Dawning-I

ਮਹਿਯਾ ਨਾ ਆਯਾ ਮੇਰਾ...ਰੰਝਨਾ ਨਾ ਆਯਾ....ਤੂ ਭੀ ਆ...ਸਬਕੋ ਛੋੜ ਕੇ....ਮੇਰੀ ਅਨ੍ਖਿਯਾਂ ਜੋ ਅੰਜੂ ਰੁਲ ਦੇ....ਬਾਰਿਸ਼ ਬਰਖਾ ਸਬ ਕੁਛ ਬੇਹ ਗਈ ਆਯਾ ਨੀ ਜਿੰਦ ਮੇਰੀ....ਤੂ ਭੀ ਆ..ਸਬਕੋ ਛੋੜ ਕੇ....ਅਨ੍ਖਿਯਾਂ ਜੋ ਅੰਜੂ ਰੁਲ ਦੇ.....

These words rang a thousand times more amplified than they actually sounded and a couple of hours were spent reflecting on the words. And a simple song brought out so many answers for my otherwise sorted out mind (notice, the Otherwise!)

Its a plea to the heart, in denial, waiting in vain for her knight in shining armor to finally make his appearance. And when I think about my position at the present, I really consider re-rethinking of the concept of the "knight in shining armour" (we're not living in the times of the Mughals are we? ) But well. contrary to what I feel NOW, and mind you, I might just change my mind tomorrow morning when I see a handsome man step out of a Merc and give me the "you're my princess" look! Don't judge me. I look beyond the Merc alright? His shoes?       or maybe his, suit, or even his shades or watch? :p I'm not as shallow as you think I am. There's a lot more to this, and this time, I'm serious. The above mentioned attributes don't even count, if, IF, i daresay, the man has a lot more to do with his humanity and personality than his bank balance and signed blank cheques. Though I will not deny it makes life a lot more simpler, especially for the working class like me, but makes things a lot more complicated as well.

My dad once posed this question to me, "tor jonyo kirom bor khujte lagbe abar? janina chul gulo ar kotoh pakbe!" ( I've no clue what kind of a suitor to look for you, seems like my grey hairs will turn even greyer with this!) and trust me, things like this actually constrated my mind and made me have ONE atypical image of my man in an Armani suit! ( modernisation of knight in shining armor!) and that has lead me to make a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong choices (I'd never say they were bad people, I'm nobody to judge!) but they were definitively not the ones for me.

And now that my search is finally dormant, I'd like to free myself and my mind of all stereotypical attributes I'd associate with that whoever and accept my life, without a baggage, with open arms and a radiant smile, that was lost long ago, for the very reason of atypical labelling of the species!! (you know which ones I'm talking about)

I'm off now! 

Peace!

Memory : the truth about the lies you tell yourself

"Your memory is unreliable even though you think it isn’t, and it will lead you astray even though you think it won’t."

It just means that your memory allocation is not high enough to accomplish the specific task

Your life has unfolded much differently than you remember it now. Does that surprise you?

All of the good times you look back on now didn't really happen the way you think they did. Many of the bad times weren’t nearly as terrible as you remember. And all the stories you hear about the “good old days” from your parents and grandparents? Mostly fabrications.

This is what it means to be a human being.We’re the most advanced and intelligent creatures on Earth, yet we’re still riddled with flaws—most of them unrecognizable to us. One of the biggest is our inability to accurately remember the things that happen to us. This is our lot in life, and we’ve learned to deal with it quite effectively but, from time to time, it wreaks considerable havoc.

For all of the beautiful and terrifying experiences we capture through the synapses in our brains—the snapshots that form our lives—it turns out that relying on memories to inform our future decision-making may be a bigger risk than we once thought.Perhaps this is why we developed the written language—a less than conscious realization that we’re not to be trusted with our own thoughts for longer than it takes to write them down.

