#6: A beautiful forever

A part of your beautiful forever...

Childhood ends, you see life,
You see your forevers die out.
You wonder, can I ever have a beautiful one?
Your heart whispers yes, the world says no,
So deep in dreams you go.

There you find your favourite forever,
You climb mountains, soar the skies,
Romp over dry leaves, slide in the snow,
Feel what you read, jump and laugh,
Dance in the rain, sing in halves.

You read in sunshine, write what you may,
Watch butterflies, birds, mountains, rivers,
Watch people you love and people you like,
Watch aurora borealis lighting up the sky,
Watch your life feeling peaceful as time goes by.

You learn to live, you live to love,
You love to live again,
You wish to share that beautiful forever, 
With no one but the one you wish to claim,
The one that survived in all the forevers
That, in the world's recklessness, died.

***

Read my previous NaPoWriMo poems here:

#2: Forsaken soul

#3: Exhaustion

#4: Night dreamer

#5: I choose...

 

Some Awesomeness!

Y'know you're a goner, a pure victim of injustice if you're in a college where they take your Sunday and exchange it with a fully packed day and you still go to every single class because one, attendance issues and two, you're saving the holidays for later. You have any idea how such 14 days can be? 14 straight days of classes from 8.30 to 5.30, with every single class requiring you to take some tests or assignments or presentations or cases? Total stupidity. So when a teacher takes mercy and postpones his assignment's due date and you get one day when you don't have any submission the next day, you're so confused that you don't know what to do! You feel sleepy but you feel that'd be wasting time :P You sit down to send sane replies to pending emails, you feel emotionally awesome because an email would be from someplace you don't know, sent by a person you don't know, saying how they can connect to what you write and what they feel about it. That is when you feel like you're actually achieving your goals in small increments, because that is what you really wanted. :D

Anyway, that is also the time when you know you desperately want to blog but you're in no state to think and write. You would then consult your writer-friend and he'd give you a really awesomely weird prompt. This is what I got as a prompt:

"Write ten things about yourself that make you so proud that you want to hug yourself!"

Source: Google

Weird, right? :P I actually had to consult this friend who gave no more than one point, saying 'You're supposed to do this yourself.' Consulting with mom led to simple but cool answers (and I feel awesome my mom thinks so ;) ) And as much as I believe and think we're supposed to stay humble and not mumble (it's okay dudes. We are allowed to write words just to make them annoyingly rhyming :P ), I also feel like doing some self-motivation thingy and list some things about myself I feel are awesome! ;) I mean, it's cool, you guys. Please don't run off to the International Commission for Searching and Awarding Insanely Awesome People to nominate my name. I'm above all such materialistic stuff. ;)

# 10: I love to read. Many people love to read, I know, but I love it. I love more the fact that I have been reading ever since I could. In a place where there is hardly any culture of bedtime reading, I'm lucky that even as a kid I had the brains to read books my age :P (Yeah, it's obviously because of my parents who encouraged me, but still). I read children's stories and classics when I should have, Enid Blyton and Nancy Drews, and yep, I was 12 when I started reading the Harry Potter books, so that is awesome! And people who read are nevertheless awesome just by virtue of being readers, so that's an added plus!

# 9: I have amazing blogs. And I find them amazing because I completely adore them. This blog contains my evolution as a person, witnessed through the stories I've typed here. This is where I have always come when I needed to bring something off my heart, where I felt awesome while writing. This here, my second baby, is where I can freely (and super-enthusiastically) talk about my favorite topic: books. And it led me to many more book lovers, including an amazing girl from another country who is now a pen-friend. :D These blogs are not popular, nor do I wish for them to be. Popularity brings with it too much noise and distractions and yes, spam, and I'm better off without having to deal with those. ;)

There's one fact I love about these two blogs, that I don't actually do a rigorous promotion for them, because of which they tend to have people who are genuinely interested. This holds more true for the book blog, because I'd rather have a few reader, book-lover, genuine review-seekers to be on my blog than many random people just because I know them from somewhere. Genuineness adds such a feel-good factor! :)

# 8: I'm one of those 'old-school' characters. I've never really understood the term properly, but despite being the kid of the 21st century, brought up in co-ed educational backgrounds, among super-fast technological developments and super-fast people, I'm the kind of person who'd have been happier living in 'the good old times'. I rarely identify with the modernities, I refuse to believe in changing roles and behavior of people where everyone is convinced that being fast and chant is the way to success. I'd prefer to go slow and steady in any kind of relationship. I'm aware of everything new and modern, but I'd rather not live that way.

