'Something'

This was supposed to be an awesome post, the kind you feel like writing when you haven't written anything in a long time and you feel like you owe your lovely blog at least one amazing piece of writing, especially as it's always been there for you for your random musings at random times and you seem to forget it when you get 'too busy'. This was supposed to be something mind-numbing, earth-shattering, maybe about something so amazing that it'd draw everyone on the planet to go read it, maybe it could have gone viral, or maybe not, but it was definitely supposed to be 'something'. I admit. I'm still at a loss. This has happened before, in a much milder intensity and I always blame no one but myself for the lack of 'putting down thoughts as well as they deserve to be put down'. I still wouldn't blame anything, even though I am very much tempted to put in 'college' as a major reason. It might be, but I just don't care. I've always been a silent rebel. You give me something that threatens the things I love, I would mentally block it all and never even think the way you want me to. This is why I always dismissed those ideas when other people said they're 'too busy with work' to do the things they like. I thought you could be forever busy and still do it. "I" was doing it, so it's possible. 

But maybe it didn't occur to me until it happened. What if the work or the mental pressure of the sheer amount of nonsense you're subjected to everyday, all things that go against what you as a person believe in, how much effort it takes on your part to grasp any bit of your own beliefs and yourself so that those external forces don't make you lose yourself, drains you of any energy you might have left. What if, despite the 'materialistic' things going right, a nice college and subjects you might find interesting, you still feel horrible dragging yourself everyday? Hoping you'd like the exchanges between people? I thought I could manage it well, but maybe I was wrong. I mean, it's okay. It isn't as horrible as it is for other people maybe, but I'm just looking at what "I" deserve and these nonsense feelings are certainly not part of the package. I'll always fight for what I deserve and what I like, however much these things try to change all that. What would happen at the most? I wouldn't write a nobel-winning piece, I wouldn't have many people commenting, I would lose out on a few readers.

Does that matter to me? At a deeper level, yes it does. I do want to write amazing stuff, things I actually have in me and I know I can. I do wish I get back those readers who said they love what I wrote here. I know no one's gone, really. I seemed to be absent myself. But then it shouldn't matter as much and maybe it does not. Maybe I am more materialistic than I thought, but not as much as I'm thinking, either. This is not 'blogging' for me, it's writing. And I can live with anything but not without this ability to put things down like this. If there's anything I would be willing to rigorously fight for, it's my reading and writing, for without these I'd lose myself. I don't know much about anything apart from these two. What would I be if I am not able to make myself happy with these as well? Nothing. My college degree would hold no value. It would be, in the Indian 'job market' for which you're trained since college, made into machines and made to believe how working nonstop and relentlessly can bring you 'success', but not for me.

So even if this isn't an insanely makes-you-hyperventilate-kind-of-awesome post, one that I was aiming at, it's okay. Because it's just me and this blog and friends who understand. I know I could write that kind of a thing and I'll do it sometime, maybe without even realizing it. But for now, this is really satisfying and I'm happy. Y'know, the reason I feel like it's okay is more so because I do have crore things to do and I'm leaving all that for this. Tee hee! 

A really common quote thanks to social networks,
but it's awesome and true! :)

***

I had to ask. Did you know that our brains are actually not built for multitasking? I started reading this book last night, called 'Mastermind: How to think like Sherlock Holmes' and the second page in the Prelude said this and I went all, "Oh My God! Really? WHY!" Because yes you guessed it, despite having read hundreds of texts, I did not know this thing that my friends seemed to know already o.O I mean, when was it when I was first told how we are "supposed" to multitask to be able to be more awesome? Class 11? Yeah maybe. Definitely in the first year of college and I even remember proudly telling my seniors how good I am at multitasking, during some dumb interview for a dumb college society I was really enthu about (told you, I was completely mental back then). The point is, if because of multitasking, quoting the book, "our memory decreases and our general well-being suffers a palpable hit", why are we told it's something we should be good at? Hello? 

