Total Control

As I walked in, my eyes met his, and he smiled. It wasn’t the sweet smile that one gives to their friends, but a mocking, almost evil one. The same smile he had given me the last time I was with him. He knew I’d be back. Despite all my fears and hesitation, he knew I’d come back to him again.
I looked around the room with apprehension. Tables covered with instruments of all shapes and sizes took up one side of the room. The photographs on the wall took my attention as always. People posing in different styles, some of which were actually painful to the eye. And yet I had chosen to come here again, and be in the same position as one of the girls in the photographs. I tried to dissuade myself, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my last time with him. I had been scared then too, but in the end, it had all been worth it.
He pointed to the chair in the middle of the room, and I silently walked towards it. Sinking into it, I looked up at him and tried to relax. I trusted him a lot. He knew more about me than I cared to admit. He knew about my likes, my needs, my limits. And once in this room, he was in control of everything for the next hour. Yes, I trusted him a lot.
Silently, he approached the chair and picking up a silky cloth, tied it around me, not tight enough to hold me, but enough to let me know who was in charge.
He ran his fingers through my hair gently and asked, “So, what can I do for you this time?”
I sighed, and smiled up at him.
“Cox.”
He looked at me with one eyebrow raised, as if he hadn’t understood. But I knew he had, he always did. He just wanted me to say it again.
“I want the same hairstyle that Courtney Cox has. Can you manage it?” I asked. I knew I sounded scared, just like I always did before going in for a haircut.
He just smiled at my nervousness and picking up a pair of shiny scissors, went to work, whistling as he chopped off chunks of my precious hair.

@#%$!!!

What's the Point of being nice to people?

They just take advantage of it and screw you all over again.

Damn it.

About a Day

Now, I usually criticize blogs which go on about what the blogger did that day, what time he got up, what coloured shirt he wore, which flavour of cereals he ate etc etc…. But once in a while, I guess I’m allowed to write an equally boring post about my day.

Till yesterday, I had never realized how much I had changed in college. I always used to find it amusing to see friends go through amazing transformations, some for the better, n some definitely for the worse. And yet, all this time, it never occurred to me, that it was possible for me to have changed as well!

So yesterday, some of my school friends came over to my place for the day. Except, this time instead of the sweet innocent girl, the weirdo geek, and the geek with an inflated head, I met, a not so sweet or innocent girl, the suddenly cool dude, and well… the geek with a slightly more inflated head!! We spent the day chatting ( a lot! ), eating (oh, a lot!) and catching up on each others lives; lives that were so different now it was hard to imagine all of us sitting in the same boring Chillz class just a few years ago. I never had a great life in school, until I met these guys, and yet even after that, I had never missed school. And since I knew that everyone had changed so much, I never thought I would miss it at all. And yet, by the end of the day, there was one thing that hadn’t changed in any of them… they were still the wackiest and weirdest kids I knew! And for the first time, I missed them more than anything else in my life.

It was only after they left that I started thinking about the day. I hadn’t laughed that way for a long time. I hadn’t been sarcastic for a long time. I hadn’t done weird things for a long time. I hadn’t heard tales about the third hair in the left nostril for a very long time. And then it struck me, I hadn’t been me for a long time.

It’s natural to adapt to the new culture and people in college. But what happens if you just don’t find your type of people? Do you look for them outside your college? Do you turn into a loner? Or do you just change yourself to be more like them?

I guess like zillions of other people, I chose the last option. And somehow I never even realized it, until suddenly I found myself almost a stranger in my old world.

Now, perhaps I should go on about what I thought and how I reached a decision (which can actually be interesting, considering that my brain works in the weirdest ways!), but I’m sure I’m already going to get a rude and sarcastic remark from a certain somebody… So I’ll spare all of you the torture…

All I havta say is…

Beware world…

Cuz hey….

I’m back!!!