# 7: I love writing. It's one activity that never makes me feel jumpy or anxious when I have to do it. I feel nervous about a lot of things, including group activities in class, presentations, and wherever else I'm supposed to answer. But that's not the case with writing. It's something I've always been comfortable with. I don't write great, I don't have a good vocabulary, but I'd just always prefer writing in simple words (because okay, no great vocab -_-) for everything I need to convey. Well, maybe not everything, but most of the stuff. I was that weirdly awesome kid in school who loved English classes and looked forward to them; the one who loved doing grammar exercises, who never had trouble writing answers, who wrote short essays that got read in class. :D #nerd mode on. 

# 6: I don't get bored. Seriously, that makes me a boring person for others but I don't get bored myself. :P There's always some thing roaming around in my head, for my brain never sleeps, and if there's nothing (or no one :P ) interesting enough to observe, there'd be whole sentences forming in my head, as if it's writing a book on its own. It's crazy, but I love it. Considering how I anyway don't get much time to write, at least my brain has taken it upon itself to practice. ;) And yeah, lack of boredom tends to make you patient because you're not restless when nothing interesting is happening around you. 

# 5: I have interesting interests. Y'know, they're interesting to me. The thing I've noticed about people who're patient, and weird and fun, is that they have interests outside or not strictly based on their main area of academics. There has always been something I've had when I got bored of studies. Books, art and craft, some online course, blogging, learning and practicing photography, reviewing books, collecting clothes' tags, etc. One more reason I can't get bored! 

# 4: I'm 16% tomboyish. Mostly girls might not like to call themselves tomboyish and count it as an 'awesome' thing about them, but duh. I feel awesome when guys in class play cricket and I can ask for an over to bat, when we have a fun play-thing and I am the rare girl who actually can bat and ball and catch (seriously. Some don't even know how to hold a bat. o.O ). I loved my childhood days when I played with G all sorts of games; cricket (how I loved it), basketball (making a swiveling motion and saying 'Basket!' was awesome), cycling (I still would run off on a bicycle if useless dogs don't run after me), skating, taking the remote controlled Renault awesome car to the park and operating it with ultimate cool-girl attitude, etc etc. I can seriously go on and on. :D 

# 3: I'm kind of above the trivial things. I don't mean to dismiss those who do talk about such stuff, but for me it's cool and I feel awesome that I can't be bothered about little things like who's hot on TV, or what's "in" in fashion, or how someone acted because someone told them how someone else said something about them. o.O This took a while to think to form the sentence, I can't imagine how people get the energy to gossip about it. I'd rather discuss the book I'm reading with someone who seems to understand. But when people themselves tend to be critical about everything, I don't feel like they'd understand the point and so I'm left with just a few who allow me that liberty. And I love it! :D

# 2: I'm the slimmer, older, pink-loving, cheesy version of an amazing girl with an amazing blog who happens to be one of the closest friends and my soul-sister. :) 

A note to those who don't believe in making friends online: I used to think like you too, and then I discovered blogging. And if you are at the right blog, you'd get to meet and talk to the most amazing people. Evidence is here. ;) I have awesome people in my life. Those who love me even when I seem to behave like the craziest person ever, who actually laugh at my jokes (and they are actually good if you have that awesome level of understanding 8| ) and these people include my family and best friends. Thank you guys. ^_^ 

# 1: I have faith in my dreams. Even though from where I am right now, I can't see the destination, I do know I'd get there. And I'd make most of the journey, because the means is important to me, not just the end. I make achievable goals and aspirations too. For everything I love. I always wanted to see more people reading, not just because "I" like it, but because it is an amazing thing. Sometimes unfortunately it might not work, if you ask and force someone to read a book, but I got to know how one can indirectly influence people and facilitate their discovery of books they love. Whenever someone says that they started reading more, or have read books based on my reviews, I have felt that feeling of success and happiness that I really can't describe. :)

***

I started writing this post almost a month ago. This prompt was given a month ago. After the introduction, I had points 10 to 1, numbers written. I did not know what to write, I couldn't figure out the awesome things about myself. Even today, I had to take help because I was sitting blank. I asked the two best people, I asked my mom (who invented a term called 'negative awesome things' because she wanted to point out the bad ones too -_- Thanks, mum.) and then when I finally started writing, it came to me. I have a lot more points in my head now!! And I can't really say a lot on it because the fact that I felt so good after so long, is something no one can understand fully. I just need to say Thank you to all who facilitated this. Keep looking out for more awesomeness! It's sure to come! ;)

The Last Message...

**A short story**

July 14, 2013

I spent last night tossing and turning, making Shobha get up twice and bring me some water to deal with my dry throat. And when finally I felt the sun rays sifting through the small square window over my tired face, I got up, dressed for work, hurriedly gulped down breakfast Shobha prepared and left home before any of my sons had woken up. 

