Failed, A lesson

Somehow, it suddenly strikes me. There's not much I've learnt in the 4 years of graduate school. Knowing myself, I happen to learn more when I am motivated to do so. Motivation works 2 ways. One, when someone motivates you to learn. Two, when you yourself want to learn. It hardly worked either way in the last 4 years or some years even before.

I am partly to blame. But I would also think of the inability of the ones, who 'taught' me, to motivate me to know. Wherever I look around here, it's the same scenario. Mindless numbed gulping down of heterogeneous information and puked up splash of ink on the answer scripts. The fault lies as much with the "taught" as the "teachers". Somewhere down the line, having been pushed around in the rugged terrain of rote learning, I fell, I cut myself, and in an effort to survive with an air of leisure, I chalked out a trail where there would be minimal rote & puke, and yet minimal effort to pursue the aura to learn. I succeeded, yet I failed. I failed in that inspite of knowing where the path leads, I didn't follow my heart. I failed in that I ended up being a glorious nobody than a knowing-something-in-its-true-fundamentals anybody. I failed in that being aware of my abilities and potential, I have almost thrown it all away.

It's an education, a lesson. Perhaps, the most important of them all I've learnt is knowing I have failed.

Why is it life always comes a full circle? I remember PP had mocked fun at me. I owe her no hard feelings, since. However, today i realize what a ride she has been taken on. Maybe love indeed has these strange Harry Potter rides, which never really are what they seem to be.

Catch 22 - The recollection

M.E.M.O.R.I.E.S

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

L.O.V.E

I have had birthdays. You all have had birthdays. We all have them. Sometimes we celebrate. Sometimes we have fun. Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes, well, we just let the day pass. And, sometimes, we just do all that together. I have had one of those birthdays, not long back.

I had wishes aplenty. I had messages abound. I replied to everyone who remembered me.

I expected the surprise.  Was just surprised by the absence of a few. I was stumped by the beautiful collection of notes and messages. I was bowled over by the cake. I had a great time.

I had the prettiest flowers. I had the perfect notebook. I had the tiny book. I had the perfect person.

I had the the surprise gifts. I had a gala time. I had fags. I had fun.

And then, I had the Queen of all surprises. I had the yummiest-chocolatiest-tastiest-bestest-awesommest-brilliantest homemade cake ever.

And, I had introductions made.

And, I had a great time. A G.R.E.A.T TIME.

And I had certain dreams coming true.

I had THE  T.I.M.E   O.F   M.Y   L.I.F.E

Do You ?

Do you take chances?

Do you win?

Do you live your dream?

Do you dare?

Do you snatch the beam?

Do you try?

Do you give up?

Do you crack?

Do you measure?

Do you have the knack?

Do you weaken?

Do you strike?

Do you go fragile?

Do you feel?

Do you go in exile?

Do you mourn?

Do you regret?

Do you desire?

Do you yearn?

Do you inspire?

Do you fire?

Do you breathe?

Do you inhale?

Do you conceal?

Do you believe in a fairy tale?

Do you open your arms?

Do you run?

Do you welcome?

Do you want to be?

Do you not believe in a modicum?

Do you want to be a hero?

Do you fight?

Do you struggle?

Do you scream?

Do you wear the coat of the eagle?

Do you express?

Do you wink?

Do you kiss?

Do you sneak in?

Do you not want to go amiss?

Do you marvel?

Do you astonish?

Do you wonder?

Do you forsake?

Do you want to be an absconder?

Do you stick?

Do you stink?

Do you snob?

Do you bicker?

Do you yearn to be the heartthrob?

Do you love?

Do you smile?

Do you care?

Do you grumble?

Do you think all is fair?

Do you think?

Do you ponder?

Do you now bid adieu?

Do you live?

Do you?

(Formerly) Informal

I am informal.

