Conversation

A vocalist friend of mine said, in contemplation:
He: You know, there's only one thing I won't say when I grow up.
Me: What?
He: "I used to sing when I was a kid."

And in the continuous search for permanency, we forget to appreciate the beauty of everything that is transient.

Or maybe its how we perceive things that make them seem lasting or temporary.

It's all in the mind.

To cut a long post short

So much of time goes into figuring out life no.
That's why the older are wiser.

The birthday post - 21

( for those who read part 1 a year back.. here's part 2 )
Confessions of an almost 21 year old.

I am almost proper adult!
I have to start acting and feeling like one.
I have to stop chewing my nails.
I have to stop saying "when i grow up I'm going to.."

The seeds of maturity are sprouting i think.
Change has happened- in a series of overnight life changing incidents put together.
Change is happening..Waking up wiser everyday.
I've learnt from other people's mistakes as well as my own.

I've read so much n its amazing how so many more books are waiting to be devoured.
I've listened to so much music n theres still so much music floating around waiting to be heard.
My problem is that I'm always in a hurry to get things done.
Because there's so much more left to do no after that?

Being single gives me a strange feeling of self-satisfaction.
I love it.

I'm an extremist.
I'm an ICSE-snob.
Watercolours are a weakness.
Sugar cubes also.
Transparency is just so important in any relationship.
I need to stop accidentally sending messages to wrong recipients.Soon.

It takes guts to accept change.
I do enid blyton quizzes when I'm bored.
My thoughts form faster than I can put them into words.
I get alarmed sometimes about where my career is heading.. eeii what am i going to do.

I rarely forget.
Meaningless things are special to me.
I have a photographic memory.
My mood almost always depends on the weather.
Home is so solid and real.

Reason and emotion are constantly battling inside me.
I want those glow shoes and i want to go partying in them.. it might actually make me dance n all.
I like gel toothpastes they look like light sabers from star wars.
You'll find white spots of sleepily dribbled toothpaste on my nightclothes.

I love my room.
I love the squirrel on the window sill.
Gimme a keyboard and I can sit in one place for hours together.
I like drinking coffee out of steel tumbler and tea out of a cup.

The weirdest thing I've ever been called is " subtly vicious".
I dont understand break ups and cutting off completely from someone who's been part of your life at some point of time.
I believe everything can be sorted out if you can stretch your capacity to understand and accept.
I'm a total optimist.

I am tired of writing illogical tests that come nowhere close to testing your actual problem-solving skills.
Its not like I dont have answers i always have too many and cant pick.
I suck at decision-making.
I'm pretty much going around in circles.

I cant walk slowly.( you guys know..!)
I've been told I resemble a penguin more than once.
I always have something to say.
I am repetitive.
I seem to attract mallus like a magnet.
I finally found where all the cute guys in hyd are. Google! Eyecandy
It seems the easiest way for a girl to get a guy is to play hard to get.
It's never worked for me.
I've found that love is what you want it to be.
I've found love.
I cant drive big cars- I dont understand th dimensions and what I might hit when i turn.
Anything to do with oceans and seas and ships and ports and marine animals fascinate me.
IT parks are just depressing.
I've written over 100 poems.
I hate being called a poet.
The word reminds of me an old man reciting his lines to silent brooding pieces of victorian furniture.
Or a girl with airy-fairy ideas about the world.
and I am not both!
I'm a writer.
I'm still waiting for that point in life where everything will settle and go smoothly.. but whats point of life being straight line graph.
Put them bundled up sine waves all over the place.
I desperately want to change my email and blog address( moimystique!) but its too much of pain now, after all these years.
There's nothing like roaming around on the streets of chennai and having coffee on the roadside.
There was a time when I thought i was in love but i wasnt sure.
Then i thought i was in love again, this time i was sure, but it was too complicated.
And i was suddenly falling in love all over the place and decided i must be having some hormonal problems.
I've realised that nothing is constant.
It's always the beginning when you think its the end.
I am convinced that the world needs me.