The outside looked just like it always did: the familiar smell of old brick and cement coming from age old houses on both sides of the narrow lane. Ours was right in the center of the gali so that it did not matter where you entered from. The distance would be the same. It had rained last night, just like it had been raining the past few nights. The ground had a musty smell about it, and as I carefully stepped over the puddles and muck, dawn gave in to a brighter day. I always believed people gave a lot of importance to everything at face value. It's wrong. If any of the regular folks would see me right now, they would see a 65 year old Badri in his regular white kurta pajama and brown Bata sandals, walking towards the closed down church (now kabootarkhana), to feed the birds and then going towards his shop in Kashmere Gate, working well past retirement. I wonder if they know. I wish they did, but on second thoughts, how does it matter to them? This day is different from the rest and probably for the first time in my life, I feel nervous about going to work. 

I pick up some flowers and agarbatti and reach my shop. I'm in a mixed state of mind when I see I'm not the first one there. I pass a smile at Madia. "I should be surprised to know you feel sentimental about today, but I'm not" I sigh as I add, "It's been a long time". The clerk's eyes displayed the kind of sadness that makes you wish like you never saw it. The kind that sucks out all hope. I did not want to see it. I looked around. Madia had already made the place look clean. A lot cleaner than before, in fact. "Sit down Badri sahib, I'll get tea for you," he said.

I saw the middle aged man disappear from the workroom. Turning to the small mandir, I lighted up the agarbatti and prayed. A little longer today. Lord Krishna's face stared back at me as I reminisced about the past, remembering all these years I sat here, in this office, knowing about lives and families of the people who came to me. I didn't know what my life would be when the day ended, I just knew it would be very different from how it has been in the last 50 years. I had been putting up a brave face all this time, but I always felt too exposed to God when I prayed, like He knew and it did not matter if tears rolled down while praying, because He understood. 

I shuffled across the room and sat down at my old desk. I opened the drawers, unlocked the machine, put my hands together on the worn out table, interlocking my fingers together, looking out the open door towards the morning street activity. I glanced at the round wall clock above my head. 9 a.m. Gautamaditya would be on his way, just like every second Sunday of the month. I breathed out and sat down to wait. 

***

Sept. 27, 1963

"Babaaaa!! Where are you going Baba? It is a Sunday! Won't you be home? Are you going out to eat? Will you please take me along?" Aadi fired these questions in his high pitched eight year old voice, running out barefoot in the verandah of their home. Jagmohan Lal smiled at the dancing boy and said, "Get your chappals and come along." A few minutes later they were walking down the tiny streets shaded with three storey houses in Daryaganj. Walking 4 kilometers with Aadi made him revisit history, for he felt happily obligated to answer the curious kid's curious questions about everything that came their way. It was 9.30 in the morning by the time they reached Somlal's office. They went in through the open door, straight up to the man behind a wooden desk and a machine on top.

"Ah, Jagmohan! Kya sandesa laaye ho?" Somlal started gathering up long thin strips of paper. He looked at Aadi through his wire rimmed glasses as Jagmohan pulled out his folder to take out a piece of paper. Aadi held on to a piece of his Baba's kurta, for he found this place very different, and he could barely contain his questions. Somehow he knew this was Baba's work and so he simply looked at the table and the machine on it. It was rectangular, almost a square, but not quite. Aadi did his maths well. He saw his Baba handing over a paper to the bespectacled man, who started pasting small strips of paper with funny dots and dashes on those long strips. Once done, he carefully inserted those into the machine, which beeped once, twice, thrice as they went in and out. "Do you like it, my first customer of the day?" 

Aadi was brought out of his reverie when he realized the man was looking at him, expecting an answer. "Yes! What happened? What is this?" He was now right next to Somlal, hand hovering over the machine, not sure whether to touch it or not. Somlal gently placed the boy's hand on top of the machine, a little warm from the effort. "This is a telegraph machine. Your Baba just sent a message to your eldest brother in Ranchi, asking him to come home for Diwali." Inspired by Aadi's awestruck expression and glancing towards the door in case he missed any customer, Somlal explained how telegrams were sent. 

***

Sept. 24, 1974

Aadi walked past the Red Fort in a hurry. His heart was thumping loudly, hammering across his chest as he skipped a few paces in the early dawn light. It is too early in the morning, he thought. He stood outside Somlal & Sons. Telegraph Office, the closed shutter making him want to tear up. He paced forward and back on the street, and then sat hunched in front of the office, waiting for someone to show up. 

