2

'A start' precedes this, so if you're gonna read this, you wanna read that before you read this because it's not going to make a whole lot of sense otherwise.

So I haven't been able to read. I haven't felt like writing. I have found other ways of getting rid of strong negative feelings, like going for a sprint and doing it 2-3 times till I start panting like a dog. It's much better than writing, trust me. Tires you so much that you can't think of anything else. Other examples include going for a drive on NH8. Smoking, of course (somehow doesn't work when I'm alone, I need to be with people, and those people need to be smoking too)

There's been a break so I'm having trouble returning to my original train of thought. I was talking about Spiderman and women and something of that nature. Another thing is that since about 1-2 years, I've started seeing myself as a man and not as a boy. Just mentioning.

So some weird things have been happening lately. I'm very excited about the transition from college life to work life because I think work is gonna be exciting. More details on that later. I'm a little worried about the last semester in IIT but I'll worry myself with that later, when I absolutely have to.

I think I lost my train of thought from when I was talking about Spiderman. Anyway, more later.

A start

Ok, last time I attempted to write something, I ended up writing a paragraph and then deleting it all. So this time I will attempt to write something not caring about what it looks like and if the grammar is correct. This may be a short post as at some point of time I will feel like deleting it and going back to what I was doing before this. At that point, I will click on 'Publish Post' and that will be it. If I can see it getting worthless and feel that I am going to delete this in some time but I'll just keep on writing now, I'll again click on 'Publish post' and continue on a new one. So anyway, life feels like a bitch right now. I've been thinking about a lot of things. Bad things first. Actually I do not want to get into that because it's kind of personal, but I can talk about things generally. If I feel that what I've written is too personal and shouldn't be read by other people, then I may not click on 'Publish post' and you may never see this. I was going to write - 'but since you are, I'm guessing I'm going to sidestep that obstacle' - but the truth is that I honestly do not know how personal this is going to be, and that might make me review this whole thing and not post it at all. Anyway, lets forget that for a moment and let me carry on with my writing. The first bad thing is that I've been suffering from Writers block and Readers block (even if there's no such thing you know what I'm saying, don't crib about correctness, I never wanted to be correct in this post). So I haven't been able to read anything in a long long time. I took a course on Modern Fiction last semester and got an F in that. My total was 37.5 out of 100 and passing was 40 (passing is usually 30) and she failed me because her daddy didn't love her enough. But I digress. What I wanted to say was that I partly read 'One hundred years of solitude' in that course and liked it. I read about 60-70% of it but didn't complete it. I couldn't read any of the other books [each of us was supposed to read a total of 6 books! Full length novels - none of them half as simple as Five point someone or one-tenth as fun as Harry Potter {Yes, I'm a Harry Potter fan. I don't care much for literature. Although it was a bit kiddish and the whole idea of romantic love in the book is this childish idealistic romantic notion of love which is kind of sickening. What the fuck was that chapter '19 years later' doing in the end? Maybe this generation doesn't need to grow up on happy endings. Its sickening because I grew up with it, I expect it as much as I don't want to and I don't get it. Look around you. It's every where. Take Spiderman for example. Why does he see Mary Jane as some kind of an angel even though she's been nothing but a bitch to him. Knowing that he has the hots for her and snogging all these other guys in front of him. First that guy from the bus in the first movie. Then his friend Harry. Then that Air Force guy in the second movie. All she's been is a whore. He shouldn't take that kind of crap from her. He should go around the city literally picking up hot women from the streets, taking them to the top of some building where he's arranged a bed somehow, and they'll be on their backs begging for it. If that doesn't happen, he can always rescue women from some situation (apparently every day, somebody is getting robbed or raped or mugged in New York and every 3 seconds you can hear an ambulance go by. So much so for the financial capital of the richest nation in the world). It's funny that I digressed so much that I started writing something which I actually wanted to write}]

I'm gonna post this now and start afresh.

Webpage counter

I know it says 12000 something but there haven't been that many visits to my blog and I didn't set it to that much. When I put this on, I started it from 0 and some time later it fucked up. I think it should read something between 1000 and 2000.