I can hold hands on the road. You can find me taking a forcible seat on the roadside just to laugh out the joke/khorak/khilli that I just heard and can’t take while simply standing. I can cuddle up in a resto. I can even sit on the table joking and fooling around. I eat with my hands unless I don’t feel the need to use a fork/spoon or unless the setting/situation demands me to. I can enjoy and devour my food forgetting ‘etiquette’. I can crack a joke and laugh out loud amidst loved ones. I sometimes eat with my mouth not totally closed. I am not that high collared high handed businessman in a suit or that high profile executive in a professional dinner. I like to forget the rest of the world when I am with close ones. I actually love to, not just like to. More often than not you’d hear the sound of a chicken bone crack than the tinkling of the cutlery on the glass plates. Not that I don’t remember the place and the location and the situation that I’ll make a complete fool out of myself with my informality. But whenever I can I never let go an opportunity.

I am informal. Can’t say I will be.

Standstill

One always comes to a standstill. There’s this moment in life when you will.

If you have always been involved in the rat race, then you might be braked down to a trifle at the fag end. Being a logical guy, you’d say, that’s the best thing to have happened. Being a practical guy, you’d say, you’ll have lived your life. Being just a guy, I’d say you’ve been running in the wrong direction.

If you let life pass you by, then maybe you’ll be feeling this every alternate moment. You will encounter a red light every second crossing. You will always pause to think. You will think to act. You will think to do. You will think to think. And then you will think, what actually did you think.

If you are among those who have visions and dreams and fantasies, you must have started walking with a chrysalis in mind, let it formulate into a caterpillar, and started running. But then, you lose the butterfly. You think it’s there around the corner, behind that hedge, across that river, hidden behind those trees. But anyway you go on, without a reason. Rather, you lose the reason. You go on, more so because everybody around you is going on. People tell you that “a winning horse doesn’t know why it runs, it runs because of pain. Life is a race, God is your rider. So if you are in pain, then think God wants you to win the race.” You run because you have to run.

And then all of you will stop someday. You have to. Maybe most of you will look at it as something you have to. But there’s a reason behind it. Life’s isn’t all about being ‘The Rat’ in the rat race. Life isn’t about being the cat either.

Something/someone always comes along at such dead ends. Be it a Coelho or an Ithaca or a Haley or a Hosseini, be it that cinemascope, be it a philosopher and guide you find in your friend, be it a spiritualist or a sage, be it that ever smiling ice-cream vendor passing you by every day, be it that drunk auto driver, be it your love who you never thought it could be.

‘cause standstill is when you actually stand still, when you actually pause to think, and then when you actually will do and act, when you actually go on into the desert holding the hand of the one you cherish the most.

Reasons of Me

I failed to see the reason, if only it was to let go after a downtown journey.

I reasoned to myself to realize I possessed something others don’t.

I gave myself enough room to live it up.

I am destined for a destiny I write of my own.

It gives a power to do and explore what I have inside.

I am what I am ‘cause

To be able to surrender is a curse I find less appealing than a boon to give up what you own.

A New Dawn

The sun is rising

Twenty Ten awaits.

It’s time to start running again …

Dusk of 2009

Somewhere inside the chest it strikes, yet another year down. An eventfully eventless year. For everyone who look forward to new dawns on new years, all the best wishes. For the rest like me who find a new dawn every morning, its just another start, with new targets...

A passing thought

Once bitten twice shy.

Twice bitten thrice retaliate.

Thrice bitten, fourth time - Shun It !

Bits & Lots Of A Birthday-Eve

A bit of college

A bit of south city

A bit of beer

A bit of rain

A bit of pandal hopping

A bit of sumptuous food

A bit of tram

A bit of waiting eagerly for a cab

A bit of whiskey

A lot of fags

A lot of adda

A lot of Maddox

A lot of old friends

A lot of reunion

A lot of adda again

A lot of crowd

A bit of metro

A bit of a slightly embarrassed me being wished happy birthday in the underground

A lot of jostling

A lot of walking

A lot of masti

A day well spent

A passing thought

It's lonely at the top and the bottom ... And whoever cares about the in-betweens ...