It was 8.30 a.m. when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Badri, Somlal ji's son in his late twenties was standing there, looking at him worriedly. He got up. "Please Badri, I have to call bhaiya home. Ma is not well and I... she.. she's not well." Aadi handed him a paper with his short and to-the-point message. Badri hurriedly opened the office, made Aadi sit with a cup of tea ordered from the neighbouring dhaba and set to work. He loved the job, but the only thing that kept him from being happy while working was the fact that he would be the first to know bad news. Worse, the one to send the news to people who'd probably tear up just knowing they had a telegram. 

'Come home soon STOP Ma unwell END'

***

Jan 9, 1986

A 31 year old Aadi in an unwashed kurta looked way too enthusiastic than his appearance allowed. But he did not care. Entering the telegraph office, he opened his box of meethai and took out a barfi. "Muh meetha karo Badri! Aaj khushi ka dinn hai" he sang as a delighted Badri filled his mouth with barfi. "What's the good news?" 

"My wife brought a little Laxmi in our home! I have a daughter too now! She gave birth to the baby this morning! I have to send a telegram to bhaiya!"

'God blessed us with a baby girl STOP Come see her STOP We miss you END'

***

Mar 18, 1998

Aadi stood in a queue in Badri's office, the overhead fan not doing much to dry out his sweat. He regretted not going his Baba's way and sending telegrams in the morning. It became crowded at this time. Too many people with too many messages. I wonder how many of these people are sending threats to government officials, how many sending orders. Is there someone like me, waiting to send in a telegram saying I won't be here for a few years? That I'm being transferred and I'll live without my family all these years? I hope not, he thought.

He transcribed his message, sending it across to bhaiya and said a temporary, heart-felt goodbye to Badri. "I'll see you soon, friend. Take care." Badri smiled as he watched Aadi's familiar gait disappear around the corner.

'Transferred to Lucknow for three years STOP Keep checking on family END'

***

June 24, 2004

Walking through the quiet morning streets, Badri felt that familiar feeling of liberation, of being the only survivor in this brutal age when funny (but really not so funny) new developments in the field of technology were keeping people more inside their homes than ever. He did feel sad about a lot of things, his gradually declining number of customers for one. He was pleasantly surprised to see a well dressed Aadi standing outside his unopened office, a big box of sweets in his hand. 

"Good morning Aadi. It's so good to see you! What's the happy occasion?" Badri asked.

Aadi was beaming. "My daughter is a grown up girl now. Uske byah ka sandes bhejna hai. Here, this is an invitation for you" Aadi handed over the box and a card. "Mubarak ho Aadi ji! Half-century ke sath sath beti ka byah!"

'Sudha getting married next month STOP Sent invitation by post STOP Everyone happy END'

***

August 19, 2008

When Badri, in the middle of the process of encoding a message addressed to a government official, looked up and saw Aadi hobbling towards the office in the late monsoon evening, he sensed something was out of place. Aadi was usually the one for morning messages and only came in the afternoons or evenings when it was to send an urgent message. This time however, it didn't seem like he was in any hurry. By the time Badri finished writing and sending the message, Aadi had entered and taken a chair to wait for his turn. He looked absolutely and positively depressed and didn't seem to be in any hurry at all. Badri speedily worked on encoding, decoding messages, the poor machine sputtering as fast as it could. It was getting dark. He walked over to Aadi when the last customer exited, only to shake him and looking at a wrecked man. His face was caked with paths made of dried tears that kept on mixing with fresh ones. 

"It's Sudha," he whispered. "She suffered her third miscarriage. What is she going to do now?" Aadi flopped down on the chair dejectedly. Badri stood with his friend for a long time, just lending him his company. When Aadi got up to leave, he did not stop him. He hated this part of his job. Being the bad-news-breaker. People were scared of Badri's name, for it meant bad news.

'Sad news STOP Sudha miscarried again STOP Your brother Gautamaditya END'

***

July 14, 2013

Madia had brought in tea and for some reason, pakoras for both of us. Like it was supposed to be a party? I bit into the hot stuffed bread-pakora, feeling the heat on my gums, following it with a sip of chai. It was still early morning. Even if it wasn't, it wouldn't have made a difference for I got around 10 customers a day. Gone were the days when Somlal & Sons Telegraph Office was flooded with people of all shapes and sizes, in a hurry to send messages. I had forgotten what it was to be busy, but what would I even do after today? I wouldn't know even this level of busy. It wouldn't be an understatement if I said I was feeling thoroughly angry and equally sad. This wasn't fair, but if I had learned something looking at the thousands of lives I got to know through my messages, it was that life wasn't necessarily fair. And there was little one could do to change it and those who managed to live with that were tagged 'wise men'. 