Thank you Sherlock. Now I'm really going to
read your books that I've had since childhood :P

This is why I seriously love books! Because they tell me what is right! People these days, just. can't. be. trusted. I know, it's because that is what 'the market demands'. Fast life, quick decisions, faster profit making. Jeez. But whatever. After reading, books and writing, I'm in love with my brain. However clumsy it might make me, I still am overly protective of its abilities. And if in some real life job interview they ask me if I'm good at multitasking, I'm going to quote this fact to them. Did you know Sherlock Holmes was an awesome observer because of mindfulness? And not multitasking? This seems like just a small fact but I've been hyperventilating about it since last night! It's like those two sentences attacked what I had been thinking since the past *counts on fingers* 5 years. OMG! 

I had to tell. Not any secret, you looking-for-gossip people! I must have mentioned how I love Mint Lounge, the Saturday edition of the Mint newspaper? God, I don't even read the main paper all week, which I should, MBA and all. But anyway, Saturdays? I so look forward to them! It's not business-y or economic-y, but there are views on related things and non-related things, all of them awesome. I don't know. I don't read it all and some Saturdays I don't find much that I'd like to read, but it always gives me that ecstatic feeling. I especially love this column called 'My Daughter's Mum' by Natasha Badhwar. I am not a mom so technically I couldn't have been able to relate to the stories, but I always can. And more than that I always feel so warm and emotional while reading those, whatever aspect of family life she writes on. 

I mean, it's Monday today. I picked up the paper on Saturday evening, when I got home and kept it on my bed along with some books (that really have nowhere else to go. Someone please donate me a shelf?). It was there all Sunday, being shifted from one room to the next as I looked for an opportune moment to read it. It was back on the bed at night. It's underneath my laptop on the dining table right now, where I left Aakar Patel's article on 'Why everything is not the government's fault' mid-way because I got a call from a mast friend and then I felt like writing. I'm always reading it like this, keeping it for a comfortable time because I don't wish to be disturbed and feeling all breathless while reading it. It's just a paper and I wouldn't even remember most of it maybe, but that's just how it affects me. :')

I need your help. To whoever reached here, I'm working on a live project involving opening up of a campus bookstore in our campus. Like a Bond, I took up the responsibility of looking after the inventory. So you know, I'm supposed to think of what would the bookstore actually sell. Important work, you see? So you gotta help me because yessss, I am very close to the deadline, so close that I can't even tell or else you'd think how BIG a procrastinator someone can be. Just know that you're supposed to reply maximum by tomorrow. :P Hey, I have done my homework, I'm just looking for more suggestions. So you're supposed to do this: Imagine you're in college and there's a bookstore in the campus. What would you like the bookstore to have for you, apart from academic books? (Unfortunately, they have to be stocked :P ) Would you like the general kind of Fiction that's available in normal bookstores? Is there something special you'd like to have? Any sort of merchandise? I'm not asking you to think like a business person, okay? Just as a student, what do you think you'd like a campus bookstore to have? 

If someone is very much interested in helping, please email me! If you've got small ideas, please comment. I promise you awesome posts in the future! I do have a list of posts ready for writing, y'know? ;) Till then, hasta pronto! And "muchas gracias" in advance :P (I'm learning Spanish too, you know that. The teacher gave me an awesome idea of having a blog in Spanish. After once laughing it off, I did think, how awesome would that be? It's just the purrfect way to learn the language! :D )

From the Journal of a self-confessed bookworm...

This piece was published in my college's annual magazine in 2012 (yep, that same year I served as the Student Editor. How awesome were those days! ^_^)

They stood in a colourful row, some with gleaming titles shining in the suffused light in the room, some with dark covers, but equally loved, adored and well-maintained. The shorter shelf held varying combinations and designs in the way I had stacked them; after all space was sparse and the books too many. For years I had dreamt of owning a huge room with wall to wall bookshelves stacked with volumes of a variety of books. This one was just 1/20^th of the dream fulfilled and I was proud at the achievement.

