~Nil.

Long Street's Orange Window

2012-02-24T00:11:00.001-08:00

The night closed the bright orange window which had been passed by the cycle boy every single day since June, way back in '84. The window had been a loyal admirer of the umpteen tunes that the boy whistled to. He was a merry boy, and the window- a merry aged, unaltered element of the street. A landmark. A bellwether of its own kind, as the paints of yellow peeled open the red bricks, bit by bit, day by day, year by year.

Not a soul peeked from inside you know, yet it was the most lively detail in the whole of good ole Long Street, they said. Romeos would park their bikes next to it, and wait for them pretty pretty girls swinging their way in long evening dresses and high buns. Peddlers would string on their ukuleles and sing to Gene Autry and wink at the kind pedestals with pennies. Police men would eventually shoo them off and patrol around lazily, or join them and hum along when drunk.

The humor was in the gospel according to the neighbors around, that more the wall peeled, more the cracks peered, and more the pipes rusted...a strange sense of comfort manifested in the daily participants of Long Street. That old orange guy was a perpetual furniture on the abandoned wall that was a favorite, to all of them. It reassured them, it made aging easier, it calmed them, it was a part of their Christmas, Fête des lumières, Easter, and Hanukkah. It was a part of their wails when all the kitchens in the street would hear the fat maiden cry at her misfortune or yell at her goat who was bulled by her cat, again.

Either way, against all odds, the orange window was family to their secrets and hopes, to marital alliances or broken homes..
Either way, against all odds, the orange window would be there, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that.

- Nil. :)

A hungry mind.

2012-02-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

You have one,too. Don't raise an eyebrow at me.

A hungry mind's what I own right now. The kind that hears things and chews on the intricate details of conversations, the kind that reads in between the lines and has started treating that little art as a particular delicacy of its own kind, the kind that entertains the voices in it; imputed or from a source that's alien, but somehow within.

A hungry mind is a dangerous thing. It leaves you gathering layers of presumptions, conclusions, wishful thinking like layers of fat. And it's harder than you think to get rid of it. No matter how much you exercise over the routines of shutting the brain down, a hungry mind will find fodder from ignored sources that were considered harmless. You'll be baffled at its persistence.

A hungry mind talks to you. It tries to reason out with you and tries to put a halo around it's intentions of advocating sleepless nights. It speaks of Insomnia in a tone that nods at it being productive.

Image courtesy: Pinterest.

Don't fall for it, the words it spells out are 'Sadistic pleasure'.

A hungry mind breeds in your pursed lips which refuse to acquaint itself with the world. The world talks a lot, you see. And I'm sorry darling, you're a part of it. The world feels insecure about your silence, which is why you've been autographed an arrogant lad.

Your mind's tired of being the only one talking, it craves impressions, judgement, speculation, hypothesis...but this time, not from you.

-Nil.

I see bad moon rising.

2012-02-16T02:01:00.000-08:00

So I sat online about an hour back with the sole motive of updating with some hardcore fiction and produce something intellectually stimulating. But you see my head's run out of brain farts, I like collecting drafts on Blogger, Pinterest has taken over my sanity, and I'm highly drugged. All I've done all morning is indulged in food, Economics and sadistic pleasure at the phone beeping on low battery. (You should try it, if you haven't.)

Anyhoo, so I thought that after my academic rendezvous I'll have a lot to write about; secrets and lessons of life and the universe, a whole lot of romance, happiness, sadness even? Yeah well that just ended up as a whole lot of bullocks because all I did end up doing was snicker at snide sarcasm online, listen to Nappy Roots (and twist along,btw) and enjoyed feeling absolutely shallow and bored, devoid indulging in too much of cerebral thought process.

And that, dear World is just what I plan on doing for the next hour before mighty Education calls again =)

Some Pinterest lowe for you, Thursday People!

*HIC.

-Nil.

At the tip of the tongue

2012-02-09T06:17:00.000-08:00

And those words fight within you, reaching out to the tip of the tongue which is only the tip of the iceberg of the emotions that dwell within your existence, right now.
The deep sonorous voices of the talking cacophony inside, starting from your toe nails become lost tales by the time they reach the head. Fragments of conversations, wishful thinking, dreams and nightmares with lipsticks float in and around the body which almost feels like a hollow golden bell which feels beautiful for some odd romance despite the aging time around.

You have so much to say, don't you?
That lopsided smile is a giveaway to the laughter that dances within you. The pursed lips do a sorry job at defending your unjustified anger.
They said words were overrated, but wouldn't you just do anything to speak now?
To leave aside the gibberish your tongue encourages, and look him in the eye and speak the truth and nothing but the truth? The beautiful, beautiful truth.

Are you waiting for the right time, too? The time when those words feel right and there isn't a crease of worry on your forehead for the future?
This wait seems perennial where as it only commenced.

You have so much to say, don't you?
Speak. The cacophony will subside and shy away.

At the tip of your tongue, lies your heart, after all.

Courtesy: Photobucket

-Nil.

The month that was, the one saved by Floyd.

2012-01-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

January. January. January.

Remains of New Years night :')

I have a resigned smile on my face as a type this, for I have an overwhelming amount to say. Hell, I have so much to say. It makes me a little nervous to think that just maybe this month was (already) the high point of 2012. The very night of 31st December bought in a whirlpool of epiphanies (the kinds that made my jaw touch the ground. No,literally.) I've been keeping those epiphanies in my pocket (drafts on Blogger ForTheWin.) and the fact that I've only updated twice in the whole month kind of makes a poker face at the obvious.

My Homies from ze Batch of 2011-2012 :')

School's over. Yes. I'd always imagined typing this on blogger ...but now that I have, it doesn't feel as real as I thought it would. Scribble Day and Farewell happened on 27th, and with that ended a constant undertone of comfort that's been since 14 years. Though it hasn't quite sunk in yet, probably wouldn't for a while. But it's been drifting in and out of my mind, appalling me, and disappearing again.

And now, what's left of the next month- February- is for an intimate relationship with textbooks, occasional Mind-Screws, rare empty fridges, owl hours and aloofness from the worldly household. Should be fun, eh? :|
But then I'll do it. I'll do it just so April the 16th feels right, feels legendary, feels the way I've been anticipating for it to be. (Multiple reasons here, don't sweat it bros.)

Besides all of that, it's the same old at my end. But then again, feels drastically different. Too many changes in one go are kinda leaving me on my toes trying to peek as far as I can at the rough sketch of Highs and Lows coming up. The fact that I have no idea where I'd be 3 months from now doesn't help. But that's when the stereo in my head plays Floyd and the rest is History. :)
January started from Floyd. January has been saved by Floyd. At multiple levels, it's almost unreal. But it's kept me sane with very sweet insanity. :)
(Don't try and read between the lines, your eyeballs will turn around your sockets, believe me.)

So yes! That was a quick catch up that I owed big time to this strange month :)
The next month's blog archive is rather unpredictable. It can be a whole lot of fiction or multiple back-to-back rants (bless yer souls, if so.)
But that's for later. Till then, adios World. Kindly go make the most out of the fact that you're not stuck in a Board year which immediately alters every word and action you're entitled to, and honor that gorgeous detail with a whole lot of partying and happiness!
While I.. yeah, well. I'll just be hogging on Milano/ dissing at the world/ writing like a lover/disappearing from the face of the Earth and yeah- Studying. A whole lot at that. -.-

Photo by Vanta.
Our ultimate Big Field staircase chill sessions in school.. of bunks/recess/monsoon happiness. Sigh.

Signing off,

Nil.

P.s- "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year."

Myriad coherence.

2012-01-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

Myriad Coherence.

You walk straight into that anatomy,
the skeleton of withered roads,
the grid of an architect,
an emancipated soul, his.

You finally find an avenue,
one that is prolonged,
one that seems comfortingly solitary,
one that would let you walk,
in conversation with annihilated philosophies of reason.

You find blessedness,
under the concave mosques of Cedars,
your mind is unperturbed,
while your heart is the capitol of your reality.

Heaven is lucid, heaven is simple.
It's been within you for so long,
you just haven't let it breathe.
You've begged for it to be quiet,
among your preoccupation of Chases.

But then you tame your mirth,
you look daggers at the momentary mirage,
as you see a fork ahead,
and you must choose again,
your much celebrated avenue ends there.

But then the bitterness dissipates,
your frown finds place in laughter,
in your naive understanding of the globe around,
where each and every alley,
finds another route,
engages in confluences,
despite your prejudices.

Heaven is lucid, heaven is simple.
It's been within you for so long,
heaven has been... in this myriad coherence.

-Nil.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

2012-01-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

"Can't a man just be happy?" was his answer to my risen eyebrow, questioning the abrupt subito smile of his, which had a question lurking somewhere in that crescent shaped happiness of his. A question whose alpha was the night of celebration, the last night of the year. The night when every face had a haze of intoxicated wonder; of happiness, sadness, retrospect, nostalgia, regret, contentment. The night when the cause of each and every emotion felt could be found in the flirtatious sweet little nothings of the night, of that one person you somehow find in the confluence of so many people who cheer to every mistake and every hour of joy for the year that was.

The clock struck 12, and the world rose their toasts, embraced, some kissed, and some... sat in silence, and waited for the wishes to end, the year to start, and for something to begin.. Something, that came without a flag, without a warning. In his case, it was a song. And quite subtly, that song entangled me into its trance of thoughts which brew like quiet vapors of romance, of hushed smiles, and of sweet..very sweet denial.

The room was dark, all the light we knew was that of the shy remains of the Christmas tree, which glorified the shadow of an eyelash here, a frown there, and a smile hangin' in the whispered conversations and deep warm breathing of the other that sent ripples of goosebumps on my skin before it could recuperate from the one before. Fragments of conversations would be remembered the next day, which is why we gave in and let the alcohol speak, and counted on amnesia for the next day's laughs and winks.

If there was to be an hourglass for that night, it would be a weeping one. We'd make the sand stay clenched in between our fingers, we'd hold on till the last call of the pupil to beg for some slumber, we'd hold on till we could refrain the urge of floating into sweet unconsciousness, we'd hold on to time till we found its track again.
Hours sweeped, and our arrogant ignorance to it was never too appalling to the both of us. Ironic how the first sunrise of the year was ignored in pure bliss, perhaps because there was too much of warmth in the fluidity of words that brushed past the blushes on our cheeks ever so often.

The night ended, dawn cracked, morning peeled itself, bold rays of sunlight pinched our irises which still protested to stay unbolted, to be stared at, to be looked into.

And while the day took onto newer revelations...epiphanies from the last night flirted around the corners of our minds dancing to the quiet tunes of that one song... Shine on you crazy diamond.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And there y'go. First piece of the new year!
-Nil.

2012, ahoy!

2011-12-31T06:19:00.000-08:00

I was wrong. The last thing 2011 was, was unnecessary. It was as for me to step into the shoes of the person I am, today as for me giving winter a chance and just try and like it a tad bit. Keeping all the preaching, and philosophy away; 2011 was a year that slapped me in the beginning, caught me off guard (heh, understatement.) and jerked me back to the person I actually am.

2011 had everything a year could possibly fit in the calender. Love, hate, first timers, heart ache, anger, friendship (a gazellion tonnes at that), adventure, mad laughter, sloshed tears, memories with people least expected, good good times, coincidences, intentional actions, brewing romance, quiet tongue bites, a whole lot of self realization.

Of Memories:
Hopped into a bus not knowing where it went, seen in a coffee shop alone with a map perked up my nose, wildest worldcup with a house full of boys, random weekend day outs with my favorite ladies,showing up at every exhibition in the city, Jeffry Archer Book launch with Rem, Delhi's Dhobighaat, first pool party ever,MENS FRIKKIN LOO, 8 day extended party with Raima, Remya showing up close to midnight on my birthday, Illegal Pahargunj with Vanta & Guina, library 'dates', nailing most competitions with Remya, Robin's birthday special with our hats, travelling around Delhi with my walking-talking lovebugs, BIG BANG THEORY and Masterchef loops at Robin's almost everyday at 1, Calcutta's Coffee House romance, jams with Maiden, Maggi at Shiv's, Roy's studio, Remya's text "I'll wait till New Years if I have to", every goddamn day at school,Shruti Di's birthday surprise, NEW YORK CHEESECAKE!, writing like a lover, Joy's birthday, Rohan's Patiala jokes, morning blues at the school corridor,GAY conversations with the ladies, FRAPES, Singing 'Sweetie' on my birthday,CHA CHA night with Robin, walking in and out of Math class, weekend at sister's, screaming SINGLE IS SEXY, End Of School Bucket List, getting called to the Principal's office for getting into trouble- for a change, canteen march 'S*** P****!' with the girls and Chatur,27/7 coffee chills, evening Chai, showing up at Guina's before every practical exam with a sly grin, COOKING at Robin's kitchen like nobody's business, Robin's WHIPPED stunt, Orrisa First Timers, karaoke night with sisters, Aliya, SKYPE, back to back dinner and lunches with Neha and Sheks, partying like an animal at Chika's, randomly crashing Vanta's place anytime at the oddest off hours,email marathons with Mantah,tearing up diaries worth 6 years with Neha,CONTI, my poem making it to the Commendable Section for the Ruskin Bond Writing Competition,last solo performance in school.. *and counting.

These weren't even half the memories, but the ones I could remember in a single go with five minutes in hand before I'm called to run my happy rear downstairs for a Bonfire with my humongous family which is very happy by the way, and Happy Bengali people means loud business. But I can't remember of any other year when I'd close my eyes and such a whirlpool of so many memories swirled in. This year had the middle name of Self Realization. It's been a year when I was on my own, completely; and I couldn't be more grateful. There were decisions, harsh ones.. but I bow down to the same old; it's happened for the best- Word.

So enter, 2012. I've experienced everything the last year could possibly be capable of... you, 2012 better be competition to all of that. I usually don't have any resolutions, most 31st Decembers are devoid resolutions for me. I make resolutions as the year kicks in, but this time... I have one.
It's to never give up on happiness for things that don't promise to stay.
For that matter, to never give up on happiness at all.
For it's that one faith, that's going to be your saving grace :)

There are too many people who made this year so insane. Who held straight faces when I tried cracking the punchline of Pjs (which I suck at beyond infinity.), who kind of dragged me along every time I'd stop walking, who thought a pint of beer was a solution to every problem in life, who posted black gay hearts on my Facebook or sent me absolutely racist text messages just to crack me up and say Hi, who fought with me like cats and dogs and said the most hurtful things and ended up calling me up and going 'errr...so cold coffee today evening?' and vice versa, who made me coffee late at night just to make sure I didn't fall asleep with the book on my face, and just.. a lot of people who took care of me and stuck around in a way that was extraordinary. You all know who you are, I thank you, crazy people. I know I've been a retarded nut to handle :)

Happy new year, World.
Stay blessed and sing in the songs for 2012 ahoy! Let's get groooooooovy ;)

-Love love love, all you need is love!♥
Nil.

P.s- Come to think of it..... 2011 was rather kickass!

I'll forget what happened, and I'll dance, right there in the middle.

2011-12-24T01:02:00.000-08:00

Greetings, winter people!
The shout mouth is back. And go get some blankets and a whole lotta hoodies, here comes up my winter update.

So last night was the last school Annual Day of my life. It never really sunk in cause unlike the past thirteen years, I didn't bunk each and every class for 3 weeks irrespective of annual day rehearsals or no, didn't run around the whole school helping out with lists of a zillion participants or stayed back in school for post school hour rehearsals. This fourteenth year, I just went for a single stage practice to figure the spotlight and stage space and that's it, I saw the stage next straight on performance day. Which is why maybe, this year.. annual day didn't feel right. But the fact that last night was my last solo performance on that stage feels surreal.

(Thanks for the photo, Vantz!)

