Stagnant

Have you seen a bucketful of water, or just a large body of standing water? If theres a hole in the surface of that bucket, the water rushes out. It rushes out, all the water trying to escape at once. It forms a mini-cyclone, gushing out but the top of the bucket appears still. The water on top is still, until all the water in the bucket is out, and only then the top stirs, and follows suit.
I'm lying down here, having passed my deadlines and extensions without handing over any assignments. I hate it. I am increasingly disliking who I've become. Lazy, incompetent, unreliable, under motivated. My fingers are too heavy to type so I might leave this at that. If my fingers stop feeling like boulders, i will explain someday how the rest of my feels crushed. My body feels like the bed is lying on top of it. My skull feels like its made of bricks and cement. Heavy, too heavy for my neck, burdened under its own weight. I love winter. My skin is ice. My insides are fire. It makes my head hurt and my eyes droop and my stomach churn and my throat burn and my lungs heave. But my face is expressionless. I am stagnant.
Not my usual eloquence, or thinking, but I've been short on original thoughts and ideas lately. Even the 'breakthroughs' I think I have are wrong.

Feathers

I think the feathers are tickling my chest. The wings have been curled up inside me for so long, they get restless sometimes. In my mind-numbing boredom I close my eyes and I think I can feel it, the wind rushing at my face, forcing me to close my eyes, chilly mountain air filling my lungs that will burst into a confetti of sparkles inside me and out my ears and nose and eyes in the most glittery mess of person mush. I can feel my trembling legs standing up out of a car going at 160 so the icy gust hits my chest so hard  that my wings burst out my back. The stitches holding my back together slowly unravel, right between my shoulder blades going down, letting fall apart the bloody threads and the paper skin and gooey mushy muscle and sinew pulling apart so that the little feathers curled up inside can stretch out finally, bursting out with glitter and confetti, wings that shine with the light of the sun, competing with it to be the brightest. I am the ball of fire, the comet on earth, scorching the land as I pass like a phoenix burning up and waking up, free, to breathe and to fly, and new. I am waiting to let the wings loose so that I can fly for a while, stretch before those feeble hands of the clock run again and with that tick a feather falls off, falling on the asphalt with a clink of solid gold, a feather, sunlight on asphalt, a little of my gold on the tar. But my wings only stretch as far as my imagination, and they take off as fast as my fingers glide across a keyboard and as soon as I hit 'publish', they fall. again. until next time.

Chasing Metaphors

So in the Lion King story, there was a funny sort of miscommunication once which resulted in Timon leaving his Meerkat family, in search for Hakuna Matata. Timon's uncle told him that there is the one place a person must stay and when he relayed this to Timon's mother she wailed, cursing that her son had left home in search for a metaphor. That's what John Green readers could also relate to Looking For Alaska, which quite uncharacteristically happens to be one of my absolute favourite books. Strangely enough, Timon found it. He found Hakuna Matata. He found a home beyond what he could see. Literature, in that way is full of metaphors. We look for magic, and sparks, and vampires. Millennials are Timon. We look for things beyond what we can see, we create them, we discover them, we uncover them. We're chasing metaphors, because we aren't satisfied with plain old reality.

Waves and Particles

There is a scientific theory that believes light either travels in the form of waves or as particles. And last night, in the absence of both, you asked me if I had feelings for you. I couldn't tell you even if I knew but then you helped me understand it better. So, now I can explain. I like you. I've liked you from the start. There is light. My light melting into your light like auras and halos and starlight in fog. The question is, do I like you as a friend or in that strange, deluded, romantic, Bollywood way? Well, the light can be in either particles or waves. The particles like pixie dust settle on your unruly hair so that I can twine my fingers through it and brush it off. Particles like the dopamine and hormones bursting like fireworks in all the right parts of my body, each time you touch my skin, and particles like the stars I see when I close my eyes every time I kiss you. I guess, my light is particles sometimes. Light can also travel as waves, like the waves that rushed at my feet from the sea that you love, the grains of sand that sunk me into itself holding me steady the way my college best friend and anchor does. Waves like the light movement of your hand from outside a room to reassure me that I can handle life. Waves like the ripples that cause around your sunset smile when I do something goofy, and waves like your hand brushing a tear off my cheek because you're the only one with whom I now allow myself such vulnerability. I have waves for you too.