Looking back, I saw myself as a tiny kid fascinated by all the colors and beautiful characters smiling out of story books I got from Mom. She was a teacher in the kindergarten wing of a public school and regularly brought those treats for me. I would pore over the books and force myself into trying to understand the written words. I sometimes wonder I could have easily been an autodidact, a self-read person, though I know that could never have happened. My parents not sending me to school, I mean. I knew all about Cinderella, Snow White and Ariel long before they started calling them ‘Disney princesses’ and when kids in my class referred to them as cartoon characters. I loved the cartoons too, but for reasons I still cannot decipher. It gave a weird kind of satisfaction, knowing I’ve read about them before and a personal sense of victory that I knew more than the ignorant kids! Lion King, Panchtantra stories, Akbar and Birbal, The Cat in the Hat, 101 Dalmitions were my friends and it didn’t seem fair that kids who only loved to play all the time would know about them too, with all those funny movies made about them; movies that sometimes frustrated me, for not keeping in sync with the books and tweaking the stories to suit fickle-minded audiences, like the Harry Potter series. They’re good movies, but not good enough! They’re not like the books and I develop a dislike to the people who say it’s a bore when they don’t even read the books!

All through the years, I lived in stories- about little orphans or wizards, about pixies or nymphs, about people who found magical places or people who found magic in their own selves. The written word fascinated me and it wasn’t long before I looked forward to the library time in school. While students gossiped behind magazines, I took out books carefully by their spines and read through them. Charles Dickens became a favourite, followed by other classics that swept me through their vivid descriptions of beautiful places and equally enchanting stories. Mark Twain, Charlotte Bronte, F.H. Burnett continued to inspire me to read more classics and Enid Blyton and Carolyn Keene sparked my interest in reading mystery. But I was a picky bookworm. I didn’t like books with violence, with sad endings or with gruesome stories. I still don’t.

That's one shelf I have! 8|

Always being a bookworm came with its share of troubles. I would frustrate kids when I openly preferred books over them, hurting their blown up ego. I didn’t like to socialize and preferred to be alone. I would lose thread of the chats because my mind sub-consciously drifted to the story that was in a crucial stage and I didn’t know what would happen, since I hadn’t read the whole of it. But it gave me much more than I had lost, if I had lost anything, that is. I had a place where I could immerse myself in when I wanted to get away from the boring life and its troubles, emerging a happier person. I knew better than my peers and didn’t need to study for the English subject, knowing I would do well. I wasn’t a victim of embarrassment that many people faced because of their big mouths. I knew things and that gave me a wicked sense of pleasure. I was superior.

If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s the fact that Indian system of education is hopeless, especially the schools. As higher studies took a toll, I was gently reminded by concerned parents and ridicule-loving-relatives that novels and ‘other’ books weren’t important. Though I was grateful that they’ve always encouraged my habit of reading, learning from teachers that it’s a rare quality, I felt betrayed when my time with those books was cut short as ‘important-exams-that-would-decide-my-future’ came into being. Seasons changed and soon it were whole months before I read those ‘other’ books; but my love for them remained steadfast as I graduated school into college.

I was free, at least metaphorically. I regained my lost time by reading volumes of books that interested me. I spent my pocket money on them, while my peers thought it’s a waste but I didn’t care. Books had been my saviour in all kinds of situations possible and I loved them. Soon I discovered something about myself- that I liked collecting books, a fact evident since I had refused to give away a single book, including the magazines collected over the years. I had graduated to harder-to-uncover mysteries, chick-lit and Young Adult genres. I visited the annual Book Fair in Delhi every year and asked for specific books on birthdays. I got them all and I’ve always been happy and grateful about it.

The only thing that’s kept me sad about all of it is the pathetically small number of people with the same interest. I have always got a group of friends who weren’t interested in books, or at least not as much as I have been. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I’ve always felt gloomy at the dearth of like-minded people. This is no longer true! I mean, yes, the number is a handful but ever since I have been blogging about books and reviewing, I have found friends who share this fascination. And it has been exceedingly amazing! I always felt the need to have at least one person who would understand why I like the unique smell of paperbacks or would argue why I oppose the idea of e-books. I feel depressed seeing kids glued to their iPads, some saying they like to read virtual versions of the traditional stories, some tapping away at some App that’s supposed to make “Alice” of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ small enough to get through the door. Maybe they’re right in their own context. Maybe I’m too ‘traditional’ to accept the new changes.

