Memento mori...

Dear Self,

I see you. Slowly yet surely degenerating into something you'd never want to see yourself as. Life's gone too far beyond where you left it last, taking a break so long; never once did you realize in a race that this was, a pause only meant a certain, inescapable transference to a mute ground, did you? Or that no eye pays visit to these long forgotten, uninteresting lands?

Memento vivere.

Yours.

Where do we go from heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere?

He: Maga, Spring Break (SB, hereafter) starts tomorrow. Whats plans maga?

I: Nooooo plans and all da. Don't know what to do only, will just wait and see. (As if some divine intervention or something just as incredible would bring a sudden 'sea change' to an otherwise mundane semester so far - an adventure trip/trek/hike, or a free ticket and VISA-less admission to Cancun or something!)

He: Ay come on da, think of something soon, probably is the last SB you'll get to see and experience, unless of course you join the 'unemployed and desperate' bandwagon and decide on something as stupid as getting yourself a PhD'uh' or something. Make some plans no! What say?

I: You want means you go da. All your friends are going no, if not Cancun means at least someplace 'beach'! Besides I have my thesis to sit and work through the week; Prof I'm sure is furious already for stalling on work so long. You know no?

He: Yeah right! Like I don't know - that he doesn't care! Seriously, make some plans no, let's go somewhere da, make merry and all. Chumma we shouldn't waste a week's vacation just like that! See, of the closest places to...

I: (interrupting) No maga. Truth be told, no mood only. Besides, think of all the spending and all da! I'd rather not.

He: (Chuckling, and in an almost mocking tone) Ya ya, true. But see, what I was suggesting was that we go to this-city, and we have your friend's apartment by the University - some place to stay there as well, no? We'll roam around downtown and gulp beers by night, visit University and nearby places by day-light, what say? Come on, not even expensive no?! Also, think about it - we haven't gone out anywhere in a really long time, so let's do something no maga!

I: (Making note of time and the already long-drawn conversation) Hmmm...okay,  let me think about it (with a 'leave me alone' tone). 

A few cups of coffee, a cup of juice of tea (-leaves), a drab excuse for a meal (bought off the shelf of this not-so-friendly Indian store in the neighborhood), a good, long night's sleep and an early morning, two back-to-back movies with a better cup of tea, and some noodles later, here I am, welcoming what perhaps is my last Spring Break, that of 2010. 

P.S.: Posted here in Kanglish - a portmanteau of languages Kannada and English: colloquial English, flavored with a few choicest of words from Kannada - is my staple language of thought.

P.P.S.: The movies were quite marvelous though, and take my word for it, will more than make up for having wasted your time reading the above post down to this! Foreign dramas both - Antonia is a Dutch Academy award winner and Volver, Spanish, is just as deserving. And the title, but of course inspired by the last lines of the Floyd classic, Keep Talking, which I've been listening to and over twenty times now in the past twenty four hours!

As I lay...

With a self-mocking smile she glances down at the clock in the corner of the screen. 2:45 AM, she sees; a dull white, opaque font, set on an equally depressing wallpaper - reddish pink wisps of smoke captured midway as it floats up against a rather dispassionate stark white background. The ill-lit room is a mess by all standards: the unkempt wardrobe, clothes spilling out of the overflowing laundry bag, the bed which hasn't been made for months, the million bottles of moisturizers, body creams, perfumes and the lot, strewn all around on and at the foot of the dresser, the window sill only redundant with mascaras, pens, pencils, notes-to-self and other invaluable trinkets; all in all, indicative of the tumultuous mind that now lay on the bed, a frail girl in her 20s.

"The night's still young", she thinks to herself. The nights have been starting early in the morning and ending soon afterwards, for a few months now. Her preoccupied disposition - an appearance of perpetually lost in ponderment - is the only expendable feature on an otherwise personable semblance. And as a lock of her hair gently wafts down her cheek, much to her annoyance, she pouts sidewards to blow it only to find it fluidly fall back at the same place, only this time as a silky curtain across her face...

It has been two long years since she left home in search of a more secure future - financially and otherwise. She now feels the pangs of loneliness, of not having the comfort of a family when she returns home after a tiring day and more so, of not having friends. She has had no friends in an alien land she now called home, neither to hang out with, nor to talk to. And that goes hard on any person, is only universally accepted. 'The wound is fresh, yet runs deep'. Although it has been only a couple of years in seclusion, solitude - unsought, is the harshest of the miseries of man. "But why? Why do I not have friends? What is it that I lack, or they want, or I have done wrong, or am I surrounded by the wrong people or what is wrong with me?" she asks herself. "Alright. I have had enough, and this has to end. Here, and right now. I am only as strong as my resolve is, and I will not let my loneliness bother me anymore.", she mumbles as she takes a swig from the glass of water. An empty little box of pills and its cap lay strewn on the floor. She quickly turns over, reaches across the bed over the window sill, grabs a pencil and a piece of stick-on and hurriedly scribbles something. Another glance at the corner of her laptop screen - '3:30 AM', she switches it 'off' and bids it goodnight. 