The theory is that light travels as either waves or particles, possibly both. There is light travelling, we can see that but we cannot, at any point be sure whether it is in waves or particles. I could have waves for you, my friend and I could have particles for you, my love but I am certain that I have light for you. Which is strange because you're the starlight in life.

Chase

Life done right is not a race. Its a chase. Its a chase of dreams or pride or money or love, its a chase to complete yourself and to fulfil yourself. People who see life as a race focus too much on the development of others as opposed to themselves. Life done right is not a race, its a chase.
Chase more. Chase anything. Chase yourself, more of yourself. Chase life and freedom. Sometimes, just chase vodka. Chase metaphors. Chase more than what is just given, offered or available. Chase what you can snatch from the miserly talons of society and devour it in front of its collectively agonised face. 

When the race ends someone is always ahead of you. Discontent. Unfulfilled. When the chase ends, you have in your hands what you want. Sated. Craving more.

Commitment

Have you met those 15 year old boys and girls, in relationships, who claim to be 'committed'? Ask them to spell committed. We Millennials are vagrant. We can rarely make up our minds about things. But lets face it, people like a bit of constancy in life. I like knowing I can always come back to the same house, to the same family, because its familiar and its safe. But we can't make up our minds about the things we have to choose for ourselves. Not restaurants, or clothes or even colleges. Why is this generation, that can't even commit to a subject so willing to commit to a relationship? Maybe because its easier.
 The reason I'm really thinking of this is because these same 'romance-deprived' people are the ones I have recruited for an internship. Its a legitimate business I tell you but these people feel like they can just up and quit anytime they feel like the work is hindering their social lives. The same person can give me two different excuses within 3 hours, the same person can have a ligament tear in two separate body parts at two different times of the day. The excuses, the squirming, the carelessness don't end. But the 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card does not exist.
 A person, at the end of my whining about a really shitty semester gave me some advice that would have saved my ass from the beginning. He said, "its not gonna get better, so suck it up and work." I am stupid for completely ruining my entire semester , not doing anything productive. But by Hell, these are the words to live by.
 Maybe commitment isn't everything. Like school and stuff, sure as hell isn't voluntary. But responsibility is. It is our responsibility that we see through everything once we give our word. Getting out easy never made anyone stronger. You do your time, maybe even do shit work, and then you get out. But you do your time. You commit, even if it is as half-heartedly as to the girl you find annoying but really want to bone. 

Holes

You know like a pinboard once stuck with pins has permanent holes. You can use them again, the holes, without having to punch more all over its surface. That is my back, stabbed in places with open wounds. Stab me in the back now. In the crevices between gorges of blood and sinew, the notches have already been carved. Knife-shaped indents, waiting to be filled because it cannot tell the difference now whether the pin completes the board or penetrates it. They are together as one.

The Wanderer Chronicles- Jamshedpur

The one reason every person should escape to Jamshedpur is to breathe.  Its that simple. I was lucky to have found wonderful hosts in my friends, which made the trip all the more entertaining. It is probably a small, slow town much like my own but when you want to get away from the hustle without retreating into the mountains, this is the green haven you're looking for. What marked most of Jamshedpur was the little thelas of street food that studded the open lanes and the sheer flavour that put 5-star indulgences to shame.

 The ultimate dish was the litti choka which according to my Delhi-ite companion was 'incomparably better' than its Delhi counterpart. Another favourite is quite possibly the chicken roll made special by the rain and company of friends across the lake at Jubilee Park at Al Kareems. The roti  was what truly distinguished it from all the normal chicken rolls we eat anywhere in the world. It was like a Malabar Roti, but much softer and so beautiful, it melted in your mouth. To follow the buttery scented, surprisingly heavy, authentically 'street' dinners, we went to a small shop at the end of the food street of street foods and bought ice paan and chocolate ice paan. Not a big fan of tampering with classics, I fell for that ice paan so hard that regular sweet just doesn't cut it anymore. 