It was then that I realized that the cold from the marble floor was getting harder to bear. I let my hand hover over the colourful row, deciding which one to pick for the night. I chose a gleaming hardcover, pulled off its dust jacket and curled myself into the bed with the book.

Featured on Half Baked Beans!

You know how it might happen? You might just be doodling in your idea notebook with your laptop open in front of you with a black sleep-induced screen, when the sound of a Facebook notification makes one percent of your grogginess go away and you wake up the screen to see what's up. Then you realize sometimes things you can't ever anticipate, however small they might be, can happen any time. Seriously.

Half Baked Beans is India's youngest independent publisher of commercial fiction and non-fiction paperbacks and e-books. (Check out their Facebook page here). So when I got to know that they would like to feature a short story from my blog on their own blog and a Tuesday feature called 'Tuesday Tales', I positively, absolutely hyper-hyperventilated! This is what was posted on their Facebook page. ^_^ The short story about the death of the Telegram, The Last Message was what was featured. I mean, how cool is that? :D Thanks Half Baked Beans! This is really appreciated! 

Life update: The past week was comparatively less busy sucky and more awesome than the past few weeks. I even managed to make an amazing visit to the Delhi Book Fair with awesome friends. I mean, just so grand! Although I do think I'm on some weird writer's block. And reader's block too, if there's any such thing. For example, I logged on to Goodreads yesterday after like, forever, and checked out my 2013 Reading Challenge Widget and it showed? I'm 6 books behind schedule!!! You know, I.Want.To.Die. NOW. But then, I can't just say goodbye to all the unread books I've collected so far! What if they start crying if they don't see my weird face peering at them, re-stocking them, dusting them, randomly opening them and breathing in their scent, kissing them! :P I can't really make them feel so unloved. I know no one else would care. So okay, I change my plan. I'll read all the books I want to before conking off. Which basically means I'll somehow figure out a way to stay alive on this planet in this janam for like, 500 years? Sounds good!

    

Metro Diaries # 4: Back to Square One

It's been more than four years now that I've been travelling by the metro trains in Delhi almost every day. Back during my previous college days (oh how much I miss you!) when I was more fun because I had more fun and everything was more fun, I had a lot of experiences to share and I did those in my Metro Diaries 1,2 and 3. Then life changed gears and the past one year I took the opposite route in the metro. It was still the metro but it wasn't much fun because first, it was a relatively less-crowded route and two, it just wasn't fun. Hopefully seeing how I had a dearth of metro experiences to share with awesome readers over here, God made my college shift to the original, proper campus and yay! I had that old route back, the one with far more interesting and many people than before, one where I had at least 45 minutes of metro travel one way! Not that I love standing squished among people I don't even know, but it does give me a lot to see, right? Considering how I love people-watching, trying to understand what their stories might be, it's a lot more fun. And unlike before I get to travel with a few classmate-friends, so sometimes there's even more masala to observe. ;)

So when my not-so-enthusiastic-except-for-metro-and-interesting-campus second year started, there was this one time when I was coming back home with only one more classmate-friend for company, a friend who takes some other route, so essentially for the metro ride, I was solo. This route is almost the double of the one in my previous college and also includes changing lines and well, you guys know me. :P Reaching the platforms, the friend asked me which route would take her to the right station. Naturally, I felt so bond-like while spying on the map, looking for her station. Having found that, I directed her to the right line, said an enthusiastic goodbye and started going in the other direction. She looked confused and asked me if we were going the right way. 'Of course!' I said, pointing out her station at the map. That is where you go! 'And', I said pointing my thumb to the opposite platform, 'that's my route'. Still looking uncertain, she went off and I took the other train, feeling all contented. After all, how many times did people ask me for metro advice? Almost everyone knows how I'm so clueless about metro routes. So much that it's slightly insulting. :|

I was feeling kind of 'free', especially since I was riding solo. Not that I don't like company, but I feel more at peace alone. And so I immersed myself in my awesome thoughts and time started rolling. A couple stations passed and with a jolt, I heard that recorded female telling me I'm reaching a station I was sure I hadn't been to the past week! Yes, I'm usually lost but I do recall the names of stations we pass through! Trying to look nonchalant, because rule number one when you get lost is don't look like you're lost, I scanned the map and saw how wonderful a friend I am for sending her to the right route, and not looking for my own station, assuming obviously I'll take the other route (but why?? Why did I make such an assumption? o.O ) when the fact of the matter was that my station was also on the same route. -_- I thought I'd always check the route after that but you know when you're with the rest, you just assume you're going in the right direction and so you don't get to know if you know the route unless you travel solo again.

