"You have an umbrella?"

This is probably a wrong frame of mind to start writing in. But somehow, the "right" of doing things will never walk to me and present itself in this lifetime. Even if it does, I'd probably not be able to recognize it. Anyway, screw the right ways. Let's look leftward for a change. How pathetic, that last line!

It's raining outside. I look outside, and it looks exactly like the first day I entered my college. Pouring like crazy. That was four years ago. They passed away like wind. Just like the cool breeze that greets the my upper back. My ideas of what I would be doing in this first heavy shower  of this year have been washed away by the torrent on the other side of the window.

I'd asked someone some time ago, on another rainy day long past, "You have an umbrella?"

I never knew that one question could topple an entire world. See? Give a person "blues" inducing weather, a very inappropriate song to listen to, the ability to read and write, ability to write, more importantly. Congratulations! You have all the machinery required to create ludicrous statements. 

A friend of mine said something very profound. Actually, he asked something very profound...

What comes first? The music, or the misery?

Although I'm not sure if I'll be successful at conveying the meaning of what my friend said. But really. Look at a big chunk of art. It stems from some source of pain, longing, sorrow, beauty, something ethereal, beyond the grasps of tangibility. Every artist has his/her own muse. You know the sight that greets your eyes., but yet, have no way of describing it.

Look at language. Each word has a meaning. So we make best use of words to convey what we have in mind. Yet, there are things that stay at the tip of the tongue, which, we delude ourselves into thinking that, they would be easy to put into words and blurt out. But when it comes to saying what it was that we felt, words don't come to mind. Linguistically challenged, just at the wrong time. Alas. We might as well be mute. 

As for my friend's question, misery comes in the form of music. As the saying goes, misery loves company. And what better if the company is entertaining?

The grunt in the voice of the singer, whose song I'm hearing while I write all of this, leaves my hair standing. The strong guttural notes lend a force to the song that complements the incessant pitter-patter of the rain on the window pane.

It's constant. The rain. Each drop like an acupuncture needle. But somehow soothing after it crashes against your skin, when it disintegrates into smaller drops that bounce off you. 

A while ago, I was loitering outside It hadn't started raining yet. I like looking at trees when I walk. Specially when I'm surrounded by coconut trees, which, under no prior notice, have this ugly habit of dropping coconuts on heads of unsuspecting passers by. Mango trees have started producing small, tender green buds. Raw, young, innocent, brazenly sour precursors to what will eventually turn into hues of yellow, orange and red, sweet, pleasing to taste, wrinkled, and fall off at the end of summer if not plucked. Another 3-4 months.

More than the time that remains of the 4 years that I, and many around me, had signed up to spend here on that rainy day, four years ago. 

The only thing I wonder is whether I'd have written all of this if I hadn't asked that one ruddy question that day...."You have an umbrella?".

Maybe it doesn't matter if I had. For all I know, there might be a storm coming.

Banks of a river and 2 more idiots!

It was exactly how the teddy with a pony tail(TWiP) had described it would be. That long endless road, trees on either side, the evening sun showering hues of orange and yellow onto the grand entrance of what has become home now.And oh, it was beautiful.

But the stuff I did, or rather why I did what I did, remains a big question in my head. I TWiP right in front of me, going down the same road I was supposed to take. For some reason, I felt it wouldn't be right to do the stuff I usually do. It just didn't feel right. Thanks to a decent peripheral vision, I could see this gorgeous creature walking in all her glory. And in all probability, she must have seen me. And yet, we stayed on opposite sides of th road. It's like the banks of a river. They go side by side throughout the length of the river, from the river's inception, until the river merges with the sea. Then the banks go opposite ways.

It almost sounds pointless for the two banks having stayed next to each other for so long, specially when everyone, who so ever everyone is, knew that they had to part in the end. Part they do. But trace the river all the way back, and notice that the banks are still by each other's side. And that's the beauty of it all. The river is everlasting. Were the banks not to hold their ground, the river would spill all its waters into the surroundings. Disaster!!!

We did walk side by side, for a while. That is before I decided to walk my normal pace and got ahead. This time, I couldn't get myself to look behind. I don't know why. I could have seen a smile. Or I could have seen indifference. Or I could have seen something that my mental faculties are as of yet incapable of conceiving. Yes, a part of me acknowledges a debilitating urge to go back in time and turn around, and see what my opportunity cost was. But then, another part of me wants to let go. Let go of things that I have no control over. Wow! I wonder if any of this makes an ounce of sense. 