 To anyone looking for a genuine feel of Jamshedpur, I would suggest going there in a long journey on the rails in a train that according to 'rich brats' like me, has bunk beds. An AC Sleeper Class, to say it formally. Stand next to the open door and let the warm air and sandy terrain greet you the right way. Let empty streets at night, the palliative summer rain and Coldplay in a fast car with dancing friends be your trip through tree lined roads and the lush green city that is built around a factory which in its lights and smoke and fire compensates. 

 Jamshedpur is one of India's few planned cities, well laid out, successfully experimenting with being environmentally friendly but for me it is the home of some of the most incredible people I have met. Make it not a vacation, but a stop in a long journey and it will always pull you back for more. It is after all, the breath of fresh air you take in through your mouth between the puffs of relieving smoke, because your soul might crave the cigarette but your body needs the air.

Fear

Its almost 4 a.m. and I'm trying to sleep but the weight of the crumbing world that I can feel lodged at my waist is too heavy for me to turn and sigh myself into a slumber. I had the crushing realisation that in less than 12 hours I have a test. A test I know nothing for. A test which will decide whether or not I have to repeat this course next semester. I am sitting here under the crushing weight of the crumbling life on my shoulders disappointed and dead. The chunks, the debris of this crashing world is now lodged in my throat because all that can escape is a whimper. The crushing realisation is that for 6 months, I did not work. I did not even try. And now, in a little less than 12 hours, I have the test from the course I neglected for 6 months. Given, I am a fuck up, I had confidence in my ability to bullshot my way through life, to at least manage theory even if I am sub par at graphs and utterly hopeless with numerical. A realisation has come that my past tests are glaring evidence that I cannot, in fact, even manage theory. 15 chapters. A little less than 12 hours. A panic stricken 19 year old who has run out of people to ask for help. I am doomed. I wish I were dead but for once I have something to live for, though I fear in the daylight tomorrow, it will be snatched from me and I will be able to do nothing about it because i dont deserve it and i have to face that. I am in my Hogwarts but it is too expensive, and my grades are not up to the mark and I just don't deserve it. The dust from the rubble of my crushing realisations stuck in my back and my waist is rising to my stomach, tickling the insides making me giddy. A 19 year old, panicked, scared, disappointed, wishing to die. As always. Escape, because death is the easy way out. It is my escapist attitude that has brought me here. Had it not been for my cowardly conscious succumbing to my fear, I would have been over with this hell 4 days ago, with half the effort but alas, I am stupid. There is no denying it. I ask not for pity. Only wish to share the debris and sparks and the crushed universe that has fallen from my shoulders, blocking now my throat and my chest and the base of my back because this is what fear feels like. Not like nightmares and horror movies, like real life and adult things.

The 'Tumblr Generation'

We are the Tumblr generation. I’m not completely addicted to it but I love the comments and fandom things that are shared via Facebook. There are so many posts about empowerment, disorders, even funny things, things that we all do. It really is great to educate people through personal experiences, because it really makes an impact but some things that are, that we all relate to, it seems could be strange. I don’t blame bad grades on Tumbr. That would be pretty stupid of me. I admit that I am at fault completely. However, what I have noticed is that we are the ‘Tumblr gen’. We write posts about Netflix and Chill, Procrastination, awful grades and drowning/ sleepwalking through every semester. I relate as much as the next person to each of these comments on the nature of the lifestyle of a college student. Where I think the downfall is though that after sharing these and realising that almost every person is in the same boat, there comes this covert sense of false security, which we don’t notice, which silently cradles us in its warmth and leads us unaware in front of our laptops, binging to fill a hunger more in the soul than the stomach, watching a movie 5 hours before deadlines, thinking we all sink together. This ‘groupthink’ or realisation is ridiculous! Just because everyone is doing something doesn’t make it right. But we relate. This one post that has over a thousand likes and comments of agreement makes us feel better. But what happens when you actually see the grades at the end of your semester? Flunking at various degrees, but together. We fall, together. We sink, we teeter on the edge of unemployment, of sitting in our parents homes making sarcastic comments on Tumblr masking them as great philosophical insight and realisations. We write and read and ignore making unsaid, socially (at least in teenagers) accepted norms, like the sleep scatter, because there is no pattern, nothing cyclical about its occurrence anymore. It is a dangerous slippery slope we are on, and I ruined one semester, disappointed my parents to a depressing extent and lost all sense of motivation, to finally realise this one stupid addiction. The addiction of feeling secure in my loserdom. The best advice I recently received was that, “Its only going to get worse from here. Suck it up and get used to it.” Needless to say, it came far too late to make any real difference but it gives me the assurance that I won’t completely screw up my next semester. Its fun to read lighthearted posts and sharing them with friends for a good laugh but we really need to be careful of how intrinsically we let these alter our behaviours. And here I am, flunking 3 subjects out of 5, with 2 exams in the next 3 days for which I am entirely unprepared, writing a blogpost on the dangers of posting ‘the wrong thing’ on social media. We are the ‘Tumblr generation’. We express. Its just what we do.