:)

Choice

I went through my music collection and sighed – all of them were love songs. For the first time I wished I’d taken a little bit more interest in rock, or maybe even metal. Half an hour of going through CDs and cassettes, and I knew it was a futile task. There was nothing there to get me out of my current state of depression.
I moved out of my depressing room and switched on the TV; 7 o’ clock – time for F.R.I.E.N.D.S. This particular sitcom about six unusual and yet so familiar characters was bound to get my spirits up… Ten minutes into the show, and I knew I’d made a bad choice yet again. I felt like shaking the television set, or at least throw something at it – How could Chandler and Monica, Rachel and Ross, Phoebe and Mike, Joey and Rachel… too much love, too nauseating. I looked around for something to destroy, something to make that crappy idiot box shut up. Thankfully, I found the remote control before the paper weights…. Or I would’ve been in bigger trouble, and would have had proper reason to cry then!
I walked around the house, on the terrace, covered every inch of the apartment, but still couldn’t clear my head. Thoughts, memories, oh such sweet memories kept torturing me. Things I had till a day ago.. things I could never have again. Should I be angry? Should I hate Him? Should I have gone ahead and hit Him, the way I’d always imagined I would if someone did something like this to me?
No. it wasn’t His fault. He couldn’t help it.
Not His fault? What total crap! All those things He used to say, they were just lies, weren’t they?
No. He had meant it then. Things change, people change…
Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!
It was so much easier to shut everyone else up, but what was I supposed to do to escape from my own thoughts? I looked at some kids playing in the park – so innocent, so carefree, so happy.
Happy. He was happy as well the other day.
I waited for my conscience to come up with a rational explanation for that, something to make me feel better this time.
Blank.
Blank? That’s it? How could it be true? How could he be happy…. without me? a tear escaped from the corner of my eye, and I didn’t wipe it off. I was too used to it now. I’d barely ever cried in my entire life, and now I seemed to be making up for it. My thoughts were interrupted by a familiar sound, the melodious ring tone of my cellphone. I rushed to it, eager to hear his voice… no, it wasn’t him. Just a friend, wanting to talk about her boyfriend probably. No, I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want her to pity me. Poor little me.
Books, orkut, friends, music, people, emotions…. Zilch.
I didn’t need these things. All I needed was Him.

Yes, I needed to get away. Away from all this pity, away from my friends, away from everything acutely resembled my life. Yes, I should talk to someone who wasn’t like me at all, so I called my new found almost non-existent friend. But as I sat stirring my mocktail, which like everything else didn’t turn out to be the way I’d expected, I felt my friends eyes boring into me. No pity, no affection. What was that expression on his face?
An unexpectedly good day, and I felt thankful to be able to call someone when I needed to take my mind off things. But my friend’s expression still bothered me. As the time to part came near, I finally looked deep into his eyes and was about to ask when he spoke instead… “I’m never depressed, cuz I choose not to be.” He left. I don’t know when I’l speak to him again. As always, we would probably lose touch for months…
On the metro, I impulsively called Him up, simply because that’s what I always used to do. Short conversation. Thoughts began to creep back. I could feel a tear balancing precariously in the corner of my eye, about to spill out.
I’m never depressed, cuz I choose not to be.
I smiled. I wiped my tear away. Not now, not for a long time. I laughed. I looked out at the beautiful sky. I closed my eyes and listened to the music playing on the radio held by a wannabe some seats away. I opened my eyes. It was night. And yet, it was a brand new day.

Useless

There comes a time in everyone’s life when one stops and simply thinks… what am I doing? This may come in middle age, or maybe at the time of retirement, or maybe even in your teens. The important thing, when it does happen, what do you do?
I guess that will depend on the answer to the question I mentioned in the beginning, “What am I doing?”. If you’re satisfied with the way things are going, you’ll probably just smile and continue doing exactly what you have been doing your entire life. Others, who might not be fortunate enough to be satisfied, would probably go into a depression about how their life sucks. And then there will be those who will be depressed for a while, but will soon decide that it’s not too late to change things.
I just realized that what I’ve written is utterly boring, and anyone unfortunate enough to actually read all this is probably cursing me right now. But what I really wanted to write about was simply a problem that might crop up after this stage.
So suppose you decide you’re going to change things. You realize that your life has been pretty useless till now, and you make plans to make it better. And when the time finally comes, you follow your plans. Or at least, you try to.