My friends came, my parents were darn proud. The show ended at quite an amazing note, and it didn't look half as shitty as I thought the Finale would be. It wasn't no fine choreography, but it was just.. an agglomeration of kids who danced on the aisles, on stage and on the stairs despite the frequent swears they probe at the school system everyday. And I guess that's what happened to me,too. Two minutes before my entrance, I stood backstage and I forgot about every thing that happened, went on stage and danced right there in the middle of the stage and gave the best I could to my last performance in school.

When it ended, and I took a bow, I felt happy. Content. And satisfied. A series of events after which included praise, laughter, photographs, squeals ended with me in the car ride back home, and a weird sense of anxiety. What next? What, after this?

So I guess this anxiety will stay till March end. Till the next two months of complete riots get over, and every one's back to normal and back to their senses. (Believe me I have reasons for saying the same.)

December's been a strange month. Of our school's Conti, informal end of school, strange mood swings, denial, complete ignorance, goddamn winter and a mumbo jumbo of the mind and the heart.

The fact that the one most constant thing in my life, school is pretty much gone leaves me on a very vulnerable ground where I'm just breathing calm and trying to hold on to the icing.

It'll be fine, I know it will. It's just the wait, that's so taxing.

Anyhow, Christmas tomorrow. The heart of the city's going to look gorgeous tonight, so please do make a quick detour from your celebrations and make your way to Connaught Place. I know I will :)

Other than that, another year's come to an end... New years in a week, wow. Damn, 2011 you've been one unnecessary year. But more on that, later :-)

That's enough for December's update. Also, THANK YOU lovely readers for the gorgeous response on the last piece. I can't say it enough, but you guys keep my going. This is another quick opportunity to mention Shelly Brown who's been reading my blog since about three years and finally decided to email me her heart out this December, thank you. Silent readers like you probe the subconscious writer in me to write more just for a few anonymous smiles, around the world. Thank you, really.

With that, I sign out. Have a gorgeous Christmas, you guys and I'll hopefully be back with a New Years post, as ritual has it.

Much love, always,

Nil.

P.s- Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Nascent romance.

2011-12-13T00:10:00.000-08:00

You rise from a prolonged slumber, ambivalent if it was sweet. The curtains are timid, letting in certain stray rays of sunlight that have been burning the fabrics of the same, that sealed you within your cocoon of soothe, solace.
Nothing looks different, not a dust has traveled.. the haven within the four walls has been sincerely parallel to the that of your mind, the radiating warmth is the same, the station on the radio still plays the same song. Time stopped here, but life on the road didn't ;You realize, once you gingerly walk to the french window, and see the quiet nip of winter smiling on the hooded jackets of wool on people, who carried on, who are carrying on.
The white tee shirt on you feels a little tense, your gaze shifts to the mirror, you wonder if you've advanced some on the weight machine, but you look the same, you still look the same.
You still have a broken nail, that odd twisted smile, the quick frown, the waist long hair. Your skin is still recuperating from the goose bumps, the only recent past you were bequeathed to ponder on.

There's an unsure knock on the door, the familiar face peeping makes you smile. You gesture him to come in, to sit with you, to talk to you, to just be there. So home would feel regular, and the spry change of the lazy seasons wouldn't collide your senses anymore.
...and while you listen to what has happened since you were away, how many bride grooms kissed their brides, how many kittens snuck in through the garden, who the dog barked at, and how the world still revolved while yours slowed down, unsure - you translate the normalcy in that face in front of you, who's happy to see you and who's happy to welcome you back, despite your arrogant disappearance.
And you smile, for most things never altered. It's December already, but it still feels like June.

..and you finally let out a laugh, at how the months, years don't wait. But each and every essence of an old emotion can stand still, suspended in air, until you realize, it's December already, and now that emotion is dead.. for it decayed along with the leaves of autumn, and gave in way to snow, and a nascent romance.

You look at the face in front of you, still uttering on each and every detail you missed while in your slumber.. Yes,he was a nascent romance.

(And with that, ends my break..and starts my winter. Good lord,it's December already.)
-Nil :)

Altering associations.

2011-11-24T07:38:00.000-08:00

Dear readers,
I know I promised fiction for this post, but circumstances are a little grave here (and promises are meant to be broken?). Today has been a strange day. One that came with very ugly revelations and threw light on some amount of irrationality that's been lurking around me and my actions. Thus, I have decided to dissociate for a while, from the daily circle of communication and am going ahead to a short break. A short break where I wouldn't be in touch for a while on networking sites and blogger, too.
I promise to read your rants, though. But I do not assure a word from my end, a silent reader is all I have to offer to you, for now. I will be back soon, you never know maybe in a week. But from the look of things, perhaps a teeny wee bit more than that.

So till I get back, may you all have a lovely beginning to winter. And I hope to find you all right here, once I've finally had enough of silence, and am ready to once again pounce on you with my rants and tales of fiction. Thank you all, though. You've all made me want to write even when inspiration gave up on me :-)

Always love,
Nil.

green sandals and sharpened pencils.

2011-11-19T00:55:00.000-08:00

There's such a 'feeeeeeeeeeeeeel' to writing with a long slender new pencil on crisp ruled paper, right? Back in 5th grade we were in such a hurry to get started with writing with pens, whatte thrill it was! ink! How I miss the scratchy noise of pencils on paper now in a classroom.
Ideally, this post should have been fiction. But you see that doesn't happen when I have a week to go for my second terms, complimented with perpetual mind farts of anxiety and immodest hours of economics and political science followed by space outs of staring at my pair of green sandals and hoping to find the answer to everything in the universe, there.

Random photo clicked yesterday. I like :)

Last night was a breather,though. I went for a birthday dinner to a friend's. And since it was her 18th, we guys decided to go off the record and wear sarees. So that was quite an incentive to study my rear off the whole day just so I could gulp down some cake without guilt trips. Other than that, it was fun. I worked harder than the host, so I guess that gave me brownie points to the 'feel good' factor which are rarely encountered when you reach the month of November while the boards wait with sadistic patience sitting with fat answer sheets in March. Do you see? I've become obsessive about the whole scene. I can't have a conversation without the B word in it.
Must.stop.now.

Apart from that, I've been upto randomness. There's a series of Bokeh effects I'd tried a while back, and I always wanted to put it up on my blog. I just never got the chance to. (Read: I was lazy to uplaod them on the computer.) So since I have nothing spicy going on for now, and YET I had to come here to my safe haven and speak bull crap, I'll spare you darrrrrrling readers any further BS and award you lot with pretty bokeh photos for being too much of awesome listeners. Not to mention I FINALLY RESPONDED TO ALL YOUR EMAILS SO YOU GUYS CAN GO DO THE BHANGRA and refrain from responding with abuses : )

There you go. And while you guys check them out,click and listen to this (goes puurrrfactly.)- Pretty Lights Finally Moving.

Okay peeeppuulllzz. I should go now. My half and hour break just turned into an extended holiday. So adios, and I promise some fiction from ze next posters for you lot. (Obviously, since I'll be dwelling on ways to get through the next month without letting the suicidal part of 12th grade get the better of me.)
Laaaats of love,
Nil :)

Happiness is really such a simple thing.

2011-11-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

It was the unofficial last day of school. It felt the same, but there were minutes of strangeness when I'd zone out somewhere in the middle of the corridor, or the classroom and realize that after today, the school that I knew would cease to be. I would only go for exams, and rare occasions of doubt classes. But school- the regular bus stand at 7:30am, the recurring morning blues, the often ignored yellow classroom doors and windows,the library, geography lab, the big field, oily Gupta Ji canteen food, mini shop, bur ride back home, the heat, the sweat- and in the middle of all this- those classmates who've become ~~friends~~ family in the past few years.
It was strange to even think that the routine will now be broken. That all of this won't happen, and the thought of a non-uniformed life seemed so alien and... unsettling?

I've lived in the heart of this school for fourteen years. Abused it unconditionally, kicked the bathroom doors a zillion times, scribbled rude drawings of teachers on the black board, solved sums on the tables, and gradually graduated to the Back Benchers Association by grade 12 :-)
I've walked in with pride holding prizes with a collar up, I've cried in the bathroom, I've hid behind the swimming pool, and I've bunked all around the place. And on graceful occasions, sat in class with my chin on both my hands and looked and heard out the (mostly) lovely teachers.

And I've made friends, oh yes. I have. I've made friends with bonds that can stretch further than chewing gums, the ones that used to be stuck under the tables and would inevitably find place in my skirt. (Trips to the Home Science lab for soap would follow.)

And then today once the last bell rang, I couldn't help but let out a nervous smile. And actually stood straight like an obedient child and repeated the prayer on the intercom, for maybe the first time in months. The last school-gives-over prayer.

And THEN. Daftuar's priceless nags began while exiting the gates of the school, yelping as if we were to die the next minute. Emosssanally charged students around were clicking photos as if the school was coming to an end in 2011. (Technically, yea yea.) But it was kind of overwhelming, and finally I cut through the melodrama and crashed Vant's place for a calculated half an hour to just chill and then go home and study like no body's business. And once I got there, the usual shitting around started and abuses to our favorite Mallu lady resumed with the sidelines of PJs and gayness. And just... chill.
And I was happy.
I was happy because although school is coming to an end... I kinda realized it's for the best. I've grasped in as much as I could and seeing those two lady retards, bullshitting racism all over the place with Rem, spending useless hours in the library with Rob,rolling eyes at Chatur for the chimp he is... they leave the epiphany that maybe, this is just the start. These people are going to stay. And that tiny moments through out the last fourteen years have made up a kick-frikkin-ass entourage of my hemisphere. And the other one, I'm on my way to figure.

So really. Happiness is really such a simple thing. And to a question that I've been dwelling on for a while after reading a fellow blogger's post is- Is it a choice? Hell yeah. It is. Shit happens. People walk in, they walk out, they mess your head, they make the best memories, they turn out to be complete pricks, and you regret a whole lot, but then you cherish a muuuch bigger lot.
So by the end of it, you've breathed in everything. Everything that you could. And you still are breathing, soaking in every flaw and creek that comes your way WITH those people/ memories/regrets/love.
That's the best part- you're still breathing :-)

Photos from today at Vanta's. Totally apt for the post, so :-)

Beedles, you're still a prick for not showing up today. But I had to add you to this one : )

So yes, shit happens. And if you can't fix it, spread it on the fields and enjoy the harvest ;)
It'll make you a much happier person!
(Also, shoot me for updating like a crazy frog but this one had to be posted!)
Love,
Nil.

In silence.

2011-11-09T02:44:00.000-08:00

In silence.

In silence,
you will realize my gaze,
I will catch your smile before,
it surrenders to laughter,
laughter; so real,
and we will fall in love,
in silence.

In silence,
your long slender fingers,
will caress the throbbing veins on my arm,
and that slender index,
will shoot up to my lips,
as soon as I try to break the silence.

It's all so quiet,
we both hush, tip toe and giggle,
devoid a vocabulary,
raising a white flag,
to gestures that will save us.

And in silence,
we will both know,
the sweetness of this quiet,
the sharpness of every move,
at this unearthly hour,
and....... the unnecessary cause of words.
We will speak and stay in love,
all of this......in silence.

-Nil.

Of November already and Big Bang Theory loops.

2011-11-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

November's here already. I feel like I'd been sleeping all this while in a sound slumber and kaboom goes the diwali-ness in Delhi and I woke up to realize the year's already coming to an end. What a strange year it has been I tell you. I don't think it's excluded anything.
Diwali was pretty random and disorienting. Better than last years, nevertheless! Found ourselves at India Gate at godknows what hour of the night, taking strolls around the Guard who stood at attention like nobody's business.
My cousin was here for a good eight days, and lets just say I was on a vacation in Delhi.. Hell what a crazy time we had! From the most shady places in Delhi to insane karaoke nights where something revolutionary happened to me for the first time, but never mind that here (!).. To midnight coffee at coffee shops, speeding cars, meeting her absolutely w.i.l.d friends, turning her and Rob's hand blue while watching Paranormal Activities 3, and shopping like animals.. The past week has been gorgeous, in every single way :-)
I miss her like a sad little puppy, but heyy all good things come to an end. Shoot me.

Apart from that,I'm still hungover about how last month's been so godamn crazy and hectic. I haven't found the time to stop and breathe, not once, no. Something or the other's been up and my only soothers have been Limca and watching loops of the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon Cooper makes me happy and laugh like a wild child, and I need to frame his photo and see it everytime anything pisses me off. How, just HOW can a T.V series be so awesome that it makes the world a better place to live in? Quite literally speaking.
He makes me believe Sarcasm isn't dead yet :-)

Anyhow. Parents just god back from Bombay. Bloody good for me, it would save me going crazy in the weekends and bringing the lovely house into stones and toothbrushes. Anyhow. It's been a strange Wednesday; the kind that ain't a blue but is a mixture of frowns and the only wish to sleep. I came here to write this absolutely unproductive and shite post just so to let you guys know that I'm still alive, and I've just been busy. All the email replies will find their way to you very very soon, I promise. Give me the weekend? :-)
And there you go, my phone's beeping on low battery- something that it does pretty often now. I should really work on the phone charging thing, I ignore that instrument like its scum. But it's not in the drawer anymore, so that's an improvement, right?
Deviated beautifully, however no more. Ciao lovely people. I'll come back with some poems and happy things like Sheldon Cooper. Bless that boy. Hearts. (I would have drawn one, had it not irked me.)

Tata! Eat well, and sleep better, and party for me :-)
-Same old Nil.

A quiet dinner.

2011-10-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

She threw the jean with the belt hung on it, entered the kitchen and anticipated for last night's beacon to have vanished. The damp, unhappy fridge effected her mood drastically to her surprise. The husband wasn't home, and she was going to eat dinner alone. Again.
She tied her shirt up into a naught over her waist that had now gained a few layers of fat, after marriage. The husband called them his exclusive love handles. It didn't sound half as ridiculous when he said it as it did in her head, now.
She scooped some jelly and quickly gulped it down, as if guilty about her eyes watching..
Women, women ; She could almost imagine the husband snickering. She rolled her eyes at the solitary house who'd been her companion for the past month, while the husband had a secret affair with his Office desk, his files, and the tender submission. She sighed.

She put on the old Steely Dan record and started swinging to 'Home at last' while soaking some beans into the red bowl. She noticed a crack, and immediately a flash of irritation crossed her. Just how many times had she asked him to not enter the kitchen. Almost all the utensils had a crack here, a chipped end there. His careless approach to everything annoyed her, but three years of marriage had taught her the hidden vow of compromise, to let things pass and come in terms with the fact that she wasn't living alone anymore, that she couldn't have the wall hanging on the north wall because his Elvis poster had always nested there, that the curtains could not be the color of cherry, and that the shoes had to be kept outside the house, even though there was a cupboard inside which was now a home for the empty beer bottles which came from the weekend parties with their friends.
Yes, she did learn that she wasn't boss anymore,and that they had a mutual contract now.

She picked up the book the husband was currently reading. She was surprised to see it was one of her Sidney Sheldons. She smiled. It was the same book she couldn't stop talking about for weeks after her read. The same book he had sworn to not read so as to not contract the annoying disease of verbal book worm diarrhea, he had said!
The book mark was a coffee cup stain on the 87th page.
Yes, marriage had also taught her imperfection. Sweet, very sweet imperfection.

She bit her tongue as she remembered she hadn't checked her messages, she hopped to the brown coffee table and punched the red button and the messages started playing one by one...and as the track 'Peg' started playing, she sat on the dinner table, poured herself a glass of wine and chewed on her salad and waited for the husband to come back, loosen the blue tie and wink at her rushing to the shower... and while she imagined all the minute details of her daily life, the last message, dated three weeks ago, on the answering machine said ;

"Maya.. I'm so sorry.... about Rishi's sudden.. death. We want you to know that he was a good man, a lovely man. And of course a fantastic husband. We're all there for you, darling. Just a call away, you must know..."

She stood up and walked to the phone quietly, unplugged the answering machine, and went back to her dinner.

**************************************************************

Awaiting feedbacks as always!
Love,
Nil.

Polaroids.

