I'm back :D

Yes, I'm blogging after the longest time. NOT like I had nothing to write about. just plain plain lazy. Hmm so last I posted was around the swine flu break. Lots of things have changed!

I've at some points tried to observe 'patterns' in my life. I'd concluded that the happiest things are always the most unexpected ones, the ones which completely take you by surprise. Well, conclusion arrived at was true. :) Touchwood.

I've also firmly concluded that when things are going really, really bad, something really really good is also in store for one. I saw a bit of really really bad. Lol, had this horrendous submission which deserves a post by itself. If it werent for a bunch of stunning friends, would never have submitted. And it ultimately worked out :)

I've also travelled a LOT. As in, for me a LOT. Ok so in the break went to Ahmedabad and Udaipur. Really really nice. Then Bombay (home :)), then back to Bangalore. Then, went to Oxford, London, Cambridge. :) Really really nice. I remember when I came to know I would be going there, it seemed so surreal. I couldnt believe that I was actually going there. I've grown up reading books by English authors (way better than American authors in my opinion), and well it seemed like I already knew the place. All the names seemed so familiar! So I liked London. And Oxford. Cambridge was pretty but preferred Oxford. Simultaneously, missed India a LOT. I never thought I would be this kind of a person. Missing India so much. Nonetheless it's happened to me before, and happened when I went to England too. Missed 'my people'. Everyone seems a stranger abroad. I keep on thinking, so if I fall sick, fall on the road, will anyone here even care? Also it was bloody cold. I can't stand too much cold.

Currently I'm in a daze in re the way the trimester is going. I'm doing something which involves a LOT of work. I like it. Sometimes get motivated and work like mad. Sometimes find it boring or not inspiring enough. :( Plus I'm off almost everything else. Currently I'm sitting in the library and writing this, and it's Christmas. Past two years have gone home for Christmas. Not this year. Sigh. However have met two awesome people courtesy work. So it's all good. :)

Oh yes have completed two and a half years in college. Halfway down hence. Lovely feeling :) I look at my batch and think, wow so much has changed. People have changed. Different relationships, different priorities, different cliques (ok wait latter's remained almost constant for most people).

And I'm listening to new music! My shady new music is always there, yes. However courtesy someone have been getting exposed to awesome new kinds of music, lovely lovely :) And my Secret Santa from class gifted me Wolf Hall, which I've been lusting for for a long time. :)

Things I want right NOW? Watch Avatar, 3 Idiots, settle down to a nice book, watch more movies present on my laptop for the longest time, extermination of pimples (sigh, I NEVER get them usually), and other stuff. :)

Things I aspire for? Getting more work done, a better sleep cycle, more healthy living. Sigh.

Ok so this post has been more of an 'update' post. Generally, concluding observation is that life can be so unexpectedly awesome.

Update

Ok apparently people are unable to comment on this blog
*struggle between sticking to this new pretty awesome template and switching back to boring blogspot template ensues*
Sigh.
Oh I came across someone who feels just the same way about law school too!
I also came across someone who couldn't believe that I like law school now; aah it feels good to know that one has changed for the better!
Touchwood!

I don't know what to name this post

So well I think I blog only in holidays.
So I have an unexpected swine flu break; which is prima facie awesome because it is HOME as opposed to LAW SCHOOL. However while I'm 'decently loving it' I miss college! This is slightly weird because I have a very busy trimester this time; and I KNOW tons of work awaits me when I hit B'lore. However I still miss it! See I usually have always loved home (except I think first ever Oct hols when I was missing coll dreadfully), but I think one needs to be away from it for some considerable amount of time to actually miss it, need it etc etc. Is it the same for lovers; i.e. does absence actually make the heart grow fonder? Dunno. Anyway, coming back to original topic, as I was saying, home needs to be wanted really badly to be appreciated. Plus even though I have tons of work to do and I've spent these nights (and days) utterly frustrated / sad / irritated / tense about impossible deadlines and jam packed weekends (and I know I'm going to be like that even when I go back), I had mentally prepared myself for the same at the start of trim. So this sudden break acted as a total speed breaker (I canNOT believe I'm giving driving analogies), and here I am at home. And now experiencing complete inertia of rest. So when these 'hols' end I know I'm going to hate going back. Sigh. I believe I'm contradicted myself throughout this paragraph. I think it's a consequence of always, always thinking the grass is greener on the other side; a trait which I must get rid of.
However, on a more positive note, I have managed to get rid of this trait when I think of law school. There have been times in the last 2 yrs when I've simply hated law school (have, I admit, cried on the last day of hols once) and have wanted to scamper off home and have regretted decision to not simply do a Bachelor in Arts. Now, I love law school! Yes it has these idiotic deadlines, numerous submissions, crazy people... but I cannot imagine not interacting with these ppl on a day to day basis. I live with these people ya. Another batch graduated this year, meeting them made me sad about them leaving and about me leaving too! Is 5 yrs enough?!
Touchwood, I'll always be like that about college :)

Ooh please notice - got new template!

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I cannot get over this picture. Photography is such a beautiful art. This one is by Henri Cartier Bresson.

Of Summer

Of ice-creams and bricks,
Of cold drinks and rasna in ice to create orange candy,

Of art class and casio class and once upon a time odissi class,

Of Holi and Mamma's birthday,

Of results and no school and Papa making plans,

Of Kwality in Calcutta and Eden Ice Cream Parlour in Bombay,

Of Mama and Delhi, Mausi and Noida, Baba-Dadi and Arrah, Nana-Nani and Lucknow,

Of pethas and Nani and mangoes,

Of discovering Mother Dairy and Mami's Cold Coffee,

Of dark room and swimming in Asiad and in Lake Castle Club,

Of langdas and alphansoes (or is it alphonsoes?),

Of cotton clothes and getting tanned and fretting over the latter,

Of many showers and beaches, Puri and Bombay,

Of Archies and Tintin and Asterix,

Of attempting to playing water polo and playing the rather simple, polo,

Of soup and Rajdhani,

Of changes in friendship dynamics (:)),

Of Baba and Pepsi,

Of horror movies and lays and Coke and Nitty's house,

Of Goa and tantrums (me),

Of Bhaiya always,

Of exams over and birthday gone,

Of cricket in the colony, and throwball in the building,

Of remembering some and forgetting the rest.

Summer's on the anvil, incessant perspiration is the first indicator. :) I was feeling a little nostalgic, and I was scared I'll forget what summers have been over the years. So here's a little reminder for myself :) Summer holidays are absolutely the best time ever! This time, like last year, I'm going to be in law school, and not at home. While I can't do some of the things mentioned above consequently, summers in law school are not that bad too (for instance there is always Univ Week to look forward to). Also, I just enjoyed 7 fantabulous weeks at home!

I wanted to know - what have your summers been like?

Hmm, ok I like presently - the book When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro. It has this lovely balanced pace to it. I thought that some things were too coincidental, but overall loved the book. Also, if you're reading this please please read Never Let Me Go! Stunning book, imo. Looking forward to reading The Remains of the Day, and picking up The Unconsoled from where I left it.

Checklist for the hols!

In case I forget :P. Oh and not in any order of priority.
1. Read!
2. Watch movies and sitcoms and serials!
3. Try to resource episodes of OTH (S. 4 onwards?) and Grey’s Anatomy (S. 3?)
4. Work! (Internship)
5. Exercise!
6. Swim! (special emphasis)
7. Not think about stuff I'm always thinking out.
8. Let it be. Do NOT think.
9. See South Bombay during course of internship (excited here :)).
10. See a play in Prithvi!
11. Learn how to drive (sigh- this is dad induced)
12. Eat healthy (umm, Mum induced)
13. Shop! (Certain essentials - a white kurta, a skirt, a belt)
14. Get pretty chappal repaired (sigh).
15. Meet certain friends definitely - D, Sr, Sa, Sho, GS, RS, Shi. Call them first!
16. Umm start work for eventually getting the desired b'day present from parents (B’day in March - but need to get on the job now itself :D).
17. Ok some B'wood flicks which need to be seen in the theatre - Ghajini, Luck By Chance, Dilli 6.
18. Download new music!
19. Do up room.
20. Be happy!

Post Script - drove today for the first time, I take back my reservations, was awesome fun! It's like playing those racing games in real life (I can hear people going duh - but still!)

Faith.

There are times when nothing seems to be going right, or something which really matters isn't going right. And then those adages denoting that everything will be alright, seem futile... and far out of touch with reality. There are things which are beyond one's control, but how does one just let it be, and let things evolve naturally? It's exasperating and frustrating.. and sad. I know that a zillion bad sad terrible things happens to other people too, but I still cant wonder why does something have to happen to me? And I know that life is great :) And it's criminal to be wasting life by being sad. Nonetheless at times I still rant and ask - why me?
Then there's the other thing about life being full of surprises. While that is nice and not so boring (and possibly 'it's all for the best'), don't you at times feel that it's also nice when things develop in the expected way?
I know this post isnt the best way to start a new year, but I really wanted to vent somewhere, somehow. So this. However I hold on, and have faith. I think it's so important to have faith no? Umm this post is kind of a plea to the powers that be (or 'there be', what is the expression?) and a venting post.

Very abrupt, I agree. :)

Oh and happy new year!Have an AWESOME year!