What do you do when after trying to change your life, you realize you can’t?
What do you do when till now you thought your life was useless, but now you feel that it is actually you who is useless?
Do you try to change yourself?
Or do you wish you had never reached the point of questioning your life?

Grief

Is it the pain, that makes you wish you were dead, just so you wouldn’t feel it?
Is it the inevitable depression, that endless pit, which has no beginning nor end?
Is it the loneliness, the numbness you feel even though you’re surrounded by friends?
Is it simply an emotion, which changes with time, yet leaves a timeless imprint?
Or is it the loss of the silver lining on this very cloudy day?

Deep Blue Sea

Ok, so my post has nothing to do with the movie about modified sharks, or even anything to do with the wonders of a beautiful sea. And I must warn you right now that it will probably be one of those posts where I just go blabbering to myself, trying to figure out stuff, not really thinking about making it interesting.

There are many kinds of people in this world. Okay, let me narrow the sample space (!!!)… there are many ‘kinds’ of kids. The popular fake kids, the fake kids, the popular kids, geeks, geniuses, simple normal kids, simple weirdoes (me!), the intellectuals and many more. It will take me the whole night to categorise them all. Now that I think about it, I can just make this post about whether we are individuals or actually fall into categories.. but that’s not what I wanted to write about. Maybe I’ll bore you with that later.

Till now, I have never really been bothered by others, I’ve always been satisfied with who I am, even though I have never been exceptionally brainy or intellectual or popular. No, I’m not complaining about not being popular enough, I’m perfectly happy with the number of friends I have. But recently, I have started doubting my way of thinking. I am an extremely self obsessed person, and am not really that bothered by the ills of the world. I’m not happy with the way things are, and definitely try my best to be part of the solution, yet, I don’t waste sleepless nights pondering over them. I have always admired those people who feel passionately about something, and then have full knowledge of it. Talking to them, you can see that they have spent time thinking about it, trying to figure out a solution. And of course, they have this vast amount of knowledge about everything, something I’m extremely jealous of! But then, what’s the difference between me and them?

It shows in everything I write as well. All my stories are simple. Actually, they’re shallow. They’re almost like a run of the mill bollywood flick. What you see is what you get. There is no inner meaning to what I write, there is no deep thinking involved. When I feel about something, do I actually think about the deep rooted cause of the problem? No. my thoughts proceed in the following way: What is it? Why has it affected me? Why are things so unfair?

That’s it. That is simply it.

All this time I went about laughing at these girls who were only concerned with the way they looked and the latest gossip, and I called them shallow. And it just never occurred to me.

I am shallow.

But then I ask, what’s wrong with being shallow? Why should I not be concerned with myself? Why should I look for deeper meanings everywhere? Why can I not write simple things that just entertain readers. Will I be considered good only after I write things in which you need to read between the lines? Articles and stories that I haven’t given a lot of thought to. Stuff that people don’t really have to think about.

So I ask, whats wrong with being shallow?

The Real Problem

The entire country is in an uproar over the plans to increase reservations. Protest marches, hunger strikes, lathi charges form the front page headlines everyday. What are the students worried about? Why are they protesting? Is it actually because they’re concerned about the quality of students passing out of India’s premiere institutes? Because they don’t believe in reservations? Because they think it’s highly unfair? Not really. Though all these reasons are extremely valid to argue against reservations and quotas, the real reason is simply that all of us can see chances of our bright future slowly slipping away from us.
But somehow, I don’t agree with the way people’s attitudes are changing. Everybody hates Arjun Singh and the government right now. The protests are obviously aimed at him. I receive at least five messages everyday making fun of arjun singh and his quota plans. Here are a couple of examples :

Why does Arjun Singh have sex only 3 days a week?
Because the rest 3 days his wife is reserved for OBC n for Sundays for SC/ST

Ok… that did make me laugh.

