Laziness is a full time job.
When I came to Europe almost a month and a half ago, I thought I would have plenty of time in my hands to write and here I am, writing my first blog post in two/three months. But it has never been my intention to fill this space with mandatory updates and to chronicle my life's events. It has merely been an escape; a place that allows me the privilege to ramble, ponder and judge my actions in retrospect. And that's what it shall be.
Every now and then, I stop and ask myself if I am being "good". If I am remembering to keep doors held open, working hard and being independent etcetera. One of my prime concerns is to not get too emotionally wound up with anything or anybody. It's also my biggest weakness, so I need to keep myself surrounded by people that remind me of it, which luckily, I have found.
In the last two months, I feel like I have changed as a person. They say it's not the place that matters but who you are with. And perhaps it is true. After a long time...maybe a lifetime, even, I have spent time with myself. Properly, without cheating.  I have gone on walks alone, enjoying the feeling of being lost in a country that is separated by an ocean from home. Revelling on the pleasure of discovering new things that give me happiness. New experiences that I don't wish to share with anybody and cherish as my own. In the last two months, I have realized the beauty of things that are personal, that I can hold close to my heart and not be compelled to dissect and share and somehow in the process, see the shades of the entire picture turn duller. I have witnessed random incidents and people that have made me cheerful and filled me with a sense of unexplainable hope. Hope for a future that will hold infinite possibilities. For a present not marred with the constant fear of being lonely.
In the last two months, I have realized what I truly seek from my life; Beauty, in any form.
The beauty of sitting on the Spanish Steps and watching a newly wed bride throw a bouquet of flowers to a square full of nearly a thousand strangers, all joining in to celebrate her happiness. Each one of them, taking some time off their own agendas and sparing it to add some more joy to her special day.
The beauty of wandering alone in the rain from the milky white steps of the Piazza Venezia to the Forum, being lost in the crowds of a city that felt like Home, the minute I stepped into it. Being led by infinite faith in its people...the beauty of naivete.
The beauty of a small shop that takes your breath away when you bump into it while not expecting to. The thousand handwritten notes tacked all over its walls. Messages from students on backpacking trips, couples newly wed, writers, artists, dreamers. Messages to strangers, to share with them the joy they felt on discovering beauty where they didn't expect to.
The beauty of realizing ones own worth in the middle of sprawling squares, ancient buttresses, breathtaking gardens and bubbling fountains. The beauty of realizing that all that beauty could be yours if you chose to seize it. The wonderful realization that you are beautiful in your own way, and you are the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle to your happiness. The relief of knowing that there is nobody else that you need to complete it.
The feeling of wholeness.
The feeling of being complete.
The feeling of being satisfied.
The feeling of being happy.

Someone recently said something to me. It was a passing comment. One that hasn't left my mind since the time it was made.
He said - "Memories aren't always yours to keep."
I had never thought of them in that way. I have always felt a sense of entitlement to the experiences I have had in my life and the lessons I have learnt from them. However, I thought about it subconsciously..constantly..and I realized that perhaps my stance on it wasn't set in stone. It wasn't thought of. It was something I took for granted.

How can memories just belong to me? Especially the kinds made by me and someone else. 

How can I  preserve something whose one half has been obliterated?

How can I protect its sanctity when I don't have it in its entirety?

Are we too scared to admit that memories are just our way of holding on to something that will never come back; a desperate attempt in denial..a crawling space to hide?

I have used you so much...my crawling space. I know your every contour. Your every ridge. Your darkness. Your surfaces smooth by overuse. Every time I am scared or insecure, I crawl into you. I close my eyes. I curl up and listen to the silence. I fill my head with memories. Good and bad. Comforting, because they existed. Nothing can change them now. So much better than the uncertainty of now and hereon.

I love you because you are familiar to me. You will never change. You will always be there, sturdy and motionless against my back. You will give me a clean slate to draw with my thoughts and my memories. You will let me think for those few moments, that my world is in my control. That I am the master of my destiny. That nobody else gets to tweak the ending or change the details. I love you because you let me be exactly who I am. Vulnerable, but hopeful.

I love you because you never change. Even if I do.

