The point of it all

The feeling has strengthened. I’m a man now. I read a story ‘Hema and Kaushik’ by Jhumpa Lahiri and I think it might be the best piece of writing that I’ve ever read, along with The Catcher in the Rye. That’s when I realized that it doesn’t matter what the world thinks of it. To me, what matters is that I like it. I have an identity now. I can decide what I like and what I don’t like, irrespective of whether it's supposed to be liked or not. And I liked this story for a reason which may not be universal. It can be a personal reason, and that makes it all the more better. It feels like it has been written for me. It does not matter if the story is not in the list of best stories of the decade. I loved it and it changed my world in a way.

Why even be

Afraid to think of you
I lay in darkness
Surrounded by mystery,
Surrounded by fear.
Surrounded by something,
So unclear.

That rattling sound
Those lashing waves
Fighting hard
To keep my sane
No more violence, no more pain
No more heart, only brain.

The enigma of life
The things I see
Make me question
Why even be?
Why even be, when all I see
Is hollowness and opacity
Why even be, when all I see
Is reality, so phony

On Love

Sitting with me under a tree
Near a field of Rye.
Her pretty eyes looked at me,
Was she about to cry?

Those lovely lips, a warm sigh
And then I smelt her breath.
Godliness, I felt for sure;
Days away from death.

That day with her, the beautiful her
Just the perfect bliss.
And all I thought of, as I died
Was her parting kiss.

I don't know

Hi. It's been a while since I've blogged now. I feel like writing today, maybe because I don't feel like studying and the weather is quite good. What do I want to write? Anything that I feel like writing about. It's just a beautiful day and I feel like expressing myself. Exams in IIT have been a very weird time for me. I have felt very introspective and have thought about what I'm doing in IIT and with my life. That's changed a little bit. I've become quite relaxed about the minors and I don't have much courses this time so I don't think they are going to be a problem this time. There's a high probability that I don't end up studying today, but that's ok.

Well, I'm not done with my rambling. The weather is beautiful. I thought I'd tell you about a depressing discussion I had with my friends today about our careers but it's gonna get boring so I'll just skip it. It's a beautiful night. There's stuff happening all around the city, all around the world right now in this single moment that my mid-IIT crisis suddenly seems less important to me. So many people are experiencing happiness right now. As I write this, some people are experiencing the birth of their child and these newborn children are experiencing life for the very first time. What it must feel like! To experience something suddenly when before this you've just never experienced anything. How does life start? It must be in a single instant, either you are alive or you are not. I don't think you can be partly alive. So why did we not feel this transition when we were born? Maybe it's because our brains were too small. Or it's because since we've never really experienced anything before we are born, it's not possible to sense the change. Yes, that must be it.

So anyway, I was just thinking about how many people must be experiencing very strong emotions at this time all around the city. People are having sex, people are being beaten up or have experienced the death of someone very close, people are riding their motorcycles at 100 kmph and having the time of their life. It's just energy all around. This is why a city feels so alive.

I want to experience romantic love. I haven't had that feeling for a really long time and I want it real bad. I don't want to think about the minors. I want to think about how I would be so happy after the minors. :). And I'll write stuff after the minors, it'll be really good. I'll probably do my creative writing final assignment in the mid-sem break after the minors.

Ok, that's enough rambling I think. Comment if you are not doing anything. It feels good to read your comments.

Success, fame, etc

I bet you've read in a lot of articles or self help books or have been told by some gurus on T.V. that sucess and fame are overrated and if we want to be happy we shouldn't be mindlessly running the rat race. So today, I had a question in my mind. The people who write these books, the people who give these little speeches, aren't they all famous and successful themselves? Some of them are only famous because they're telling the world not to run after fame. What an irony! Who are these people to tell us not to strive for fame when they are themselves everything that they tell you not to be?

And you only listen to these people because they're famous and successful! Why in the world would you listen to anyone who has done nothing special, someone who is just a common man?