It was late afternoon when Gautamaditya came in. I tried my usual smile, but all I could manage was a weak imitation. He seemed to understand. There was no paper on him and I wondered if he wished to send a message at all. It was unlike him to come empty handed. "Namaste Badri ji. I just came in to see you. I wondered when I would see you again." He fumbled for words but gave up soon. There was no sense in going circles around the main point. He knew it too, just like I do. Writing telegraphic messages for the past 50 years of my life, I certainly knew what it was to get to the fact of the matter. We were brothers in that same way. Aadi got up and stood over my machine, running his hands over its surface, picking up strips of paper and going through codes. Before I knew it, he started pasting codes on paper, quick and proper. I was shushed down but I was intrigued. Did Aadi know coding? 

After a short while the machine gave a beep. A new kind of a beep, one I rarely heard. An incoming message. Aadi sat down across the desk from me, pulled out enough money for a very long telegraphic message and handed it to me. He then held on to my left hand, just like I did when I delivered news of Sudha's miscarriage. Bewildered, I took out the incoming message. It read:

'I feel sad about telegram vanishing STOP It has been very special and important to me STOP Have shared happiness grief and sadness excitement and news with you and this office STOP You will be missed and I will feel terrible about having to send a message and not coming to you STOP I wanted this message to be the last one STOP Thank you dear friend END'

***

Yes, today marks the last day the telegram survives. 163 years of service and now all thanks to new means of 'faster' and 'effective' communication, it is no more required. I have personally never even seen a telegram. Apologies if there's anything wrong with what I wrote, as far as the technicalities are concerned. I just felt bad about it, not just because I love old stuff, but also because of it's emotional quotient. These things are truly valuable and no technology can make up for it. I guess that's the malady of change.

PS- The telegraph office is actually government owned (BSNL, to be precise), unlike a private office like I made it in the story.

Notebook-ing Memories!

There’s this thing about me: I like notebooks. All kinds of notebooks, especially those which look cute and colorful! As a kid I always loved pretty stationery, I was that one kid in class with, if not fancy, a cute pencil case, different kinds of pencils instead of the standard Nataraj, erasers shaped as fruits, animals or just printed with cartoons, collecting pretty junk for crafts, covering the school diary (which wasn’t standard. We were free to decorate!) with a pink sheet, pasting cut outs of graphic drawings and practicing cursive writing on the cover pages, getting pinkish and cuteish stuff as gifts whenever dad made any trip. Ever since I remember, I’ve always had a personal notebook. The one stacked in between other books and retrieved time and again to jot down anything interesting I came across, or thought of. The name of an interesting movie, quotes from Children’s Digest I liked, books I’ve read and want to read (yeah :P ), anything and everything. I’ve lost most of them, for there was always a new one.

I don’t think I ever finished any one of them. If there was a new one which was cuter than the previous one, I’d shift. Of course, I’d first make promises and classify the notebook for a certain something. ‘This is going to be my quotes book’ or ‘this one will be only about books’, but I’d end up jotting down just whatever I wished. Two days ago a friend told me of a 75% discount on books in those Mediamart kiosks at metro stations. While returning from college, I picked up a book on palmistry for mom (who reads such stuff for time pass) and just then I was drawn to a different shelf with different kinds of notebooks. The plain school kind, the spiral, college kind and then those with Superman, Batman, Barbie on them! I had a two minute mental debate over Superman/Batman for my brother, who isn’t very fond of notebooks as such, but he always appreciates whatever I get for him. And I figured it’d be a nice reminder of the childhood days. As for me, I had been deliberating over the idea of having an ‘idea notebook’ handy, since while travelling when I’m in the ‘relaxed’ mode, I do get a lot of funny, weird but workable ideas for writing. And I tend to forget those very soon. So I picked up a small purple notebook for the purpose and yeah, it’s still unused but looks very cute. ;)

The idea notebook! :D

My property, y'know?

This morning I picked it up to jot down story ideas and as I opened up to the first page, feeling that surge of excitement that comes with something new, already imagining all the spectacular ideas the book would contain, feeling the cardboard and paper beneath my fingers, all smooth and perfect for writing, it simply made me remember all the wonderful similar feelings I’ve always had previously. Thankfully, I still had a few of those notebooks, which I took out and went through again. Ah, the memories! ^_^

Starting with the earliest (among those I’ve got still), this one was gifted to me by an aunt in Ludhiana when we visited their place, once upon a time in 2002 when I was 10 going on 11, and the first entry is a recollection of our trip to Amritsar and how I came upon that diary.

Cute! :D

In case you're wondering, I've deliberately messed up the details!