Eleutheromania

In case you're simply too lazy to look it up, eleutheromania is an intense desire for freedom.

 I suppose being, well human, all of us feel chained or obligated to listen to others when all we want to do is yell "Butt out!". Having grown up in a moderately conservative family, and being excessively, incongruently liberal myself, I face a conflict every day.

   I created this blog simply to remind myself and others that restraints are only physical. Our parents and teachers and everyone else really, can only tell us what to do, what to wear, where to go, whom to meet, but there is no censor they can impose on our minds, thoughts, imagination and ambition.

To all like me, who live in perpetual wanderlust, who live vicariously, who live in their dreams, I just want to share the hope and the desires. In a community where we are forced to hide, suppressed and chained by constraints, situational or otherwise, I hope
 

A year.

Can you even fathom? A whole, entire year? Its been a year since the world last heard his voice, or felt his arrogant smirk crinkle up those tiny eyes. A year since the demand for drugs and alcohol went down. A year since someone called me 'meri jaan'. A year since I got a reply on whatsapp that made my heart skip a beat. A year since someone called me a nashedii for my 2 cigarettes a month. Its been a year since he left the miserable, dying earth. Did you notice that the earth stopped spinning for a little bit, or the hollow space in its entirety, or just the slight reduction in the babble of living things in which echoed the cracking of my iceberg heart? Did you notice the faint silence? Because I did.

Parents, I guess

This post is kind of like my Mother's Day present to a lot of women.

I was thinking about how parents fight, and screw up their kids more often than not. But the world is screwed up. And who is to say what's normal? I realised, that for every person I love, there's two other people I need to thank. So when I come to your house best friend, love of my life, amazing roommate, new college friends, high school forever friends, people I am lucky enough to be related to, I will go up to your parents, regardless of whether or not your relationship with them is good, I will go up to them and thank them for creating such an incredible human being. Love, whether you are made from their love or their neglect, their affection or their arguments, their environment, good or bad, it has created a lot of you. Their blood has fashioned your body and their presence, or lack thereof, your personality. And for every bit of that, I thank them. They gave me you, as you are, messed up or great, they gave me you and I am grateful because I love you.

Dust.

I like the way dust comes in imperceptibly and settles on all things stationary, indiscriminately. Its good in a way because when I return to my shelf, i pick up a book or a box, and from that thin or clustered layer of dust remember that it has been too long since I last remembered. It is a good reminder to remember things more often, things of use, and at some point, that had been of importance. Dust is an underrated aid of nature. I hope that someday you will come into the room that used to be ours and see me sitting on the bed, leaning against the window, the way I always do, and when you touch me, you will be met by that tiny, grainy, browned layer of dust and remember how often you forget to remember me. You will remember how long I have been waiting on my shelf, waiting to be remembered, to be used, to be of importance. And maybe, you will realise that I am no longer required and maybe I will remember that I am no longer supposed to be waiting.