I cannot go further into describing the sight that was right in front of me, for at that time, I was lost in my own contemplations. TWiP.... What a lousy acronym to describe the person I'm talking about. She must have changed her place for her evening snacks for a reason. The reason only known to her. The reason that I can only speculate over. The reason that the person reading this, in most cases, will have no clue about.

The night before.....

I was doing my thing, bending my mind over things that a big chunk of humanity has no clue about. That was when I got a call from one of the two chaps whom I'm going to tell you about. "Da, chuck whatever it is you are doing, and come over. FAST." I hated his stern tone, the voice on the other end of the phone. I was under the impression that it was something related to work.. Some design work for an event my friends and I are planning to organize. I'd done a chunk of running around for the event that afternoon. To myself, I thought... "Goodness, these two can't do a thing by themselves! How will we pull the event off if this goes on, specially when the deadline for the event is staring us in the face??"

I walked to the room of the chap who'd called me. The two folks, whom I have probably come to know most in my life about, and I, we've hung around for a matter of roughly 4 years. One of them, he's big, burly, and crazy as hell. The second fellow, he's the sanest one among us three. And then, there's me. No descriptions here. These two fellows make me feel like I belong to a mental asylum. Actually, there are  very few people who don't make me feel that way about myself, but more about that some other time. But the two chaps I talk about now, they're probably the foundation of my college life. 

So I reached this fellow's room, the one who sounded all stern on the phone, thinking that these fellows are going to have some modus operandi about taking the preparations for the above mentioned event forward. Suddenly, someone switched off the lights. For some reason, I felt like my life was going to flash in front of me, and that I was about to die.

The lights came back. I wasn't dead. But these two arseholes pointed toward a pink box. It looked a lot like a package with a cake inside it. Okay, it was a package with a cake inside it. It had my name on it, in pink, albeit.  And it also had a guitar drawn on it. Also in pink. But..... Okay, I'm going to break down writing this. Shit! 

The idiots went all the way to the city, 25 kilometers away, just to buy me a birthday cake. Bastards! I'll never be able to tell these two fellows, or for that matter, anyone how I felt about everything that was happening.

I have a hunch that I have a very low score on the "Likability" front. That might me the most accurate hunch that I'll ever have in my life. Or maybe not. Anyway, these two chaps have stuck around, had by back on more than one occasion. And I have been an arsehole to them on a fair share of occasions. 

All I remember from the night before are a few lines...

"Do you even have any other friends?"

"I can't believe I went all the way to the city just for this idiot."

"Happy birthday, you bitch! That cake's yours!"

"Damn! The ganache on this cake has dark chocolate in it!"

And what I write now, has stopped making sense to me. 

Another thing! Is it that we do everything as a means to an end? Does everything that we do, have to have an end that needs to be met with? Can't you just do stuff for the heck of it? No end result, nothing to prove to anyone, no fighting, no quarreling, no hold ups, nothing held back, no worries about consequences, none of all that?

Why do we hold back? Why do we fight ourselves? Why do we deny ourselves what we want the most? And why do we lie to ourselves? What is to come out of all of this abstaining? Can't stuff be a bit simple? I'm sure things are all too simple. My mind must be all screwed up.

For the two idiots in my life, I wish I could sing this song...

For the remaining things I do, the way I do, and the clueless reasons why I do them, I'M GOING NOWHERE, SOMEBODY HELP ME!!

By the way, I'm sure that a normal life really sucks!

A wall, a vice, and the wait.

Imagine an insurmountable wall. And sorry, you don't have enough might to break it. Frankly, you don't know if anyone has the might to break it. Now, imagine that you are surrounded by such a wall. No way in, no way out. You try to move around, hoping that there is an exit somewhere in the crevices of the wall. Alas. You beat the wall, push it, bang against it with your arms, and do everything that you think will get the way out of your way, but to no avail. You smile at your own helplessness. Screaming for help.... sounds like the most futile of exercises. For there is no one. It's just you and the wall. All the remaining figures you see, are just kept there. Its all part of a set-up. No one's hearing. Deaf, useless impotence.. Just that realization struck a tad bit too late. The brain's suffocating due to an overdose of blood to the head. Your extremities feel limp. The human body.. at the time of adversity, sends all its resources to the vital parts of the body, which are supposed to be threatened in flight-or-flight situations. Basically, at a time when you are required to have your weapons ready, your body conspires in favor of the adversity staring you in the face, and turns you into a sitting duck. Strangely, the body can be tricked to do just the opposite under adversity. Only that not many of us know the trick.