It’s funny to see my kiddish handwriting, trying to describe everything as it was, crossing out a wrong spelling and following it with the correct one. Here’s a small sample: “When we reached Amritsar and when we were near the hotel, we stopped to see the Jalianwala Bagh. I had never been to Amritsar. This was the first time I went. My father took me (^ inserted: and my family) there. There, we saw many things like the place from where the britishers (small b overlapped with a capital B) fired their guns at innocent people, the place where the britishers (forgetting to overlap this one with a capital B) fired on the walls ie, the spots of guns  bullets on walls and one wall has’nt changed.”

One more: “We went to Golden Temple. There were many people rushing. First, we had to walk a long distance to enter it. It was at in the middle of the Sarovar. It was made of gold. We enjoyed very much. We saw Ber trees also. My father told me a story of that tree and in the last he told me that it was a magical tree. My mother and I washed our hands and faces in the Sarovar under the Ber tree.”

Not to be narcissistic or anything, but I think I was a pretty cute 10 year old. A few pages on, dated August 2005, I’ve written how my brother made a ruckus one evening and how I hate him for it. That was the time when dad had to go on an official trip and he asked me to write down whatever trouble I had and he’d see it when he returned (the awesome days when cell phones weren’t stuck to our ears). It’s heart-warming to just see the change in one notebook. A few years on, in a more controlled and better cursive, I’ve made a list of ‘Books I long to read’, following it with some quotes I made up and the stories behind them. I wonder if kids these days even make any memories this way. I don’t think digital devices can make up for it in any way.

Pink love ^_^

Then there was this pink one featuring Barbie, which did not seem enough and so I pasted more Barbie stickers on the cover. This was when I wondered if I could write a diary entry every day. Turns out I could not, because I skipped a lot of days and then just stopped. But it’s funny and nostalgic to read about high school and homework issues, how my class was suspended for three days for scribbling on our school shirts and I was scared as hell.

While in college, I got this one with a Hannah Montana pop-up on the cover. And yeah, a heart-shaped mirror too. I used to be a huge HM fan while in school, never missing those episodes. HM was the reason I was glued to Disney channel. This one contains self-motivating stuff. Lists of things I can do, those I’m proud of, those I wish to do. The first cover is full of HM stickers too and the first line reads, “If life is a journey, then your vision is a picture of your destination”, dunno where I sourced it from.

Hannah Montana :D

Inside first page!

Apart from these, there have always been notebooks for other stuff, like I mentioned earlier. I was gifted this pink one by my dad when he went abroad and got it for me! I admit, I am a miser when it comes to using it, considering how it’s so cute and all and I don’t want to finish it soon. This one is mostly bookish and the first thing I did with this was to do a mind-map for ideas for my book blog (back when I just had to start Journal ofa Bookworm). The red one is my present, favourite notebook. I’ve covered the first page text leaving only my name, because it’s got all sorts of dreams and secrets. ;)

As I’m writing, I’m remembering others I’m missing, those I haven’t located today, but I know they’re somewhere near, just out of sight. I love all of them to bits. I can be weird in a lot of ways, but who cares? This weirdness defines me. Do you have any such fetish?  

Will you always remember?

When I say that among the many things I truly wish to do, is to affect lives in a positive way, to make a difference to someone, to be the one who cared, who understood, who was with them when they really needed someone, it's purely because that's how I want to be remembered. Positive, the reason for a smile, a laugh, a much-needed closure, an understanding, anything that's good. Someone who's not well-known, but you love her because she's been, or done something you hold close to your heart, something that really matters to you. That's a long way to go, especially considering how moody I can be. Sweet one moment and upset and irritable the next, but I try. One of my biggest fears is "being forgotten". 

That's not because once in Class IX when we returned to the school after a picnic, my parents did forget me, as no one turned up to pick me up and I had to make a call home to remind someone that a kid is missing from the household (Hey, that day we were shifting to our new home and everyone was running around, but still. Who forgets their kid?). No, that's not the reason. And I'm not sure of any other reason either. I suppose it's because I love my life, even with all its flaws and all my flaws and I don't want to think it's all for nothing. That one day this life would become so insignificant, it'd be as if it never was. Maybe we all are tiny insignificant dots, but I don't want to believe it. I like to think I have a place somewhere in the puzzle, some place where I click, where I'm important, where even after I'm not physically present, I won't be forgotten.