Pic courtesy: Google and a previous Metro Diaries post :P

Anyway, moving on, in the crowd-management department, things are still the same like before, although if I talk about the women-only compartment, I can put on a safe bet that it has become absolutely worse. Not that people are becoming crazier, but I personally believe if so many females in varying degrees of distress (what else?) and mood swings are stuck together, there is bound to be something like a lava popping out of a volcano every now and then. Most of the time it's entertaining to watch and since I'm awesome at being inconspicuous and keeping out of others' way, I can think of incidents to write about from a relatively safe distance. I have to admit though, that women in the first compartment can be arrogant, heartless and sometimes downright cruel. You think you want a seat? You think you can make any lady who's parked her butt on a seat make some 'space' for you? You gotta take a reality-check-medicine! I think after their boisterous and always-bouncing-in-the-train kids, women love their seats the most. The first coach is definitely better in the mornings as compared to the general ones in terms of what kind of smells your nose has to deal with in a crowd, because no offence, but the general ones are too suffocating just because some people don't seem to like perfumes. But at the same time, it is far easier to move around in a general coach than the first one.

Women women!

Because when you're a bunch of early twenties people (hey, I'm the youngest *coolest expression*) and you board the train from different stations, it's not that you always seem to have those cool mind-connections like you have with some best friends, so you take some time moving around and gathering at one place. If you have to move in a general coach, you just have to mouth innumerable 'Excuse Me's and people would shift to make space for you to pass. I noticed a difference once while I was moving from the general one to the first coach. Those guys make way for you to pass once you start walking, sometimes you don't even need to say Excuse Me. As soon as I entered the first coach and said my first Excuse Me, I realized women are just... women. I don't know if it's because there are no guys around or what, but you just ask them to shift and you get a look that can kill. It's as if you're asking them for ransom or something. They wouldn't-just-move! Most of them would have those irritating headphones blaring cheap Bollywood songs in their ears and so they can't even hear your polite Excuse Mes. You try to nudge them and make your own way and jeez! Just pray you don't bump into a walking-talking-firecracker. The other day a commotion started in a crowded metro, some place where I with my average height couldn't even see, between two women. One of them was accusing the other of deliberately sticking and leaning on to her. o.O For Heaven's sake, it was so full that you couldn't even place both your feet together! Although if you find someone who, despite being over-super-closely stuck with random women, looks amused as she's being jostled from place to place or merely having her upper body oscillate to and fro as the train stops and moves, that would be me. I think if we can't escape it, why not enjoy it? ;)

And that's where a recent, most-mention-worthy incident comes into picture. I was once again traveling solo, now completely at ease with the route. I'm not really that dense, you know. One month of the same route does leave an impression and so my brain knows where it's taking me. Anyway, as I reached the holy mother of all stations where you get a real glimpse of the reproduction capabilities of Delhites (err.. I mean you get to see so many people, like so so so many people, the burgeoning population :P), I tried making myself as small and thin as possible to be able to reach the relative safety of the first coach. The platform wasn't very crowded that day. As I slowed down to stand in line, I caught sight of a familiar looking girl looking curiously at me, with that slightly squnity, uncertain expression as if she's trying to recognize me and as we stood looking at each other, we broke into smiles as I recognized her as my childhood schoolmate! I mean, we saw each other after *calculates on fingers* eight years! Whoa! :D The train arrived and I moved into line with her. She got on the train first. I followed. Just that I didn't really follow like normal people do.  