Catharsis

It's always easier when you have no time to relax, and you desperately crave that time, which you can spend on yourself. You have all these things in your mind that you always wanted to do and all you need is free time, so that you can relax. It's so much more tougher when all you have is free time and nothing to do, no purpose in life, and your catharsis will come from getting off your ass, finding a purpose in life and doing something. Falling from working a lot to doing nothing is easy, it follows the natural order of things: like a ball rolling down a slope. Going from doing nothing to starting to work is against the natural order of things, in that it involves a decrease in your entropy. Sadly, the state of maximum entropy is not the state of maximum happiness for humans, and sooner or later we have to go and lose some of it.

From her to him

Leave me now, a solemn plea
Pray to thee – let me be free.

That night was fun – just you and me
And stars galore to see.
But now I need some lonesome time,
don’t ask me reason or rhyme.
I came, I went
It’s what I do;
I moved on
And you should, too.
A clear night and we made out,
things were what they were.
I didn’t have a single doubt
And now it’s all a blur.
That being said, I hope it’s clear
All was none but fun
And hope you have a happy life
Coz you ‘n me are done.

The importance of you

People come, people go. You realize their importance only when they're gone. Nobody is a perfect companion. No matter how well you bond with your friend or wife or brother, you know that in some corner of their personality, there is something massively wrong. You realize what's wrong with them only when they're around.

Think for a minute. Take this moment to realize the importance of yourself. This life is about you, and no one else. People will not be around when you need them. Your mind has to learn to live with itself, because life will not be generous enough to give you the luxury of good company every time.

A bad way to spend your weekend is to sit in front of your laptop, repeatedly checking your gmail account to see if there are any new mails and passing time by playing facebook games or mario forever. Is this facebook really a disease? Back in school, I used to think that smoking was bad and that there was no reason why anyone would start smoking except for peer pressure and that it looked cool to some people. It didn't look cool to my circle of friends back then and I used to think that since I never really liked anyone who smoked, therefore I would never want to be like them. That changed after coming to college. I saw people no different from me: likable and rational, who used to smoke and I started to think that it wouldn't be so bad. Is it going to be the same with facebook? Am I going to start playing farmville? Have things gone so bad that I cannot find other creative and interesting ways to beat boredome and angst?

What if...

What if there was no prose and everything had to be expressed in verse?

What if you somehow discovered you just have five more hours to live?

What if you're 60 and you never found love since your college sweetheart broke your heart?

What if you realize that no one would cry if you died?

What if you wake up in an asylum and realize that your supposed life was just a dream and you had just been asleep 5 minutes?

What if...

I believe in happiness. I believe that it is a state which can be achieved and you do not need anything special to achieve it. Existential angst is a trap. It is a trap in which you can convince yourself that the things which can make you happy (like a beautiful girlfriend, good friends, money and keeping yourself busy with something you like) are in fact, of no purpose at all. But you feel this angst only if you are devoid of one of these simple things. If you have these things, then you do not need to think about the purpose of your existence. An empty mind is a devil’s workshop, they say. It is, in fact a way to see the truth. When your mind is empty you can see through the emptiness of this life. But you like being happy, don’t you? Why not make that the purpose of your lives and stop cribbing? Why not stop questioning why something pleases you and instead get that something and actually please yourself?

Being a writer

Do you think that people who major in literature go on to become great writers? I know a lot of them don't. A lot of them who have the potential of becoming great writers. They know too much about literature. They're made to read about the 1000 years of literary geniuses that the world has produced. And inevitably, they'll compare themselves to these great writers. I mean that's just plain unfair. They're comparing themselves to the greatest writers and that too over a huge period of time. A person like me reads a book like, say The Cather in the Rye and it strikes me as something which even I could've written. When a literature student reads that, he knows the history. He knows how revolutionary the book was and how fresh it was for its time. All the time when they write something, they're comparing themselves to the Dostoevskys and Eliots of the world. Sometimes in life, you just have to start writing. All that you have to produce is something that you can like. It doesn't have to be perfect, it never will be. Know that and the pen will start moving. If you can write something that you are very pleased with, chances are you will find people in the world who will like it. It may not be a literary masterpiece. You can't know for sure how anything you write will be received by certain people who have degrees from fancy colleges and call themselves to be the judges of what is good writing and what is not. So I suggest you stop worrying about that.

P.S. - Written in my Literature class today

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