By the way, All of a sudden, you do find a space in the wall to escape through. It seems too good to be true. You're FREE!

 Now the big question. Do you pride yourself for having figured a way to escape through the wall? Or did the wall allow you to think so?

Same with the vice. The vice's grip cannot be loosened using a crowbar. Once it clamps onto something, the grip is so strong that the clamped object is left with the marks of the vice's tractive patch. Either that, or the clamped object gets crushed under the force of the clamp's grip force. And from nowhere, your hands, that were very much in the clamp's grasp, are now free from the shackles of the clamp's grip. So really... you're that strong, eh?

The wait...

This is something new I've learned out of the little marketing I've forced myself to get involved in. Here's the deal. In a duel, if stakes are high, put all your cards  on the table. In most cases, we never really put all our cards on the table. And so, we never get to know what an all out high stakes position looks like. Chances are that if one side has put all it's cards on the table, and by that, i mean, ALL THE CARDS on the table, the other side too has thrown in everything it's got. And you know what? After that, it is just a matter of time. Just wait. Because the first one who talks........... loses. The "What?" is the opponent's cry of helplessness. And it is a rhetorical question!

Strange ways the mind and body work in.

Overnight Journey

Few things wake you up in the night. And then you doze off again. Your eyes open again, and the watch hasn't moved as much as you'd like. But after a little reading, you manage to grab a little more Zzz. Something might keep you awake. It might be the noise outside, the things you think are bearing you down, or the things that you don't even know, that might be bearing you down. It is always good to know what it is that bothers you. But only if you can do anything about it. Else, you're a lot better off not knowing the cause of your poor sleep quality.

But then here's the deal. Sometimes, of the few times when you do know the reason that wakes you up, or think you know the reason, the morning after the bad night makes you feel supremely stupid. Sleep solves a lot of riddles in the mind. I suppose hence the phrase "Sleep it over".  The reasons cooked up by the head seem trivial. Its like someone slaps you into waking up and says "Do you even know how stupid you sound when you even think of your REASONS?."

I'm only afraid that these words of mine are coming out of some compensatory defense mechanism that the human body has so smartly developed during the course of evolution, to protect itself under some stressful stimuli.

It is strange how the body functions. We see what we want to see. We hear only the parts that we would like to hear. Besides, we bend what we see and hear to suit our preference. And no two people actually hear/see one event in the same manner. There are always angles for each person. Not that a trigonometry lesson is anywhere around the corner. But here's the deal. Most of the times,  our descriptions of the things we see and experience are only a part of the full picture. Our account of that thing is what we often consider the "Bigger picture", and that is the case with most of us. Each of us considers ourselves a bit better than the next person, a bit smarter, a bit faster, basically a bit, if not way over average. The real picture is anyone's guess. Not that there's no one ahead of the curve, which would be a rather imbecile remark, but the mind does anything and everything to enhance its optimism in every possible scenario. Maybe it is that extra bit of optimism that helps humans to keep pushing in the face of adversity. And without this edge, this surge of "Will Do" feeling, progress of the human race would stall.

About foolishness, there' no better quote that can summarize it in its entirety..

"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!"

We, Homo sapiens, have thrived on our foolhardiness. The outcomes of a lot many foolhardy decisions have been rather counterproductive. But I bet the thrill was worth each moment of the way. Lot of stupidity has passed under the bridges of the world. But that's how it goes, I guess. One life to live. How much of "Completely right" things can one do, if at all one can do anything called a "Completely Right Thing". Besides, the term "RIGHT" by itself is rather subjective. Right to one, might be a grievous error for another. 

Yes, there are times when you feel you should have listened to the advice that came from a rather unlikely source, maybe someone you don't exactly look up to. And maybe you should have. Then again, there are so many things one should have, could have, would have, and in all probability, not have done. How do you decide? Hypotheticals of the past... Goodness!

Another thing. Someone told me recently "Be crazy. Don't be insane!" 

There seems to be a very fine line between the two words. And trespassers are usually prosecuted. Again, how do you know where the line is? Oh! Wait a second! Craziness is probably staying at the edge of the cliff. With insanity, "All it needs is a little PUSH."

Sounds fancy, but it still doesn't answer any questions. Get a parachute or something!

Wrong questions

Why do we run into each other?

Why do things bring us back to square one, each time?

Then the long jump into each other's eyes.

Stupid smiles, stray gazes..

