Have you ever experienced that feeling when somebody just walks into your life and makes it a better place? I have. And I know I’m lucky. I write right now for one of the best people I have ever known. My best friend. A person who, despite the storms raging inside of him, spreads joy wherever he goes.
A half smile, the constant fiddling with the ears, that distant look while trying to solve a problem, the coy unassuming charm. Maybe that’s what really did it. And before I realized it, I was shovelled out of the confused mess of thoughts and situations I was neck-deep in. The world sort of changed, my whole outlook changed. My next burst of laughter was only ever as far from me as your next gimmick.
Things sorted themselves out, knots came undone, and life just became what it really was supposed to be in the first place: simple, uncomplicated and beautiful.
Your hands, the long fingers, the nails that I always thought looked better than mine, the way they caress the electric blue of your guitar, the music that it all made together, filling the air with a sort of melancholy that sounded different from anything else strummed along the same lines.
The littlest stuff, that pause in the flow of things, when I knew you were cooking up your next joke in your head, the furrow on your brow when the punch line wouldn’t fit, and the way it was ultimately unleashed, sending me into peals of laughter, half because it was funny, the rest because I secretly anticipated it.
Then those times when doubt clouded your face, and your aura greyed, the way you pushed it aside to not let it affect you, and a smile would break on your face, like the first ray of sunshine.
The way I would see your waiting arms, half turn around to check no one was looking, and run into them at the first instance. The way, when you knew I felt slighted, you half squeezed my hand to let me know it was okay, and you were there, and I had nothing to worry about. The way I sometimes caught you looking at me, while I was busy doing other things, and the goofy grin that spread across your face on getting caught.
That first time, when your eyes begged me to stay, and I dropped my bags in the middle of the field, and you missed your bus back home. We struggled to fill the air with the volumes that were left unspoken, the others around us waited too, getting more anxious by the moment about getting back, missing all the excitement that flowed between us.
How could they understand, how WOULD they understand? They didn’t and they still don’t.
My best kept secret is also my worst kept secret:
I have known magic.
People think it doesn’t exist.
How little they know.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
Funnily enough my title sounds like real fun, but honestly? This stuff is heavy-duty, people.
Before you go all judgmental on me, let me tell you one thing. I am one of those marvelous cases one would hear about now and then, who being a girl has only guy friends. Well not all, but yes, peg the figure at 95% and then it’s almost entirely true.
I have no clue why. None whatsoever. And I’m straight and hale and hearty, so that should put an end to all your speculation. :P
Truth be told, perhaps I am scared. There was this one ‘girl’ best-friend I had, and obviously I won’t name her, but well, there was a time when she was my only real friend.
It all started sometime in school, when children are seeking security in the number of friends they have (now don’t be silly and tell me you didn’t). I kind-of knew her to be the girl with the fiery temper in class. As a pre-teen fraught with an identity crisis, to me, she really was the perfect image of a sort of demigoddess. People seldom spoke to her, whether it was out of fear, of simply non-familiarity, I cannot say.
But I, I loved the way she exuded this super-confidence in whatever she did. She excelled in academics, she had the best nails and of course, I loved the way she could scream frozen stalactites down when a boy happened to pull off her rubberband.
Slowly, I started getting to know her better. I sat with her in class, we often chatted on the phone and shared notes. She was somebody I derived a lot of security from. A LOT. One could say she sort of, took me under her wing.
As we both matured, I used this solid base of our friendship to build upon my character. I grew confident. Things were awesome. There was only this one matter. As a distraught pre-teen, she had inspired me to grow confident. As a confident teen, the same thing about her that inspired me, started stifling me. The littlest things would tick her off. And she pulled me into her safety circle and treated me like her pet; dominated, scolded, and loved at the same time.
And then I realized, a tad too late, that she derived HER security from screaming. Funny as this may sound, the rest of the class grew more amicable towards her, because of course, the negativity reserves were emptied on me in private. I mean no disrespect for her, she is a gem of a person. And everyone has their own defence mechanism. This was hers.
I felt like an isolated trapped kitten smothered by her master.
This went on until a sort of miracle happened.
Classes were getting shuffled again. I was introduced into a friend circle where this sense of liberty and openness was a sort of binding factor. And as many of you forged your best friendships, I forged mine.
I flowered, bloomed, spread my wings, and enjoyed school life to the hilt.
Even after leaving school, being in different cities, countries, and continents all together, I can tell you, these friends are as close to me as my next thought. It doesn’t matter how busy we are with our individual lives, it doesn’t matter what the last time we spoke to each other was, because every time we do, it’s like nothing changed.
