song.
Your song, and mine.

Come winter, and the city
shall but be a lovenote -
intoxicating, fervent with passion,
and unexplored.

2009-10-22T00:46:00.005+05:30

Solitude is oozing from the walls of this city. The fairytale that I wrapped around myself is lost forever. The spoken words have been gnawed away at by the wind. Silence is what I will find refuge in. And yes, music. For once, I want to be alone. I want to be free. I don't want friendships or love to tie me down.

Doors Like People.

2009-10-15T23:21:00.006+05:30

Some are open.
And, some closed.

Others are just locked.

Spiralling.

2009-10-13T15:49:00.004+05:30

Today for the millionth time, I stared out of the university bus with the wind gnawing away at my almost perfect (?) hairstyle and with music blaring in my ears. Like the time on the 355 Connaught Place to Gol Chakkar, Noida bus when I peeked out of the window of the moving vehicle and found a popular senior on the stairs of the Supreme Court Lawyers' Chambers. Like the Oshtomi of 2007 when I walked all the way from Deshopriyo Park to New Alipore in a fit of rage, carrying a pair of broken slippers and my mp3 player tied in the folds of my dupatta.

Things haven't changed. They never will, I'm sure. I still like journeys when I'm in an extremely foul mood. Still like watching people pass by on their own journeys. I love journeys. I love cities.

Also, today I cursed myself. Some people I know are going to be at a conference, I wasn't so interested in, in seven days' time. It's in Srinagar. Until today, I didn't realize I should have written on one of the topics just for the sake of the trip. I didn't have to care about the attendance or the exams. It could have been the trip of a lifetime. Well, I missed the opportunity.

And again, I say dead city is utter crap. I like it for its anonymity, yes. But there are parts of it I cannot deal with. Three and a half years more here in this place. Scary!

2009-10-09T02:56:00.003+05:30

When the clouds have finally shed its last few tears in my much-loved, much-hated dead city, I will sit in the lost alleyway and wash parts of myself away, parts that I never should have wanted, parts that I always always thought made me.

2009-09-27T01:15:00.004+05:30

These city lights devour
the little poet boy in white
with a camera and two pretty eyes,
and the kingdom beneath his
footprints.

Two autumns ago,
my body craved the lights,
the rain;
Today it binds you and him,
and seven others into strange brotherhood
in midnight's urge.