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.

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"

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!)

Broken strings

In the beginning of this year, we lost one of our classmates.

Today, on the last day of college, as we stood teary-eyed, taking pictures while our professors surprised us with cake, reaching out to one another in a kind of desperation, a kind of wistfulness of having wasted three years of not getting to know each other better, today we lost a junior of ours to another bike accident.

It doesn't feel like so long ago when our classmate passed away. I still remember the disbelief and shock. The fact that someone you took for granted, who was supposed to be part of the background picture , familiar and present is never going to be seen again. It hits you that you should've waved at him when you had the chance. You could've spared a second of a 'Hello'. Isn't it strange that you end up having a lot to say when you realise you can't say it?

When someone you know leaves the face of the earth, you expect the earth to stop turning atleast for a bit. You expect the news to talk about him, you expect life to take a pause. When your world has a lost its sense of normalcy, how does it continue for everyone else? Shouldn't it take on a shade of grey? Is it inappropriate to think of exams, food and routine? Everything seems much more cloudier.

But the world continues to turn. And you, the one who's been left behind, have to turn along with it.

It's easy to say 'Be strong, move on'. You will, eventually. But how does that assuage the pain?

You will have to remember that while you shed tears and lament the cutting short of a young life, he is on another plane right now. He is tranquil and he is far from suffering and all the bondages of the human body. He is free.

It doesn't help your loneliness and the sense of absence that you feel. But do not mourn for him, for his loss. Because he is beyond any definition of loss. Beyond all these boundaries and barriers that condition our fragile existence that we take so seriously. He is with the true reality now and we continue in the illusion, till the time we join him.

And as abstract as I sound, it does make me feel better.

Baby, farewell

If I'm less than sunny, don't mind me. That's just how it is in Estarra. I'm only happy when it rains, etc.
A diary is a diary for a reason. Don't worry. And on a happier note, I am practising to not expect and to live entirely in the moment and not hyperventilate about not getting printouts on time or submission at 1 pm. (Breeeaaathe eaaassy.)

Anyway, now I'm okay. Thoroughly thrilled myself at the stationery shop. I guess what shoes is to normal chicks, I get slack-jawed when I stand before shelves of envelopes, Cello ballpoints, folders, sharpeners, blank CDs and the rest. I probably wanted one measly stick file before I reached the venue. But when I get there, I'm like "Gimmmmmmmmeeeeee!"

Putting the final touches on my final project. The one that has undergone a million changes, a million opinions. The one that has made me cry. The one that has made me a zombie. The one whose umbilical cord I cut tomorrow when I hand it over to the department. It's a magazine and trust me, it is not as easy or as frivolous as the word sounds. It sums up my childhood fantasy (wherein 'Triple Moon', a weekly read was well, unread) and my obsession and collection of Vogue, Femina Girl, The Record, Elle, etc. Yes, it sounds shallow and materialistic. But I have had a lifelong affair with magazines and tomorrow I submit MY VERY OWN magazine.

Wish wish wish wish me luck. But at the end of the day, I'm sending it off into the universe on its own. Not gonna care about opinions anymore. NO SIREE.

Me me me

Looks like January was my expressive best.

Here's something I've always wanted to say to the people (person?) who've called me self-obsessed:

I am.

Yes, and I should be. I'm the person I know best. I'm the only person whose feelings, thoughts, abilities and dreams that I know completely. I know ME-body, mind and soul. And yet there's so much more to know. A process that began the day I was born and will continue till the day I die.

Life is wonderful. Life is discovery. But...I am the life. My life is the only way to know the life outside. And the life outside is the only way to know me. I read because I want to understand myself. I want to travel because I want to find myself. I watch movies because I want to relate. I love because I want to love myself.

So what's the opposite of self-obsessed? Self-detached? You think you are self-detached. You with your gyms, and your fashion, your clubbing, your crushes are self-detached?

Your choice of words amuses me.

If I bore you, leave me alone. If you understand, please feel free to join the self-obsession. It's much more exciting than your man-made creations.

"There would be no me if there wasn't you, there would be no you if it weren't for me"

-Rachid Taha, 'Tekitoi'