In the faint glimmer of light from pinholes in the window blinds from a streetlight outside, the yellow note can barely be read - Get the pills, first thing today!

Tainted 'Love'!

On the one hand it makes stronger and helps realize the value of (being in) a relationship, yet on the other, is the most distressing, gut-wrenching crime against someone (committed, perhaps most frequently). Comes as little surprise though, that it is for the ill-giving of a heartbreak that it has forever been known - the gravest of all sins, inflicting the deepest of wounds; and not for having taught us lessons otherwise 'un'learnt.

Much has been talked, learnt and felt about love and its vagaries throughout civilization, and it still remains the most baffling yet engaging of all human emotions that - a 'single' heart craves for, a 'singled' heart pines for and a 'broken' heart grieves for. Hate it as we may, but heartbreak sure compels one to go over and over memories, and fantasize, quite ironically, reliving the moments of yore, only making him feel worse. 

And in this age when sincerity and candor are as much non-existent as chastity and morality were in the last, infidelity remains the single most important element for heartbreak. But what constitutes being unfaithful, and more importantly, what is loyalty? Subjective at the helm, it varies from person to person, and context to context; resting heavily on the lines drawn and what constitutes transgressing them. Here is the man who confesses sleeping around with several women, and the woman who professes eternal love to her partner, yet has several affairs behind his back. Who is better? Or worse? Or who would you choose over the other? Or would you choose at all? (We love to judge, don't we?) Are our moral bindings so admissive, that if provided an opportunity and presented a circumstance, we allow for such contraventions, turn a blind eye and pretend they do not exist? Yet, as we do, time and again we hear of the rare suicide and the more common chronic depression afflicting the youth at large, mostly resulting from a heartbreak. 

P.S.: Discontinuous, discordant and the more irritating post scriptum. Happy reading!

Two-some trouble.

Its been a week since the blog's 'rolled out', and I feel empty already. A feeling of emptiness creeps inside and it scares me to have nothing to say. I'm sure you'd all concur to the fact that with constant access to internet, you get hooked on to a lot of nonsense - mostly the hazaar social networks/instant messaging services and the sorts; and I haven't been any different, being compulsively hooked on to Facebook prying around for interesting photos/videos/funnily-philosophical-status updates or spending time logged on - awaiting some long lost friend to mail me on one of my accounts, all the while surfing around, looking for something interesting to read. This takes up most of my time online, in fact most of the time I'm not asleep is spent thus - completely unavailing. And therefore as a result, I realize I have nothing much to say; if not nothing at all. Not valid reasoning you'd say, neither outrightly deductive nor entirely inductive, but the fact remains that as I write this, I still am thinking of what to write next!

Neither has the week been anything more than exceptionally average. Its been cold and windy, and with the intermittent rains, made getting out of the comforts of a house a displeasing exercise. I did so, though, every evening when I religiously packed my bag to hit the REC (short for Student Recreation Center) where I swam nearly a third of a mile and played table tennis/badminton for a while before one of us decided it was time to get back home (to a not so sumptuous dinner). Watched a few movies, one of which, presumably French - 'Daughter of Keltoum' had quite a touching story to tell and I'd recommend it to anyone who found 'Babel' interesting. Also finished another 20 odd pages off what I choose to believe is the best book I've ever laid my hands on (talks a lot of the prolificacy of my reading). The coming few days are forecast to be colder than before, and I'm already expecting another period of - mental lassitude, dissatisfaction at life at large, having nothing important to do although I know I have quite a few, another unproductive week, and a not so fun-filled weekend! 

With this, I end this essay ordinaire on the nothingness that defined the past week. Adios. 

...and then, where was I?!

Waking up to another lazy Spring afternoon, I saw nothing better than to sit in the hall - pleasing my senses to the sounds of water dripping from the awnings on the small puddles of water that formed overnight. Silly as it may seem, I tried to match its rhythm, the pitter-patter of water drops to the ticking of the clock in the room, the only other discernible sound I sense, apart from the low whirring sound of my laptop's fan, and soon dismissed this little fancy of mine. Every once and again as I open the door, the slight drizzle, or the rare heavy, moisture laden gust of wind broke into the hall, beckoning me to the beautiful weather outside.

And all the while, I had been pondering over starting this; having deliberated for quite a few years now, I was rationalizing why I should or not. I found there was no answer. And now, after a rather child-like thought of 'Why not?' took over me, I find myself writing this inane stub of an introductory blog. So...

Hi!

I am no one in particular; just another Indian graduate student in the US of A, with that same familiar feel of 'being lost in a jungle so immense, there is no going back' shared by quite a few of us. Yet, there is something enchanting about it, that on the rare times you do find your way out, it'd be (still be) impossible (if not impossible) to do so. I come with rustic views; from a rather 'remote' part of India - a land of many a myth and mysteries, Southies and Northies, rotis and sabzis, computers and ITES. Funnily, as I read the previous line over, I find a zillion descriptions that I've missed and could've been a lot more apt, and hence I leave it all to readers' discretion.

Here, you'll mainly find my million lamentations and sighs, a few cherished moments of bliss, memories and a lot more general 'BS'ing. Feel free to comment.