We have a very strange relationship with stories, especially stories that are supposed to reveal important evidence to us. The oddity is that we tend to believe stories—especially eyewitness accounts—over any other form of evidence even though we’ve proven that first-hand accounts are often completely unreliable and the least worthy of our trust.

No doubt you’ve participated in some type of gossip involving the bizarre actions of a friend or relative. Lacking an explanation from the source, everyone, including you, had a theory that was “more right” than everyone else’s. Our brains don’t cope well with missing information. We can’t accept incomplete stories, so in place of confusion we create our own connections, regardless of their accuracy.When it comes to uncovering the truth, our unique gift of imagination may actually be more of a curse. 

You may remember only what you subconsciously want to, whether it’s accurate or not.Your memory is highly susceptible to contamination. Another strike.

Getting Better at Remembering :

The memories you create of the events in your life are suspect, highly susceptible to contamination, and there’s no way to predict with any regularity what, in fact, you’ll actually remember.It’s a grim outlook, but all hope is not lost for memory. Despite its unreliability, there is one way that you can carefully and accurately control your mind: intentional memory.When you set out to learn something, learn it, and then remember it, you’re creating what will be referred to as an intentional memory. Schools and education programs across the world rely on intentional memory to teach the skills we need to survive together in society but, on the whole, they do it very poorly.

If you need proof, just try to remember anything important that you learned on purpose in your least favorite high school class. Perhaps the vague concepts remain, but chances are you’ll struggle to pull any truly useful information from them.What most schools fail to implement is a good system for remembering to remember. Where they fail, though, you can excel.

The useful information that you learn, remember and, most importantly, how long you remember it, is governed by a scientific phenomenon called the forgetting curve. It’s an equation discovered in the late 1800s by Hermann Ebbinghaus through a series of exhaustive self-studies.

Lately, I’ve been keeping a daily journal and, rather than focusing on the story of my day or how I felt, I’ve been recording only the cold, hard facts, much like a policeman would take notes at the scene of a crime. It’s noticeably distant and not very fun—sometimes even embarrassing—but perhaps it will help me someday remember my world as it really was. Of course, there’s no evidence to suggest that it actually will.Maybe our delicate and ever-changing memories serve a purpose. We probably shouldn’t be using them to accurately recall facts or decide the fates of the accused, but maybe we can still use them for our own enjoyment and amusement. Maybe we can still use them to understand what it is to be human—what it feels like to be inconsistent and occasionally irrational.

Obituary, of a different sort

I still hear your voice, when you sleep next to me.

I still feel your touch in my dreams.

Forgive me my weakness, but I don't know why

Without you it's hard to survive.

'Cause everytime we touch, I get this feeling.

And everytime we kiss I swear I could fly.

Can't you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last.

Need you by my side.

our first 'formal' nervous dinner date!

Your arms are my castle, your heart is my sky.

They wipe away tears that I cry.

The good and the bad times, we've been through them all.

You make me rise when I fall.

'Cause everytime we touch, I feel the static.

And everytime we kiss, I reach for the sky.

Can't you hear my heart beat so...

I can't let you go.

Want you in my life.

'Cause everytime we touch, I get this feeling.

And everytime we kiss I swear I could fly.

Can't you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last.

Need you by my side.

the countless times you've never cared to not show love

our sudden "we look hot" snaps!

Coming to think of it...

Its not like I just decided on whether I should start believing in arranged marriages more than love marriages. I have seen both succeed and fail, and even if it still happens, it doesn't work the way it should (like the marriages in all Nicholas Sparks books!)

4 o' clock in the morning, sleep deprived, food deprived and I sit upright on my bed, wondering if I would've been sleepless and hungry had I been home. In conversation with a friend a couple of hours back, he did not seem convinced that an arranged marriage could be the safer, or I'd dare say, the safest option, if nothing else works out, and currently being in a very rough phase of my relationship, where all things bright and beautiful, just seem to come down on me and say "look bitch, I gotchya there" *accompanied by, of course, the evil dexter laughter*, I'd take that brave foot forward, no, the not so brave foot down, and say, fine, I made a mistake, now what?!