This sounds scandalously depressing. Don't you worry,
it's nothing more than introspection! :P

But does that really happen? Someone from the family, the first someone you saw going lifeless, the someone who mattered the world to you, who defined you in so many ways.... doesn't that someone deserve to be remembered? Of course they do. You remember them, but when? Initially all the time, then sometimes when you feel lonely and then after maybe a couple of years (or way sooner, in some cases), only when you see something they touched, something that was close to both of you, or when you remember something important about yourself and realize they had a role in it. Otherwise days pass and they don't come to your head. You move on. Like the Old Man (in Looking for Alaska) says, "Everything that comes together, falls apart". I guess it's natural then. Maybe what I wish for is also materialistic, because all of us are meant to be coming and going, coming together and then falling apart, as a cycle. Not meant to be a cog, because it's not mechanical, rather, natural. 

This feeling was further attacked when I read (again, in Looking for Alaska), these lines that suggest we will be forgotten. "Someday no one will remember that she ever existed, or that I did. Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow. In the beginning, she had haunted me, haunted my dreams, but even now, just weeks later, she was slipping away, falling apart in my memory and everyone else's, dying again." But even then, there has to be something. If not forever, till the maximum possible time? Like we see things and feelings and think of a particular person. Which means some sort of materialism is important. Look, it's important to me to be remembered and I'm not so sure of just a memory. It can fade. If there's something to remind you of me, I'd be more than willing to add that to the memory too. If you don't believe in it, for me, please do. 

That's about "things". As for "feelings", I suppose "love" is the answer. Everyone needs it and everyone values it (maybe not, but who knows?). Overall, I didn't even need to write this post, because something someone said made it all clear. But I guess it's the O.C.D., I need to double-check everything, my clarity on topics included. The thing that made everything clear? A friend said, "If someone touches your heart and influences your life in a certain way, you are bound to remember them, sometime or the other. That picture always stays behind. Memories fade away but a person's mark on your heart, if he or she has left, never drives away. It always exists."  ^_^ THANKYOU! :)

PS- One, I'm totally living in Looking for Alaska. I don't know when I'll be able to come out of it.

Two, I'm writing shorter posts these days.

Three, point number two is really scaring the hell out of me. 

Mixed Signals...

Before any intelligent person sues me for plagiarism, I'll tell you myself that the title isn't mine. I read a Nancy Drew book with this name, once upon a time. The feelings are the same though. If you've known me or read this blog long enough, you'd know how I do not like this word: 'change'. Honestly speaking, it makes me uncomfortable. Ironically, I like how I learn something new every single day, and the way in which small new things unfurl themselves, changing right before my eyes, I can't help but feel that sense of wonder, the one that makes you stop and look at things and really admire the tiny stuff you otherwise would never notice. 

For example (as usual going completely astray from what I intended to write), I seem to be noticing a lot of tiny things during the day, most days. People, for one. If I find someone fascinating, I have a hard time keeping my eyes off that person, which is something I need to work on. I mean, looking at people just because you find them interesting? Makes you look creepy :P I wish someone invented special eye gear so that it seems like you're interested in whatever's happening around you (like in a class) but you can actually take your eyes anywhere and observe for as long as you like. I swear, I could write a whole person if only I could. ;) 

Pic courtesy: Google ji!

Apart from people, I think I have this weird fascination for just about anything. Airplanes fly overhead and I have to look. Even if the sky has a plane flying every two minutes, if I hear it, I have to see it. Then the other day I was so bored, I actually counted the number of tiles on a portion of the cemented ground (one hundred sixty something!), that too from three storeys above. These days I love not talking to anyone much (yes, even less than usual), preferring to listen to music or observing simple plants and building structures, the clouds and the ground, and just about everything. God! Either I'm too wella or totally disconnected from the real world, which is something that happens when I have too much non-sense work, so much so that I refuse to do it at all (yes you guessed it right, like right now!)

Coming back to the point, our lives aren't really all that simple, are they? I mean, yes they are, in a way. Sometimes I feel it's all black and white, yes or no, love or hate, either I like something or I don't, either I'll talk to someone a lot or not at all, either I'll like a person totally and think (read dream) about awesome scenarios and the next moment, I'll get upset with one small thing they did/said and get sad over how pathetic life can be, that I can't even get to talk or know more about one single person! I mean, it gets so confusing! It's like I'm living my teenage years all over again. The confusion, the way I can totally lose it at the drop of a hat, the sudden liking/disliking, grudges, pain, then the next moment filled with laughter, butterflies and smiles. 

Exactly!

As if there isn't enough confusion in the world already, people have to behave so complicated too. I don't just 'get it' why anyone would act fake. Just be what you are, say what you mean, love who you want. Why can't it be simple enough? Where does it get hard? I fail to understand. It just makes it harder for me as well, to try to figure out what the other wants, what they feel, if they mean what they say. I may seem 'arrogant', but at least I'm honest. And true. If I like you enough, I'd make efforts to talk to you, to get to know you better, trying to make you like me as well. True, it would hurt if they don't reciprocate, it would hurt real bad, but at least I'd know that I made a move, a bit of an effort. Better than regrets.