I couldn't ask for more.

Enough

I want to live in a country where I don't have to stand in long queues for everything.

I ask

Conclusions Part 1

Short hair makes ass look bigger.
Blue toothpaste makes teeth blue but red doesnt seem to make em red.
Songs can hold your life.
Men are SO annoying but we need them anyway...Sigh.
You never feel like writing in a new white plain pages book.
Your own voice sounds better when no one's around.
There's no reverse gear.
You never want to throw away old posters that have been in your room.
The alphabet 'L' reminds me of water.
It's mortifying to send a message to the wrong recipient, switch off phone for ages throw away sim card for a while and then get a delivery report when you switch it back on.
It's comforting to know that other people are as clueless as you are.

Who woulda thought!

On the train back from Bangalore, I made conversation with this guy sitting next to me. Turns out he works for this zipper company,(yeah, zipper) and he spent some time explaining the different parts of the zipper pointing to the one on my bag...I was slightly taken aback, I hadn't really thought about the working of zippers before.There's even something called a zipper truck in some places,which i found quite fascinating. He was a bit show-offish ("oh, i know aallll languages, I'm a marketing guy, u know") so I decided to check if he was bluffing once I got back.

So I read up on this company,it is a Japanese company called YKK,the biggest manufacture of zippers in the world. I checked my jeans, bags, all zips had YKK inscribed on them, I hadnt even noticed before. Branded zippers!! There are even fake ones cuz they're so popular.

Read up on zipper history.Then got to reading bout how Velcro came about.

Suddenly have a new range of things to dwell on.

Today

I have painted nails and I want to be a skydiver.

Window

Every night I see this light from my room. It is far away,blinks yellow and green alternately. My window faces the hills,which line the highway. There is a lot of empty land in between. So when i look out,i can see a million tiny lights far far away and total blackness otherwise. And towards the left there is this mystery light flashing throughout the night.. and it's quite big even from this distance and if you stare long enough you can see that white ring around it.

My room view is all about peace and quiet this year. Lot of activity, but peaceful activity goes on outside. Very unlike railway facing room of last year,with the constant rumbling of trains.

There's a pond outside covered in moss,which big yellow machine came and swallowed up yesterday. So now its all clear, and mirrors the sky and clouds and trees. Can spot kingfishers and white birds (egrets?) taking dips sometimes. Blue bus sails by every morning at 7ish, I think its a school bus of some sort. It's a quiet road, used to walk there very often.. can almost see myself walking down when I look out. Farmers at work in their paddy fields, stray cow or two, bullock carts. Its like watching still life, but with slight changes in the painting everyday.

When it's noisy, it's jarring-when it's peaceful,the calm is overwhelming. Life's like that no sometimes?

Annoyingly loud squirrel tries to strike a balance though, waking us up every dawn. Pah.

Vent

So I am becoming expert in family tree sums. Gimme number of males, females, who is whose son in law and I’ll tell u in jiffy if M is A's grandmother or sister or daughter. I did off all family sums from ims, time, brilliant study material and I feel so smug.

Then no today i am also very happy because for first time in life I worked out sum without looking at option and I got 12487.5 and wow it was one of options and it was right!! I was so thrilled I will become like Byju guy and they will stick posters of me with my 100 percentile in CAT all over the place yay.

Tried to sort out things for a friend but suddenly found myself more involved than expected..weekend was blur of hyperemotional phone calls and math. Patience and tolerance levels got tested like anything. Mercury meniscus reached alarming levels but somehow everything blew over and then there was peace. Also saw sad old Hindi movies... Amitabh is such a hero no boohoo.

As always, life here is sudden burst of activity with me trying to frantically juggle everything at once, and then there'll be a lull when everything moves at typically Vellorian slow motion before next hurricane arrives.

As of now I need sleep.

