Teens to Toons

It seems that I am not a student anymore and that the camaraderie that always existed in me for my fellow mates is no more there. I just hope that in time I change for the better. Sleeping and Consoling self is the only thing I do these days. I crave for freedom of Pune and Lucknow kind of gets to me. It is going to be Kanpur Final year I guess. The computer does not like me anymore. It started misbehaving again. I guess I will have to get a laptop sooner than I ever thought would be the case. Relationships are on a cold now. Life is on the backfoot. It's desires and dreams. desires and dreams I repeat.

It's a rather personal thing. My family is an extended one. I have always felt that I have never recieved the appreciation that I deserve for all my small accomplishments from my dad. I love my Dad. But inspite of my "good" performances all my career, educationwise, sportswise, otherwise - dad never ever gave me the kind of appreciation that I have hungered for. My dad on such occasions always goes on a trip, talking about his younger brother, my chacha. He is also from IITK. A brilliant student althrough. A gold-medalist, a topper, a person who went on a full scholarship to London to do his MBA in 1978. He wrote his thesis by hand as he did not have enough money to get it typed and was awarded the best. One day he just shrank. My father always thought of his brother as the chosen one and he ended up as "nothing". He retired on a VRS with almost nothing to his name. So whenever it comes to talking of deeds and potential, my father goes on one of those trips. An...

Student Again... Am not really on the right side yet. I am too much of a bore and I am drowning people along with myself. I have had a tough time at home. All the pertinent answers were given to all my impertinent questions. All matters resolved for me. Parents are gods... I been too down... I don't know why... Is it because I have not tested my wings in a long time. Is it because I have not been able to locate a microphone to get my own composition on "air"... I am dead... there is no energy in me.. even for smiling... The water is too hot to have a bath.. but I need it anyhow... It's season of "four baths and one sleep".

The remains... The last bits... that is all that remains... when it comes to letting go... when it comes to going away... It's sad..but I should have gotten used to all this.. I should have... But I will someday have to let go of bigger things... my expectations, my hopes, my faith, my love, my life... I would rather laugh on these occasions and give my best smile... I believe that I have to train myself to let go of everything I fear to lose.

Madness follows me... People get mad and hysterical.. that is what happened... to me... And the worst part is that i have no idea what I did... Must be the cardinal error again... Things in fux... packing is still on... Giving myself quality time is the priority... ... Time to let go of this period... A defining period.. when I knew of all that befell me. before it befell me... hehe.. That I might call was the worst part.. and I hammered my finger on the righ hand... and it's all blue and really painful... Is dard ka koi ilaaj nahin, Samay kii chaap halki padegi to, nahin sunaayi degi meri cheekh, bardaasht karnaa seekh jaayenge...

Today is a special day. It has been pretty hard for me to decide whether I want to put this piece on the blog. This piece will be to me, what waterloo was to napoleon, stalingrad to hitler, what 9/11 is to Bush. Life is not so sweet, otherwise i would be diabetic. Nothing much moves. The times have passed and this is one piece that has bound me together. I do not know the truth, neither do I care. Last night, finally, my patience ran out. Three months and I had not dialled her number. I did it. I don't know why I did it, but I did it. I had to. Her voice was the same as ever. Late at night and she was like the morning dew on the green grass. Concern in her voice, made me go vroom-vroom. why does my heart have to do those acrobatics when I am talking to her? She had been calling me ever since I gave up calling her and she had been pretty consistent. I was like, remembering her, when I needed her, for me and my selfish reasons. So I called her, big deal. I told her that I had not...

I have had a few good days and a few bad days in life. So does it matter? Seems like I am never gonna get back this day, so why should I regret being alive. I am alive and I am in good health and that is all that matters... So bye bye gloomy sunday... I am all sunshine

Great Minds discuss Ideas; Average minds discuss events; Poor ones discuss people. I do not know who said this. I think I am a bit afraid of starting up. I might also be a bit afraid of the uncertainty that makes me a bit sad. I always knew that it will involve an uncertainty and willpower. Now am I lacking that. I do not know for sure.. but I am preparing for the battle. A lot of people start out and few reach the destination. But I am not going to let myself down in any eventuality. It's my life and it's going to be my way.