Untitled

Growing up is not as much fun as it sounds.As you grow, you learn. You realize that half of what you are taught about right and wrong is a blurry mess in the "real world". You discover people with the most awe-inspiring qualities and yet you dislike them. You meet ones that are nothing out of the ordinary and you fall madly in love with them. You defy common sense with every step because hard cold logic doesn't work when you have to make decisions that not just involve your feelings and sentiments but others' too.
You spend a ridiculous amount of time just justifying your actions to yourself. Compliments don't mean much if you aren't well in your own eyes. Criticism is welcomed with open arms because its comforting to receive any sort of reaffirmation; even if its your own self doubt in question.
You learn the harsh lesson of regret. How it feels to let yourself down. You wish you could turn around time, go back on every action, on every word spoken, on every promise made. You wish you could be reborn with a little less innocence and naivete.
You learn how difficult it is to have faith in anything or anybody and hold on to it. You realize that most of the times, your faith is what ends up making you feel foolish and if you are strong enough, you fight the odds and try to cling on to it because you believe your life could be an exception to the laws of nature.
As you grow, you try to shield yourself from reality and look for people who help you forget, just for a little while everyday, that life didn't turn out the way you expected or hoped for it to. Your friends are completely different people tied together by one uniform characteristic; they make you come to terms with how nothing really works out the way you plan it but that you can still find a way to be content.
Don't be in a hurry. Hold on to your innocence and your faith. Hold on to your naivete. Believe in the inherent goodness of people and be shocked when someone disappoints you. Be indignant when things don't turn out the way you expected them too. Cry without abandon.
Don't be in a hurry. There is really no way out once you get here.

The things we forget are the things that truly matter.

The nights spent studying at the last moment, promising ourselves we would start working earlier from the next time. The mornings when we are impressed by our body's love-hate relationship with insomnia or the mornings we zone out and try accomplishing impossible athletic feats in the living room because we can't cram in more information before the exam.

The unplanned conversations about childhood and cartoons watched and how impossibly attractive Jessica looked in Johnny Quest or how the Yogi Yahooeys were most certainly some avatar of pure evil. The conversations you wished stretched on for longer because they made you feel young again. They made you forget, for a few precious minutes, how much you deal with every minute of the day.

The times pride takes a backseat and you ask for company anyway. 

Those people who matter more to you than the act of putting up a front.

The times spent overdosing on newly found culinary obsessions and systematically eliminating them off a cosmic list. 

The days you realize how everything you forgot along the way was everything most important.

I like Februaries.
They are that time of the year for me when I properly start reflecting on the year that has passed. Januaries are just too full of anticipation and accidental mistakes while writing the date. Every year around this time, something triggers me to pause briefly and rethink things. Sometimes it leads to me embarking on newly found interests, like five years ago when I first began writing a blog. And sometimes it makes me realize that I need to jump start on a new way of life or an attitude towards it.
As always, my words flow more easily when I am not speaking them out loud. And so often I wonder what all the fuss is about there. You spend so much time and energy in relationships that finally put you in that place where you can talk about your feelings and your fears without being ashamed of them, but the end result is not even close to what you expected. Why utter words that fall on closed ears? Maybe it is not the worst thing, to keep your thoughts to yourself.
The last month has been very tough, to give a modest estimate. When my parents moved away, I didn't allow the true intensity of the situation to register properly. Maybe it was self defense, maybe it was just convenient, or maybe I was blissfully deluded. But it's never easy to break it to yourself that your best friend for the first 20 years of your life is going to move away halfway across the world and expect to deal with it in 30 days. Neither have I been the best person to adjust to change, major or otherwise. So I sought solace in the irrational belief that I could hold on to one person and expect him to keep my world from spinning around a little too fast. That's my biggest weakness. Irrational belief.
Not to be confused with expectation. An expectation is not nearly as naive or dangerous as a belief. You play with your faith when you believe, you merely play on your luck when you expect. Luck is an instrument to be regularly blamed or lauded. Faith once lost doesn't return.
I find myself addicted so often to objects and people. I am addicted to feeling secure. I live for those days when I feel like nothing can change immediately. That that very moment of happiness is infinite. It is like my own hiding place against everything that scares me, and once in, I forget how to get out. I get so used to the comfort that I refuse to believe that I can and have survived without it too. At times I feel that living with some amount of dissatisfaction or loneliness keeps you grounded. It's like a slow persistent journey of damage control.
Somewhere along the way, over the last three years, I have forgotten that being alone doesn't have to imply loneliness. I have become so wholly and completely dependent on people to validate my happiness and sense of security that when left alone, I am hopelessly lost. Last year, around this time, I finally found myself in a place where I could be strong enough to bank on no one else but myself and the only two people in the world that I can forever trust to be on my side and not abandon; my parents. I need that back.
Because I might be in a bad place right now, but I can fight through it only if I stop deluding myself. And only if I admit to the fact that at the end of the day, we are all alone, and we are all fighting our own battles. In your best of times, you can look up to find a hundred different friends. In your worst, you must brace yourself to fight your own demons. Maybe when you are done, you might find those people again. And maybe you might learn to laugh at the irony.