2011-10-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's been a strange month, with times of absolute unadulterated happiness as well as sudden and thickly interspersed space outs. My subsequent rants have obviously made that fact quite clear.. But I promise this one's the last! From the next post onwards, there's going to be fiction. Cause even I'm going to bury my nose deep into books and then my lovely sister will make her way to Delhi.. So I'm going to be terribly busy and you shall all get a break from the perpetual rants of erratic mood swings.

I just got back from a Raghu Rai Photography exhibition.. a close friend happened to read about it in the newspapers and so we decided to go have a look. I'm still awestruck at how the human mind creates such terrific concepts which leave one's mouth wide open after realizing the gravity of the thoughts behind each and every photograph. Ragu Rai..of course, is one of the best. But there were a bunch of other collections by various photographers who aren't very celebrated, and each and every photograph blew my mind off. At times, black and whites can be so overwhelming, and they almost make your mind travel to a distant memory that you never knew you retained inside you anymore. And the best part is, they're all feelings and people you see and feel every day. But the way each and every thought and expression had been emoted so profoundly into print was laudable. Inspiring and overwhelming..
I got some interesting photographs, too. Of the exhibition and people around.. Here are a few :-)

So yeah. That was my update for the day, and that's going to be it for a while now. The next half of the month, I shall be busy spacing out from social networking, the phone shall find its cozy place in the drawer and I shall find best friends in multiple hours of NCERT textbooks and joy in Pahargunj and karaoke nights with my darling sister and our friends :-)
Basically, I shall rely only on interaction in person. Which is so much better and lesser hassle. Don't ask me why, though!

So tata world,
I shall be back by the end of the month. Till then, enjoy the fictions coming up. And take care!
Thumbs Up,
Nil.

Conversations.

2011-10-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Presently, my house has about sixteen people scurrying up and down the house carrying plates of fruits, vermilion, sweets, vegetables, mirrors, holy threads and an agglomeration of pretty red and yellow things. The ground floor has a flirtatious aroma of mouth watering aaloo puri, while the elders laugh loudly making the tiny kids flee around the house from one place to another.
And no, there's no wedding in the house. This is just how my darling Bong family celebrates Lakshmi Puja. And this is exactly why, I absolutely love all these sixteen people who're taking turns in yelling my name out with not-so-polite tones for me to ditch this bunch of cyber garbage and go and participate.

My eldest uncle has been priding over the alpana (some thing you make with rice paste) I helped to make. He's been rewarding me with tiny toffees while my mother has been stuffing coconut sweets into my mouth for no apparent reason. My father is patting (punching) me on the back and bellowing with unnecessary happiness about how nice the red hideous kurta looks on me, and my tiny niece is having the time of my life sneezing and laughing at the same time on the apparently witty ways my elder brothers seem to have adapted to make the world realize how hilarious they are. (Talk to the hand,I said.)

And everybody is just randomly screaming and jumping around from place to place, stuffing on sweets and lovingly cursing the weather. The house feels breathing (sneezing) and alive.

Which is why, when you're in a terrible blue and unsure about the world under your feet, all you need is a darling of a crazy Bengali family laughing even when jokes aren't cracked, and pulling on your cheeks like you're the newborn of the house even though you're seventeen.

Rolling my eyes with a wiiiide grin,
Nil :-)

Over, the madness.

2011-10-07T05:19:00.000-07:00

And it's over, the five day long madness.
The getting up in the morning to wear a crisp cotton saree, or showing around the pandals to my non bong friends like a matter of pride, the ceremonies at home, the sound of Dhak playing making your heart flutter, staying out way into the night with cheerful companions,the dhunochi aaroti dance, food- oh the food! And just... the festival in itself. The five days that you feel alive, the most.
I know I mentioned the anticipated depression, but it ain't there really. I'm quite overwhelmed as always, and happiness is enjoying the quiet lazy epiphanies by sadness.

Durga Pujo this year was of another kind. Absolutely magnificent in most aspects and a little nostalgic in few.. the rituals were all the same. The pandals, most of the people, the feeling of belonging under one very colorful umbrella of happiness, and perpetual excitement of every minute.. yes, it was all the same. But also absolutely different in a whole new level.

Pujo started with Panchami when Rob and I fought pretty much the Odds of all the screwed network connections of Vodafone (hehh! Quite a night that one!).. Shashti, my ladies came over. That was altogether a trip of a different kind. Seven saree-clad beauties marching the roads with loud laughter, sipping on chuski, and a whole lot of fun.. Saptami was my day out with the other craziness oriented loves. Neha, Sheks,Chika, Rohan,Apu, Rukmani, Shuvro and okay basically a whole bunch of insane people! That was the ditch-Cr.Park-Day. We went and checked out the pandals outside Cr.park and they were such beauties I tell ya. Not to mention, the night ended with a drive to India gate wearing Devil horns and glow in the dark shades :-P Ashtami, there was the main puja at my place.. Shiv came over, showed her around, bumped into Kanz and gang. Following which was the night that I felt alive the most- the Ashtami arati at K-block, where I did the dhunochi.. The rush, the intoxicating feeling of dancing in front of the idols proceeding to a trance is the one feeling that would stay and refuses to go away.
And Navami. The cherry on the cake.
The huge Bhattacharjee family rented a bus and off we were to rule the Puja pandals of New Delhi! And heh, um, then. For the keeps- the Navami night party at Cheeka's. THAT, I won't forget. Ever. No, not ever! No further details on that,err.
And finally, Bhashan..... The Visarjan saw us bongs go wild on the streets dancing to the beats of Dhak.. what a visarjan.. damn.

Ashtami Dhuno Aaroti..

So yeah. It's ended. The madness is over, and it's time to get back to the thick stick of Everyday. But as cliched, however very honest- and thus begins a year long wait. A wait that's always so worth it. It's been a kickass Pujo. Something I rather didn't expect.. I wish I had more to say, for this post. I anticipated a lengthy post describing every minute detail of the odyssey.. but I think this is as much as I'd want to share, the rest is to stay with me only. For that's how amazing this pujo was, and I'd rather leave it to that. It's beauty within me.
This Pujo was the onset to a whole new vision, a vision I ignored, to now realize that it was actually bliss.

Shubho bijoya everyone, and god bless :-)
Nil.

Small polite car talks.

2011-09-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

About the last super hypnotic post, well yes, I was in the middle of midterms and it's Pink Floyd, so pfft. Enough said.
I'm back on the face of the planet. My phone doesn't cry in the drawer no more, and I replied to almost every email that was sitting in my inbox binge eating on dust and complaining people.
My exams were okay, I shall say no more cause that always ends up jinxing my results (not that I'm getting any golden eggs this time anyway).. anyhoo. So the next ten days, I plan to do nothing except sleep (a lot of that), party, READ, and..wait for it.. PUJO. Enough said again!

The above picture seems pretty contrasting to what I did today, a day after my exams got over- I woke up at 3 in the morning. And sang at 5am for Mohaloya (Non-bongs, Go Google.) But it honestly wasn't as bad as I thought. As much as I was confident my voice would crack at the highest note, loud and clear on the mike, it didn't. It was pretty decent, I say!
And of course, Neha, Shekhar and Robin. Dawgs that they are. Showed up at five in the morning grinning like they were living the ultimate plan of their lives. But Mohaloya didn't seem as terrorizing as it usually does. It was rather not bad at all. I didn't even slip wearing the saree B-)

Hippie Photo :)

Oh and yesterday, ze ladies log and I went to CP. Where I shot portraits of random strangers while Guinz and Vantz tried their Southindian and Bihari Best to kill me via pissed off looks. (they were cute, if not anything). And Remya ditched. Again. And slept. The whole day. She shall get her answer for this soon. SHALL SHALL SHALL! (your style, bidtch. If you're reading.)

Anyway. Since pujo starts in a ay or two, I'll probably be too busy to update. So there's some fiction coming your way! Cause there's going to be a super sad, depressed and anti-life post after about a week-ish once Pujo ends. So I'm almost bribing you to bear with me :-)
And now, I shall go and read a book. Or maybe catch a bus and go somewhere. Or watch a movie. Or go for coffee alone. Yes, I think I'll do that :)
How liberating did the last two lines feel!

Ciao readers,
I'll be back before you know it!

-Aador,
Nil.

Has it ever happened to you?

2011-09-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

Has it ever happened to you, that the sky outside is a clichéd purple along with the concrete jungle around blushing to a light crimson, while you're hovering in a parallel world of Pink Floyd playing to the Dark Side Of the Moon.
Has it ever happened to you, that despite the unanswered texts in your phone hiding a bunch of plans, you wish to ignore the entire civilization and keep quiet and be on your own. Just indulge in music, and photographs of faces that speak a language through the grains of each and every print.
Has it ever happened to you, that you give yourself company at laughing on the foul things we kids run around after, that scream and yell their importance but stand so hollow once they're caught between our inexperienced, unwise, imbecile,bony fingers.
Has it ever happened to you, that in a ten minute long track, you understand the basic problem revolving around your life and the basic answer of pluck it out and throw it away like a weightless weed altogether, for it to never return again.
Has it ever happened to you, all of this, in a span of twenty minutes in a single evening.

I wasn't asking, the question was rhetorical.

Please listen.
-Nil.

Try again, he smiled.

2011-09-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

She pressed her fingers harder into the strings, and he squinted his eyes till they were almost shut with a frowning brow, his lips mouthing 'E minor' like a silent prayer.
His expression could be mistaken as an exemplary image of pain, had he not suddenly flown his eyes open with a funny grin the moment she hit the right chord.
She looked up, lips pursed into a smile, big, big round eyes looking up at him like a child who just learned trick of tying her shoe lace. They both started laughing, and he punched the air. She though, kept her index finger tightly pressed to the chord, too scared to move;
"What if the flow breaks?"

Now it was his turn. He took the smaller guitar, suddenly finding himself frowning at the fact that she called it a Ukulele at first. She giggled looking at his face, she knew the culprit of that frown.
He started playing the next few chords, looking at the guitar as if talking to it. Asking for it to understand even the reverb to be heard at every chord. While she stared at his hands playing with the six strings like a child colors with crayons ; careless, effortless and carefree.
She looked at his face with burning intensity, trying to pin point every emotion that crossed the flawed desert of his face, hoping to replicate not just the melody, but the cause behind it.
He looked up, and motioned her to play. She tried, hit the wrong chord and flinched. She tried again, failed again, tried some more, failed over and over again. She flinched. She didn't want to disgrace what he just played. She didn't want to usher away that soul that lived in those three strange, simple yet gorgeous chords. Her hands froze, her lips pursed ; the smile was gone.

He smiled and led her hands back on the guitar,
"The second try's always awful!", he said faking exasperation, looking straight into her eyes.
"Try again."

And that, was the first of many tries, of countless frowns, of sly grins and flinches, of ugly fingernails.

"Try again." ; he's nod.
And she would. She would try again and again, and again...and as she played, he squinted his eyes, almost shut, frowned brows..and smile.
And slowly her eyes closed,too. She bent down to the guitar while she played, fumbled, played again.
And he'd listen with his face screwed up, hunting perfection with his eyes closed, bending toward the guitar.
And as her finger skin ragged more and more, the two of them sat close, heads bent towards each other, noses at a pin's distance, with eyes tightly shut ; outlining forced wrinkles on their youthful eyelids.. and both their foreheads had lines which echoed concentration, their minds unaware of everything and their heartbeats throbbing to the six string's tale.

...and as she hit a wrong chord, the illusion broke.
She flinched.

"Try again.", he smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Awaiting feedbacks duuuh :-)
-Nil.

The clouds are lifting from the ocean.

2011-09-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

I'm obsessed with Japanese writers again. You must know, because I shall update you with trivial insignificant facts of life, since I haven't ranted at all this month. Blame my cursed mid terms for it (why did that remind me of a mid wife?)
Anyway. The month has been academically eventful. Though my report card won't show so, I know. By the end of seven hours of Political Science, I came to realize the next day was that what I wrote in the paper was utter, naked bullshit interspersed with murderous silly mistakes and I've realized it's cow poop when they say 'Women are good with dates' cause the theory doesn't seem to work with me. Out of nine chapters (the whole fat book), all I could gather was two dates I could be sure of. 1961 and '62. And they weren't even a part of the one markers so screw that shit.
Anyhoo. My life without Facebook still feels like a private Himalaya in Delhi. I sit online for half n hour a day. I check Blogger, skype some and sign out letting a fantastic play list of Goan and Euro trance play.

My econ tuition teacher loves me and considers me a bright bulb. And hence, I didn't exactly know how to react when he told me he had a 'feeling' that I wasn't going to do well in this midterm and he seemed considerably cheerful about it. Which is why I stick by my policy of not bothering to understand much of Scholarly people.

My cousin sister came over for the weekend, and we had our share of
going out shopping and not buying anything,hehh. (I got my nose pin changed to a ring, if that's an update?) And yeah that's her--->
Also,the following night she,my elder sister and I had a Sisters Night Out at this super fancy Sizzler joint. I'm positive I can't eat for the next three days, that's how full I am!

Other than that, life is pretty upsetting till the 26th. That's when my midterms get over, and my ladies and I run to Paharganj once again to lash out on the markets and Sam's Cafe.
Not to mention PUJO is on its way! My spirits have considerably dampened because of idiotic friends of mine who choose to ditch Delhi and decide to screw up big bong plans. (You're never going to hear the end of this, trust me dear boy.)
But hey my ladies plan to be around a lot during pujo, so hell I'm psyched about showing them around. They've never seen the "real thing" of it before. Also, I plan on spending a lot of time with family this time. OH OH OH and I'm also going for Bhashan this year! (for those of you who don't have a clue of what I'm saying,I shall explain when I'm online for longer okay?)
Anndd. Now the cherry on the cake- Raima, my sister's going to be here for Diwali. I was expecting Diwali to suck monkey balls this year like my last one, but hey thank god she's going to be here :) So that means another blissful week of insane fun.

But yeah. Before all the fun starts, I still have about another week of books and mid terms to write. Sigh. So anyhoo. I shall take your leave now. And I love you readers for the amazing positive feedbacks y'all have been giving me on my fictions last month. Honestly, you guys make me want to write.
Now ciao! Hope you lot had a fantastic weekend.

-Hoping for some more rainy skies please,
Nil.

P.S- Tomorrow's my English midterm. I realize now I underestimated the course a bit too much, and maybe attending a class or two would have done me some good. Shit.

Summer went away, and we just weren't the same.

2011-09-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

Summer changes me. Every time. Every summer break that does me the favor of sixty days to myself, to the scotching sun, to the sunburnt back of my neck, to white tee shirts and flannel pants, to friends, and to sitting at home with nothing but a good book and a glass of juice to my liability.

This routine happens, every year and yet, every summer I'm introduced to some magic. To some one. To some place. To myself.

Summer is when I abandon every element of hesitance. It's when I go right ahead and do the biggest mistakes of my life. Mistakes which kiss me and slap me every now and then, and laugh with me when I see myself grow from that particular sunny day when the sun was at its best. When I was walking on the streets wearing flats which seemed to have burnt holes, when the metallic rods of buses seem to burn into my skin, when I fall in love, when I fall out of love, and when I take another plunge into another insanity.
Yes. Summer is insanity.

By the end of the summer, there's one person, one place and one side of me that is stuck to my head. That is surfacing realizations of the same facts in different characters. And those three epiphanies stay with me until next summer rolls in. And I'm introduced to another person, another place, and another side of me. Yes, summer changes me every time.

I feel happy in summers. Perhaps everything I'm writing right now sounds like a kindergartener writing an essay on what summer means to him, repeating words, nouns,verbs.. But this post is just an honest confession and something simple I wanted to write since 2008...and it's all true. And perhaps, it couldn't be more true for it sounds like a child's words. Cause every summer I realize what a child I am. I fall from stairs, I burn myself while trying to toast bread for the first time for someone special, I make an inseparable friend, I cry for my dog's cuteness, I... I just do things to feel happy. To make people happy. And to just.... live.
So yeah. I am a child. A big, crazy and wild one at that!