Another of those weekends... when people think that shit in their lives is not shit and your life is up for analysis and that they can say anything.. because something will stick. So I had to go through a round of analysis... mental and emotional crunching. People own me, I think. They think of me as the right person to help because I am one man gone wrong. They tell me about my fears of a start-up. When I tell them, that I have this idea and I am afraid to go through with it, they laugh at me. They coax me, mollify me. When I say I am in pain, they say welll.. what had you expect, you have given so many, so much pain. It's payback time. When I say, I am heartbroken, they say you deserve it, because you are not the right kind, you are the one who has problems committing. When people call the people they love "n" times a day, you call them once in "n exp (n)" days. So how can you expect to be loved in turn, because you hardly give something up for people. People,...

I was reading Gibran's "Broken Wings" yesterday. After completing it, I was very tired. Something has been leeching away my spirit, my resistance to simple things in life. It used to be so easy to block things that I did not want to take care of. It was just a wonderful thing that I could do. Selma makes for a wonderful case. I guess it's Kahlil's first person account. The way he has described the stuff. I might try to do the same, except that I cannot describe the "pauses". I am not able to get the length. I am probably a short story writer. Not the one with length. Anyhow, I felt not so nice yesterday and it is continuing even today. Someone went through "Love Paeans" and made a remark about it. Now I can see what it is to be a person with some sagacity. I had it then and now I have lost it again. I am so busy these days that I have no time for all this and yet, her memories ail me. I am the one with the broken wings.

I was in such a good mood. Everything was almost happening... and then reality comes in. Why does my past always have to come back and haunt me? I am so mad at myself for what I did and what I didn't. I would also like to ask why do I deserve to be treated with so much disdain by luck in life. I can do better, can I not? Help me.. once!

I had a wonderful weekend... Things happened. I am happy. I have taken my first step. I am walking... and then Kahlil Gibran.... It is strange that desire for pleasure is a part of my pain.

When I read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, I felt numb. He was close to what I feel was possible for a human to realize, without trying out the real thing himself. I liked the way he approached the subject and the reasons he put out. People might try to say the same thing in another way.. but the conversation with Buddha is one which I will like till the end of days.. whatever might happen.. but I am sure that they might teach you, coach you... solve it for you... but it will not be possible for you to feel it.. unless you have don all of it on your own... Let us say that this is the part of the puzzle....

There was a time.. not so long ago when I was seeking money. I was in this company and they were paying me a not so handsome sum. I had zilch confidence in me, that I had make it big. That was the time, when I had to decide on my and her fate, that is our fate. I decided not to and the results are for you to see. Barely three months down the line, I was in another firm, earning a handsome salary. Today I have a salary that is far better than my previous salary. I am doing far far better than the rest. I am doing good. I have enough money. And I find no use for that money. It does not give me pleasure. It is painful. I am nearly watering my eyes right now... (what an expression) and all my life is passing before me. Never was I short of money. But I never had any surplus. I still live without any luxuries. I just make do with bare essentials. I do not care for luxuries, nor for comfort. I can sleep on the floor without any major ego problems. I care not for food anymore. Anything that i...

Yoda is green. So what? Yoda knows and acts. He advises and sensibly so. Yoda is a natural. "You have to train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." As a professional there are so many fears. It leads you all the time and you almost never know when to let go. I decided to ask myself the question "Is it worth it?" always. Otherwise I would never know when to say no and stop. They ask me if I have written anything humorous. I want to write funny but it is a tough ask. My current disposition does not help to think in pleasant funny terms. If one were to ask me who I consider the greatest writer, I would say, without any doubt, Wodehouse. If someone can write the way Wodehouse wrote, he ought to be Nobel'ed. Nothing less would suffice. He makes me laugh till I ache inside. what is a greater proof. A saturnine personality like me laughing, It is a great achievement, the greatest appreciation. It is easy to be pensive and dark. But silliness, funniness ...