To a very special friend.

Dear Friend,
I know we didn't start off on the right foot. You being you probably won't even remember how things were in the beginning but we were never the best of friends. Far from it really. They say opposites attract, using the same logic, maybe people who are very similar make each other wary? I don't know.
The strangest part is that I don't remember how it came about to be this way, but you became one of my favorite people in this large overcrowded city which still feels new. Over cups of bad machine-dispensed chai and sad excuses for "breakfast" on the eighth floor, a very special bond was cemented. And soon enough, you became the very first person in the world who sent me morning texts. After so many years of sending others morning texts, I finally had someone do the same for me. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.
From the long long conversations about everything under the sky to our shared paranoia and opinions, I have never enjoyed conversations with a girl so much.
I know this is so long due, but this it to let you know that I love you, McFlurry. You're a star.

A year gone by.

And just like that, it's almost 2012.
2011 has literally just passed me by in a flash. It is late December and this is generally around that time of the year when I look back in retrospect. Unfortunately for me, retrospection brings along with it a lot of regret or worse, that dull distant feeling of being suspended in the air, with no complementary emotion.
Of course, in comparison to the year before, 2011 has been free of any serious mishaps. If anything, I grew up from my mistakes, learned from them and they continue to guide me every day. For that, I am thankful. 2011 has also been a fantastic learning experience in terms of the Delhiite. Living with someone you have met after already having lived on the earth without them for a good 19 years is not easy. Sometimes it is the hardest thing to do to not blow it all away, and don't we all have a marvelous knack of self destruction that way. And then sometimes it is blissfully simple. It is as natural as the sun breaking into the sky at 6:30 am,on the dot; never a minute here or there.
The last few months have been very tough. But they didn't catch me completely by surprise. Sometimes the good is interspersed with the bad, but sometimes you enjoy all the good at a time and then deal with all the bad. It's all okay. We're programed to handle it. We are never given even a little bit more than what we are capable of handling. And so we deal. Because it has to get better.
I am rambling.
The last few months made me grow up more than I thought I ever would in such a short span of time. They made me question my blind faith and perhaps made me smarter in a way, albeit less trusting. Betrayals, even the smallest ones, teach you important lessons. They teach you that innocence is a blessing, but to use that as a window to look at everything and everybody is foolish. The last few months taught me about disappointment and how it will never entirely stop coming. With time, you learn to move on faster or deal with them with a stiff upper lip. The last few months taught me I have perspective and immense courage.
When you are dragged out of your normalcy, you have two choices. You either wait for all the blows to reign in on you and then try to get up. Or you try standing up after the very first blow and deal with the rest as they come. And this time, I choose the latter.
The year was a rush of beautiful, happy things. And then there were the life-altering changes that would define the way I look at myself and my life from hereon. But all in all, I am entering the next year more proud of myself, more fulfilled and far more aware.