But with every passing summer I leave a side of that child behind... It happened last year, happened this year, and is inevitable next year.
But that's what's so amazing. Summer. Dragon flies. And realizing yourself. And your differences from a reflection that now seems younger, with a toothier grin, looking eagerly at someone at the other side of the mirror who looks a little older, mature....and well, just different.

It's true. Summer went away and we just weren't the same.

-Nil.

The hush hush Street.

2011-09-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

The hush hush Street.

Like snippets of my imagination, a hurricane of possibilities rove through my mind when I saw the man standing there, under the yellow street lamp smoking his pipe. His body language was unsure, his eyes were hollow holes with only the jaws of his face illuminated. His coat was old, strands of wool discharged into awkward angles of obtuse. His posture kept shifting, trying to hold a confident edge but failed miserably to find a comfortable stand..
"Hmm..Nervous..But would he?" ; I heard my mind calculate the possibilities.. I decided against him. I remembered Boss complaining about my insularity, the other day. And suddenly, I found myself in an agitation to prove him wrong, like a child I felt my brows frowning and my knees felt weak.

I lit my smoke, the tiny flame caught the man's attention in the dim surrounding. I leaned next to the bar door and let the light of the fluctuating tube light above outlining the bar's name fall on me. On my cut sleeved red dress, on the careless chunks of jewellery accentuating my collar bone, on the red high heels that transformed me the minute I kicked them on.
I let the man see me.

He took half a step, adjusting his hat. And then retreated back, and walked away briskly.
"Hmm.. he wouldn't. Too much of a pet cat.."; I smiled.

I blew the smoke up into the air, letting the chill in the air soothe my face, and calm my relieved nerves. I drew in and drew out my right leg on the concrete below. I was surprised at how gorgeous they looked. I heard Ruby's words somewhere in my ear; "Practice makes a woman perfect hun.. A man will always be just as imperfect as the first try." ; and somewhere I saw her wink too.

A couple passed by. The man's eyes immediately shifted to my legs, the hips, and then above. And then quickly looked at his wife with an apologetic smile, who didn't notice his seconds of fantasy. The wife smiled back. But they walked swiftly and took a turn in the next block. Getting rid of this street as soon as they could. The man looked back, before the curve.
"Of course he'll come back to this street very soon." my mind spoke.

I lit the next cigarette. A Mercedes Benz swooshed by, and stopped abruptly in front of the bar three doors away. The expensive one. A lean man in an expensive ensemble stepped out with a white package under his armpit. He put on a white fedora, and walked in quickly.
"Did expensive really matter?" , my mind asked.
An hour later, I spotted the man. This time, the fedora was gone, the outline of his hair was ruffled, and his walk a little unstable, trying to keep a quick pace. The irritable foot tapping didn't stop until the Benz came to pick him up, and the car went away. I saw the man pull up the window.

I lit my third cigarette. And waited for some more faces, few more shadows to lurk around this forbidden and yet celebrated street of the city. I exhaled in the warmth of the smoke, the only companion who'd hover around,follow the faces in ghostly shapes and vanish into thin air just like the shadows of this hush hush street.. who'd hover around until one of them would actually come where I stood, slide his arms into my waist and let me escort him into the door behind me.
I waited and let the brothel in my mind speak, judge and laugh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Awaiting feedbacks as usual..
Love,
Nil.

Snippets.

2011-09-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

Blissful without Facebook. Never thought I'd say that.
While I was on my break from Pol Science :

I love.


The BEATLES Coffee Table book.

My first Valentine's Day Rose. 2009. (From my old diary)


My birthday, 2009. Woke up to find a huugge bouquet of roses.


What Remya and I do in Pol Science.


Economics class :)

Happiness.

-A slightly different,

Nil.

Murders are beautiful.

2011-09-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

No they're not. But illusions of pretty things I tell you, they fool us.
So there's a photo I clicked at Vanta's today. Bunch of ants were feeding on the remnants of a beautiful moth. And the dreadfulness of it was numbed by how beautiful it managed to look, the synchronized procession of the ants, and the wings of the moth still looking just as gorgeous while lifeless.

Illusions of pretty things I tell you, they fool us.

-Nil.

Just like last morning.

2011-09-03T02:04:00.000-07:00

The mind wakes up to a surreal morning, angry remnants of desired conclusions bustling in a hurry over the caffeine of last night's sleep. The yellow morning should have been pleasant, but the pupil only adjusts and readjusts itself to see clearly despite the painfully throbbing window panes of the mind's eye. Lips half opened, close into a pursed defense when the dizziness increases, palms shoot up to comfort the face with familiar lines and own skin, but the series of dreams left the mind agitated, the body at unease, and the hair uncombed and thoughts just as riddled as the knots that would be later tugged on with the green comb.
The anxious shoulders work up the courage to move, the body shifts places and travels to the colder region of the bed, to get rid of the warmth of the place where the body slept for eleven hours and the place that felt like a recently exhausted engine of an old angry truck. Focus zeroes down to the small tattoo of the dragonfly on the ankle, and slowly the five senses regain and recollect the origin of the body. The sixth sense hushes down the constant nervous yelps booming in the speakers somewhere far away, within the soul perhaps?
The day compliments itself with the whistles of the iron boy, skipping and hopping to the neighborhood households to carry away crushed white shirts and bring them back crisp by the evening for another day of 9-5 slave hours for the guy next door with brown polished boots and the corporate car.
The cat purred in its sleep beside..The world was slowly making sense.
Water!, the tongue rebels. As the Adam's apple is bathed with the cold noble liquid, courtesies the refrigerator, the body subsides to the calm, the quiet, and understands again, just like last morning, who it was, what it does, and where it belongs.

Courtesy- NILADRI BHATTACHARJEE.

-Nil.

He smiles.

2011-08-27T00:32:00.000-07:00

He smiles.

He pours out the hushed tales,
tales of his life which would have been fairtytales otherwise,
had he not closed his eyes and smiled,
smiled at every word that his unconscious tongue let go.

He seemed to smile at the irony,
the irony of sad humor,
the humor at the slaves we all are to The Greater Good,
slaves...slaves of Time.

He seemed to smile,
at the subtle leaves of Change,
that have yellowing edges,
that want to be a part of autumn, and look belonged.

But he also smiled,
because he wasn't afraid.
Afraid to be read,
to float on the naked surface of truth,
he smiled,
cause this is how it was,
and there was no changing it.

But while I stood on the aisles,
and watched the curtains rise and fall,
to his mono act,
to his One Man show,
with every wave of confessions,
I looked at him harder,
for he still closed his eyes and smiled,
and that,
just that, gave me a reason enough,
to live, to strive, to run, to smile..
Cause this is how it was,
and there was no changing it..

-Nil.

Rolling in the deep.

2011-08-23T03:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's my current obsession- Adele is a fugging genius.
And with a weather like that, everything seems genius. And the line 'They keep me thinking, we almost had it all" is stuck in my head. They make a little too much sense in my life, right now. And that's overwhelming, and so I sit on Blogger with a tranced out face trying to make sense out of the sudden blankness that just shut my brain down.

The last weekend was a little too eventful. So it was a whole bunch of bollocks when I decided that I'd stay indoor and study till there's no more coffee at home. Well. That didn't happen. I did study yeah, but not even close to how much I was supposed to. Okay that's awesome, that just added in guilt with the blankness in my neurons.
Anyhow. So Friday was outright insane. I'm not supposed to write about it on my blog, but lets just say that the bucket list I was talking about in my last post is slowly filling up well and quick. Saturday and Sunday went by quickly cause my friend Aliya's come to India, and so there was her birthday outing cause of which I visited Qutub Minar and Essex Farm after what seemed like eons, and then we had a sleepover at her place which left me sleep deprived, and I'm yet to catch up on it. All of this was somehow interspersed with sessions of Econ and Pol Science (i have no clue how tho.)
And yesterday, I met my sister for lunch, the purpose of which was to meet her boyfriend who's a solid guy and a kickass photographer. Quiet, humble, insanely talented. So we had quite an amazing lunch followed by nomading around the streets of CP while this guy kept taking pictures of us which I have no clue how left me quiet. Nobody posed. We just talked and walked and heard his Canon 1000D go 'Khichak!' every second. So multiple Photoshoot dates decided after my First Term exams end.

Missed out on the Southie lunch at my Lavaaaar's place on Sunday..which was quite kickass I heard. And I've been hearing about some retarded video which these guys made (put it up will you?) and the racial jokes with my ladies continue enhancing love between us :/
Vanta: They named West Bengal Paschim Bangaaa!
Me (in a serious tone): Yes, they did. Poshchim Bongo.
Vanta: BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Now you see, any normal bong would have gotten pretty offended at the conversation above but not in my case,no. That's pretty much the way we talk, all of my ladiej. And racial jokes on each other is what binds us together = )

School was pretty normal tday. Econ was the only class I studied. Geo/Pol Science bleh. English,bunked. Made Rob bunk Biotech again. Which reminds me I'm supposed to figure something out and see that bugger at seven. How does that work?
Anyhoo. I have a cold. One of those annoying ones which make your throat feel ticklish all the time and you feel like punching your throat till it dies.

Did I mention one of my teachers is learning Salsa to propose his lady for marriage?
And I thought romantics were dead.

Ok bye.
-Nil.

Chiquitita Memories

2011-08-17T04:32:00.000-07:00

'nuff of the serious deep fiction, HI there,fat round world. How are thee doing? The day has been absolutely generous in drenching me with sweat every time I step anywhere which has the faintest trace of the sun, also the rain gods have been shy and unwilling which is annoying me. BUT. I must tell you that yesterday something happened. I mean, nothing "happened". Just....an epiphany. You know how we hold on to certain threads of a memory/a person/a hope?.. a thread that somehow sends quiet sparks into the silent sky of your thoughts.. Yeah, well, when that thread breaks, you almost hear a loud 'SNAP!' in your head. That happened. Last night. And I couldn't be more happy. It had been a while since I'd been holding on to lose ends of a ribbon and now, as Remya put it, I've cut that end of the ribbon and let it fall in the ground. And it's over, for good now. :)

THERE. End of deep stuff. Okay so here's the update- My darling retards in school and I have all decided on figuring out this bucket list of things we want to do before we leave school, and slowly we've started the execution to all those Must-Do checks. We've done two, almost in the process of doing the third one, but heyy I plan to publish that list on my blog in the end of the school year. But just to give you a peak-a-boo to today's Wishlist execution-----> I always wanted to run wild on the School's terrace where students aren't allowed. I wanted to do a sprint, run crazy, and let the wind blow into my face cause the terrace is always pretty insane with the summer winds.. And so, today, Vanta and Guinz came to us (Rem and me) after break and told us that the passage to the terrace was open! And so, there we went. We dragged Chatur along and hell while I was walking hurriedly towards the stairs that led up, I felt this tension and once I entered the terrace, the first thing that greeted me was that crazy craaazy wind. I did sprints with Rem, ran w.i.l.d with Guinz and laughed like a retard with Chatur and Vantz. And with that, I felt exhilarated. Somehow. I felt.. amazing. Happy. I felt happy.

Yeah. So with that, we hurried out when the care taker, who was the most chilled stud I've ever seen btw, asked us to get the hell out :) And then, I spent useless hours in the Lab with Robin reading romantic poems on the internet and cracking sick jokes at the mush. Then I sat through the other classes with Chatur randomly waving HI to Rem and me frantically from outside the class. With the perpetual chaos going on in the corridors, the snickering in class and feeling like Einstein in Geography class for the first time. Dissing at Mantah and screwing his happiness for ditching on my Rakhi gift. Speaking total shit with Remya in the library pissing the midget Librarian off and figuring and completing each others sentences (which can be very creepy,yes.) Laughing on Diggy's gross hairy chest. Maintaining the chain cycle of obsession with Guina,Rem and Vanta. Missing the Khandelwal sisters whenever I heard anyone nag about the miseries of life. Making Robin ditch every Biotech class just to laze around with me for endless hours in the school campus.

So yeah. Vague moments, amazing, exhilarating, ecstatic simple memories.

Very simple, but gorgeous memories :)

- Go CHILL.

Nil :)

A neat boy.

2011-08-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

A neat boy.

You know when they say, the person you fall in love with reflects in some ways, the man your father is? I never quite agreed. The thought of seeing traces of my father in my lover was revolting and I never entertained the thought for more than the second is crossed my mind.
Now,though... Now that I look at him from a distance, I realize what they said was almost true. Now, that we hesitate to cross the same paths again, or meet gazes again, while my father is observed at home by me every day, I see the subtle similarities..

The temper, the sense of humor, music, the lean structure in youth, the charming ways of brewing romance, the arched flying eyebrows of curiosity, the mischievous smile,the shy smile,the pride.... But then again, there are roaring differences. The ego, the irrationality, the immaturity, the insecurity, the spineless liar in him.. Now, that I look at him from an unbiased parallel world, I see all the cross and naughts, the flaws, the qualities. I look at him, I look through him now.

My father was particularly fond of him. "A neat boy!" is what he said,cheering his glass of whiskey. Then again, the cult of entering the college of my Father's was another boastful moment for Him and my father. "The legacy is in good hands!", my father laughed on a Sunday brunch while he sat across the table, talking Politics with my Father.

When He told my father he wanted to marry his daughter soon, the day he got his first job, my father puffed another cloud of smoke from his pipe and patted on his back. A glisten of pride and comfort in his eyes. My father invited him for drinks that night, I remember. And my drunk father cried that night, almost threatening him to never break my heart. I had to take him to his room, and he had to put the blanket on his feet. My father still shivered.

On my Graduation Day, my family and his sat together applauding standing half up from their seats when my name was announced. I sent both the men of my life flying kisses from the stage, I was a bold girl. My father beamed and he blushed when his mother and his mother-in-law playfully hit him on his back.

And the day I got my first job, we drank up a bottle of wine. Without my father, without my mother, without his. Just us both. He opened a bottle of Vodka then, which gradually led to two more bottles which he almost gulped down, he drank with a glint of desperation. He stroked my face, pulled away the lose curl of hair behind my ear and muttered how long we'd come along. How my oval face was the noor of his life. How my Feminist side was sexy. How my hot-headed self made him laugh in adoration and bow down in respect to my opinionated personality. But he also told me how he needed some space, some time. How he was switching jobs to another country and that he was going to enter another lifestyle. How my father overwhelmed him. How my opinions clashed so much with his. How we wanted different things in life. How.... how it seemed like all the perfection in our lives led him to believe that there was some more life he needed to discover, and that he didn't want to stop just yet.
I asked him to take me along.
He said the imperfection would start with my absence.

And so, I gave it to him. I told him to go kiss the world and have all the imperfection in the world.

"So?" he said, almost like a gurgle, intoxicated by the next bottle of wine, "So will you be waiting for me to come back?"
I blinked at him; "What?"

He smirked; "I said, will you be waiting for me to come back? Waiting with your father?" -- I felt slapped.

He was nothing like my Father. He could never be. For he laughed at bonds and ties. He laughed at the honesty in them. He laughed at me. He always laughed in the inside, and held up a straight face on the outside.

When he was gone for good, I asked my father; "A neat boy?"
He smiled sadly; "He was a Vodka neat! Baah! I'd rather a man! A Whiskey Neat boy'eh!"

He could never be like my father.
Because my father could smile with sad eyes, and speak the truth. While he, he began with lies even with alcohol burning down his tongue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(And hopefully with that, the Writer's Block spell is broken!) Awaiting your feedbacks as always,
-Nil.

Shit. Scrap that,Awesome shiz.

2011-08-05T03:54:00.000-07:00

Remya asked me to write bullshit on my blog to get over the brutal Writer's Block my neurons seem to be entertaining very well,lately. So don't tell me I didn't warn you, but this post is going to be useless, pointless with a whole lotta shit :]

Fact: Loving the weather.
Fact: High on Cokestudio and Porcupine Tree all the time.