I know I live with the ghosts of those conversations, long dead, with these guys, in the halls, in the staircases, in those alcoves in the senior block of high school. Those times spent, sharing an earphone of one of our ipods, while staring intently at the blackboard, feigning interest in class proceedings. And part of me wants to go back and perhaps linger on, a little longer, to enjoy it some more.
As for the girl with the fiery temper, I behaved like the worst friend. The worst. After the shuffling of classes, conversation happened between us but once: When I asked her how things were after the second day in our new class.
Then I turned around and went back to the new class. And what I experienced, was bliss. Freedom. And as all humans do, I made a choice.
I chose happiness.
To my first closest friend, wherever she is today:
I’m sorry for acting like I did, A.
I am. But I know you made newer and better friends too. I saw you. You were happy. And that’s when I was truly happy, seeing you down the hall talking and laughing with them. I knew I had gotten away without hurting you the way I was scared I had.
You’re an absolute gem for being the bigger person. I wish you all the luck in life, A. You made middle school a breeze, and helped me through one of the most tumultuous phases of school life. <3 <3
This is a genuine, heartfelt acknowledgement of what you did without realizing.
Thank you...
Before you go all judgmental on me, let me tell you one thing. I am one of those marvelous cases one would hear about now and then, who being a girl has only guy friends. Well not all, but yes, peg the figure at 95% and then it’s almost entirely true.
I have no clue why. None whatsoever. And I’m straight and hale and hearty, so that should put an end to all your speculation. :P
Truth be told, perhaps I am scared. There was this one ‘girl’ best-friend I had, and obviously I won’t name her, but well, there was a time when she was my only real friend.
It all started sometime in school, when children are seeking security in the number of friends they have (now don’t be silly and tell me you didn’t). I kind-of knew her to be the girl with the fiery temper in class. As a pre-teen fraught with an identity crisis, to me, she really was the perfect image of a sort of demigoddess. People seldom spoke to her, whether it was out of fear, of simply non-familiarity, I cannot say.
But I, I loved the way she exuded this super-confidence in whatever she did. She excelled in academics, she had the best nails and of course, I loved the way she could scream frozen stalactites down when a boy happened to pull off her rubberband.
Slowly, I started getting to know her better. I sat with her in class, we often chatted on the phone and shared notes. She was somebody I derived a lot of security from. A LOT. One could say she sort of, took me under her wing.
As we both matured, I used this solid base of our friendship to build upon my character. I grew confident. Things were awesome. There was only this one matter. As a distraught pre-teen, she had inspired me to grow confident. As a confident teen, the same thing about her that inspired me, started stifling me. The littlest things would tick her off. And she pulled me into her safety circle and treated me like her pet; dominated, scolded, and loved at the same time.
And then I realized, a tad too late, that she derived HER security from screaming. Funny as this may sound, the rest of the class grew more amicable towards her, because of course, the negativity reserves were emptied on me in private. I mean no disrespect for her, she is a gem of a person. And everyone has their own defence mechanism. This was hers.
I felt like an isolated trapped kitten smothered by her master.
This went on until a sort of miracle happened.
Classes were getting shuffled again. I was introduced into a friend circle where this sense of liberty and openness was a sort of binding factor. And as many of you forged your best friendships, I forged mine.
I flowered, bloomed, spread my wings, and enjoyed school life to the hilt.
Even after leaving school, being in different cities, countries, and continents all together, I can tell you, these friends are as close to me as my next thought. It doesn’t matter how busy we are with our individual lives, it doesn’t matter what the last time we spoke to each other was, because every time we do, it’s like nothing changed.
I know I live with the ghosts of those conversations, long dead, with these guys, in the halls, in the staircases, in those alcoves in the senior block of high school. Those times spent, sharing an earphone of one of our ipods, while staring intently at the blackboard, feigning interest in class proceedings. And part of me wants to go back and perhaps linger on, a little longer, to enjoy it some more.
As for the girl with the fiery temper, I behaved like the worst friend. The worst. After the shuffling of classes, conversation happened between us but once: When I asked her how things were after the second day in our new class.
Then I turned around and went back to the new class. And what I experienced, was bliss. Freedom. And as all humans do, I made a choice.
I chose happiness.
To my first closest friend, wherever she is today:
I’m sorry for acting like I did, A.
I am. But I know you made newer and better friends too. I saw you. You were happy. And that’s when I was truly happy, seeing you down the hall talking and laughing with them. I knew I had gotten away without hurting you the way I was scared I had.
You’re an absolute gem for being the bigger person. I wish you all the luck in life, A. You made middle school a breeze, and helped me through one of the most tumultuous phases of school life. <3 <3
This is a genuine, heartfelt acknowledgement of what you did without realizing.