And there as usual, comes the time when both your heart and your brain seem to refuse sternly to any form of stimulation, emotional or alcohol! as if Mamata Banerjee has suddenly taken over their being and again, yet again, have sat down with a newspaper behind their over sized butts (thanks to Bengali tradition of mach-Bhat twice a day!) and determined to not tell me what to do next. And that's where this sublime form of a stress reliever comes into play.

How this helps me, don't ask. I just feel happy when I click on the "publish" button up there, and I know that I can sleep now. Although my questions of an arranged or love marriage scenes haven't been sorted, nor have I been able to convince my friend that you should not get laid with just anyone because it gives you momentary happiness, but anyhow, I will try and get him to change his mind, while I continue my journey of regaining the lost ideals and values that sometimes, I miss. I truly do.

Coming to think of it, there is still a really long way to go (way more than how much I'd walked downhill at Munnar with a certain someone and I thought I had walked the entire circumference of the earth) and this wasn't the distance I was talking about, it has a lot more to it.


Good night!

Sterbliche Uberreste

Under normal circumstances, one would expect a wandering throng of students to demonstrate animated displeasure upon encountering a human corpse in the woods; particularly a corpse as fragrant and festering as that which was found on an August afternoon in Knoxville, Tennessee. From a short distance the male figure almost appeared to be napping among the hummingbirds and squirrels, draped as he was over the pebbled ground. But something about his peculiar pose evoked a sense of grim finality– the body language of the deceased.

The students knelt alongside the slumped form, seemingly untroubled by the acrid, syrupy tang of human decay which hung in the air. They remarked on the amount of decomposition that had become evident since their last visit, such as the sloughed skin and distended midsection. The insects which feasted upon the decommissioned man were of specific interest, prompting a number of photographs and note-jottings. After surveying the scene to their satisfaction, the students strolled across the glade to examine a considerably more decayed corpse in the trunk of an abandoned car. Their lack of alarm wasn’t altogether surprising, for they were part of the organization responsible for dumping these corpses– along with dozens more– throughout the otherwise serene forest. 

Two wrecking-yard-style barriers were erected along the plot’s perimeter: an inner wooden “privacy fence,” and an outer layer of chain-link. For good measure, the chain-link was garnished with a coil of prison-grade razor wire. To discourage those whose curiosity is aroused by pungent breezes and formidable fences, a series of signs were installed to warn away would-be interlopers, broadcasting their unsettling all-caps pronouncements across the countryside: RESEARCH FACILITY. BIOHAZARD. NO TRESPASSING.
As the lifeless subjects are interred into the grisly forest hideaway, each is assigned an anonymous identification number. Some are situated to provide interesting decomposition vectors, while others are used to reconstruct specific circumstances for police investigations. At any given time, several dozen perished persons are scattered around the hillside within automobiles, cement vaults, suitcases, plastic bags, shallow graves, pools of water, or deposited directly upon the earth. Except when clothing is necessary for a particular study, cadavers are disrobed. 
It lay there, the same. It had been over 20 days. The students peered closer, and closer.....

Miles

Miles and miles and miles apart.
Although so far you've touched my heart.
Your laugh, your voice, your adoring smile,
Seem to shorten every mile.
We'll never give up or say goodbye.

Going Away

Walking to-day on the Common,

I heard a stranger say
To a friend who was standing near him,
'Do you know I am going away? '
I had never seen their faces,
May never see them again;
Yet the words the stranger uttered,
Stirred me with nameless pain.

For I knew some heart would miss him,
Would ache at his going away!
And the earth would seem all cheerless
For many and many a day.
No matter how light my spirits,
No matter how glad my heart,
If I hear those two words spoken,
The teardrops always start.

They are so sad and solemn,
So full of a lonely sound;
Like dead leaves rustling downward,
And dropping upon the ground,
Oh, I pity the naked branches,
When the skies are dull and gray,
And the last leaf whispers softly,
'Good-bye, I am going away.'