To my Grandfather

His palms were like paper; dry, leaf-like, almost translucent. I feared holding them. They felt so brittle under my touch. Like the bones of a tiny bird under its thin coat of feathers. I thought they would snap, just trying to be. Even so, I kept holding them like they were a precious childhood trinket. Afraid of letting them slip through the gaps between my fingers. I held them as gently as I could, humbled by how youthfully cavalier my fingers felt, wrapped around them. Not unlike the emotions you experience while handling an old book; it’s yellowing sweet-smelling paper, threatening to crumble at the slightest application of accidental force. But you want to preserve it. You want to hold on to it forever and so you protect it with everything you have.

He would never let me hold them if he were aware, I thought. Always the proud warrior, the unrelenting fighter; he would pull them back indignantly and look at me with undisguised annoyance; as if to challenge the motive behind my sentiment. His eyebrows raised just enough to question me and make me retreat to a corner with an embarrassed, sheepish smile.

I ran my index finger softly over the veins bulging out through the thin tanned skin on his forearm. The nail is filed short. As are all my other fingernails. We have to take every precaution in order to provide him with the cleanest environment possible. It reminded me of when my baby brother was born fourteen years ago and I had a cold. Every time the doctor came in to check on either the baby or the mother, I held my breath in fear. I was scared that I would sneeze, or cough and let away my carefully guarded secret. I wanted to be there so bad, in that moment, peering down the grills of the hospital crib at the tiny creature below. To reach down and touch its melting-butter skin and that tiny stubbed nose; I had to be careful. Oh so careful.

I reached down to brush my palm against the rough stubble of his cheek. He subconsciously twitched towards my touch and then his face relaxed again. Here was the man who had been a hero to two generations in our family. Here was the man larger than life, full of ideas and thoughts and opinions. Here was the man who never shied off expressing his views and argued till the end. Here was the man who dissolved into thought while we talked to him and whose smile upon being caught betrayed his age. Here was the man who could outrun all of us and push us for more. Here was the man whose approval and appreciation was paramount. Here was the majestic presence, lying frail and unaware. Restive but not resigned.

I love you. You will forever be my hero.

Self-discovery comes at times you least expect it. Possibly when you least want it too. The opportunities you come across every day; the ones you lose, perhaps defining you a little more than the ones that you grasp. The decisions you end up making, the impulsive ones that you make when faced with very little time to ponder. And you end up doing what is true to you, in the process, coming a little closer to finding what you truly are. Maybe what you truly are is what you are truly meant to be. But who reaffirms you of that? And what are you, at the end of the day?
Bad times are purgatory. They are cleansing. Purifying. They let you be exactly who you are, and allow you to let go of the image you work all your life carefully constructing. They make you let go of your stoicism, your seemingly undaunted spirit, your composure, and your forced optimism. They let you stop lying to everybody around you and for a short period of time, you are exactly who you are. You cry, you are more emotional than logical, you are less guarded. You are more raw. You are more human.
Bad times, seemingly relentless in their harshness, often end up doing you more good. They often remind you of the little things you forgot about yourself along the way. Or better still, tiny strengths and slivers of resilience and positivity and an almost stubborn will to overcome. Things you forgot while trying to be calm. The most important parts of you.
Every day is a test of your ability to overcome. There are surprises around every corner, good and bad. There is a comfort in knowing that each person's past is a testimony to their inherent urge to pull through.
No matter how hard, no matter how prolonged. There is great strength in believing in the unproven and having faith. There is great strength in being just you.

The Little Things

Hugging a pillow while lying on your right.
The mattress that changed the living room.
Dog bites and missed shots.
One play and a taxi ride.
Apple pie.
Jogging to Lemongrass.
Bandra.
Property Prices.
Baked beans, eggs, toast, juice, cold milk, cereal and pancakes.
Lunch at 5 pm.
Gay dinner providers.
Hating Lokhandwala.
Decades.
Cheese Doodles and chocolate by the sea.
Shawarma and Williamson.
Salvatore Ferragamo and the sheer strength of femurs.
Unhealthy amounts of healthy food.
Three McFlurry's.
Sad Nights. (You- 2, Me-1).
Churches and cigarettes.
Mosques and puddles.
The last bite.
Sitting on the floor outside the kitchen.
Ratatat.
The ugly chandelier.
Photobooth.
Sunday brunch.
Saturday movie.
Palladium post 11.
The rain.
Obscene mannequins.
Chicken Soup for the Sad Faggot Soul.
Zero navigational skills.
Palaise Royale and the four cranes on top.
Heavy machinery.
Ireland and St. Andrews.
Road trips to France.
Ravens, peejuns and kittens.
Six hour naps.
Fighting.
Growing up.
Losing wallets.
Dal chawal and cheeni.
"The Queen of the Suburbs".
Questionable sauce and medicinal fizzy drinks.
Icing.
Alligators.
Narcissism.
"Itna saara"
3 am talkativeness.
White chocolate torte.
Birthdays (Me- 1, You- negative 11).
Decades.
Decades.
Decades.