New rules of quota system in Indian Cricket:
1. boundary will be 15 yards shorter for SC/ST/OBC players
2. SC/ST/OBC can take one bounce catch of any batsman
3. SC/ST/OBC scoring 20 runs in a practice match will qualify for national team
4. SC/ST/OBC player scoring 60 will be counted as century
5. over for SC/ST/OBC bowler will consist of 3 balls
6. 50% players in cricket team will be from SC/ST/OBC.

Hmm… I did not find that funny.

These messages progressively seem to be becoming against OBCs rather than the government. Fine, people are angry that this section of the population is getting advantages that most of them don’t deserve. But they are not at fault! Is it their fault that they exist? Is it their fault that Arjun Singh is looking for votes? They did not choose to be OBCs, we gave them that classification.

I agree that it is unfair and that some SC/ST/OBCs use these reservations even if they are from higher classes who can afford their education and have the same opportunities as us, if not more. But seriously, if suppose, we were offered a reservation, which made it easier to get into the best institutes in the country, would we not use that reservation? Would we not campaign FOR that reservation and support the government?

My point is…. Protest against the government, not the OBCs.

The Rose

Sumant looked at it. It was just perfect. It had just flowered properly and all the petals were spread out at just the right distance. It had taken him half an hour to find it in the garden and another fifteen minutes to clear it of thorns. But at last it was ready.
Priya was going to love it, he could feel it in his bones. Sumant couldn’t wait to see the delighted look on her face, when he handed it to her. So he put on his bag and carefully holding the rose in his right hand so that its shape didn’t get spoilt, headed out for college. But he had hardly taken ten steps when he felt something tugging at his shirt. He turned around to see a small girl with long curly hair, looking up at him with light brown sparkling eyes. “Please Mister, can I have that rose? I want to give it to my mother.”
Sumant shook his head and turned to leave, but then stopped. He looked at the tearful face of the girl, the glint in her eyes, her rosy red cheeks and smiled. Bending he handed her the rose, and patting her head, went off whistling.
Aanchal, clutched the bright red rose tightly and ran towards the grocery store in which her mother was shopping. Reaching her mother she held up the rose as high as she could and shouted, “Look at what I got for you Mommy!” the mother took the rose and hugging her daughter, kept it on the counter with her groceries. Then picking up the packets they left the store.
Pranay picked up his bag and started walking out of his parents store when he noticed a long stemmed rose lying on the cash counter. Picking it up, he headed off to school, absent mindedly playing with it all the way. Rushing though the school corridor, he banged into a surly looking girl who was taking out something from her locker. “Sorry Tanya! I’m kind of in a hurry!” he shouted as he paused just long enough to pick up her book and hand it to her, but it was long enough to see the expression on her face.
Tanya frowned and turned back to her locker. She toyed with the bottle of sleeping pills as she pretended to search for her books. Nobody cared about her, they wouldn’t even miss her once she was gone. Today, she would finally find the courage, and get it over with. It was only for the best.
She gloomily walked to her English class and took a seat in the back row. Just as the bell rang she saw Pranay walk in. He looked around and spotting her walked towards her.
“Hey, I’m really sorry about before, I must’ve really bashed you up.” Before she could say anything he placed something on her desk and said, “Here, this is for you.” Smiling, he walked off.
Tanya looked at the pretty rose on her desk and smiled, something she hadn’t done for a long time. It made her dark face light up, giving her a pixie like look. She happily clutched the rose throughout the day.
Sumant came home that night with a sinking feeling in his heart. After all, he hadn’t been able to give Priya the perfect rose. But as he got into bed, he couldn’t help but have the weird feeling that he had helped someone, somewhere. Smiling, he turned off the lamp and called out to his sister in the next room.
“Goodnight, Tanya!”