Thank you...
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Badass
Lol. Actually the title of this post has absolutely nothing to do with its content. But funny how I felt like naming it ‘Badass’.
Ohki so I study in one of the most prestigious architecture schools of my country.
And I actually chuckled to myself when I looked up to check the previous line for typos.
Let me substantiate that with real-life drama. It’s been more than two months now, since our summer vacations started. On the last day of college, which also happened to be the day of our Building Construction examination, my class was herded into the graphics studio and handed out project briefs for the summer vacations; the said projects to be submitted on the first day of college. We groaned and grumbled, as expected, but read the briefs anyway.
The projects weren’t simple at all. We had to measure our houses top to bottom, centimeter for centimeter and profile our house. Not only that, we had to study the lifestyle of our own families and evaluate spaces.
All complicated stuff for somebody with non-specific knowledge in architecture, like you, and fair enough, seeing how complicated it was for us. The problem was, that this wasn’t going to be a ‘let’s do a cover job’ project.
It had to be a published book.
I’ll be honest, and tell you I worked my arse off for it. 20 days into our summer vacation and the measuring tape was already an extension of my body. And I finished the job yesterday, at 5 10 am. One and a half months, I slaved, with an image of the perfect case study in mind.
And just two days back I found out, practically nobody had done the work, barring a few friends of mine. Some had not even started. This really didn’t affect me.
I’ll tell you what did.
In my euphoria at having finished it after so long, I went berserk on facebook and posted my elation all over my friends’ walls. My best friend, Buj (studies in the same college), was also among the chosen few who I wrote to.
The next day, I find a comment on the same post to my best friend, by another ‘random acquaintance’ from college. It was laced with sarcasm and ran along the following lines:
“I never knew someone could have so much fun doing measure drawing. Congratulations on your life’s achievements”
And the first thing I thought was, ‘What a loser’, and of course, defensive as I am, I gave him a piece of my mind, in my own style. ;)
Then I thought, as I usually do a lot of times, why did I even bother. Some people are just stuck in the rut of mediocrity, and being in the position that they are, they can do little else apart from criticizing. My dad once told me (I tend to quote him quite often),
“You can measure your progress in life by counting the number of people who want to pull you down. Then again, you don’t want to. Because being in a position to do so is the first sign of your progress.”
I guess right now I’m just amused. Amused enough to blog about this. I’m not even bothered in the least about the fact that when I go to college tomorrow, I will be the object of a lot of ‘hatred’, so to speak. Not because this is a candid chat with the rest of the world, but because a lot of people didn’t even start their work, for whatever reasons, and I won’t judge them for it.
But the fact of the matter is, I did slave through my vacations, I did give up going out with friends, and I did spend a lot of time, energy, and resources, going around, doing work and getting it done and over with.
Not because I was supposed to, but because I wanted to.
And THAT, my friends, is why I have the upper hand.
;)
Ohki so I study in one of the most prestigious architecture schools of my country.
And I actually chuckled to myself when I looked up to check the previous line for typos.
Let me substantiate that with real-life drama. It’s been more than two months now, since our summer vacations started. On the last day of college, which also happened to be the day of our Building Construction examination, my class was herded into the graphics studio and handed out project briefs for the summer vacations; the said projects to be submitted on the first day of college. We groaned and grumbled, as expected, but read the briefs anyway.
The projects weren’t simple at all. We had to measure our houses top to bottom, centimeter for centimeter and profile our house. Not only that, we had to study the lifestyle of our own families and evaluate spaces.
All complicated stuff for somebody with non-specific knowledge in architecture, like you, and fair enough, seeing how complicated it was for us. The problem was, that this wasn’t going to be a ‘let’s do a cover job’ project.
It had to be a published book.
I’ll be honest, and tell you I worked my arse off for it. 20 days into our summer vacation and the measuring tape was already an extension of my body. And I finished the job yesterday, at 5 10 am. One and a half months, I slaved, with an image of the perfect case study in mind.
And just two days back I found out, practically nobody had done the work, barring a few friends of mine. Some had not even started. This really didn’t affect me.
I’ll tell you what did.
In my euphoria at having finished it after so long, I went berserk on facebook and posted my elation all over my friends’ walls. My best friend, Buj (studies in the same college), was also among the chosen few who I wrote to.
The next day, I find a comment on the same post to my best friend, by another ‘random acquaintance’ from college. It was laced with sarcasm and ran along the following lines:
“I never knew someone could have so much fun doing measure drawing. Congratulations on your life’s achievements”
And the first thing I thought was, ‘What a loser’, and of course, defensive as I am, I gave him a piece of my mind, in my own style. ;)
Then I thought, as I usually do a lot of times, why did I even bother. Some people are just stuck in the rut of mediocrity, and being in the position that they are, they can do little else apart from criticizing. My dad once told me (I tend to quote him quite often),
“You can measure your progress in life by counting the number of people who want to pull you down. Then again, you don’t want to. Because being in a position to do so is the first sign of your progress.”