:)

Six

Sometimes in life, you are lost. You are surrounded by people you call your friends and who consider you theirs, but you are constantly lonely. Sometimes in life, you push limits just to test them and to test yourself and the people around you. Often this ends in disappointment in others and oneself. Some times in life you refuse to have faith but certain people edge their way in and never leave. Often those people save you.
Some times in life, you learn more lessons from one person than you have from all other experiences you have had before meeting them. Often they make you a better person and soon enough, you start changing into the kind of person you have always wanted to be. They make you selfless, thoughtful and less aggressive. They rap you on the head when you are being stupid and they grab your hand when you are crossing the road because they are convinced you WILL die, if they don't. They know when you really want dessert and are just being polite. They order you a large side of fries when you are being fussy and indecisive about food. They know when you won't bow down and will give in. They can tell when you are quiet because you are at peace and when you are quiet because you are just upset. They know what drives you crazy and do the very same thing at times. They remind you, every moment of every day, why they are the best thing that ever happened to you. They make you blessed. They fix you.

Six months of feeling like that. Six months of feeling like the luckiest person in the world.

I love you.

Happy You Know What. :)

Lessons Learned

It has been more than two weeks since I got back to Bombay and things are NOT looking up, health-wise. It's either drunken injuries that I discover a few days late and do not remember getting or bruises from overenthusiastic participants of classroom war-simulation games or your run-of-the-mill severe skin condition on the chest that pains to the point of rendering me immobile and doesn't respond to medication. In a nut shell, I just keep getting progressively more disaster-prone with time. 

After a very long time, there is a class in college that stumps me completely. I have never been able to make peace with not understanding what is taught in class, this takes it to a whole new dimension. Combine that with a spectacular lack of motivation and what you have is a major problem in your hands.

Moving into the hostel has been...I don't know...not the most comfortable of experiences. I do not like my room or my flat and the prospect of new people moving in soon. I also don't like how musty the kitchen/store smells and I can't bring myself to touch anything without analyzing it for unwanted substances. Still cannot get over the fact that this house used to be inhabited by men before we moved in. Call it prejudice or just pure sense. 

On the bright side, I have started to develop a soft spot for my (accidental) roommate. She is possibly the most innocent, harmless person I have met in my life. This obviously makes her a butt of many bitchy jibes within the hostel (not surprising, coming from girls. Women have an ingrained knack of disregarding any positives and going for the kill anyway). I like how we have found a way to adjust to living in such close quarters and yet giving each other all the space we could ask for. 

And of course, the one constant that makes everything worthwhile...the Delhiite, after six months, remains a source of unending companionship and familiarity. It fascinates me how every passing day is so full of promise. And how we manage to make memories when we least intend to. 

All in all, a pointless post. But its left me feeling better than what I felt before writing it.

More later

M

There is a thin line between realism and pessimism that I tread on all the time. It's my normal state of mind. I am always preparing for the worst but at the same time trying to look like I have hope for the best. Faith is such a weapon. Faith is such a disguise. It is the biggest folly and sometimes your only savior. It pulls you down or keeps you afloat.

And in spite of all my cynicism, I cannot deny the fact that I am living closest to a dream at present. For the last 6 months, I have been happy and secure and self assured. In a transient world and time, my biggest comfort and strongest wall of support remains a person that entered my life without plan and changed it. He changed me. Into a much nicer, more selfless, cheesier version of myself. Into someone who thinks things over more carefully and doesn't just do the first thing that comes to her mind. Into someone who cares about the consequences of her own actions. Into someone who closes her eyes and trusts. Into a better person.

It's amazing how I start every new day with the same anticipation. It's amazing how we can walk around a bookstore and lean over laughing over toy  and bookshelves. It's amazing how he can continue gently persuading me when I am being irrationally stubborn. Its amazing how he can patiently watch me try to steer his car into a crazy U-turn and not be impatient. It's amazing how he plans things to perfection. It's amazing how he can make anyone laugh. It's amazing how I can never get bored of him. It's amazing how I am always wishing for more time. It's amazing how we can just be together and yet be ourselves.

It is amazing how I can be impossibly low and start writing about him and feel much better and lucky and blessed.

It is pretty fucking amazing.

I love you. In case you still read.

When you expect the worst and prepare yourself for it, often life surprises you with quite the contrary. When you reason and argue and plead with a God whose existence you are still slightly skeptical about, you sometimes end up hearing a comforting, reassuring voice telling you to keep faith. When you hold on to that faith and try to believe, you are sometimes proved right. And when that happens, you ignore all your skepticism, you look up, and you thank God.

I am so happy.

Five.

"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you've never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can't wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it's like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn't exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day's work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there's no need for continuous conversation, but you find you are quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud in the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there's a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that's so real, it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life." - Bob Marley.

Happy Five.

What do you do when you are compelled to choose between two people and you sympathize with both? Is there always a "right" and "wrong" even in the most obvious cases of black and white? Can your loyalty to both make you defy logic even if you are trying your best to be rational? What if rationality lies in being torn?

You know those times when you are living a phase that will later become a dividing line in your life? And you have nothing to count upon but yourself to not lose your mind. And beyond all tendency, you have to force yourself to keep certain people close. 

The Delhiite remains a constant source of relentless support. Hearing me say the same things, again and again. Trying to keep me positive. Or at least not completely devoid of hope. Trying to show me logic when I am blind to everything. 

You know those times when a person comes and divides your life into the time before them and after?

That is what the Delhiite is.

It is very very hard. But I believe we are never given more than we are capable of handling. If this is a test for all of us, then so be it. Maybe this is how things will fall into place. Maybe they never were.

There are times I wonder when I will ever be okay with uncalled judgement being passed on my character by the people I know. When I'll be strong enough to not be affected even the slightest bit. My father says I should have that much conviction in myself and my own ideals to know when I owe it to myself to just ignore the other person's character analysis of me. To look them in the eye and have the determination to remain silent and not crumble inside. He says thats my biggest weakness. That I pretend to remain undaunted and I fight back, but at the end of it all, I will resign. Take it as a reaffirmation of my own fears. Help it become more real. And isn't it ironic how most of us are the constructors of our own breakdown?

If only we had the will power to stand firmly and remain loyal to ourselves and just believe in the fact that we know ourselves better, and that we aren't born to please everyone. If only we had the strength to not shatter when the people closest to us are of no help? If only we had that much belief in the fact that we are absolutely alone when it all comes down to the basics. And we are each capable of surviving that way; just fighting for ourselves and having nobody by our side to give us reassurances.
If only we had some faith in ourselves and stopped looking for it everywhere else but within.

So today was officially my last day at work. I am beyond relieved. The last three weeks were worse than what I had ever anticipated, and I went in with no expectations. In fact, in regular fashion, typical of myself, I went in with zero expectations. I had heard enough horror stories about the trauma interns face freshly into an organization or a firm. Floating around in the bottom of the pool isn't the best feeling. Personally, what bothered me the most was the fact that I was kept jobless for a very long time. This has been a learning experience only in terms of making me very skeptical about whether I'm cut out for a proper job with "tasks" being assigned to me.
I somehow can't see myself be happy in such an environment, ever.

I have always considered myself a realist. When it comes to my own life and future, I am very guarded. And I generally prepare for the worst case scenario in every situation. Does acceptance of the possibility of misfortune make you a pessimist? If you are more courageously hopeful when it comes to others, does that point toward a double standard?