Utterances that stop at the tip of the tongue, as they cannot bring themselves in the form of language that anyone can comprehend. They are just to be understood the way everything intangible needs to be taken, like axioms.

Why do we say stuff which means the exact opposite of what we mean, or want to say?

Why do we drag conversations forcefully, trying to buy time so that we can think of more appropriate word that we can put our thoughts forward with?

And at the end of the day, stay undecided  on what, why and when we should say what we wanted to say?

Then turn away to quell a bit of the anxiety that has built itself up into an unmanageably unbearable weight on our chest? Why say things that are so distant for why things were brought together by some intangible forces, invisible chords, and things of that nature?

Then we stand up, walk away. Hear our name being called, then slow down, remaining undecided on whether to slow down or not. But slow down we do. But then there are times when the barrier between you and what you want to say becomes so insurmountable that you decide to get up, leave everything behind and walk away as fast as your legs can take you.  You walk for some time, feeling very strong. Knowing little that maybe, just maybe, things might have hit you at places you didn't expect.

I shout the word "Why?" inside my head so loud that were I to shout it out loud for real, it would blow a lot many eardrums. And just for a moment, I gather myself together, and ask myself "What the hell's happening?". It seems like a perpetual question. There's only one answer to that question that rings inside my mind... "Dude, No clue!"

Broken Pieces

Few things pierce you so hard, SO HARD that it takes a while to realize that the sword went right through your body, traveled its entire thickness, and emerged clean on the other side. You don't even feel the pain initially. It just happens like anything else that happens. Like breathing. Then realization strikes. You feel the blade, the part of the blade that still remains inside your body. You still don't have an ounce of pain. That is until the one moment where the pain makes its presence felt. It is still bearable. Nothing that seems like it will kill you.

But then the pain grows, spreads, up till the point that you're flooded with it.

There's one line that I'd heard in the series called House of Cards. It went like this...

"Every martyr craves a standing sword to fall on."

I know not why I remember this line of all things at this moment. As a matter of fact, I cannot recollect what I was thinking I'd write after that quote from the above mentioned series.

Sometimes, you gotta run before you can walk.

These hostel walls that surround us, these corridors, these rooms, man, these things have so much history trapped inside them! Imagine. They've borne generations of guys like you and me. They've protected so many fragile souls, reveled in high spirits of so many more, and men out of boys, dealt with more than their fair share of puking. Like a mother taking care of her baby, despite everything, all the poop, all the diaper changes, all the vomiting. This place, the walls of which are the only witnesses to what I do now, it lets you run before you can walk. Every time you hold back, this place tells you "Don't worry, Kiddo! Go sprint! Go all out. We'll see what to do if you fall. And what if you fall? You don't have anything to lose in the first place. Then why fear losing anything more?"

This might sound strange. But the things a person wants to do to someone else, be the thing good, bad, or evil, whatever it is, stems out of the person's perception of the way they are getting treated by the world. So, for example, if you want to catch hold of people who have a "Use me. I'm fragile. So after using me, break me and throw me away." neon sign on their forehead, use them, break them, and then throw them away after you're done with them, there is a good chance that you have a "Use me. I'm fragile. So after using me, break me and throw me away." neon sign on your own forehead. Strange, isn't it?

Peaceful violence- Imagine aggression, like a balloon about to blast. And that balloon is going to blast, taking a big chunk of everything around it in the bosoms of its explosion. Everything wiped clean. Like nothing ever existed there before. Clean slate. But how do you contain the explosion? You know for a fact that the explosion is contagious. The explosion sounds like a note on the piano.A consistently repeating note, every four beats... like THIS.

Such a soft sound, that of a note on a piano. But it contains within itself an unimaginable explosion. Imagine the happenings in the image below...

 

And all you hear is the sound of a single note on a piano. That is when you know for a fact that the explosion is hurtling towards you at speeds at which you cannot escape it before its blast radius engulfs you....

The universe that went missing

Did I cook up that heading? Feels like someone else doing the work for me.

The rate at which my thoughts seem to be racing past me is quite unimaginable right now.

Never before has my belief in solipsism been stronger. But what if... Just what if there's another person who can hear my thoughts? Is that even possible? And I's surprised that I'm writing what I'm writing. Because tomorrow, these words that I write won't make any sense to me, let alone anyone else.

We humans, as a race, have become so enthusiastic about our virtual lives. Photos, selfies, likes, shares, it's all there up in the cloud somewhere. And when it is all up there somewhere, what's the whole point of making things into real tangible commodities? I'm sure that in future, babies will be made online. Real human babies made via the Internet. No talking, no wooing.... Just say the magic words "Kid Wanted". BOOM! A fairy will drop one in your balcony.