It's sometimes hard to get my head wrapped around this concept. I mean, even J.K. Rowling kept 'love' as the main message behind Harry Potter. It's not so hard, really. Just forget what people will say, go ahead and talk, make some noise, do what you want, love everyone, tell people if you love them, it's more important than loving from a distance, wish your parents a nice goodnight each night with a hug and a kiss, hate less, if you don't like anything, ignore it! Leave it, the end! 

Isn't life about you? About how you want to live it? What's wrong with wanting to stay out of cities, in fascinating places, meeting nice people, having fun, loving those you want in your life, not thinking about those things that've been deeply ingrained in our minds already? Career, jobs and the monotonous stuff? I still haven't been able to think of these as *very* important. Probably because I'm not facing much of a problem and maybe I don't know about how it is necessary for survival for some people. Maybe. But it still doesn't change for me. There's a concept of the way I wish to lead my life, to live, that I have in my head, a picture that keeps on changing everyday, adding even more fascinating stuff each time I think something different. Why then, does it seem so 'weird' to you? To me, it doesn't. And I promise you, at the end, I know what matters is my own choice and I'll do it all. I just hope I don't lose this craziness streak by the time I'm ready. On second thoughts, I don't think I'll lose it. Much. I'm getting crazier everyday as it is! :P

Someone take me here already!!!

PS- Oh God. Is it just me or really, I've just written such a load of...... what? I'm-so-sleepy-and-going-crazy-counting-all-the-work-I'm-supposed-to-do and still I decide to type randomly whatever comes to my mind? Yep, it seems like it. Dear new readers, I'm usually not this insane. Please excuse this sudden bout of mental-ness. 

PPS- Such a morose mood can always be made better with a Mom-made steaming cup of nicely made coffee! :D 

If I could...

If I could, I'd tell you

What I mean, with just a smile

Without words to say, I'd take you

In my thoughts, deeper by a mile.

If I could, I'd never think 

Twice before envisioning myself

To be in that place of my dreams

Eluding 'practicality' itself.

Pic from Google

If I could, I'd leave every

Materialistic thing, just to be

With you in your hour of need

If only this is what you'd really see.

If I could, I'd make your anger

Your sadness, your irritation, vanish

With just a feather touch and fill in love

In your heart, where it was always banished.

If I could, I'd forget what I went through

All those times I didn't know the difference

Between a friend and a fake, who

Left me with no other chance.

If I could, I'd be all what I want to be

Without a care in the world, of what

Others might see. I'd be my true self

For me, for you, for everything I ever sought.

If I could, I'd believe in this

And nothing else, begin to live again

With that zest and vigour, no pessimism

Now I think.... Maybe I can.....

Hello people! I would not have been writing this at all, had I not been down with fever and advised bed rest by the great doctor! Wait, I don't want sympathy, you know why? Because I look at it this way: I'd been into a crazy schedule for almost a month now, calculating how many months more to go (it's 23, imagine!). Not that I don't like it at all, I do. I've learned a hell lot of things in just a month and I'm very happy about it, but, I'm more of an emotional person, someone who values thoughts, feelings, emotions, love and family beyond anything else. I needed a break, for heaven's sake! I could have spent these past two days lying down because of fever, worrying over what I'm missing, but I chose not to. Really, how does it matter? I'm actually feeling relieved, that there's still something called 'normalcy' in my life. That I can get up in the morning to the sound of Mom leaving for work, have breakfast peacefully when it's not a Sunday, sit in the veranda with awesome weather and read a book, not even look at my phone all day (I wish I never had one! I dislike them so much), read a week's worth of collected newspaper supplements and have something to write about on this blog! 

I do have homework, pending assignments and all, but I can at least have a day, right? Maybe it will result in 'inefficiency', 'less marks' and 'running behind schedule', but listen, I'm not a machine and I'm not going to work like one. I was thinking this over last night, that how bad it is that because of the so called 'important' things like 'work', we have to cut down on the time we want to spend with family. Like still going to school when someone at home is ill because you have a test, or leaving for work because of an important meeting? Why? Why can't we just do what we feel like doing? Maybe we can, if we decide to forgo these materialistic benchmarks we create for ourselves. I don't want this to happen in my life and I'd make sure I make it the way I want. Seems a bit too 'impractical', right? Okay, maybe I wouldn't get the highest score and lose that high paying job. Guess what? I couldn't care less.