Trudging

I started this post hoping to let loose the voices my head, to allow them to scream as they scream in my head all day but they scream too fast for me to be able to type it all down. They scream of my worthlessness, and despondency, and hopelessness, and the fact that I must question why I am alive, and burdening nice human beings who seem to adore me despite the fact that I'm just an expensive disappointment. I'm like that pair of Steve Maddens you bought at full price, and now they only decorate your shelf because they skin your ankles every time you put them on. My mind screams in its hollowness wondering why people like me. It also wonders why they don't. I had a list of bullet points for every time I felt like this, inadequate, lacking, stupid, a list to remind me why I have friends but I seem to have lost it and I can't remember a single reason. Its tearing me apart from the inside. Before I implode, my mind screams, reverberates the way I sit or lie down, the folds and globs of fat that eat up my torso like a slimy monster, just rolls and tools of goo and pudge that line my material being which make it impossible to ever look into a mirror without hiding myself under oversized t-sirts and tiny shorts.

We trudge through the day with a myriad of thoughts, hopeless one second, the next without a fuck, the third so cocky and arrogant, the fourth, uncaring, the fifth so cold, the sixth, wanting to be invisible, the eighth ruminating the purpose of life, the ninth, the first, the second, the third all with underlying plea begging for it to shut up. To shut up. Just shut up.

Its not just Mondays and its not just stress days. Its us. Everyday. And it is so hard to find the right words. like real writers who make you feel, who make us realise that we are not the only ones. To read those words that fully explain that shitty feeling that we couldn't explain to anyone and the relief that floods when you realise that you are not the only one. I am tired of trudging through life every day with voices in my head. I feel sometimes that I am merely an emotional being. A vase, a jar, an empty vessel with used tissue paper, and scribbled ink notes, and just random doodles, emotions, nothing else. Sometimes I think I'm not because even when I am not feeling, and not thinking and just drifting off to sleep, he thinks something is wrong with me, perhaps I was crying. My silence maybe is savouring with its eyes closed his hands caressing my hair, and his lips on my forehead and his book between my shoulder blades. The ecstasy I am devouring, the ecstasy devouring me. Thats how I trudge through the day, my mortal, emotional being, in the safety of his arms ignoring the rest of the trudging life, stopped, paused, hidden, ruling a castle of blankets and fleeting hearts. And sometimes, the mind would even shut up.

Delusional

I believe love is a delusion, as much as is religion. They are fantasies and fallacies we make up in out heads because we need something to believe in. It is that strange human tendency to attach meaning to things and as fickle as it sounds, I find it silly for the most part. I am a hypocrite. Because as much as I think it stupid, I am all for creating delusions to make yourself happy. If love is a delusion, if it is painful and unrequited or sacrificial, unreal, temporary, inconstant, impractical, if it be a delusion, believe and live and revel in it so long as it makes you happy. Fight the world if you will, and make it worth it while it lasts. I am much against impracticality but I suppose there are some things even my detached self needs to hold on to. Being detached is an illusion, as is being attached. Being in control is an infantile belief. There is no control in the universe, at least not in human hands. The mind makes up things and explanations, and if it makes you happy, believe. Stay in that cave of innocence and don't come out because outside is chaos. Outside is confusing. It is questioning everything you know, mistrust and disbelief in whatever you hear. Live you delusions for as long as you wish. Dreams and fiction. Thats what I always say. Thats what I believe. That is my escape. Dreams and fiction. It is all I wish to live in, is dreams and fiction. The melody for my soul and solace for my mind is dreams and fiction. Where I believe as I please in goodness and happy endings, and murders and witchcraft, and blood and flying carpets. I believe existence is strange, the reason questionable but I need an escape from this empty, material, doubtable, unbelievable reality. Escape into dreams and fiction. Clouds and words. Skies and pages. Dreams and fiction. All I need to do s return to my mind, where everything is real and nothing must be. Where I sometimes believe in silly, fickle, impractical love, and always, in magic.