Hmm..  So I am saying all this in my head, apparently.

"You're so different from the others. Dude, you know what? Remind me of this when we meet tomorrow, okay?"

Of all the things I heard the night before, this line rings in my ears for some very strange reason. I replay it as best as I can remember. It felt like a scene from a movie. A movie where the intended next day never happened somehow. So I wonder. How many things there are that stay, or get left unsaid. I don't even know if the last line is grammatically correct. Trouble being that the part of my head responsible for grammatical corrections is currently out of order. Or that's the most stylish way I can put forward my present disability. Each line that I think makes me think "What the hell am I thinking?".

I guess it is when your thought process gets so mangled that you know for a fact that shit has hit the fan. Yuck!

Another thing that I remember is this one fellow telling me about someone he knows who writes out his ramblings the way I do. I do not know how to make my point subtly, and hence, I think I should refrain from making this part of my thoughts  available in the public domain.

Oh shit! There's another line that stays in my memory...

"Imagine, no one knew this shit existed!"

Not a single one probably understood a word of what was being uttered. But you see, put a bunch of nut-cases together, and the magic unfolds. Each one of us had a different universe unraveling itself with every moment. But each of those universes were linked somehow. It probably was the words that gave each universe its origin and branching points.

This is getting scarier by the moment. Talking gets a little difficult. Specially given that I'm not a very strong proponent of talking. It's always more convenient to put the onus of talking onto the person in front. They get to talk about all they want to talk about, stuff they don't get to talk about because everyone else is too busy talking about what they want to talk about. So you get to have a conversation, know the person in front, get the reputation of a good conversationalist, and everyone remains happily ever after. Besides, it saves you your energy of thinking of ways to initiate, maintain and end a conversation intelligently. Brilliant! Am I the first one to think of this? Re reading the last line makes me laugh for reasons unknown to me.

I wonder how a normal mind would react to all of this. I'm sure I'll get to know that soon enough.

Da, Lunch!

I might just break down while writing this one. I know I won't, but something inside feels like tearing everything apart. Screw it!

I feel I have deluded myself into believing in wrong reasons, attributing incorrect rationalizations to the reasons for my ballsy nature. All this seems to be a rant about myself, which is rather strange in my case, as I told someone yesterday that I don't have much to talk about.

The only thing I can say for sure is that the adrenaline rush is worth killing for.

I was walking around her "protective cover", or what she thought was her insurance policy. Phew! Wooing is hard work! And being brazen takes its toll on you. But what's the point of all the energy in store if you can't do what you want?

Had she been sitting, her legs would have looked as though she were about to  get convulsions. You could see her smiling because of all the attention she was getting. It was then that her partner in crime said something that went like this

"I know! She's so desperate to smile..."

And my lady, for not being able to do anything else, looked at me and flashed her teeth... All 32 of them at me. I have no clue as to why she did that. Nut case.

I kept walking after we parted. Partly in damage-control mode, partly because of the cluelessness of what I was/wanted to do next. For some inexplicable reason, I still had a smile on my face. I got hold of myself, turned around, and started walking back the direction in which I'd come. The trees on either side of the Rajpath caught my fancy. I walked down the long stretch of road in a daze, with little or no thought, looking up and around of what was to remain in my life for only another 2-3 months.

"You know what? You wouldn't even see me after 15th May. I'll be gone. Like smoke."

Why did I just type that line? Again, screw it.

From the other end of the road, another lady, a really quirky one I've come to know for a while now, was walking towards me. We waved. So far, all cool...

"Hey! You told me you'll take me to that Rajasthani thhali place. So when are you taking me there?"

I thought for a while... Three classes left to go in the day. Bloody hell! And the marketing work too! Meh, Screw it!

"Chalo, let's go right now. I'll take you there for lunch today." *Ting!*

Planned stuff never works. And all the unplanned stuff has completely been mind-blowing!

Normally, I would be worried about who gets to read all this yack that happened inside my head, all of it. But then, right now, I've got other things to think about. So here goes nothing.

Patterns become a lot more clearer. Words lose their meaning. Let alone sentences. Any one apart from yourself seems like a trespasser. Sudoku becomes easier for some reason. You become a lot more aware of bullshit, about not being your true self, and also about things that secretly occupy your subconscious. Again, time for another "What the hell am I saying??" moment.

I'll stop here. Shit. This actually happened!