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