LAST MONTH WAS CRAZY. Downright,bluntly, starkly naked CRAZY. Starting from the sexiest Seventeenth I could wish for, to the month loooong dance rehearsals for Cohesion (which we didn't win,btw.. but heyy best memories ever. Ever, ladies and gentlemen.) Then the Open Day which was the best in all the 14 years of school, with the insanest band around and all my lunatic sweethearts dancing on my head and around :-) Theeenn. The Bombshell. WINNING CLOUDBURST 2011 with the band after singing Sweet Child O'mine! The fireworks in my heart when I was up there on stage, fearless, and singing out loud. Looking at the boys playing their stuff (Mantaah,sweet littul chote, you were sucha bomb!) not to mention having nice laughable chats with lavar Remya on stage while the song was on =P
And the Month ended with Shivvii my love's Birthday (Updated baby, you're always up on priority list even if I forget while posting bullshit :-* BUDDAY LETTER still due. Iloveyou. xoxo) and Rob's birthday and a whole week worth of efforts successful after seeing his reaction when he saw his gifts :") And then last night was his much planned and awaited Birthday Dinner for which two retards (read:Us) were seen on the streets of C.P at ten in the night falling and hopping all over the place with hats on looking as shady as ever and loud laughter!

Did I mention school started with Macro Econ? Not that you care. Also, I think I'm going to be obsessed with Hats for the rest of my life. Also, I never knew how awesome the CAFE 1 in CP is. Must.Go.Again.
Did you know it's my favorite season of the year? Also, that I've been pretty obsessed with green and orange? And that I'm going for a poetry competition this 10th? And that I've actually started going to school on Saturdays? And that I'm secretly depressed about school coming to an end?

I'm turning into a nerd,did you know? The regular weekend parties with my ladies/boys are coming to an end. Eeeslowwly. Because I want to study. :|
This weekend, I plan to sit at home and sleep. And then study. Then sleep. Then go for chai. And then study again. And then show up at school on Monday. I'm turning boring but I'd love that for the next six months, cause I really don't think I can handle the paranoid side of my parents anymore that's come up ever since those beetches of cutoffs came out this year.

I've been reading The Kite Runner and have also been managing to cry like a baby every two chapters. Khaled Husseini is one man who's described Afghanistan, friendship and human emotions like no other writer I've read till date has. In the simplest of words and the plainest of expressions, this man has been able to give me goosebumps with every dot completing a sentence.

On an irrelevant note, Breaks in school are insane fun! Actually School in general is awesome fun now! The retarded group (which has ten people,I just counted) has a new tagline that's yelled out every once in fifteen minutes.

"S***!""P****!" ---> Censored stuff. Children, refrain from deciphering :-)

Also, our School's new P.E teacher is a prick. And we've lovably named him something highly hilarious and versatile which if modified into sentences will make you roll on your back with aching laughter till you pass out.

And now that I've mostly ranted utter crap in this whole post,I feel much better :) The Writer's Block seems to be a stubborn one, so warning you already,I might be back with another round of bullshit. Like how Rem and I practice British abuses or how Vanta and Guina are retarded.
Till then all of ye,
quit staying indoors while the god's are generous, go out, play some in the rain :)

I'll enjoy a warm cuppa coffee now,
cheers..

Meet Bagwati :)

-Random, Nil.

P.S-I'm awesome.

Happy Birthday you Mantal The Bwoyyy!

2011-07-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this because I want to. Because you did what you do best for my birthday,and so I plan to do the same. Write.

I've never written anything for you,cause it's always been very retarded and macho little tactics by which we expressed our care and concerns for each other, but today I can't help but tell you honestly just how amazing you are. And just how strong a hand you've been when my feet were feeble and vulnerable.

We've known each other since we were in our diapers, when rattles and teddy bears were cool. (They never were for me,though). Then came the time when we were still toddlers,new to Nursery school, sharing the same bus stop right outside your house when we (okay,I) used to cry when the bus got late. I still remember how beautiful Autumn looked in that bus top of ours :-) Back then,the end of the world were crayons and plasticine clay,when every little boy and girl in school would roam around cutely holding hands and teachers wouldn't have a problem with them. (What shit man? that's where it all bloody starts from!) Then came the Phase of Grade 1-4 when every boy hated every girl and wanted to rip each others throats off for the others' existence. Then came Grade 5-8 when the awkwardness decreased and the opposite sexes at school started appreciating (and enjoying) each others company, and then came Grade 9-12. When there were best friends, romances, fights, pairing, jokes, nostalgia- ALL around school.
But the strange part is, in all these years of various phases, we've been around somewhere, lurking near each other making our presence very subconscious. We lived our lives in very different ways, met very different people, had insane experiences and walked with parallel but different thought processes.. But haven't we been around,all the time? :-)

The perpetual Ice Creams you keep hiding in my letterbox to cheer me up, the annoying habit of keeping your phone on Silent Mode, the eye-roll you give me every time I say "Robeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenn...." indicating I had the most dangerous plan in mind which you'd eventually have to join, the way your solution to every problem is "Let's go grab a beer at Spinz", the late night sneak outs for Chicken Lolipops, hitting the mall at 9:30 am to just watch a movie, the way you stand in the corridor every morning in school and peek nervously at me when I enter to check if I'm on my Blues or not and then laugh cause I always am, and the 'Macho' way you try to act when I get all senti, and your absolutely EPIC msgs when you're drunk.
.....and most recent of all, and definitely the one memory that'll never fade- the way you quietly came and sat next to me on the aisle during COHESION when my group didn't win.
I need you to know, that you've been one of the few faces that have honestly helped me sail through like a breeze when times and people tried to break me down.

I need you to know that what I have with you are the memories that make me smile every time I hit a dark mood, and honestly, I thank my stars for having such a retard like you around who'd calm me down when I'm hyper and frantic (which is actually all the time.) You've been an amazing friend. A friend I can never do without.
I could write a whole hundred pages and that wouldn't be enough of the crazy times we've had together and as you say- 'Our Epicness with a Hat and a Feather' won't end.

Happy Birthday,Rob.
This one's for you.. Cause you were there when most left.

haha remember this crazy night?

-Love always,
"Mantal The Chashmeesh the Gurlzz" :-P

P.S- Bas bohot bhao de diya, ab corner mein jake tatti karle. ;)

I was such a child.

2011-07-25T03:15:00.000-07:00

I was such a child.
You were on my pedestal, your face was an inspiration. I was such a child.
You were someone who said 'hush,sweetheart' , and I smiled and kept quiet. I was such a child.
You subtly entwined my dreams along with yours, and it never dawned on my nerves. I was such a child.
I chased all those dreams, and worked towards something that was never to be mine. I was such a child.

Your home was apparently mine, however my voice could never be recognized there. I laughed it away with comical foolishness.
Your hands were to lead me to the better, but they always lay so cold, harsh and misleading on mine.
You said our love was native, I nodded like a child. I never belonged to your land.
Your impudent ignorance, I forgave on the names of Time.
Your immodest talent was applauded for by me, like a child's ultimate joy.
I was such a child.

Today,
your face mocks at my innocent faith,
your words in the past laugh boisterously priding on its hypocrisy.
While you my friend,
your body, your hands, your legs, your chest.... frisk through a nascent world,
a world you said was once your nightmare,
today you frisk, float, indulge and submerge into its layers,
...while my inspiration in you is as dead as my belief in your words.

-Nil.

Take me,

2011-07-19T03:50:00.000-07:00

Take me,
take me to those meadows that call,
those meadows where the mustard flower is life,
those meadows where my peach colored frock,
would dance wild with my scraped knees.

Take me,
take me into that ocean where whales call,
where corals look beautiful,
where mermaid stories are told,
where I can float up and above without having to peek outside the blue,
and look for a ship.

Take me,
take me to my friend who stood waving me goodbye,
last time when I went away and promised to write.
That friend who smiles with me,
in that old parchment nailed to my bed. I've missed him.

Take me,
please just take me away,
to where my lips wouldn't tremble,
where my eyelashes wouldn't hold wishful broken dreams,
where my brows wouldn't spoil with sadness.

Take me,
to that utopia where the tooth fairy exists,
where Cinderella found her shoe,
where I'd be Alice,
and that would be my wonderland.

Just please, you.
Just please, take me away. For I want to dream, once more.

-Nil.

The best of all 17 birthday cakes.

2011-07-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Remya traveled across the city at 10 in the night, almost got duped and reached my house catching me off guard with dinner in my hand just so she could be there at midnight to wish me birthday. She just appeared, out of nowhere, with her typical retarded bright grin screaming "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! HAPPY BIRTHDAYY!! HAPPPYYY BIIRRTHHDDAYY!!" and waking up the whole house of fourteen people from their slumber of work on a usual day. My mother followed in clapping her hands laughing aloud with her and then my father followed while the whole house floated in grins, delight, and laughter.. THAT was why my parents would kick me out of my own room every time Remya called in the past week, it was a Midnight surprise that she planned with my parents. I was too stunned to react, I stood there with chicken in my hand and mouth wide open. And after about 3 minutes of a billion "What the...." moments repeated in my head, I gained control and gave her a h-u-g-e hug. I was ecstatic.. And then she gifts me one of the best presents I've received in all the 17 years of my life- A black and white photo of us, where she was whispering something into my ear and it said- "To my sweetest Cara... For you, a thousand times over." - After which I was too emotional to say anything and kept repeating "Are you serious?" ..I cut the cake at 12am with my family, and sneaked upstairs to my room with Rem by 12:30. She stayed the night over. We had a sweet slumber party with giggles and heart to hearts, of sleepy photo shoots and laughs.
Calls and texts flowed in, the randomest to the most expected people wishing me. A teacher remembered, a teacher who I hadn't been in touch with for a looong while.. Rob sneaked out upstairs just so he could call :P
Then Debo Da asked me to check Facebook, and I see his profile photo as a photo of us,again. Which said, "HAPPY BUDDAYY TO THE LITTAALL ONNEE!". And there, added a cherry to my cake.

His and Niru Di's surprise (tickets to Blue Mug!!!) followed the next day, which flipped me over yet again. You two are just adoraaabbllee. No wait, LEGGEENNDDHHAARRYY!!! ;)

Then the next day- School. Hugs. Wishes. Cards. Treats. Bunks. RAIN. Random singing of "Happy Birthday" in the middle of the corridor, courtesy- Rem,Vantz,Guinz,Reddy,Raya,Chatur, and just random people joining in and making me melt in the middle of somewhere..

Then, back home. Huuuuggeee party scheduled at 6pm. A party themed the 60's! I was dead nervous about how things would turn up, dad was unwell, people started coming in and the music wasn't ready. The huge sunflower that was supposed to be stuck to my head wasn't working out. My brothers worked like dogs, managed the music, Remya came in, and asked me to chill. And the sunflower..eventually got around to it :P
By Seven, everybody moved to the terrace, and surprisingly enough everybody had done a bloody darn good job at looking Retro! My cousin sister was in Del too, so she kicked up some dresses with us too! The girls looked gorgeous and the guys were absolutely handsome! So finally the party kick started, food, games,DANCE! It was crazy when Rob enters with his bomb. He hands me his gift, I open it, and I see a charcoal sketch of me... yes, he sketched ME. And that was what he was hiding in his room,locked since what? a week I guess. My mouth was struck open for the second time and finally when I did compose myself, all he did was shrug and smile,followed by a biggggggg hug.. Even now when I think about it I get the chills. It's gorgeous, and.. I don't think anyone's ever bothered sketching me,before. So yeah. I reached cloud Nine. Also, the Khandelwal sisters got me another divine frame of pictures that I'd wanted since time immemorial! They've always been pros at them - "Making birthday frames since 1994" ;)
All the gifts were gorgeous, most of the gifts were emotional. SO very emotional. And exotic (Vantz and Shiiiv ;) and a lottt of literature and nose studs :P (Stuti,Joy,Neha,Sheks,Chiks), diaries <3 (Kanishka), perfumes (Chatur), Chocolates! (Mantaaah), etc etc, the list goes on!
..............We all danced into the night. I danced with my favorite ladies on the most cheap 60's songs ever! And the awkward boys who took so much effort to dress up eventually came around to dancing their butts off too! :P
The birthday cake was cut, with the birthday song, followed by my ladies singing me out patent song "Sweetie" :-P
Then,I was blindfolded and was taken downstairs to discover a huge Projection screen set up. Everyone was giggling and I had NO idea whatever was up.. And then, started a slide show. A slideshow that my sister made for my birthday, starting from pictures right when we were kids to now when we were grown ups.. and that's it, I couldn't stop, I burst into tears! After what seemed like eons of hugging and sniffing, we all went back upstairs carrying on with dinner and dessert.. Some more dancing,some more talking.. and slowly people started hugging me goodbyes.
And then started another few hours of Family Partying with lovely dinner and post-birthday photos :P
.....and then once the party was over and I was back in my shorts, I get a call from Milda to come down. The party never really stops when she's around now does it? :)

And so, after what seemed like another few decades of things I don't even remember, I hit the bed. Content. Happy. And High.
High to best birthday ever, to those 17 friends who made it with a lot of difficulties just to be there on my day, to my family who worked so very hard to just see me smile like a child and to just someone out there, who's been watching me all along.
Here's to the best birthday cake of all the 17 crazy, wild,insane years and still counting!

This is to all of you, All of you who wished,who were there,and those who wished to be.... cheers :)

There were too many pictures and they'd take up ages to upload on Blogger, so here's all of us. Together :)

-A 17 year old-Nil :}

Dear Diary

2011-07-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

As I roll to the other side of the bed, hoping for a hint of sleep to lure me into the lost battle of dreams, I find my eyes smiling at the solitary black of the night chaperoning yet another wave of thoughts that manage to hit the shore of an exhausted mind struggling to breathe alive to the day that extinguished hours before the street lights came to life.

The night is far away from the newspaper boy in the early morn. The night seems to be dancing in glory and celebration for a reason quite uncanny to my mind which preaches logic that make sense and somehow aids in competing with the forceful cobwebs of city life.
The deluded pillow laughing at the false alarm of my sleep seems uncomfortable tonight… Echoing every noise and cry I heard, today.
The blanket resigns to no signs of abashment to have failed to provide that one hope to sleep- warmth.
It lies cold, somehow voicing a state of mind.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, the mind abruptly abjures all the uneasy chaos and turmoil of activity, that was hard to decide if belonged to the heart or mind.. and I twist just one more time before I force my eyes shut to find what I’m looking for on my own, and not leave it to the darkness that finds my pupil every night.

-Nil.

Bring on the grind!

2011-07-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Honestly, one of the best Wednesdays of my life, and this called for an update post!
Summer break- over. School started this 4th of July, and it's been awesome. Decent amount of classes and studying, decent amount of bunks and free periods, the ideal mix has been generous on us. Getting back to school,I realized just how much I missed those corridors and the classes that were pretty much home. The typical face I make when I enter school, Rob standing on the corridor in front of his classroom, checking if I was on a Blue or not and then laughing when he figured I was. Remya smiling the brightest happy dent smile to greet me with abuses, Vantz gesturing the retarded heart symbol,Guina lurking around like a ghost, the Khandelwaal sisters crying at everything, Joy buzzing around like a mosquitoe and Reddy with her evil laughter and eye rolls. Oh yes, it felt like home alright!

So today, school was fruitless and that was the best part. We practically had the whole day free, it was raining, and we were chilling on the big field steps,wet and soggy :-P Not to mention Chatur's retarded tricks to beat me at "snapping fingers" and dancing like a perverted lunatic all over the corridors (yo. you're cool- in my defense) Then I saw the book by SCHOLASTIC in which my fiction was printed as one of the stories in the 'New Arrivals' section and it felt Awesome. To see my name as an author in a book which was there in the library and the kids would see- I swear,I hit heaven. Straight. No lefts,no rights, just bang on Heaven :-)
Also, the usual train of inter school competitions setting in to Remya and my list, not to mention the insane excitement for the Interact Cohesion where Rem's gonna kick ass with the whole show and I plan to do a choreography for the dance that's going to get the judges on their knees (Modesty,much?)