Shoonya is a paranoid writer succumbing to a rage that may or may not be murderous. He thinks it took forever to make his point. He loves every minute of his sardonic portrayal of life on life’s fringes. And you see him as a modern archetype—a talented, disappointed man surrendering to an anger he cannot govern, an existential blackness he cannot understand.

If I had ever wanted to realize my dream of being a cannibal a la William Golding's "Lord of the Flies", I would most certainly move to Bihar. That place has no respect for anything, anyone. Nothing matters out there. No position, from the chief minister to the Governor, from the teacher to the headmaster is sacred there. All they think is of how to make that next move that hurts someone, somebody's sensibilities. I think I would have to spend a lifetime there to understand what "moves" these men. A state where men and women and children are butchered like livestock. I was moved by every atrocity in Jehanabad, until I got tired of getting "moved". Bihar is something I would never understand. I somehow do not even want to understand, how one can butcher someone and is supported by a community. Manmohan Singh "was" a nice man. He is a tainted man now. Goa. Jharkhand. Bihar. I had had enough. How can you sleep at night. How do you justify yo...

Tumse mile, ab lagtaa hai sadiyaan beet gayein, chhoti sii dukaan par, meethi chai aur samose, jis ke bahaane tumhe ghadi bhar dekh lete they, ab bhi hain, par tum nahin aur woh chahat bhi nahin Tu ek hansii khwaab ban ke reh jaa kabhi ret pe tumhaare nishaa dhoondhtaa hoon, raat ko akele nikal jaata hoon, us ek pal ki talaash mein, jo lagtaa hai lehren bahaa ke le gayein apne saath Tu ek hansii khwaab ban ke reh jaa jab hawaa tumhaare baal udaa kar, chhupa leti thii tumhaari aakhein, tumhaari muskuraahat, ab bhi chalti hai, ussi manthar gati se, par ab bas udaati hai ret, aakhon mein aansu laati hai Tu ek hansii khwaab ban ke reh jaa meri awaaz aaj bhi takraa ke laut-tii hai, par nahin sunaayee deti hai tumhaari hansii, bas suntaa hai, to dard ke thapedon ki chaap, aankhein bojhal hain, par neend koson duur khadi hai Tu ek hansii khwaab ban ke reh jaa samajh saktaa huun tumhaara maun, maanaa tum mujhe maaf kar deti ho har baar, chal diyaa hoon main aage, tum bhi badhnaa, par ek iltiza...

Yesterday, Dad talked to me for forty minutes. His detailed plan to let me handle some of the family duties makes me feel wanted. I remember when I was 18 and given a lac and half to get the repairs done. I had done commendably then and I will do my best. They are what I live for. I had give everything I have for them. I remember when I was punished in school and I trembled in my nightmares for having done a wrong. Dad would let me sleep in his lap and tell me stories where he had made similar mistakes. Dad is so dadlike. Mom on the other hand, never spared me. Almost never. I remember when i got that high fever of 105F and she sat by me for two continuous days while Dad was away on tour. Sometimes I feel so lucky and sometimes I feel that my parents should have kicked me a bit more. Dad was always so adjusting. Mom was like.... you take Arts. They knew me and I refused to accept that. Literature and Mathematics would have been ideal. Anyhow I did not take that. Dad has asked me to car...

I began this weekend with tears and nothing much to look forward to. I was in mourning, as I like to quote the grief, the tragedy I am going through. And then I thought of all the ways I could let go. I thought of Gandhiji's talisman in CBSE books and all the stuff that had made me so strong, some time back. Then I remembered my notes from "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and I did not feel ashamed of what i had done. I could justify to myself, my crooked actions, my unwanted desires. For instance : "When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance." I have decieved myself and now I am decieving others into believing that I had something for her, when in fact, I did not have the guts to say it to her. Is it me, an ignobly timid person, or is it me, the honorable asshole. No idea. Another gem: "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience ...