contemplative

I suffer from two syndromes. One is exhaustive overthinking and the other is overthinking in exhaustion. Both dont seem to be very productive.

new

Before I can recover from one college life, another has begun. A sprawling leafy campus, endless classes and new faces. And the old friends and the music. The mad jumble-tumble of a schedule is about to begin.. in the heart of this dirty, hot, happening, charming, growing-on-me tamilian city, so full of sweaty activity.

Life has been updated.

Four years down

And i'm older,wiser,proudly parading about with my graduate status and readily obliging to spill some of this accumulated enlightenment.

College has been a series of cup-of-life-runneth-over-type experiences-from the crazy impromptu trips to the quiet reading in the room, from the screaming jumping rock concerts to the more sober evenings. I devoured books, frowning over pages of literature and philosophy. I discovered and rediscovered music- I met some brilliant musicians who introduced me to some brilliant musicians. I climbed hills. Everything just flowed freely.There was an appealing rawness about life.

I came across some incredibly talented people, some extremely nice people and some crazy people. Some have been constant,steady and steadying.Some swept me off my feet, some put me back firmly on the ground. Everyone I met had a role to play that, on looking back, seemed to fit in place.

Here, all our lives did hotchpotchedly intersect.

Now grown ups, and being expected to behave so, we will, as the little prince says, busy ourselves with matters of greater consequence.

living in myself

I have started writing some cliched verses nowadays. Probably because they are born of a phase that everyone goes through- or as is more likely, I just cant think of a better way to put things. Weighted words,that desperately search for simplicity. Writing has always given me clarity in thought but this time I'm just letting everything be tangled up (in blue :P). To ignore and walk around it seems, atleast momentarily, easier than straightening it out.

And in this, lies an overwhelming and strangely satisfying disconnection with the world which gives me a feeling of being almost invincible.

muse

its all about finding that perfect imbalance. precarious and breathtaking, yet firm.

perspective, vellore

To this place where I've found peace.

After having lived in a city for most part of my life, Vellore has been quite an experience. The place has grown on me. And how much! Vellore is a small quaint town, with busy streets in and around CMC..and inactivity pervading pretty much everywhere else.

People are happy here. They'd be happier with more rainfall*. But yes, people are a happy lot and life moves at a human pace. Vellore is full of suprises if you know where to look. Orange/pink houses spring up boldly out of paddy fields.. such an anachronism. Evening walks,among green fields and farmers' huts are pleasant and are a stark contrast to the monstrous concrete blocks of vit. Kids play on the streets, grandmoms sit on the verandahs watching them, cows chew their cud and all's right with the world. Such content beings.

The place radiates a simplicity that is heart-warming. People are not in the least conscious. They possess an atrocious sense of spelling and give their shops atrocious names, but they are so blissfully unaware of this. (Darling residency.. not to mention the baby too). Its amusing. And why the beedi is goat marked is still a mystery.

Home to one of the busiest hospitals in the country, some brilliant NGOs, two good colleges, an old fort/temple of historical importance, dhabas and a million eat-outs, 50-rupees-t-shirts.
And to everyone who has been here and has been a victim of its quiet charm.

* the rains here are just beautiful

all about and over

There seems to be a struggle for expression these days. While there is a constant flow of ideas and thoughts in my mind which I try to put down, I miserably fail to do so. Sentences, upon my reading, seem to glaringly lack meaning and substance. Words, they fail to reproduce even half of an experience, a vision, a colour, a chord. In my mind they dont flow as well-punctuated sentences. Instead,they form an abstract jumble,like graffiti on a wall, refusing to be bound by the clarity that I seek to express myself with.

It is difficult to share what is so mine. I'm not quite sure whether I would call it restless curiosity or greed that makes me want to de-track just to experience what I would not have, had I not taken a detour. I'm in the category of people who suffer from an overabundance of life and when there is a lull I have to take a walk and look for more, for fear that I might miss out on something.

I would love to share, but my inability to express is clinging on, as if it fears that a part of me would be lost if I did. So much lives in a song I grew up on, in my favourite reading spot under that tree, in a cloudy sky. Even simple experiences make my words slink away shamefully,having been made aware of their incompetency.

It seems that in general, so much is personal to me. The problem of inexpression is not half as frustrating as the need to express is. Which, in turn, is not as bothering as is the fact that you might never know what it is like to be me.