So school was over and then Rem came over cause we had our mutual friend's birthday to crash. (Littttuuull retarded Mantaaaaaah,happy birthday shitface! We love you! and please party your ass off, since you've hit you-know-what) :-P
It was thee most retarded Wednesday evening where we were hopping from my house to Gk1,then Manta's house, then M.O.D, creeping the other boys out, then screaming at uptight auto walas, and then getting back home to discover Remya chatting up secrets with my mother,which by the way, was not cool. At all. I feel nervous and she claims it's something pleasant. Uh. :/

So now that life's back to normal, with my favorite bunch around, and school and..just.. happiness? :-)
SO bring on the Grind,12th grade! I'm going to kick your butt and pin you down :-) .... So now that I plan to turn into a really cool nerd, wish me luck cause I'm going to study my happy face off, party in the weekends, and study like a nerd again all week. Okay, maybe party every once in a month :/
But whatever, words can't bring me down ;)
Oh and the Book of complete collection works of Jane Austin thanks to my love Vantz only adds on to the retarded grin on my face right now :-D
It felt good today! Today feels so good. Cause as Rem puts it- "Because, somewhere out there, it's a better world".

Oh oh oh and since I'll be pretty busy to write Update posts for a while now, brace yourself for a LOT of fiction coming up. At least for the next 3 posts. Heh. Sit with popcorn and coke :-P

Remya clicked today!

Love always,
Nil. :-)

Calcuttan romance.

2011-06-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Calcuttan Romance.

And as most short romances start in the Coffee House of Calcutta, so did mine. In those sultry sweaty days of June, when a tourist like me falls in love with The City of Joy for perhaps the millionth time, considering it's almost been a second home ever since my childhood remembers.

But the city shows you different lights with every age that you cross and every age that you reach.

And then, I was at the most crisp and flirtatious years of lady hood... Recently legal-ed 18, fresh into first year college, exploring an old love, the city that played sweet games with my childhood and promised to watch me grow every year with every train I took to Calcutta.

So as virgin memory has it, I entered the old huge Coffee House with every wall smiling an Old School time when friends would meet over coffee and biscuits to talk in the simplest way about the simplest Calcuttan life... And the tables and chairs smiled to those very friends, now a little grey and wrinkled, still sitting on those tables, still sharing the same cups of coffee and biscuits, talking in the simplest and fondest way about the still simplest Calcuttan life... See, that was the beauty of this place. It took you back in time just enough for you to blink back to reality and cheer a cup of coffee to those immortal friendships you saw your very own grandfather talk merrily about... Sigh. The Coffee House was the heart of Calcutta where it would somehow entangle every story behind every face with every new face that walked in anxiously, to realize what they heard of this old building was not overrated, and will forever remain a legendary cult, for reasons as old as their great grand fathers… and my face was one of those, and my story was one of those, too that intertwined with him, who sat three tables away in a red Polo tee shirt with a friend stubbing a dead cigarette over and over again and shaking his head with laughter. However this boy... with the red tee shirt and a goatee that complimented the subtle typical boyish smile seemed to be peeking over at my table, concluded with a sudden withdrawal of his eyes when mine met his, accidentally. With the immediate rush of blood to both our cheeks, the blush laughed out loud, reminding me so much of those little flings and crushes we girls giggled over in our early teenage.. I ordered my usual choice, a cold coffee and subsided to looking down; with ridiculously pretentious fascination to the photographs I took during the whole day of acting touristy. My head was mocking me, telling me just how obvious my fake interest reflected my pursed lips that trembled, controlling a smile. If the smile escaped, my eyes would run and look up, to find my strange romance staring back at me... Or maybe it was wishful thinking, the girl in me swooned. I abandoned all the silly thoughts and concentrated on the menu, deciding what to order along with the Frappe.

My Frappe made its way with the Coffee House signature white, thin straw and as if unconscious to the guarded side of me, I looked up, to exchange yet another look that was complimented with shy smiles from both ends.

As I sipped to my cold coffee, letting go of the occasional smiles that slipped by every time the corner of my eye would catch him looking my way, openly ignoring his friend’s rant, I felt the magic of this ancient building take over me, too. And twenty minutes later, when I paid my cheque and rose to leave, I looked back one last time at the boy who nodded a smile at me, which I returned with a small wave that nobody noticed, but him. And I left. It was as simple as that. I left to discover my old love some more, to see what the initial Capital, Calcutta held and hid in it… and I smiled back at the old rickety board that bore its chest out with pride with The Indian Coffee House written in italics, which welcomed every stranger and every friend. I started walking ahead, smiling to the sweetness of this short romance that lasted a dozen of minutes but was sweeter than the complicated and elaborate definitions I’d seen back at home... This was the City of Joy, and this was my Calcuttan Romance.

Awaiting your feedbacks as always!

-Nil.

And now it's time to face the music... :)

2011-06-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

And I was right. This trip to Calcutta was all I needed to get my feet back on the ground firmly and hold the chains of control in my own hands.. This trip ladies and gentlemen, was offbeat and a far cry from all the experiences of travel I'd had till now. This trip let me fly and discover that one city which brings a smile on my face every time I hear of it, and damn.. It was home :)

Starting from the to-die-for 'lebon' tea to the Indian Coffee House, to Howra, to Princep Ghat, to Lake Kali bari, Gariya haat, College street, Park street, Oly's, Some Place Else, Nandan, Beduin, Aminia, Camac street, Old Calcutta, Eden garden, Red road, Park circus..and so many other places that I can't even remember at this very moment. I saw all of it! With two of my very favorite crazy people :) ... I saw the city like never before, alone.

Calcutta drove away my Writer's Block.. A romantic city like that is sure to.. I wrote a lot of fiction, few of which will find their way published on my blog.. few of which will remain locked up into the pages of my notebook for me alone to cherish :)

Honestly, dear Readers, I thought I'd have a lot to say and talk about, once I'd be back, but I don't. 'Cause in some ways, this trip has taught me that smiling silently is much better than laughing aloud. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but sometimes, to take in an experience, the best way to make it last is to just keep it to yourself and smile. And leave it to that :-)

And now that I'm back in town, the usual business with my favorite ladies and ladas (I mean the boys) are on! Went for lunch to this amazing Tibetan place yesterday with Rob and boy was it amazing or what! (Raima, if you're reading this- We both plan to take you out to this place as soon as you get here!) and the following week is full of Rem,Vanta,Guina,Shiv,Reddy with dates. Also, Maiden is here in delhi, so this is the official Partying Week. So the surreal fun is over at Cal and now it's time for me to face the music- Delhi :-)

So here are a few pictures that I took and which might help you get a whiff of the essence of this place, The City of Joy.. wait up for my next post- a fiction piece :)

Old Calcutta.

College Street.

Maidan.

- Love and revelations,

Nil.

I run away to Howrah.

2011-06-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hello there, World!
I'm sorry to be updating like a retard, but honestly, so much has been up this Summer, and with me boycotting Delhi almost the whole of summer, I think bloggerville needs some explanation too :P

Oh and did I tell you lot I got a nose pierce?

So tomorrow, I'm off to Calcutta- yes, my much awaited trip.. My cousins (read: the party animals) are there already, waiting to receive me early morning at the airport =) I'm going to be gone for 10 days so brace yourselves for the insane memoir I'm going to write once I get back!
I've been waiting to go since about two years.. earlier,for other reasons, now- for different reasons. But I'm going all the same :-) I can't wait to see Hugli, to experience the night outs at Tantra, to have Beduin's fish chops, to sip on 'lebon tea', to go to College Street and buy tonnes of books and shoot there, I'm going to meet an oldddddd friend at the Coffee House (could it get better? ;) and he has promised me to take me to a couple of places that are apparently out of bounds? Anyhow. Oh and my darling sister's there too, on her toes- waiting to get started on the catching up and shopping, while my metal head brother's promised us every night at Some Place Else with music that gets you high and makes you forget everything and most importantly, everybody.
This trip is going to be it. I can feel it. This trip is going to be exactly what I need to do away with every negative element in my body, and I'm going to come back as a fresher and newer person. A much happier person.

So while I go and pack my bags for the best ten days of my life, I want you guys to have a look at the last two fiction posts as I know I haven't given you guys enough time to do so considering I'm updating almost every day.
I promise to write about my City Of Joy as soon as I'm back! Take care, my lovely readers! 153 Followers! I think I just hit heaven :-)

-Love and travel bags,

Yours only,

Nil. :-)

Stranger meets Stranger.

2011-06-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

We sat opposite to each other, the stone cold marble table in between us with the prideful modernized menu which used to be laughed upon and ignored, earlier. But tastes change with circumstances, and so be it, today the menu was consulted and given due importance.
'Experiments.', I smiled.

The conscious train of conversations commenced, pouring out hues of nostalgia over the subtle smiles that hid a million words, that hid the curiosity to know some more about a life that used to be known so well, and by heart. With a perpetual guard of safe topics, our conversation complimented with unusual silence that spoke so much about an obvious gap, a break. It made us uncomfortable, and so another pointless fact from the environment around was noticed, brought into light and spoken about with ridiculous enthusiasm.
Quiet hints interspersed the pretentious repartee, sudden moments when we let our guards down and acknowledged the thousand memories we wove under the hot sun of May.
I noticed, the twinkle in his eyes was gone, and my talkative tongue resided to sweet slumber.

"Where do you go to my lovely,
when you're alone in your bed,
tell me the thoughts that surround you,
I want to look inside your head, yes I do.." , the juke box laughed in irony.

Fragments of conversation floated flirtatiously to the smell of coffee beans in the coffee house. And when it was time to go home, we rose, leaving our respective chairs unperturbed from their original places, between the cold coffee table, for them to have a wooden laugh and carry on their conversation about two strangers who met here, became one and then left as strangers, again.

-Nil.

Defining You.

2011-06-02T05:35:00.000-07:00

Defining you.

You've lived enough,

died some more.

You've captured victory,

and never let it escape.

Your shining armors,

and teeming trophies,

smile at the sheen of dust over the years,

yes, you've lived enough.

We made you,

your skin's the same as the raw of mine.

That beautiful laughter,

is echoed with our happiness,

those splitting sobs,

lurk in our dungeons of mistakes.

Your arrogant cards,

the turns you play,

You. Man- oh so mighty,

your swords ring loud and clear into the night,

you called for the battle,

you called for the mother of all battles.

You were ready to kill the rest,

because you have lived enough.

You've mastered hypocrisy,

my dear Man.

We made you,

you were our beggar.

We chose you,

to breathe some.

But tonight,

as we let our tides free,

to kiss the shore of your land,

the harshest,

tonight you will cry,

for you have murdered so much,

and hence you have lived enough,

you have lived just enough.

And now, it's time for you,

to join where you came from.

From the soils,

from us.

I run away to 47*c.

2011-05-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

I'm just about to start packing..for another runaway from Delhi. I did mention my 10 day long escape to Orissa for a cultural workshop right? Yeah, well, that starts tomorrow!
Although I'm going to get baked in the heat out there, trust me I'm looking forward to it like a greedy kid looking at candy. I'm going to wittness legendary artists like Pandit Birju Maharaj, Shree Ashwini Bhide, Girija Devi, Rajana Sajan Misra- and the list goes on. It's going to be insane, and I can feel it already.

This trip won't be a vacation- the first thing we were told. We are to get up everyday at 3:45am and start our day with Yoga. The whole day we will attend lectures, performances by these artists and regular three hours of intensives everyday (in my case- Odissi, Creative writing and Sufi music) .. The way we live will reflect that of a Gurukul style of living. No comforts and a lot of sweat and hard work through out the day. Lights will be off by 9:30pm and no cameras or phones allowed. The idea is to isolate us for these 10 days so we realize something greater than a materialistic idea of a comfort zone, and understand the gravity of the experience that we are practically being blessed with, to actually be in a program with artists of such mountainous levels.

These guys at SPIC MACAY are going to drill us. They are going to drill us for all these 10 days, but they've promised this to be the best experience of our bloody lives, and hell I'm on my toes to get on the train already! I'm going with my bunch of favorite ladies and I can't wait to meet the other 1500 students from around India who are going to be there :D

So, dear Earth people, say Goodbye to Ole Nil till the 31st of June... and I promise to be back with a bang! I'll be back with a million stories and I promise to rant for as long as your ears don't fall off : )

But till then, I walk into isolation with a smile,
and I hope this stay at the Undergrounds will be a legendary tale of my life, a tale to tell :-)

--Kites for the summer,
Nil.

It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.

2011-05-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Doing a million things that you might do well in, grabbing every oppourtunity that might lead you to a peak a little higher than the last one, striving to keep up with the rat race that starts the minute you open your eyes in the morning,accepting your faults and short coming to perfect yourself some more, and keeping yourself as busy as you can just so you can get over some stuff and encourage yourself to get going with the present to have a sound future- yes. All of this does leave you gasping for some air. And for a break.
And do you know where does that break reside? It resides in five wicked ladies. For of who make you get up at 6am on the first day of your summer vacation, travel half way across delhi in a metro to go hoot for a fantastic performance by one of those ladies who stun you with thier performance and then follow up to two days that have everything- from sleep, to cold coffees, to hours of chat, to pool side parties, to dinner, to fights, to honest talks, to laughs, to photographs and malls, and then a ride back on the metro half way across delhi- all in one weekend.

This weekend was the mother of all weekends and I shall remember it for as long as women live on this planet. Hell, the past three months have been so crazy.. So many things hit me, so many confessions, so many decisions, and so many dilemmas. So many things ended. But I guess so many things started too,right? I let go off a million things, sat down and threw away every complexity that reached me. I just decided to not bother about anything and everything that was screwing me up somewhere and I decided to start afresh. And the first step was to smile and do what makes Me happy. Things are slowly falling back to place, but there's something so fantastic about this erratic person in me. Of this person who isn't a phone person anymore, who likes to walk, who likes to make quick plans, and who doesn't regret any thing.
But it sure is tiring,too. To be in a constant war with every element that might want to make me turn around and imbalance my run... and sigh. Aren't we all blessed to have these certain faces that suddenly pop out of nowhere and plan out the wildest weekend to just godamn have fun and catch up on six months of bullshit?

So yes. My weekend was murderously wondrous! And to you ladies- Rem, Monx,Megh and Shrey. You guys made my month! and I swear, this weekend was more than enough for me to pass the next few weeks worrying about nothing and saying What the hellll to ever screw up :P
I love you craaaazy women :*

-- Much much love,
Nil/Bongo/Nilzi/Nila. ;)

The month of May.

2011-05-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

No, my blogpost title isn't that because it's May, it's because I wrote a fiction piece called The month of May and I CAN'T FIND IT. I wrote three short stories on paper, and now those nine pages are missing from my room and I couldn't be more annoyed.
Anyhow. This weekend was pretty okay, better than the last two sad weekends. I went out for a shoot to Hauz Khas on Saturday, and finally had lunch at Gunpowder, a place I had wanted to go for so long! My cousin was over, so she and I had our own little ball on Sunday. We went lunatic shopping, that ended with a movie with aaalll the brothers and a late night return back home :-) Not to mention the predicted crapped up Geography paper the next day, but oh well, it was inevitable, and I couldn't give a damn anymore.