Inside Out

Some find solace in everything they do.
Some need motivation to do them.
Some wither under criticism.
Some flutter in witticism.
Some need you in their times of need.
Some need you in their times of deed.
Some shrivel under stares of trouble.
Some revel in the eyes of a storm.
Some wither when the lights too bright.
Some shine 'coz they have never seen darkness.
Some pump their fists in glory.
Some are sober in their times of victory.
Some bow to the almighty.
Some hold their head high, 'coz God is inside.
Some respect you by a salute.
Some stay silent and salute you inside.
Some are crushed under the call of duty.
Some emerge, scathed, with backs to the wall.
Some can bring the universe down to show they love you.
Some can dry a thousand tears inside on the outside to never let you know.
Some go down in history.
Some are history.
All make history.
All is incomplete, unless some and some unite.

(Un)Wrong Instincts

Its 4.30 in the morning.
Mom and Dad are going home, and I wont be meeting them for a month now.
I have this gut feeling. I won't meet them again.
This is crazy. Maybe eerie would describe it best.
I hope it's not true. Unlike the previous times when gut feelings and basic instincts have risen true to the fore. I hope, no, I want I am wrong, my insides are wrong.
The more i try to disengage myself from the feeling, the more it stays.
It's not good.
Close my eyes and fervent favours...

In You

Its been days and months. And yet i haven't got the pig off my back. And I'll be honest enough to admit, that maybe i dont' even want to. A query from SD made it all very apparent and a snap relivened the faith on myself.

Those terrific pangs hit me.
The vicious fangs curled around me in jealousy.
A thrash and a slap on a very much surrendered cheek didn't change the vision.
You and me, sitting in a corner, it was yesterday.
Even now, its the same.
Only, its not me anymore, its a namesake.
For you, maybe its better.
For me never been better.
Happiness reigns prime in you.
Loveliness reigns godliness in you.
Truthfulness stares from me in you.
Alas! I was never in you!
Alas! I was in you!
Alas! I withered away in you!
Alas! I died in you!
Alas! I live in you!
I love you.
In you.

P.S. This is a scheduled post

One of the pitfalls of studying in a good college with good students is that most think of themselves first ,before thinking of others, whoever the 'others' may comprise ...

Rejuvenated

Bring it on. I wonder what it feels like. I seem to have forgotten it. The pump in the air - the frown on the face – the exhilaration of winning – the joy of enjoying!

For the last few months. Three or four to be precise, I withdrew myself into a shell. I know I wasn’t myself. I had lost the motivation. I simply had lost sight of the aim, the objective, the glory. I had become way too used to everyday life. Nothing really worked me up. It was mundane. Studies didn’t attract me, inspite of the fact that my awful results should have gotten me working double hard. Games and sports- I stopped actively participating in. Maybe sometimes a few rounds of cards were all that I had. I didn’t practice the guitar playing. It was wrapped and kept in a corner of the room, with moults of dust accumulating on it. I didn’t bother to clean up the mess in my room, and it resembled a perfectly hostile bunker until lately. I haven’t been to the photographic club in ages, thereby inviting occasional wrath and sarcasm from fellow members. :P . I even didn’t go regularly to college, something unthinkable for the likes of me. I became not disinterestedly lazy, but willingly unfazed. Procrastination bore its deep olive like roots in me. I even took a sabbatical from blogging and writing pieces. I had just lost the interest in everything.And all I did in this period was some much due self introspection.

Now. Honestly speaking, I feel so good. A break was needed. I might not have walked much ahead, but I sure did chart out my path for the future. I feel so rejuvenated now. And truly though it sounds so typical, I feel I have recovered back my posture now. I have begun to study. I am once again taking an active interest in sports and travelogues. I feel lighter, and the urge to fight is back. The will to win is popping out here and there. Been quite sometime since I’ve been on such a cloud. The intensity is back. Self belief, which I had not been able to find in the past year or so has miraculously made a comeback. Maybe I can’t improve by hell to heaven in the upcoming semz but I’ll sure give it a shot without losing myself in the bargain. After all I gotta be somebody who I already am. Not a nobody who I never was…

You can´t give up!
Looking for that diamond in the rough
You never know but when it shows up
Make sure you´re holdin` on
‘Cause it could be the one, the one you´re waiting on
‘Cause nobody wants to be the last one there.

And Nobody wants to do it on their own
And everyone wants to know they´re not alone.