I have another month at home. And something tells me I should spend it in the highest level of comfort and laziness possible. Come July, my life will be very different once more. I will be moving into the hostel and living with a bunch of girls, some known to me, some absolute strangers. Somehow I'm more wary of a few that I know. College will resume again and with it all the tests and assignments and presentations. I will be seeing the Delhiite after more than two months, and see how things are in that front. Distance and time apart always bring about subtle changes, be it good or bad. It would be interesting to see how things would be in a month's time.

I would like to write more, but I've had a long day and my thoughts aren't overly organized. More later.

"Not all those who wander are lost"

Every day spent idling away adds to my frustration. There's little that can be done in terms of improvement when I can't bring myself to talk about it. That's what my mother urges me to do..to talk about what's bothering me. All our lives, we indulge in the futility of enunciating the needless. When there is no way to make it to the shore, why start swimming?

I start every morning with a renewed resolution to be a little more positive and every following day is a testimony of my failure in doing just that. How hard is it to just be happy? Turns out, sometimes its the hardest thing to do. Being happy requires effort. It involves pushing down a lot of negativity that has become synonymous with your entire thought process. It involves denying yourself of a very convenient emotional pitfall. There is a beauty in destruction.

I have the biggest double standards I have seen on a person. I'm infinitely optimistic to others and the polar opposite when it comes to matters concerning me. I cannot take compliments. When coming from someone who cares for me, it is automatically nullified, because it is more out of their liking for me. And yet, criticism is welcomed with a perverse thirst because it reaffirms deep rooted insecurity.

Sometimes all you need from your life is simplicity. Someone or something that can give you the strength to untangle the complicated mess you have created over years. What happens when you unravel it and there's nothing left? What if that complex web was you, all along?

"Cuatro meses más hermosa"

We were never very conventional.
Maybe that's why our best conversations as friends was via Inbox. Forty plus mails a day. Random, unconnected, yet beautiful. There is such innocence in uncertainty. There is such beauty in friendships that have unsaid boundaries.
Life teaches us that the best things come as surprises. They might pass by you everyday in the corridor. They might say the occasional hello in class. They might just be in the background, unnoticed but always there. And then some day, purely by chance, you realize in mild amazement just how much you have never noticed about that person. How they have a tiny mark just below their collarbone that you presumed (in passing) to be a birthmark, but which actually has a story behind it. How they drink bottles of water to stay up instead of caffeine. How they are never out of mouthwash and how they cannot eat unless they have yogurt. How they cannot watch movies alone. How they have watched Harold and Kumar and Kung Fu Panda so many times, they know all the lines off by heart. How they can sleep through an earthquake but wake up at 5 am in the morning to watch an NBA Game. How they eat cereal in the middle of the night and how they like their toast.
There is so much you don't notice when you are not paying attention. Then suddenly, overnight, your mind starts focusing on every little detail, every little quirk...till you know them inside out. Till they are committed to memory.
We were never conventional. Which explains days and days of uncertainty and confusion. Days and days of fearing things would change, and then realizing together that they changed for the better.
We were never conventional. Which explains why neither of us actually bothered to remember the exact date. Which is why it was decided by consensus, that it would be the 27th.
We spend years hurtling through our lives; looking for direction; looking for a motive. We run without reason. We move alone. In our effort to simplify our lives, we choose the easy way out everywhere; whether it comes to work or studies or relationships. We fear to commit. We fear being vulnerable. We fear acceptance. Most of all, we fear the ideal. We spend out entire lives seeking our own versions of perfection and when we meet someone who comes the closest to making us feel completely at peace with ourselves, we turn and we run. We fear exactly what we need and what we have always been looking for.
We were never conventional. So what we feared the most was losing what we had. What we had built over some time; a friendship so valuable, neither of us wanted to be responsible for changing it. Life often teaches us that the best thing we can do is also the bravest; to take a plunge. To just close our eyes and go for it.
Which is why, 4 months hence, there is not a single regret.
Which is why, 4 months hence, it still feels as new as 1.
Which is why I am in love with my best friend. My favorite person in the world, and hands down the best human being I have had the fortune of meeting. I feel truly blessed.
I wish I could do or say more, but distances are tough. And I hope this conveys even one per cent of how much this means to me.
I love you.