So my first round of exams are over! And school gives over in less than three days....and then. Trust me, the kind of wild laughter that's ringing in me, if only you guys could hear it too, you'd know what I mean!
It's giving me a hard time to realize the fact that this is the last summer vacation of my school life. Sure, I've abused school enough in the past fourteen years, but now that I'm left with a tiny 6-month tenure in it.. I realize I've been such a fool :| But then I'm also excited about college, very excited actually. But hell, even the thought of not having my retarded group of friends around is just appalling. They've been such an umbrella to everything since I can even remember. But anyway.. leaving that aside for a blogpost on the day of my farewell, I shall come back to summer break :P

So yes, this vacation- I plan to make it memorable. I don't want to be sleeping every day, I plan to sleep till late every alternative day :P Most of May I won't be here, I'm going to Orissa with a couple of friends from school for a week long workshop where the most eminent cultural artists from around India will be coming! Yes, that's another biggg news I shall share with all of you later, it's going to take up some time :P But in short- It's something I'm really looking forward to and I'm crazy excited about it!
Then comes June. I plan to stay for Vanta's birthday and then leave for Calcutta for a good three weeks! And then come back in time for Remya's birthday :*
Considering I've been ranting about Cal on my blog since about two months, you guys must be fairly acquainted with my plans :P So yes. They're all fixed and good to go! Some Place Else shall see my face very soon and quite often- as promised by a die hard Cacuttian ;)

So anyhow, I should probably go now. What a pleasure it is to ditch school, wake up so late and then find your tiny niece to be home :) So I shall take your leave now, readers. I'm working on a bunch of fiction now that I'm going to be absolutely free for another two months! So brace yourselves :D

Oh and here's a photo I clicked in Hauz Khas. It was just so cheerful and something that would remind me of good times! So I wanted to put it up. Hope you guys like it :)

Ciao, Tuesday people. Ditch office with a half day, y'all ;)

-Nil.

2011-05-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

A quiet mind.

The ferocious Queen stopped talking,today- my mind.

The queen who yelled and reined,

the queen who ran and flew,

the queen.. My mind, that tormented insane.

She stopped talking today.

The million thoughts,

the thousand talks,

the mind that buzzed with a talkative might,

My mind was my master,

and she stood silent today.

For the King stepped out,

and the air was cold,

so cold that the warmth of the hearts,

sobered to silence.

The hearts that once beat,

with the melody of love,

the heart that once loved,

with the passion of a madman,

The heart that once beat,

because it wanted to, for me.

Tonight, the King stepped out,

and my empire seems sparse and small,

the empire of my mind,

stood and stared through my iris,

and the coldness that set in,

to a dawn that was promised.

The ferocious Queen stopped talking,today- my mind.

and the silence rings,

to the hollow corners of a heart,

that wants to find her voice again.

-Nil.

Fearless.

2011-05-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

This was a long due post. Something that's been pent up. Gone through over and over again within me, with some nights as silent as a funeral, some days that were brighter than sunshine.
It's the thought of being fearless.
This isn't fiction. This is an honest confession. To who? I don't know. Not to the world. Not to myself. But I.. have changed.
Over the past two months, life's been nothing close to usual. It's been a ride, of the worst stuff and the weirdest of epiphanies. I've been really loud and a vocal person, but I seemed to have sobered down over the last few months. Things happened. Situations changed. And I chose. I chose a lot of things, a lot of ways, a lot of things that I might have ignored before. But, somewhere, deep down, I know a lot in me has changed,too.
I wouldn't say there's an absence of fear in me. But I find something greater in me than that today. I have the strength to walk ahead, aware of things that might hit me hard on the way. This isn't anything new to the world, I bet you've read tonnes of articles of people around the globe about these epiphanies. But to me.... it is something new. Nascent, in a very fragile sense that touched my mind tonight, and was brewing in my heart for a while.
I'm not scared of getting lost anymore. Because I know I can find my way back. The world isn't as hostile as we think, at the end of the day, we all suffer from the same insecurities and grievances. They just come in different forms, to different people.

I'm not scared of people walking out of my life. I'm not scared of losing out on people. It's alright. I'm not scared of losing my place to another person in any body's life. I'm not scared of not being missed. I'm not scared of facing facts as they are.
Cause I've figured it's alright. It's really alright.
If you're needed in a person's life, that person will fight to death to get you back. Otherwise, deal with the fucking fact that you're not required.
Try to understand that you deserve more, and really, learn to echo the thoughts- Screw this shit. I've had enough.

My father told me a few weeks back, "This is just the beginning sweetheart". And I could see it hurt him to say that to his daughter who he never wanted to see grow up into a lady. He wants me to be a kid, he doesn't want things to change.
But he also knew that I'd grown up. Grown up just enough to smile to his words and nod in honest agreement.

Something has grown up in me. I feel fearless. Maybe it's just one of those nights when you rant on to the billion fights going on within you.....but maybe not.
Maybe, I've learnt to see what I deserve and what I don't.

And just maybe, this confession will stay in me, for the times to come.

"Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for."
-Bob Marley

-Nil.

Mid week cry-sys(tem)

2011-04-28T02:49:00.000-07:00

Playing now: Saibo.

Hello there Thursday people.. It's been one long and tiring week, and it virtually kills me to think it's not even over yet. But I ditched school today and slept till about lunch time, which hadn't happened in a long time. And now I feel drugged,because I just slept for 13 hours straight and I can't think right now.

But first things first- Weekend trip was fantastic. I was out in the heat practically all weekend, walking with my Jaipuri jootis hehh. I didn't have to reach out to my phone buzzing, because it was back in Delhi sleeping its happy butt off. I didn't read much,cause I do that a lot in Delhi.. and yeah well, I wasn't in a mood to read, for a change. I'm officially in love with Johri bazaar, holy hell that place is like wonderland for anyone who likes to shop junk, and Spice Court is the place.to.be if you like to eat good food. I saw an elephant from this close for the first time in my life. It creeped me initially, but hey it was pretty cute :P I sound like a retard so moving on.
I ate like a pig, walked like a hippie, clicked like a lunatic, and wrote like a lover.
That pretty much sums up most of the weekend.

There are like, a zillion pictures. But I'll stick to a few to just get you the feel of the weekend :)

Stepping out of the weekend, the week was an equally crapped up week. Bullshit at school, there's a riot ladies and gentlemen. And obviously Delhi seems like such a curse after any vacation at all. Oh which reminds me, my plan of boycotting Delhi this summer is finally coming true :) The whole of June, I'm off to Calcutta, and the trip is absolutely fixed. May....I'm still trying to work out.

There's this Spring Concert happening tomorrow, for which I was real eager to go. But looks like I can't.. I have my first round of exams startin' up this Monday :/

But then again, knowing me, I might just crash the concert for an hour anyway.. lets see. I hope you all come, I hear it's going to be fantastic. Details on Google/facebook.

Anyhow then you guys, I should make a move for lunch now. I have an afternoon of Political Science awaiting me. Joy :|

So while you guys are at it, grab a quick mango shake. They're awesome during summers :)

Ciao World,

shall come back with maybe some fiction, next post :)

-Love and free vacations,

Nil.

Dreams change.

2011-04-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

I had always been told dreams change. I never believed them. How can a dream change? A dream is something your heart wants more than anything. A dream is something your muscles work day and night for, and never tire out. A dream is something your sleep nourishes. A dream is something your age weaves. A dream.. is your body of unadulterated innocence.

For me, that dream was a person.
His eyes were drawn with the lashes of my love. His lips, although stained with traces of tobacco smiled to the thoughts of my child like mind. His arched brows expressed wonder to my rebellious ideas of the world. His face... the perfect canvas for the little games of light and darkness.

For me, that dream was a friendship.
The ties of which were strengthened by the both of us. It was a single road that led to two homes, his and mine. There was never space for another traveller on that road. We kept our journey to each other, we saw the world together, and made memories that were ours. And nobody else's.

For me, that dream was a faith.
A faith that was slowly understood by my fragile mind with subtle years that never realized the quick pace of me growing up. A faith that refused to crash, come what may. A faith, that he was a vital part of.

For me, that dream was a song.
A song that made me smile to the silent notes of assurance, even if I was a thousand miles away. A song that left home with the promise of coming back to me. A song, that he sung for me.

* **

But all those dreams walked away. And the core of all those dreams changed. Not because I didn't want it anymore, but because I finally realized that the world rotated every second, so did we, and none of us stood constant to those promises that were made.

That person, changed.

That friendship, was no longer about just the two of us. 

That faith, however was saved with grace.

But that song.... it no longer had the same sweet voice who sung for me. It never came back home, to me.

And yes, dreams do change. Because after a point of time, no matter how hard you chase something and strive to make it yours, it'll be yours only if it wishes to. You can't force its existence in your life, and you can only hope for it to come back if fate wills it. And what I hope for you, is to carry it as a beautiful memoir of love, that makes you smile every time the music of that dream blows in the wind that plays around with the locks of your faith. A faith, that you mustn't let go.

-Nil.

Guess who's going to have a fantastic weekend?

2011-04-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

Me.
Yes, I'm off to Rajasthan tomorrow morning for the weekend! My much planned road trip finally seems to be working out. So I'm leaving early morning tomorrow, without the phone, with the camera, William Boyd's novel, a diary, and summer clothes.
I'll be staying at my aunt's, and I plan to visit every fort, Nahargarh fort topping my hit list. And I can't wait to get to Old Jaipur! Hawa Mahal, Johri bazaar,Amber fort..sigh..I really hope I get some nice photographs.. Also, I plan to shop for Rajasthani stuff. I don't remember the last time I got those pretty skirts and the lovely earrings!

What I'm looking forward to the most is being absolutely disconnected from Delhi. No Internet, no phone. Something I'd been wanting since a long long time.
It's going to be such a relief, dear readers. God bless for Good Friday!

So I shall go pack now! This post was a quickie. So I'll see you guys Mondaayyyy. I suggest you lot go for a quick trip,too. Get out of the traffic and the work desks, and put on those summer shorts!
Have a great weekend you guys,
I know I will :-)

-flip flops and cotton shirts,
Nil.

Because some songs just make you forget your blues :)

2011-04-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

School was downright murderous today. For no apparent reason,tho. I didn't even have double econ :/
But it was one of those days when you don't actually wake up all day, and you work around like a zombie. I kept falling asleep. Once, in the library. Once in Pol science. Then in econ. And the bus ride back home was just cruel. And now, when I can actually manage to grab a quick afternoon nap, I felt like a blabber, so here I am.
But that's not the point of this post. I was having a semi-blue-ish type of a day. Shifting from a bad mood to an okay mood.. When I got home, for some reason, I got all bleh and pissed. And there set a bad blue. But THEN, I check Facebook, and one of my friends happened to mention the song "Save the last dance" by Michael Buble.. and so I randomly out it on Youtube, cause it had been a while I'd heard that song. And Jesus lord, it pepped me up like magic. It's one of those numbers which make me want to grab a partner, put on high heels and swish some salsa skirts! And.. the music. The music is just lovely. One of those that you keep humming without even realizing it, cause it's just so damn catchy and sweet :)
The video's adorable. Do have a look,in case you missed out on it..

I have another looong weekend coming up, starting this Friday. I might be going on a road trip, just to get away from Delhi for a bit. Although I'm unsure about it. Or else, I plan to go to this old fort of sort Friday afternoon with a bunch of friends, followed up with a quick weekend trip to my sister's place. So either ways, weekend planned :) It's funny how I look forward to the weekends so much.. The weekdays leave me gasping for some kind of a break. Oh and our date sheet for the first round of exams before the vacations are out,so I'm guessing this is the last fun weekend of April... But nevermind, I have two months of summer waiting for me on the banks of Hugli :)

Also, I wanted to congratulate Kanika Kaul for her 100th post and thank her for awarding me on her blog! Thanks lady. Your page is absolutely fantastic and hell so exotic! Cheers to you, and I look forward to many more of your blogger milestones :)

Anyhow then Wednesday people, I should maybe go and catch up on some sleep. I have a looong day ahead. I'm performing with my father for a music show, rehearsals begin today! So ciao, and don't struggle too much with the mid week. It'll be over soon :)

-clear skies,

Nil.

At nights like tonight.

2011-04-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

At nights like tonight.

At nights like tonight, I do not question anything. My mind is numb echoing to the most beautiful music in the world, with my thoughts floating like lovely hues over the flames of a candle.. Nothing burns, nothing wastes,everything seems to live for a reason that each horizon promises to be achieved.

At nights like tonight, I see distinguished memories, I can remember laughter, I can smell celebration in a mind close by.. I can feel an omnipresent thought, that tinkles to the light gentle breeze, blowing somewhere in the back of my mind, where the lights are dim, and understanding is underestimated.

At night's like tonight, I seize my opinions. I seize my rebellious body. I seize my soul that's hungry for some more life. I seize my questions, just for tonight.

And at nights like tonight, I dream in with the gin of fantasy.. fantasy of a world that the baby in me wonders to, when all the secrets of the universe unfold to the virgin mind of an infant.

Tonight, I just be.

-Nil.

The worst, is over.

2011-04-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

The worst, is over.

She sighs relief,

when the warmth of daylight,

greets the curtains of her eyes..

It's morning again,

the worst, is over.

There's nothing different today,

the sun's the same as yesterday,

but it's daylight,

she sees movement.

Her mind takes to business,

her subconscious soul- dead.

The day smiles at her hardwork,

it smiles at every emotion, every memory,

she works to sweat off.

When every bead of sweat,

splashes another alibi,

into the ocean of a distorted will,

a will to forget.

As the evening proceeds,

her subconscious soul stirs in sleep,

the moon shyly peaks,

at her who's running away,

away to a horizon,

chasing the sun.

And as the sun sets,

and the lullaby of night falls,

the warmth is forgotten,

and the lull of memories vaporize and escape,

that corner of the heart....

The subconscious soul in her,

lies awake.

Ready to remember...

~*~

She sighs relief,

when the warmth of daylight,
greets the curtains of her eyes..
It's morning again,
the worst, is over.

-Nil.

Another blabber.

2011-04-14T00:40:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Thursday people!
I know I promised to resume my train of fiction in the last post, but it's the middle of the week, I had an off from school, I just woke up, cranky as ever, and I want to blabber and rant. And so, I resign to my faithful blogspot and your tired ears.

This week.. has been eventful. Told you guys about the weekend. On the 12th, I went to IHC for the big horn festival where Hari and Sukhmani were playing. Heard these guys for the first time, although I've been stalking these guys on Youtube for a week now. They have good stuff. But I'm in love with their track "Boohey Barian". Please listen to it, and furthermore, google the lyrics. They're beautiful.. It's the only track that's been playing on my computer since three days. (It's the seventh time I'm listening to it now) yeah,I have OCD with this song. But it's just the lyrics that set me flying,and listening to this song live was.... I don't even know what. I went into a trance. IHC has some amazing memories, and it all hit like a heavy bolt. Anyhow, listen to the song you guys. It's amazing.
Here are some pictures of the show -

So all in all, I went for a gig after a looong time, and it was awesome. Now there's a dance recital coming up this 16th at Kamani- Prayog 3. Google it, and try n be there. It's going to be a fantastic evening of contemporary choreography :)

I have Saturday off,too. Ma and I were planning on doing a quick getaway to Jaipur, keep your fingers crossed. Which reminds me, she called half n hour back calling me for brunch. And I should get going now. I shall hog on brunch, read some, finish my econ notes (need inspiration.), and sleep again. And then go out, I don't know where though?

Oh oh and I changed the layout of my blog, as you guys must have noticed. I needed something new, and I guess this one's the best for my mood lately. I hope you guys like it? :)
Anyhow, the week's going to end in another day guys, so hang on to your jobs a tad more!
I promise the next posts shall be fiction updates, for sure.

So ciao for now,
as always,
Nil.

April's update.

2011-04-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

Hello there, World.
Long time, no see? Yes, I know. Writing a normal update post almost feels alien, thanks to all the super heavy posts I've been putting up lately. And there's more, tonnes more, so you guys, brace yourselves. I've been on a Writer's high and not a block, for a change.. So I've been coming up with something or the other practically everyday. And I have about a million drafts saved up on my blogger ready to pounce on your intellect! Err. I just thought it would be a nice change to put up a pointless post and actually talk about how are things at my end.

