Wednesday, April 29, 2009

:(

My best friend is leaving.

I'm not going to be able to see him everyday, fight with him through nasty messages over the phone, have him rifle through my wardrobe to pick out my clothes for fancy occasions, watch him spend hours collaborating with my mother to torture my existence through nagging, be the cause for my overweight through unnecessary consumption, not reply to my senti messages, sit in the front seat and pretend he is a human GPRS, be demanding when I'm drifting, make me jealous by hanging out with other people, exasperate me with his indecisive shopping, chatter with me nineteen to the dozen even though he's the quiet one, make hilarious jokes with the most stoic expressions, honour me with the privilege of being his secret diary and basically be my the boon and bane of my existence.

How do you tell someone that they've changed your life?

How do you take back all the mean words you've ever said? How do you explain that all the times you fought and all the times you kept away was because you cared? How do you convince them that though you may have a lot of important people in your life, there are some people who just cannot be replaced? There are only some people who can be a built-in brother, sister, best friend, what have you. Who fit like a glove. There are only some people you can hate to love and hate to hate. There are only some people who can turn your life upside down and walk right back in and continue in the same cycle but it just does not make a difference because you're so comfortable. How do you go back in time to pay more attention, be more patient, listen and just absorb?

How do you say goodbye?

He's going back to where he came from. He's going back to where he's supposed to be. But why do you sometimes feel that three years are equivalent to a whole lifetime?

Because those three years are when you grow up. Those three years are when you need someone beside you to define you when you're blurred, take a crayon and colour your greys, stir you when you're dormant, challenge you when you want to give up, aggravate you when you're dull. Make you fight till you feel alive.

Maybe there's a long way to go. There's e-mail and mobile phones (thank you, technology) and other things which might be invented. There'll be visits.

I guess the problem lies in not seeing the end till it comes. You live life in the moment and you miss the big STOP sign ahead.

I can't formulate the words right. My theory was that we don't say goodbyes. But this is something internal. It's a goodbye to life as it was. A change in the way life has been. But change is supposed to be good, right?

Sometimes it doesn't feel good.

Exhale. It'll be okay.

My friend, all I can say is:

I don't want to start saying mushy things (oh, hello, wake up call, I've said ENOUGH in the above paragraphs) so I'll just tell you to LEAVE NOW before we start our usual boxing round. I'm sure (okay, I HOPE) we won't be doing any of that over long-distance. We'll be meeting (or have met) loads of interesting people who will change our lives more than we can imagine. We will find shoulders to cry on and signposts that direct us. But I'll remember the three years. Where we attempted to grow up and instead tumbled (a lot). It was comical and painful, riding that skateboard.

But it was a lot easier with you being the elbow pads.

(Cornyyyyyyy! But true)

Sunday, April 19, 2009

POA

First Sunday of being unemployed. Ahahahaha.
Life stretches out like a blank slate-it's oppressing and it's actually starting to be exciting. The unknown is thrilling.
Here's my agenda for life (er, today):
1. Upload photos on Facebook (Guilty as charged. Sunday is time for confession)
2. Upload allllll the songs my friend has generously bestowed upon me from a cute red Easter egg pen drive.
3. Attempt to dust and sort out all the gazillion books that are stacked ominously under the drawing room sofas that have STILL not been restored to their rightful place after the termites were exterminated (Terminate the Termites! Ooh...that's a slogan)
4. Attempt to decide to run up and down the stairs with the determined intention of burning off all that I have chewed.
5. Stop biting nails. And fingers.
6. Read all the lovely books I've borrowed ('Love in the time of cholera', 'Animal farm', 'Beirut Blues', 'Oliver's story' etc)

Unemployment. It doesn't sink in. It still feels like there is another round of exams around the corner. Or the next semester. I keep slapping myself and saying : "Helloooo! There's nothing more. College is over. O-V-U-R ! (:p For Star World viewers)"
I'm trying to compare it to how I felt after school. But at least then, I knew I had to get into college. It's different now. The set agenda that everyone has to follow has run its last level. Now it's adaptable.

At least I'm not one of the confused ones. See, I already made my agenda.