P.S. - I'm not trying to make any point here. I just had this thought today and felt like sharing it

An introduction

‘Who am I?’
This is a very tough question which inevitably bothers everyone. The answer to this question is everchanging. Who I am is actually a very transient concept and is also a function of time. I realize now how tough this whole ‘writing an introduction about myself’ thing is. Where do I start? What do I write about? What is that thing which is so central to my character that I would choose to tell if I had to be really honest and I only had a few words to do so?

And then it strikes me. It brings a smile to my face as I realize it. I’m nihilistic. It’s 1:30 am on Monday right now and that’s when I have started writing this. Nihilism is the one thing that has defined me since the past couple of days and procrastination is what I have been doing since then. Most of it stems from a general hatred towards IIT classes. The same thing happens at the start of every semester. I start hating IIT classes, I sleep in classes and all I do after classes is relax because the classes were so goddamn boring and I need a break after them. It has barely been two weeks since college started and I have already missed a lot of classes. That doesn’t worry me a lot but my not-doing-anything does. It’s that time of the year when I develop a dislike for any type of organized work and it is wrong. I can say with certainty that it is wrong because there are certain things which make me happy and there are certain things which don’t. Doing nothing is one of the things that makes me very unhappy in the long run. When I realize this, I start to come out of my laziness. That makes me happy. That makes me write this. I know its not the first time that this is happening and its definitely not the last but it feels good to beat the lazy bastard who takes over me every now and then.

Who am I? I am someone who wants to be happy. That pretty much sums it up. This is the only constant in me. This does not mean that I am just one step away from my goal, now I just have to find the things which make me happy. Those things are ever changing and that becomes a source of great confusion. I am confused. Confused about what I want to do after IIT and what I want to do for a living. It’s the third year of college. The time when people around me are starting to decide what they want to do after college and are starting to work towards it. A little fraction of those people have realized what they want to do. Notice the two things are different. I hold realizing what you want to do much above deciding what you want to do. I’m starting to realize what I want to do but I’m still not there. I really believe that I can find something which I’m really passionate about and still make a living out of it. I know about a lot of things that I don’t want to do.

What do I know right now about what I want? I want to do something in which I can be creative... It’s definitely a start.


P.S. - This is part of an assignment of a Creative writing course which I'm doing. It was supposed to be titled 'An Introduction', we had to write about ourselves and we had to be "brutally honest".

Watching history in the making

While idling around on my computer for the whole day today, I realized a very important thing. We may not have realized this but we are witnessing history in the making as we live.

In school I used to think that since all the basic laws of physics have been discovered now, there's nothing much left to do in science. It seemed like a golden age when Newton and Gallileo lived. So little was known about life. Almost everything they published was history in the making, and provided new insights about the world. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was also one such historic moment. It just completely changed the way people thought about life and god. People know now that we weren't just created out of nothing in 7 days. It was evolution.

Also, I used to think how it would have been to live in America during the 60's or 70's. The hippie revolution was at its peak. Rock bands were churning out albums that are now regarded as classic rock music. What feeling it must have been, going to see a Laser Floyd show, watching a Beatles concert or watching Jimi Hendrix perform in the legendary Woodstock '69. And there would have been times when people would have realized that these things are going to be remembered as remarkable moments in history.

And I realized that even now as we live, we do experience many historic moments. People 50 years from now will envy the feeling of anticipation that we people had before the release of every Harry Potter book. Harry Potter became a legend and will be known as a legend for hundreds of years to come. We watched Federer first win those titles effortlessly, then having to fight for it and then finally proving to everybody that he is the greatest tennis player ever. The titanic clashes between Federer and Nadal, Wimbledon 2008 final, Wimbledon 2009 final (16-14 in the final set) are all going to be things that make people of the future very jealous that they didn't live in this day and age to watch these moments in the making, to watch Federer cry after finally winning that French open.