While I was stepping into the coach, I felt my right slipper slipping, but like the lost case I am, I didn't even bother. And the result being I realized I was right-foot-barefoot when I fully stepped onto the train. Turning around, looking for the lost slipper (how genius-ly did they name slipper a 'slipper' -_- ) on the platform didn't have any positive effect and within seconds as my heart jumped to my throat in a familiar 'uh oh', I realized my slipper had slipped from the gap and into the tracks! I stood there dumbstruck and then started looking for my new-found-after-8-years friend, who hadn't yet witnessed my Cinderella story and was standing at a distance! I called out to her, more like beckoned to her and told her what had happened. Through actions! I mean! I was standing inside the train with one slipper with a thousand ladies looking on and I didn't even know where the other one went! The friend was even more shocked than I was and just stood there staring at me like I was some hugely interesting item! Then the doors clicked closed and the lady standing by them said to me, "You know, if you had got down and asked the guard, he could have took it out and you could have taken the next train." 

I sometimes don't understand how can some women be such geniuses. Was she watching my Cinderella moment with interest to blog about it? I mean yes, even at that moment my heart said 'blog it!' but of course my head was more concerned about my present state. And my friend wasn't helping either. So now as we stood there, my friend looking at me so shocked as if she'd done something to me herself and I in my new fashion-trend-setter mode, one slipper on and one foot barefoot, I felt this gush of some funny emotion. I realized how it's not really that bad. I mean, what could be worse? I'd have lost both of them? Many people go barefoot. No, not in trains exactly, that would be a first, but still. People would look, they might laugh but that'd be it. And so I felt so amused about my own klutziness and the way some of them stared at me like I was so amusing to watch (well, I must have been. How many times do you see a girl in a train with one slipper on and the other missing?). The other time I spent trying to make my friend feel relaxed, consoling her that I'm actually okay and kind of used to such stuff. And that I'd actually have something fun to write about! :P It felt weirdly fun as I hopped out of the coach at my station and held my head up and walked down the stairs. Okay, I did see where I'm walking because stepping on gross stuff barefoot would have been hugely unpleasant and a deterrent to my awesome mood. But anyway, I had asked my dad to come take me! :P 

I couldn't have really been that Bond-like and walked all the way to the parking to get Scoot, like that. And that lane is cluttered with gross stuff that gets even more gross during rains. Yuck. So when like dad suggested (because really, it wouldn't have even crossed my awesome mind otherwise), I took the elevator and went downstairs where my dad just started laughing. Right there sitting on his scooter looking at me walking like that. I mean, seriously. What's up with parents these days?

So now that I usually have my friends with me, we do have our own share of metro-fun. We're civilized, all right, just that we get so engrossed in our own talks that sometimes the whole coach could take a learning or two about the stock market fluctuations or learn the verb conjugations in Spanish. Excluding me, people really have loudspeakers installed in their throats. There are numerous fun-instances like the one time it was just us, three girls and while at the station watching a train roll in, we suddenly decided we'd be taking this one. I thought it was ridiculous because we were a million miles away from the train then, but the other two just said, 'Run!' and took off and so naturally I had to follow. Dodging people, skitting across the floor trying not to bump into random bouncy stomachs (ew. That even sounds so ew. I've become so ew!), we actually managed to get inside the train, that too in the first compartment! That was when we were so tired that we flopped down on the floor itself (yeah, it's not allowed but where are you supposed to place three tired-from-running young girls who've got a long way to go?) and that was also the day we realized how huge the world might seem to a tiny animal or creature. Because you know, people do look absolutely weird and big from that angle. And then when some loser girls came in suddenly with a crowd and talked to us in a mean voice for we were sitting (till then the coach was empty. It was not yet full with that mean girl and her baraat, because we don't really take up space if there's anyway a space crunch), we had a non-verbal haughty conversation with her. And then when we saw she'll get down at the same station as one of my friends, we coached her as to how she should walk out, making sure to bump into that mean girl and then run off! :P Brave girl actually did that! ;)

It's good to be back, talking about metro stories! There have been a lot many instances and it's always fun. I mean, how over optimistic can I be? I can find something amusing even in a suffocating metro! I can be so heartless sometimes. I'm glad to be back. You think so? Should I continue this series? ;)