For today.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Today is good

Wide open spaces. Summer afternoon haze through rectangular windows. Lying on the ground in the centre of the empty upstairs drawing room, listening to Queen, feeling liberated in the companionship of your own self. Walking on the sweltering streets of Chennai, under the suffocation that is undeniably April in Chennai with an old friend whom you haven't hung out with in ages, talking about 2012 doomsday. Uplifting. Discovering a xerox shop you had passed by a million times and never noticed. Talking about college ending with the relief that everyone doesn't hate everyone else anymore. Corn, corn, boiled corn with chilly powder. Cold water straight from the fridge drunk quickly and desperately. A long bath, the first of many during the long day. Sunlight, unceasing sunlight, pinning you down helpless until you surrender with a smile. All the negotiations you tried in the years before, cast away. All the escape routes you dreamt, abandoned as uncertain applications submitted to the universe. All that remains is you and the summer- depressing, dominating, debilitating. And inevitable. A rite of passage. A feigned love motivated by expectations of surprises...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Love...is such an inadequate word.

What do you say of a song that grabs hold of you and possesses you more than your awareness of your own self?
What do you say of a piece of music that is both outside and inside of you until you no longer feel your physical existence?
What do you say of the swell within your heart which transfers to the swell within your soul until you just want to take off like a helium balloon?
What do you say when you cannot physically touch, see, taste or hold something that has you in a tight grasp and doesn't seem to let go?
What do you say when a sound washes over you like a wave and still leaves you thirsting for more?
What do you say when you feel the sun and the stars so alive within your soul that you are unable to contain them and the only alternative is to explode?
What do you say when 5:49 minutes of music becomes your reason for existence, the definition of your very being and for the existence of all else?

What do you say?

If someone asks you, you say:
"I love this song"
knowing that words will never suffice.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Ice cream cones and candy treats



These are buildings designed by Antoni Gaudi, Spanish modernist architect.





This is how castles look in Estarra.













This is how life should be.

Summer school of life

Bonds don't break; their elasticity wears thin.

People don't change; they shed their skins in the summer.

Words don't illuminate; they restrict.

Love isn't work; it's natural.

Don't let it go; let it fade.

Don't try; just be.

Friday, April 10, 2009

U2 is back! Baaaaaaaack!

Breathe
16th of June, nine-oh-five, door bell rings
Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There’s a few things I need you to know
Three
Coming from a long line of
Traveling sales people on my mother’s side
I wasn’t gonna buy just anyone’s cockatoo
So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home
Would you

These days are better than that
These days are better than that

Every day I die again, and again I’m reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can’t defeat
Neither down nor out
There’s nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now

16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up
And I’m coming down with some new Asian virus
Ju Ju man, Ju Ju man
Doc says you’re fine, or dying
Please
Nine-oh-nine, St. John Divine on the line, my pulse is fine
But I’m running down the road like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease
The roar that lies on the other side of silence
The forest fire that is fear so deny it

Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet
Will not be drowned out
There’s nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
Yeah, yeah

We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown
Walk out, into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I’ve found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it’s all that I found
And I can breathe
Breathe now

"There's nothing you have that I need,
I can breathe. "
Such a brave, powerful line. You can't just say it offhand. I can't say that I have truly LIVED; I have a long way to go before I can look back. But I can't wait for the day when I can say:
"There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe"

Friday, April 3, 2009

Being is underrated

So, what are you going to do after college?

Give me 50 p for every time I hear that question and I'll be Slumdog Crorepati. I can't take it anymore. I can't take myself anymore.
Why can't I just sit tight and BE in one moment, completely? No, my mind has to be at home when I'm waiting my turn in the viva, it has to be in college when I'm at home, it has to be in this time last year or this time next year. When I'm hot and sweaty in college, I want to have a bath. When I have a bath, I want to eat. When I eat, I want to sleep. When I sleep and wake up, I want to watch a movie. When I'm watching the movie, I want to be doing something productive. Aaaargh. Shut up. Stay. Live.

'To be' is a verb. It is a verb that has been considered in the past as a choice (Ask Hamlet). It is an activity. It is an action. If I 'be', it means that I am doing something.
So, that's what I'm gonna do. That's my purpose in life.

Problem is, I have this mental snapshot of what it is 'to be'. It is this beautiful, heavenly place. And in that mental snapshot, I am content without being disappointed or wanting more.

There I go again, living in the future.

Be here. Now.

(This blog has become a sort of pep talk to myself!)