In the dreary, dripping autumn,
The wings of the flying birds,
As they soar away to the south land,
Seem always to say those words.
Wherever they may be spoken,
They fall with a sob and a sigh;
And heartaches follow the sentence,
'I am going away, Good-bye.'

Flickering Images

Illusion makes a mockery of reality
and we have thrown in with it
Suspending lives in hopes and dreams
as etherial as disappearing mist
Hungering for there instead of here
Thirst that turns away from inward wells
The hunt for a light that never flickers
Forgetting the romance of wavering candles
The chase its own game, never ending
No pause at the top of darkened hills
to gaze at waves of grass that roll away
toward a horizon of self discovery
Human doings, disguised as human beings
flashing false credentials at the borders
Searching continents with outdated maps
Forward, always forward, damn the sideroads
A destination finally achieved, left wondering
why the streets are empty, no friendly face
at the end of all that troubled journey
The miles winding down to spaces emptied
Never savoring the steps along the way

Near Madness

A time when lights could not be shut off
even with their cords pulled from the wall
Harsh and bright and made of nameless stuff
The hidden facet of my every wish and fear
shining for friends and enemies alike to see

A time when every word spoken low and softly
rang amplified a thousand times and more
Shouted from rooftops and silent streets
My every thought a known thing, naked
No secret too submerged for common view

A time of weariness and wariness combined
Close to madness, yet not so well defined
Transparency of soul if soul I even have
Where's the madness to be seen through glass
A life better lived with uncurtained windows

Comfort to be had, a settlement of all disputes
where those for and those against can come
to see well lit, amplified, diaphanous displays
of every treasured love and art I hold
No longer covered and withheld but spent

Rantings of a heavy heart!

Ashtami. A very bright day. I had no plans for that day, except for being forced to go to a Dandia thing at a friend's place. I needed to get out of the house. Panchami, Shoshti, and Saptami went eventless...with the usual pandal hopping the entire day. That kept me busy. But I asked myself, what next? After all this is over?
What? Nothing. The same days, and the same nights, alone. Though I shouldn't be missing him much, but it does take time.
While I was walking down,barricaded between two rows of bamboo fences that have always been put up specially during the pujas in Calcutta, to "maintain discipline", as is said, waiting for the crowd to turn so that we could enter the telengabagan route to the mandap. It seemed, that day, as if there were just people madly in love with each other, all around me. Was it just a projection of what I was missing in life? Or am I really the one alone?
I have good friends to help me walk through, and they've always been with me. But do friends always fill that space that was once(it would be dishonest to say not now), filled by somebody else?
I dont know.I have no idea. How do I trust?How do I believe in you? Not again, or yet again?
The cars drove past me, I was standing on the edge of the road, waiting for my bus. I was thinking, I missed mine.After 20 minutes of more waiting, with the gauging eyes of people down and up, really disgusting me, his words blurring my mind, I somehow managed a bus, got myself a seat, and again, started dreaming. Of what? Of all the good times. A tear dropped to my cheek, and the woman beside me looked at me worriedly. I am fine, and I managed a bleak smile.
The ride was excessively long, maybe because time seemed to go slow motion for me that day. Each instance was painful. Re-remembering you, on every little thought, and that day, seemed to be just us, like the year before. They were doing all that you had done. How was it that way? They didn't even know you.
But they all reminded me of so many things. Was this a new beginning? Or was I losing out on something? On you.?

I've stopped looking for them.I talk to you everyday, but yes, without wasting your time.
I feel you everyday, but without you having to touch.
That's how life has turned for me. From that Ashtami.

Death of a Candle

My inspiration will never know
The poetry it created
Through me

No one would know
What I saw in it.

I extinguished myself
In the wind
That killed the candle

When alive,
It sputtered smokily

Waiting for the throes of death
Blown in the hiss
Of life

The candle once burnt
In the corners of the West
The pail of water
Drips its soul

In which corner
Shall I light it
Where it can regain Life?