It's a fast age. The population of the world is huge. The times are-a changing. Now I believe good artists are starting to get recognized in their lifetimes. Even those things which are not the most popular but are otherwise considered great by some end up having a cult following which I think any artist would be honored to have. I think we are living in a great time.

Smoking is beautiful

All dangers aside, I think the idea of smoking is one of the finest and most artistic ideas which the human civilization has come up with. The idea of a small stick, which you set on fire and put to you lips and then inhale the smoke is just plain amazing. You do not eat or drink anything, just burn something, inhale the smoke and it messes with your head to give you a 5 minute high. I'm not talking about whether the high is good or bad. It's just that the concept is so artistic and amazing which is what makes smoking so cool. Just think about a civilization coming up with something like that. It's almost as brilliant as the wheel.

P.S. - I don't expect to get many positive comments for this but that's ok. Just go ahead and write what you feel like

Roadies

As seen in a magazine's Q&A session


Q- Hi. I'm good-looking, weird and unemployed. Please help me.

A- Congratulations, you have the perfect qualifications for getting selected in a television show MTV Hero Honda Roadies. The Roadies is out looking for good looking jobless people like you. You didn't mention how bitchy you were. If you are sufficiently bitchy then there's no chance that you would get rejected. However, even if you are not bitchy, don't worry. You mentioned that you are weird. That means that even if you don't get selected, there's a really good chance that you will be shown on TV in the auditions stage of the program. So fret not, just audition for Roadies, you needn't get a life.

Cheers

Getting back in the game

I think I'm wasting my life and my holidays. I haven't written anything in a long long time. I thought I would do something good with my holidays. Have started squash coaching and finally started gym today but I haven't been actually doing anything. Our sitcom plan is on a hold now because my fellow dumbass creators are not in town :), no offense. I really need to start writing something, to start creating something. I seriously need to get back in the game. Science has stopped fascinating me, also interesting me. Atleast that's what I find these days. I'm not missing studying at all during these holidays although I do miss IIT. I miss being in IIT in a regular semester, although I don't miss studying.

The confused me

Today, while taking a break from viewing quantum mechanics lecture videos, I went down for some water. I met Benjo who asked me what was up. I told him that I had this presentation of a b-plan competition coming up in which I had been selected for the finals. Our team still hadn't done anything about it till now. He asked me if I wanted to do an MBA after IIT. I told him that I don't know. Right now, I find all the available prospects like MBA, MS and going for a job crappy. I told him that at the end of the 4th year, I'll go for whatever I find the least crappy. It's not like me to be usually negative but it was an honest answer. The thought that I find all the paths that IIT leads to crappy is a scary one which worries me most these days. I like viewing quantum mechanics lectures on internet even though I do it very irregularly, I love the idea of winning a B plan competition but I haven't worked for it. I would love to become a prof. but I absolutely hate studying. Every day I come to my hostel after classes (or wake up realizing that I missed all the classes), I hardly do anything. I have rough idea of things which I want to do that day but no plan. In the end, I just end up searching arbitrary things related to our b-plan on the internet for about 30 minutes and then start watching 'That 70's show', loving the show but hating myself for watching it all this time. I suspect that my posture of lying down on the bed while I start working is one of the culprits which contribute to my being unproductive. I started today sitting on the chair and keeping my laptop on the table, and I think it has helped because I felt like writing something here today. I feel better that I wrote this as it was a good way to let out my confusions.

Great day

I'm reaching the end of a great day. Met a pretty girl today, finally went to gym after 5 days, read about 120 pages of 'The last lecture' by Randy Pausch - a Carnegie mellon university prof. which has turned out to be quite a great book till now. Had wanted to read it for a long time but the paperback edition came recently only. Although i have a sore throat and feel a little feverish, but it still feels great. Haven't had a great day for a long time. An episode of 'That 70's show' would make it even better but have to sleep now. I'm thinking i'll go to my 8 o clock drama class finally. Have been thinking about it for a long time but always end up oversleeping :)
Let's see if i attend this one.