Jusht oly Happy

heyyyy today its raining again after relentless burning scorching heat for like ages and yesterday being the hottest day in vellore and now its all breezy and stormy and rainy and lightningy and we jammed and sang in music room in evening... harmony sounds so much clearer and prettier in the rain thunder drumrolls and all i walked back to hostel at night and grinned at myself stupidly in all the puddles hop skip jump i want onion sambar

Fear

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you."

- from Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

I wish silence was a song I could put on headphones and listen to.

The Semester That Was

music room jamming sessions, college fests, surprises, drives on the highway,train journeys, truth or dare, treks, crossing rivers, insomnia, break ups, tears, laughter, anger, detention, hangovers, bangalore, xeroxes, trippin, classes, meditation, CMC, coffee, maggi, confusion, blind dates, singapore, blurred weekends, bunking, movies, chennai trips, shopping, samosas, concerts, alcohol, jazz, secrets, career planning, books, birthdays, exams, low attendance, kerala, exploring, mood swings, poems, volunteering, star-gazing, stupidity, rain dances, philosophy, detachment, seminars, classes, resumes, bus ride, the gang, acapellas, giggles, madness, sky blue happiness
Third year was the bestest. Till now.

Train Spotting

I love watching trains. My room overlooks the railway line. Long blue trains rumble and rattle past,people hanging on to the door. Some coaches are painted with funny ads in bright purple or red,these are usually the green and yellow local trains-on the whole, making for a colourful sight. In the night,you can see silver silhouettes of people standing at the footboard.

Engines are smart and funky..and also warm and welcoming. Sometimes they bring along the train,sometimes theyre alone,and free. Driver enjoying his little ingin to himself for a while.

Some introvert trains hurriedly whoosh past,window bars merge with motion lines. Some slow down,let out a long lazy hoot and come to a halt. The loud ones blow their conches,a distant POOOM which gradually grows into a Doppler effect crescendo and fades away.

Goods trains are morose and wooden though. 68 wagons trudge along,their souls heavy with coal. They creak,give out exhausted pressure-cooker sighs.They remind me of escaped-convicts-turned-philanthropists.The corduroy ones with their closed boxes slink away, like theyre hiding some dark,murky secrets. The water tankers are way better though, they dont look as emaciated, with their well rounded bellies.

And the best way to watch a train,is to watch it till the end,till the picture of the standing man waving his flag disappears round the bend.

Must Listen!!

Virtual Barbershop!!!The most amazing piece of recording ever!
Download here .. Needs high quality headphones,wont work otherwise.

Heavy Stuff!

Been reading this thought-provoking book called the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. The gist of the entire book is that everything happens but once,everyone has only one life to live(as opposed to Nietzsche's idea of eternal return). This one-time occurence may be seen as not to have occured at all, thus making it insignificant and of no consequence.This means that our lives are 'light' and this lightness of our actions,the lightness of our being is unbearable-in the end,making it heavy. Somewhat a confusing concept,it goes around in circles but rather nice to ponder about.

Personally,I think the book is a bit too much to take after the first three chapters-it turns out to be rather depressing and disturbing with the main guy Tomas moaning around all the time.I found the way he analyses the weight/lightness issue rather cool though.

Excerpt:

" If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens(das schwerste Gewicht).

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?"

Showers of Blessings

Its been raining since last night!And not the heavy-downpour-messy-mucky-stay-indoors types. Its the go-dance-around-hair-loose-bollywood-ishtyle kind. On and off spells,just the right amount of clouds and wind too.

Everybody go get wet!

Vellore Part 1

The familiar silhouette of the Sathuvachari hills. After spending three years in this dry, hot, dusty little town, I've grown to love it. I've walked straight to these hills across the paddy/sugarcane fields and coconut farms.Behind the rows of coconut trees is the Palar river which I crossed on foot(quite an awful idea,it turned out to be Vellore's drainage and garbage dump-but it was an accomplishment all the same). Most of these hills have old ruined forts on top that have never ceased to fascinate me. Quite a plain photograph but special to me, a reminder of my many Vellore adventures.

I look out of my bus window and this is what I see. Seems to welcome me home.