The Final Plunge

Even though I was trembling, my eyes sparkled with determination. I had spent a long time thinking things through, trying to find a better solution, but all my efforts had failed. This was the only option left, to end things, once and for all.
As I started climbing, I became very conscious of how overweight and unfit I was, just one of the problems in my life. My feet seemed to be made of lead, each step taking my utmost concentration and determination. In my life, I’d chickened out of a lot of things, but not this time. Well, at least after this, they’ll feel sorry for all those times they teased me.
I felt the wind ruffling my hair as I reached the top. The view from such a height was breathtaking; everything seemed so calm and peaceful, as if there wasn’t a problem in the world, so fake. For a moment, I forgot my purpose for being there, and just stood there, enjoying the freshness of the morning air. But another gust of wind soon brought me back to my senses. Slowly, I made my way towards the edge. Peering over, I suddenly felt a knot in my stomach and quickly stepped back, afraid I might throw up. Dazed by the height, and the thought of what I was going to do, I crouched down, holding on tightly to anything I could find, one last time. I closed my eyes as shadows of doubt started creeping into my mind, and reminded myself of all the reasons I was there, of why I had to do this.
Shouts from below snapped me out of my reverie, and I heard footsteps behind me. Turning around, I saw him, the only person I had ever looked up to, in fact the reason I was here, doing this. For a moment I felt relieved, but the anger in his face made me freeze. At once, I knew I had failed him.
As he reached me, he held out his strong arms. I streched my arms to hold onto him, but to my surprise, he did not hold me. My eyes widened as I suddenly felt him push me, his face more determined than I had ever seen, his eyes almost red. As if in slow motion, I felt myself lose balance, my feet sliding off the edge, arms flapping wildly, hoping that by some miracle I might be able to fly. And then I felt the weightlessness. My life flashed before my eyes as I fell down, gaining speed every second. I was just about to say my last prayer when I hit the hard water, head first.
It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened. I quickly surfaced, gasping for air and swallowing huge amounts of water. Through the buzzing in my ears, I heard people cheering, and turned around to wave at my friends. I looked up into the sky, and saw my swimming coach standing on the diving board, looking satisfied. I had finally done it. I had finally gotten through my first dive.

The curse is back

After a long time away, which I can’t truthfully say was for studies, I’m finally back. A lot has happened in the past year, and I think just about everyone I knew in school has changed a lot. Or maybe, I have just changed a lot. No, college life didn’t suddenly get to me, though it is a lot more fun than school, and definitely has a lot more perks. For the ill informed, I’m currently doing economics honours from SRCC. And even though I was sure I was gonna hate this geek filled college, as it turned out, there are still a lot of cool and genuinely nice kids here, who do everything but study! Neway, have made a lot of really good friends, and have managed to have my share of pending fun, what with bunking classes (which of course I realized, a little too late, isn’t all that great a thing once exams are on) watching way too many and too crappy movies (shaadi no 1 being one of then, need I say more?) and basically becoming even weirder than before!
Now my first year of college is over, a little too fast t seems, and I look back, and somehow feel disheartened. What have I really achieved? Many years later, when I look back at these days, what would I actually be looking at? Studies are the last thing on my mind these years, really not a priority anymore. So what am I doing other than that? Actually, you know what, I had been planning on writing a lot on that, but at the moment, I have only questions, barely any answers. And I also know that no one else can ever answer them for me. So instead of boring all of you, like I have done so often before, I guess I’ll keep it to myself.
Oh, by the way, I’m part of the team of Candid Expressions, a magazine started by some of the seniors in my college, basically for students to voice their opinions without having to old back. So if anyone is interested in writing in, do tell me.
So, cya people…
I’ll keep the blog updated…
Like I said, the curse is back…