I guess right now I’m just amused. Amused enough to blog about this. I’m not even bothered in the least about the fact that when I go to college tomorrow, I will be the object of a lot of ‘hatred’, so to speak. Not because this is a candid chat with the rest of the world, but because a lot of people didn’t even start their work, for whatever reasons, and I won’t judge them for it.
But the fact of the matter is, I did slave through my vacations, I did give up going out with friends, and I did spend a lot of time, energy, and resources, going around, doing work and getting it done and over with.
Not because I was supposed to, but because I wanted to.
And THAT, my friends, is why I have the upper hand.
;)
Friday, July 24, 2009
Here goes nothing
Seriously. Here goes nothing. I'll be completely honest. I've started writing this blog to make up for some erroneous decisons I made. Bad judgment. Completely impulsive and utterly stupid. You see I started a blog named 'DesiDarling'. I had just about had it up till here *points to neck* with Rakhi Sawant and her histrionics on her show. So with mockery on my mind, I wrote my first post.
Before I continue to tell you what it's contents were, I'll tell you one thing. I have, over the years, become very discriminatory by nature. I tend to like a certain kind of people and stay away from a certain others. With that comes a certain kind of arrogance which borders on considering people of a certain mindset beneath me. I know this is wrong. But I'm sure I'm not the only one. This 'kind' that I tend to 'not like' are those who who are stuck in the trappings of narrowmindedness. And I tagged them, albeit unfairly, 'the unevolved'.
Let me tell you what 'desidarling' was all about, really.
It was about mocking unfortunate people. Poking fun at their silliness. This included those who do not have access to high street fashion. And those whose lifestyles lack finesse. Those people who don't have the money and exposure to know better than they do. Oiled hair, excessive gold jewellery et al. The paan chewing, ripped-jeans wearing Indian.
Later did I realise, perhaps I was being the most 'unevolved'of them all. Instead of sitting up and being grateful for the fact that I can read good books, travel the world, savour excellent cuisine, and am fortunate enough to have a decent dressing sense; I was mocking those who don't have all this. And probably can't have all this.
I was being pig-headed and narrow minded in all my judgemental glory. My dad often says,'It takes all kinds to make the world.' He's so right. Right now I feel just plain lucky and fortunate to be born into the surroundings and the family that I am born into. I have absolutely no right whatsoever to make fun of those who don't have access to the finer things in life.
I know I would hate me if I was at the recieving end of my own ire. And discriminatory ire of such kind.
I regret writing what I did. Although I still maintain my standards of mixing around with like-minded people, I have given up my pretensions and I just want peaceful co-existance with everyone. I'm sorry for behaving like such a prick.
<3
Before I continue to tell you what it's contents were, I'll tell you one thing. I have, over the years, become very discriminatory by nature. I tend to like a certain kind of people and stay away from a certain others. With that comes a certain kind of arrogance which borders on considering people of a certain mindset beneath me. I know this is wrong. But I'm sure I'm not the only one. This 'kind' that I tend to 'not like' are those who who are stuck in the trappings of narrowmindedness. And I tagged them, albeit unfairly, 'the unevolved'.
Let me tell you what 'desidarling' was all about, really.
It was about mocking unfortunate people. Poking fun at their silliness. This included those who do not have access to high street fashion. And those whose lifestyles lack finesse. Those people who don't have the money and exposure to know better than they do. Oiled hair, excessive gold jewellery et al. The paan chewing, ripped-jeans wearing Indian.
Later did I realise, perhaps I was being the most 'unevolved'of them all. Instead of sitting up and being grateful for the fact that I can read good books, travel the world, savour excellent cuisine, and am fortunate enough to have a decent dressing sense; I was mocking those who don't have all this. And probably can't have all this.
I was being pig-headed and narrow minded in all my judgemental glory. My dad often says,'It takes all kinds to make the world.' He's so right. Right now I feel just plain lucky and fortunate to be born into the surroundings and the family that I am born into. I have absolutely no right whatsoever to make fun of those who don't have access to the finer things in life.
I know I would hate me if I was at the recieving end of my own ire. And discriminatory ire of such kind.
I regret writing what I did. Although I still maintain my standards of mixing around with like-minded people, I have given up my pretensions and I just want peaceful co-existance with everyone. I'm sorry for behaving like such a prick.
<3
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