Lacking

Will it be a legitimate excuse if tomorrow morning my friend hands my Professor a note that says, "Please excuse e for not doing my homework. I died a little when I saw it. I died a little when I saw my grades and I died a little when I realised my own inadequacy. It was in this state of helpless deadness that I neglected to do my homework. Please feel free to come to my funeral and bury with my lifeless body all the Economics homework which I neglected to do so I can complete it in the state I did all my other assignments- cold, flaccid, uninspired deadness." I am trying so hard to care right now. To care about the fact that I am flunking half of my classes. To care about the fact that I haven't actually attended any of my classes. To care about the fact that my deadlines are lingering scarily close, as close as my proverbial knife to my wrist and so hard to care about the fact that my efforts so far have been C+. All I care about this time is that all the work I have done this semester has been done with the cautiousness, and almost fear of an adult poking a presumably dead lizard with a long stick in an attempt to throw it away. What I care about is that last semester I had learned to use my brain,a in creativity in ways that I had not believed myself capable of. Last semester for me had been a revelation. This semester, it seems that my brain has become much like my laptop. I try to open a new window, and I have to wait 5 minutes for a response. Every time I attempt save new thing it crashes from the overload and the sleepless nights, for both of us, and the saving, and researching, and erasing of the multiplicity of documents in the small memory of my seven desktops with motivating quotes and wild music on each of them that spurs me to stay up all night. I felt inspired and proud as I managed to do my assignments in such a planned and timely manner, but my efforts are C+. Why even bother? In the midst of this existential crisis that I seem to have every month, I wonder once again, What is the purpose of my uninspired, uncreative life where I am learning things for the sake of learning? "I want to sit in a random class just to learn" as my friend put it so eloquently. the curiosity, the thirst they introduced me to in the first semester has been squashed under the plethora of formalities and necessities and I am struggling to keep my head above water. Intimidated by the achievements and ambitions of everyone else, I am dying slowly trying to figure out what I even want! I want to be inspired again! I want to think again and come up with those wonderful thoughts that made me feel smart and insightful but unfortunately I am just B- in Critical Thinking. I want to write, eloquently, in the way that every other girl in my college seems to write. I want a sense of uniqueness or at least an identity of my own which seems to merging and melting into Tumblr and cuteness! God! This is to me. Emotional rants and slam poetry and aww and cooing and puppies is not me! Is it? Am I sure? Am I sure of who 'me'' is? Maybe Im life every other girl. Maybe I am all facade and nothing else. I don't even know my own facade anymore. My mask has been painted over with smiles and rainbows and unicorns and I don't know what to who I am. Should facts help me then? Removed from the world inside my own mind, I should try to find solace in facts and figures and numbers and the convergent thinking that leads to the one answer that teachers require. But I'm still drowning. I feel like a part of me is lacking. A part of me is trying to wake up and make the rest of me care but my insides are black and blank and hollow. The spark has died out. maybe I should paint, and pray that spark, the will to live, and the creativity, the raison de etre returns.

Birthdays

This post is for a certain someone who won't be turning 19 tonight because he decided that being an adult was not for him. His behaviour was so 'grown up' but he was so childish. So stubborn! So set in his ways that it tore us apart. Or maybe it was the fact that I was the same way. He won't be turning 19 tonight because he'll be with the stars, high (which he was last year as well :p) and smiling at my chocolate covered face. I used to love birthdays. Even when the very people who should be celebrating didn't. I loved birthdays not because I was happy for them but because I was happy for me. I celebrated birthdays because I am happy that they were born, and I was grateful that I met them and I was overjoyed that they make my life what it is. I remembered his because it was the first one I probably ever learnt. I miss him. so much. everyday. Its been 11 months since you've been gone, but you always had a habit of disappearing, didn't you? Is that why I still keep expecting you to show up? Well, being born, and dying are the two most important things about being, and having been. So I guess, now 'birth'day is obsolete. I will celebrate next month your death day because I'm pretty sure you prefer that to the social construct of attending college. Not that you would care much anyway. But you're gone. And I bet you're up to your old tricks up in heaven. I expect to see fireworks and starbursts and lightning and smoke in the sky tonight. Is firdaus even in the same time zone as us? Me. Not 'us' anymore. But love, Im still thinking about the way I did every year on your birthday when you had been missing. You were the first person I stayed up till 12 with. When you were in Goa and called me up all day because it was your birthday and you missed my voice and you flew back the next day and that was the last day we met. Love, I hope you remember it, because I do today. And I hope I will always. Goodnight. Happy almost birthday.

-April 14th, 2016