The ember of the fire
Collapses upon itself
Where do I put it now?

Long Incomplete!

Serenity is not the word. Neither is calm. Opposed would mean tumult. Neither of this. I do not claim to be a storehouse of vocabulary ingenuity. Definitons in Psychology, and legends in Literature, never fail to intrigue me. Philosophy has never worked for me, although I am quite an ardent believer of good versus evil. Numbers. Fail. Predetermined logic. Epic fail.


Failed to forever understand what really mattered. What really hit the right part of my brain. (Which lobe was that again?) Venting out thoughts, piling up, ant hill, buzzing, stinging, dead, foul, decaying. Buried.


If I ever try to sew my thoughts together, all that comes out is a badly oversized child's night gown. Living for a purpose. Mom says, "God has sent you for a purpose"- could someone please elaborate?


I find my own purposes, goals that I want to achieve, that I have achieved. Living a part of a greater dream, but clinging with the grasp of a storm tossed mariner to a spar at midnight- What to the slave is the fourth of July (Frederick Douglas) , Yes I gave my Literature exam today.


Dreams, rendered motionless. Clouds floating. Stars twinkling, not all that brightly though, and I still don't recognize the differnt constellations. *sigh*
What I really should be reading now, is not the constellations in the sky, nor why the rainbow has 7 colours and not 10..or maybe more.. (I used to wonder when I was in the 5th grade, and still do, sometimes, cuz a lot of colours are nice to look at!), but what I am today and what I am now. I do not want to think of what I was previously, and with a new year, a lot of things have taken shape, and the clouds are not all that dark and laden anymore, and yes, I see that silver lining, a glimpse of it, and I know that I'm gonna be there someday. I just have to keep refueling myself every now and then and say to myself, "you live only once!" :P

Self assessment, but done the right way, finally, has got me here today, back to being myself, and knowing, rather applying what I know as "prioritizing", and guess who tops the list? Me! I was told, that I have to be selfish in a lot of ways in today's world, and yes, I totally agree to it. But what I also realized from there on, that it shouldn't be the sole motive of one's life, MY HAPPINESS matters to me, but it is not the end of the world if I dont get a shawarma today and I am upset and cribbing about it. That's foolishness. And I am 20 now, long way down, and if i dont fasten the belt soon, maybe I will lose out on a lot of precious things and moments at which I can just look back and regret. And no, I don't wanna do that.

All said and done, its time for action. No resolutions. No confusions. A focused head, with the least number of distractions (I mention "least number" to keep my options open :P ) and of course, determination.
A PJ, as one of my friend says, went like this once : If I was Nike and you were McDonalds, I would do it, and you would love it! Old, yea, I know, but for the tubelight that I am called, its okay. yea, so rephrasing and remorphing that statement to suit me (I always do that) if instead of u and me, it was just me, I would do it (what I wanted to and with determination) so I would end up loving it! And there lies my happiness!

I am not here to be judged, nor do I want to be a victim to people's non existent fantastical understanding of everythng that everyone says or does, I am here to build myself. Its still the formative stage of my life, and being determined is the best rule to any form of success. Following this, I shall make a start to my new year and hope I will not any longer cling onto the past or harp about the blunders that I have made. Its time to make a sincere new start and an effort that comes from deep down there.

Cheers to the New Year!

Back to where I belong =)

Its been a year since I last spoke to myself, and somehow, now that I'm back I realize how much I have been missing it. And it has truly been a whirlwind of a year for me, with fleeting moments of happiness, a surge of emotions, a few failures, few succesess. And my year came to an end before I even learnt from my mistakes.

This time, life began on a new road, or rather, under a new sky, or should I rather say, a revisited sky, under which I first blinked, first walked, first laughed, first cried, and first felt and realized what it is to love and be loved. And now I am back here again, to push that restart button in my life which was stuck back in Bangalore, and I intend to make an absolute fresh beginning, a new perspective when I get back to what I may dare call my home, atleast close to it.