On travelling alone, related observations and some disconnected ones

So yesterday I travelled alone on a flight for the first time... yes I guess shocking when I'm 19 (a friend of mine was 6 when she travelled alone on a flight for the first time). Anyway it was an exhilirating feeling. I don't think it was about flying per se... it was more about the solitude and the 'alone' time. Some time ago I had been scared about being 'alone'... now I think I value the away time. Yesterday was a fun day! I window shopped at the airport (BIAL should get more shops in my opinion), had a sinful delight (a chocolate ice cream milk shake :D I'm not supposed to have milk, especially cold milk), sat at the terminal and read a book after the longest time (Atonement, by Ian McEwan, nice :)), watched Friends on the flight (Kingfisher! Ok i usually go home either by IndiGo or Spice, but this time this was the only flight at the convenient time :P), watched bits of Pardes and Shahrukh singing 'Yeh Dil...Deewana' (sigh), and ate chocolate cake (another forbidden fruit!), the rest of the food sucked. I loved it. There are so many million trillion zillion things one can do when one's alone, it's beautiful. I like things to be the way I want them to be, obviously. However when X and Y are also involved in whatever you're doing, you have to be nice and sensitive and mindful of what they think or what they want ... or you're being 'watched'! When one is alone one can do whatever one wants...... you're literally creating your own world, and hence you are responsible for whatever you do... it's a nice feeling :) I love being around people, some people... but I love my own private space too, behind closed doors, oblivious to the world.
Ok now for the other disconnected observations.
1. At BIAL (basically B'lore airport), when one is being frisked (the word has a certain criminal connotation to it, I agree) before one enters the check in area, there is only one entrance for women but some three for men. End result - women have to wait in the single queue for AGES while the men get in way faster. I think I've mentioned this somewhere else too, I'm not a hard core feminist (I don't know what I mean exactly by that... but still!).. however how blatantly gender biased can one get?! So the BIAL admin thinks that women don't travel?! SO weird! So that's the second suggestion for change on my part - make the no. of frisking counters equal for men and women!
2. Ok so I was frisked...and I cleared it, but my purse didn't. I was worried. I had kept a metal chain inside (the one with which one locks their luggage in a train), had forgotten to remove it, so it got confiscated. In the process however, the checking lady emptied the entire contents of my purse. I was SO embarrassed. It was as if a part of me was being exposed to the world - little slips of paper of great meaning, tiny trinkets which were gifts from friends, a comb, a hair band, two diaries and lots of other things which I wouldn't mention here, EVERYTHING was taken out! There's this saying - the eyes are the windows to one's soul. Well I would say, so is a woman's purse for her! I have this habit of collecting and keeping stuff (as a kid I was a like a little magpie, everything which seemed precious to my five year old self would go into my 'magic' box... so whenever my parents or brother lost something, they would never forget to check my box.. no I am not a thief now!).. I'm trying to discard things now, but it's slow process... so now my purse often replaces my magic box :)
3. The totally disconnected observation. Our Minority Affairs Min, Antulay is, to use a law school term, quite a 'prick'. By flouting conspiracy theories about the awesome cop Karkare's death, he's made a smooth move for himself. However it's jeopardising our anti-terrorism campaign and how. The Times of India has a column called 'The Pak Express' or some such thing - it basically chronicles news reports from Pakisatani newspapers like Dawn. So today I read the column - and these newspapers are questioning India's locus standi vis-a-vis pointing fingers at Pak for its failure to ban the terrorist outfits in their backyard. There's this one newspaper which is questioning India's 'secular' credentials (the conspiracy theory is that Karkare - who was investigating the Malegaon blasts, allegedly carried out by Hindutva organisations - was deliberately taken to the wrong hospital or some such thing, and this was rigged by the aforementioned orgs). I agree that India is not the most secular state - the Godhra riots are the biggest testimony to that. Nonetheless, there is always a time for saying some things. In my opinion, given the gravity of the Mumbai blasts (horrific, depressing, devastating... words are not enough to describe them) India needs to adopt a hardline stance towards curbing terrorism. Given this, when a Union Min comes forth and says that not Pak but an Indian outfit is responsible for the super cop's death, it's a clear breach of the idea of collective responsibility. Yes the theory needs to be investigated, but it can be done discreetly initially. And it's not as if the man really cares for the minorities. As MJ Akbar's written in this artice in the Sunday Times, the man has the unique distinction of being the first Union Min Affairs min who has done nothing for minorities. For Antulay, it's about pure vote bank politics and self aggrandisation. He's himself said in an interview that before this he was nothing, and now he's all important. Congress has to think twice before they can remove hm because he claims that the minorities love him. It's a well planned move. Smart, slick and sick.

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He sits. And watches. It's the same story, all over again. The two are at it again. It's the same as before, the bad same. There is no talking. Just cold silences. Communication through him. The same complaints, conveyed silently by one and verbally by the other.
There is the same irritation. The same stagnancy. Each side is justified in persisting with the old. But why o why does he have to be subjected to it? Or wait, it's only fair, isn't it? He has to listen. Give. Otherwise it'll be selfish.
Nevertheless is this what he has to come back to always?
However, always, there are happy endings. Are these happy endings cure alls, panaceas? Dunno. However there is light at the end of the tunnel. This seems to be too long a tunnel though. God, please press the fast forward button :)
Or wait, ok, let's stick to normal pace, I guess the wait is what will make everything worth.
However, in the meantime just hold on to him :)