Conversations with Solitude...

"I would have stayed..."

I wish you hadn't come back...

The mere idea of an everlasting, transcendental love is ridiculous, but if you tell people love is nothing but a delusional mirage created by certain chemicals - and desire is just a bunch of similar chemicals, and that sex is just a bodily need and not culmination of love into something which is an earth-shattering event - you are perceived as a freaky sci-rat who's spent more time studying those chemicals than actually falling in love, and whose life is screwed by his rationality. But it's true, and no one wants to see it that way. So you keep shut coz otherwise they would crucify you or institutionalise you. The way I see it, if someone chooses to believe in a fantasy to the extent that they perceive the fantasy to be real, then there's nothing that can be done. Science can't fight faith, especially faith in a fantasy.

There are times however, when the ridicule takes place of...well, jealousy. To be totally honest, the couple sitting on the beach, sharing something personal, does not look that ridiculous. In fact, they look very genuine. At such moments, I am definitely jealous. After all, jealousy is nothing but a set of beliefs which come true under a set of conditions. Certain chemicals involved, certain biochemical pathways traversed from brain to some specific organs would give rise to jealousy too. And if that rational explanation results in something totally ridiculous as jealousy, which still feels so damn real, then love must be real too.

Unfinished Business...

I was going through some old stuff while packing and came across this letter which is still unread after all these years. I glanced through it, but as always couldn't figure it out. It needs some serious deciphering. The sender must have been drugged while writing it coz it's a drawl. It's not even a proper letter, more like a scribble. I don't know what to do with it, so I keep trudging it along wherever I go, assuming one day I will gather enough courage to read it - for I know that if I put in enough effort, I can decode it, but I just cannot, and I don't want to. For one, this is the last piece I have on her. For years I couldn't even look at it without losing focus. Then when the initial crappy moments subsided, I deliberately avoided it coz I didn't want to be reminded of the past. After that came the time when I started thinking what if it turns out to be a stupid piece of shit? It might turn out to be something very simple and I might just get disappointed coz of its simplicity and that it wouldn't live upto the importance I had given it all these years. And I didn't want to remember her by some piece of paper that didn't have any gravity. So I postponed it and postponed some more and brought it till 2011. Now, I don't want to. It is better that way. It seems as if some business is still unfinished with her, that somehow she still has stuff left to say to me, that I share some secret with her which even I don't know, but as soon as it's unravelled, it will be over...but till it is veiled, I will have something to look forward to...so this piece of paper will be that one moment to look forward to. I know it's kinda diametrically opposite of moving on, but I don't want to.

Muddy Waters's Blues

Land of the Flooded Forest

Have always been fascinated with New Zealand. The country has been on the top of my list of places to see. But it's been toppled now by Amazonian forests. Of late, I have been reading a great deal about the region. The more I read about it, the more fascinating it gets. I have a few Brazilian friends in Rio, São Paulo and Viçosa. Reaching from here to there is a headache though. Anyway, who wants to visit these big cities? I would like to dash to Manaus, and then to the Amazons.

One day soon...

More Than Words...

What a song!

HNY! Happy 2011!

I knew she would call. She likes me, and I think she knows I know. So she acts tough. And provokes me. Today's invitation to the party was partly wanting to spend time together for this is our last new year together, but it was part provocation too - daring me to come to a party where no one expects me to be, where I am mostly surrounded by people who either don't care about me or have already formed an opinion that I'm too good for them. So when I said, of course, why not?, I could sense the glee-cum-surprise.

I regretted saying yes to her immediately as there are too many things pending but for that very reason I just went ahead with the plan. I have decided to do things that no one expects me to do. If others can predict how I'm gonna behave in the next situation, I'm probably in a mould and need to break free. At least on evening of 31st Dec.
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Anmi wished me new year while stepping out. Asked me about my plans. He was totally totally surprised to know that I had any. Pasami's smile faded. I guess both of them assumed I would work late in lab like a dork. Which just reconfirmed my decision to go to the party and have a ball. I've plans, I say. And they drop their jaws! What an awesome start to the year :)
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I like solitude. I am alone most of the times. What I realized today is -  do something again and again, enough number of times and you'll probably be able to fool even yourself. I started off spending more and more time alone as a requirement for my work. I always had enough to do. Interesting things to do too. I never got bored when alone. I mistook it as preferring to be alone. Not true. I love company as much.
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Misa and Sh called on Visp's number to wish him, and eventually wished us too knowing that a party is sort of on and everyone is around. I was quite uncomfortable the whole time. My whole friendcircle knows her. And I think she gets undue sympathy, which is unfair. Just coz she is a girl. With her, there are too many unspoken things, but time has come to move on. It was not my mistake, so I don't need to carry the baggage.
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The knowledge that I'm gonna leave from here soon is like knowing you're gonna die soon. All my senses have become sharper and I'm breathing in more of everything than I would have done otherwise. I'm living more because I know my days are numbered. Totally here-and-now.
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Cooking, hogging, watching a movie, laughing on ridiculous jokes and UP lingo, explaining the dialogues to a tamilian friend, walking back with no trace of guilt for totally forgetting about deadlines is I would say a great way to start the new year. I wish the whole year lives upto the start it has had.

Something More That Waits In Time...

I guess certain dates work like charm when you want to break of old habits and form new ones. There was a time when I was feverish about certain dates and resolutions. For example, new year's. My b'day. Start of vacation. On those dates, I used to form a list of things I would stop doing and list of ones I would hopefully start (all over again). Then came the phase where it was uncool to make any resolution. The usual response was to utter duhh and make the person asking the question feel stupid. Life was never supposed to be taken so seriously as to change something in oneself...even to humour that query was way too appalling.

I still find it appalling, but for a different reason. As in, really?! Is that what you really wanna know? You wouldn't even bother and now suddenly this intrusive? Actually it's so commonplace that it's not even annoying. Even I have done that I guess. It's the year-end equivalent of Isn't it too cold? Yeah, you bet! A conversation filler. Most of the people are looking for a funny answer anyway, and so I have a comic respite up my sleeve. I am gonna see as many sunrises as possible in 2011. And then they laugh and we go our separate ways.

I'm out of that phase though, when it was uncool to admit to flaws and try to change them. I do have flaws, lots and lots, and I would like to rectify them. So what's the real deal? Just one. I wanna reach out more to the people I love. Every relationship comes with a give and take balance and I felt it has been tilted mostly in favour of they giving and me taking. I have been doing nothing but just shamelessly taking and taking. And it's starting to bother me. It's time to give. Whatever makes this group of people happy.

I have been noticing it for a while, but 2010 has made it clear. Life is short. And no, I don't necessarily mean it in the context of impending death, etc. The time of togetherness has become shorter and shorter. We are never gonna have as much time with each other as we did when I was a kid. So I wanna make the best use of time we have, whether near or far, in doing things that they like doing.

I am already excited by the idea.

ps. Coming to think of it, it's kinda selfish of me coz I think I am gonna get more fun out of this whole resolution stuff.

I'm scared of dying without being able to make a difference in the world around me.  I want to do something to help the various ecological causes, to push the envelope further. I probably can’t do much, but I wanna try, wanna try hard and wanna try it forever. I know we've just one life, and this is how mine is, and exactly how I want it to be.

Kind gestures make me happy...but incredibly sad too. I mean, I like it. But I totally don't expect it. I think I have given up on any sort of kindness a long time back. I can fight empty words. Kindness on the other hand, is disarming. And bothersome. I can't bear it. Just got to avert gaze. Blindness.