My end. Ah. It's a question I'd rather avoid, but since I bring it up on my own.. My end comprises of work. A lot of work. I'm slogging my rear off all week- studying, writing, dancing, participating in everything and anything and visiting all kinds of odd places around Delhi. You will find me in every exhibition/ dance recital/gig/movie screening... In short, read: any cultural event by Tom, Dick and Harry. I walk all the time. I've officially disowned autos. My regular auto fellow at the stand looks at me like an abandoned child. I have taken to walking and travelling by buses. Yes, buses. That's another new habit I've adapted myself to. And buses are dirt cheap, that's the best part. They get me anywhere, be it familiar or no. I've been travelling by random buses, going till the last stop and coming back again for no good reason, except for maybe improving my geography, experience, and some times I go places to shoot or to write about.
Weekends... aah weekends are the ones I look forward to. I usually go out with Rem, Rob,Shiv,Vanta and Guina. And it seems worth it, like I've earned the weekend, if you know what I mean? I work hard and study well all week and it just feels really nice and satisfactory when I can finally cut myself some slack starting Friday evening : )
So yeah. The funniest part is, I've kinda become anti social. Yes, I know that sounds strange after the rant I just did above. But it's weird. Earlier, I used to always be with a group of friends or just always had company. The evenings, specially. But it's not that anymore. I've been on my own, a lot. I don't need company anymore, I'm actually quite comfortable spending time on my own, even if it's a random walk till the market in the evening if I have nothing to do. Or spend time at home. (Yes, I do that a lot now.)
Whatever. In short. Things have changed. And weather I like it or not... that will be judged after my system actually gets used-to it.

I had a fantastic weekend,this one! I've actually been having subsequent fantastic weekends : )

Got up reaaal late on Saturday after having a sleep-less night on Friday complimented with super senti poems that found my neurons at 4 in the morning. I lazed around all day, went out for a bit in the evening, and then went on for the Jazz utsav with my brothers and a couple of friends. But today was legeeennddhharryy! Went over to Vanta's to party with Guina and Rem. Had the best frikkking time ever. We ate like hogs, ate some more, did a FRIENDS marathon, ate some more, drank some (tang! sheesh.), clicked retarded pictures, watched FRIENDS again, ate some more, talked a lottt, ate, ate, and then played badminton! Oh not to forget Remya's act of machoness, when she climbed over a gate to get the shuttle cock and the number of wild jokes and incidents that aren't even hitting my head right now cause I'm just so damn tired :P

Anyhow, then Milda picked us up, and Remya and I went to the Jazz Utsav which was absolutely fantaaastic, yet again. Although yesterday's was maybe a tad bit better.. but nevertheless today was good too. And finally we came back with Neha and Sheks, and now here I am. At home, my eyes are drooping with sleep but I shall torture them some and watch How I Met Your Mother :-)

School tomorrow. Ugh. BUT. Tuesday and Thursday off! So that's one hope that's going to drag my uniform and me to school tomorrow. Forgive me people, for the incredibly looong post. But I hadn't blurted in a while, and yeah well, venting it out now.. So I take your leave now! The next few posts shall again be a train of fiction, but I promise to update with the random stuff and in general about how's life being so cruel as much as I can and sooner :P
Take care!

- love,
Nil.

An idea of a fine balance.

2011-04-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

An idea of a fine balance.

I used to tip toe on railway tracks,

when I was six,

and my fate seemed bright.

and my idea of a fine balance,

was to not trip once and go six miles.

To beat the other urchins,

behind me.

I used to tip toe,

when the tracks vibrated,

and the train seemed too far,

too far to murder my younger brother,

who had only learnt to walk.

I used to tip toe,

when the pebbles below,

seemed to play along,

and tickle my feet,

and I used to pretend it was a pleasant breeze,

of an ocean I only saw photographs of,

on the back door of the barber's shop.

I used to tip toe,

when they carried my mother,

to the funeral ground they said was a garden,

a garden where kids weren't allowed.

I'm still tip toeing,

to the railroads of life,

where I see a train every now and then,

some to take me along,

and some to gift me my brother's fate.

I still am tip toeing,

to fight with these strong feet,

to achieve that fine balance,

that has been an idea in me for long,

so that I walk, and not tip toe anymore..

-Nil.

Raincoat.

2011-03-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

"Mumbai mein rehena hai madam, toh barish se dosti karni hi paregi" ,a rickshaw puller told me, during one of my first monsoons in the New York of India. When the first few drops fell on the feeble roof of the rickshaw and eventually trickled down to my white kurta fixing me in a tight spot, the poor guy laughed and went on ahead to talk about how Bombay and Monsoons were old lovers who meet every year with their passion only increasing, and that I mustn't have paani puri from Juhu beach no matter how much everyone sings to its fables, because his 11 year old son,Rochu suffered from diarrhea after that. And I went on listening to all of his stories cursing every drop of water that fell one me, and abusing every walking talking man on road who ogled at my white kurta as if he found heaven in between the water clogged roads and mind-numbing traffic of Bombay. I never liked rain.

My initial reasons of befriending the city were completely different. I came here for matrimony. I was 28, lived in Pune, with paranoid parents who saw their Microsoft-daughter working and earning just well, but had the most probable chances of just doing well at that. And so, a meeting with a boy was fixed and a mid point from both our home towns was selected- Bombay. What happened to that meet, god only knows. He did show up.. to tell me he already had a girlfriend who he planned on running away with. I gave him a thumbs up and we both pooled in for our coffee bill (yes, he was the miser types) and left. He, to elope from Bombay, and I to elope to bombay.. to weave a life in a city that let me smell sweet independence for perhaps the first time in my life and hence, I fell in love. With this very city, and decided to move in here. I was called the kalank of the family, and my parents had to hear a lot from the Gujju community... which was perhaps more important than what their daughter really wanted, and so, my parents only considered their son ; my brother; Adhiraj, as their only off spring, leaving me alone to find my own name,community, and in short- a world of my own.

I was a bright girl. I had done my bit of higher studies, so getting a job wasn't all that difficult, but getting an apartment was.
"Yaha toh ghar mein aane ke liye lakshmi taras jaati hai, lekin sala ghar ka koi theekana hi nahi" ; is a common Bombay joke. And it's true. You might have a fantastic job which pays you quite generously, but finding an apartment in Bombay is like finding a needle in a hay stack. And believe you me, it's not an exaggeration. So when I found myself a flat tiny enough to squeeze in a bed, a closet, a book-shelf, T.V, and a rug, I treated myself to shots of Vodka down at the local pub, for I had a roof above my head, unlike too many out there in the ironic city of dreams.
So, from there, started a very normal way of getting to know the city, making acquaintances at work, flirting some with interesting men, walking into a friend circle, working hard all week and partying in the weekends. I never got calls from home. I tried calling once or twice, but the response shook me up and made me swear to never call those people family again.

But this story isn't about any of that. This story is about a simple afternoon on a simple day. It was the time for Bombay rains. I was getting back to office from my lunch break when the rain gods decided to reign like angry ghosts. Perfect timing, folks.
My face screwed up and I struggled to stay not an inch in, not an inch out of a bus stop's roof when a commuter looks at me, and giggled.

" Yes?" I said, annoyance punching every alphabet.
" Not much of a rain person, eh didi?"
"I'm sorry do I know you?"
"Not much of a Bombay person either." he made a statement that fused my bulb.
"Very much a Bombay person. And who are you again?"
"I am pretty much like all these guys running behind buses, drenched in their office attires. Some one who knows how to befriend things I don't like. That's what Bombay teaches you right. Like maybe rain."
"How?"
"Raincoats." ; he said, making my eyes follow his, to a scenery my eyes somehow managed to miss for three long years.

The busiest streets with the most colorful colors, of raincoats, that danced along with the beats of a city that provided them with almost everything, in some tiny way. It provided me with a dream. A dream to realize the pleasure of being on my own.
And that day, it taught me to fight and work out ways to move with things in life parallely that seemed to cross paths no matter what.

All I had to do, was use a raincoat.

-Awaiting feed backs,

Nil.

cokestudio high.

2011-03-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to Cokestudio everywhere and anywhere. When I'm at home/in the bus/auto/walking/bathroom/every night. It gives you a high, believe me when I say it. There's a literal whirlpool of things going on in my life right now, and coke studio is one thing that lets me disconnect and just float away, to some trance that's unreal but extremely pleasant to my mind. I stop thinking.
Anyhow. So,I had an excruciating econ class today. I have it every day, actually, at school. (I thought Micro was going to be fun, bah!) My extra classes for 12th grade are on. It's not even been a week and I feel as drained out as ever. I don't sleep before 3am, I get up at 6:30 am, reach the bus stop by 7:25 (to find out the bus doesn't plan to come till our session formally begins. joy.) , school starts at 8:30, followed by four fifty minute long classes of my subjects. Out of which Econ is thee most intense class ever, it's almost like the teacher would pounce on you if you looked at anything but her face for the next 50 minutes.

Anyhow. Moving away from Board year sadness to usual update- I've been writing like a retard. Which I'm sure all of you have guessed by now, considering I'm updating everyday. Yes, sorry about that. It's just that I have a lot to vent out, and writing is the only way out for me.. I have like, ten drafts saved up on my blogspot. Fiction, mostly. So bear with me.

Summer is finally in. It feels good.. I hate winters. It just makes every thing dull and sad around me, trust me, you don't want to be around me during winters. I'm annoyed all the time. Summer... is good! Summer is street food, sweat, sport, adventure, no comfort zone. Summer is exotic, and that's one thing my life needs right now. I need as much work as I can take, I need to go out and get working on something, I need distraction. And summer just seems perfect for it. It lets one sweat off everything. Everything.

I had a strange weekend. One that I haven't had in a while. I was mostly out with mom and dad, shopping or just generally weekending. It was nice.. for a change, I wasn't out doing anything else or whatever. I was at home reading my spy novel (William Boyd's Restless. Must read) or playing with my niece.

I'm already planning out my vacation. Calcutta is on,for me. My cousin plans to come down to Delhi, and then we'll both fly to Cal together. I can't even tell you how kicked I am about this, we plan to have the wildest time there,with all my party animal cousins who plan to crash too. And besides....... it's Calcutta. The one city that always feels like home. In every way... the people, the streets, the whole damn city!
And a getaway from Delhi is something I really need right now. The earlier, the better. I really need time out from this place.

Now I would have kept on typing since I have absolutely nothing to do, but I'm starved. So adios, I shall go lunch now. Lets see whatever the day has in store for me, cause I'm devoid of a single clue. Maybe I'll crash the Spanish Film festival. No actually, I have too much of econ to do :| Sigh. I guess the Spanish movies will have to wait until after 31st..

Buhbye people, and those of you who tried to call, I'm sorry. My phone's usually in the drawer now. Shall get back to you guys in no time :) But for now, I'm just taking my own sweet time to begin some productive stuff and not worry about anything else.

Something I clicked recently :)

Summer skies, Nil.

P.s- A lot of fiction coming up, so brace yourselves.

When anger fueled her war within.

2011-03-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

And as slowly the acoustics of Bibi Sanam Janem started playing, she launched herself into ink and paper. Writing whatever found her vocabulary, all the stories that found her, unleashing the story teller in her... morphing non-ficiton into fiction, once again.
She was angry, she was so angry that the impressions of her writing pressed harder and harder on the back of the parchment. But they took it well, because in all her anger, in all her state of being intimidated and overwhelmed by everything around her, what she wrote thundered with power like an angry ghost, like a reining knight, like the torchbearer of a war within, like a hope that was fighting to be discovered by the blind mortals running in the rat race of emotion.
Beads of sweat slowly appeared on her creased forehead, shy in the beginning, but gathering out finally, stark naked and boldly transparent, acting alibis to the unfair turmoil that built with greater vigour every time, with every word she scratched out, with every full stop she defined. She always knew madness let her write. She always vented everything out while she wrote, and labelled it a fiction, owning up to denial, for her own good.

She wrote every story that hit her. She spoke of every person who managed to catch the attention of a subconscious mind that was floating around the world, gathering bits and pieces of the thousand stories that met the horizon of her storytelling lips every day.
Tonight, she was going to write. And no body was going to stop her.
She felt angry- so angry at the outside world for edging her away, and she yelled back at her parchment- the one faithful listener she always had.

"She expresses best when she writes" ; the world said.

And tonight, she was going to prove them right, and appal them to the violence that fought in her.
Tonight, she was going to fight a battle which was claimed to be lost, but tonight, she'd either win it, or let the bloody night take over her corpses. The corpses of a fighter.

-Nil.

For the last time.

2011-03-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

A strong sense of wonder.

My atlas can never be shrugged,

it's always been and will be,

an entourage of faces,

of fragments of conversations floating,

of those million memories that aren't even half,

of what I'll have once my greys show.

My atlas has power,

it has volume,

and it's never solitary..

However,

as my universe expands,

with a few faces vanishing away,

a few I left behind,

and a few that chose to not walk along,

I realize the void,

the void of just that one second in a day,

when that particular face floats before you,

when you think how life would have been,

if only the two held on for a bit more.

Cause no matter how many miles my feet travel,

and how many roads I get lost in,

the threads of those memories,

back in the earliest days of a beautiful friendship,

will float like lilies,

silently echoing my footsteps,

on the transient fate of water.

And I shall walk ahead,

ready to embrace moments as such,

and walk steady,

with them as beautiful closed chapters,

and nothing else.

Dear Judie

2011-03-23T03:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Judie,
I don't know where you are, I don't know if you exist. But tonight, I'm going to need you to listen, and you will, because you don't exist.
I've been in a void, my love. A void that seems pleasant and harsh at the same time. I feel free. Liberated. Exhilarated. Alone. But what seems to scare me is the consequences. The repercussions.
Tonight, I remember so many promises. Promises that seemed fatal, if broken back then. But today, today them seem hollow. So damn hollow.. Those promises are floating away to a silent song, leaving me at peace to stand calm and sober, not reaching out to them. Or rather not wanting to reach out to them. I stand alone, and I'm not scared.
Cause after a point of time, it ain't the same people, the same places and the same promises.. because everyone's walkin' honey. Everyone's walkin', and so are you.

I fell in love, Judie. I fell in love with the most amiable man on the face of the Earth. I loved with all my heart with passion lighting our fire. But alas, life happened. And so, the devils of change trickled through the vulnerable labyrinthine lanes of our hearts. Our love broke. And tonight, it feels like such a waste. And yet, my heart's still madly in love with that 18 year old boy who showed me half the world... Judie, I trust people because I believe a little too much in this tiny little 'faith' that resides in a shy corner within me. But it hurts when that faith is exploited, Judie. And that hurt turns into anger which morphs into hate. Isn't love such a paradox?
The strongest bond stone that suddenly grows so cold?
I do hope you've been head over heels about somebody, sometime too, jude.
It's beautiful.

It's midnight here, and I wonder what color the sky might be at your end? Does it rain much? That's another miracle that touches my soul ever so often.
There's something so divine in being a child, isn't it Judie? There's something so merry about scraped knees and muddy shoes. To be able to smile at a stranger without the slightest of fear...aaah, strangers.. we meet again.
Cause that's what we are, innit?
Strangers.

So as the moon outside my window seems just a little bigger tonight, I smile at you, my dear old friend, my old strange friend. Dear Judie, I don't know where you are, I don't know if you exist. But tonight, I'm going to need you to listen, and you will, because you don't exist.........

Yours faithfully,
the strange letter writer.

because i'm the tragedy queen.

2011-03-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

SUP.
I should have been on my way to school by now for a trip that was supposed to happen until last night, but oh wait, I guess a particular community feel like sitting on railway lines are going to help that get everything and sort their shit out. SO. The train we guys were supposed to take to Udaipur was cancelled cause they had a bunch of guys sittin' and poopin' over the tracks, not letting the trains to function. THANKS.
THANKS A LOT you godd for nothing losers. I only wish I could smash some sense into your feeble wannabe rebel brains that stupid tactics like these will do nothing but earn you hate (lots of it) from people around the country,and you could count me number one alright.
I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. I needed a getaway from Delhi. And it was just perfect. No phones. No laptops. Only a bunch of close friends, a good book, a camera and awesome food.
But oh no, I'm the tragedy queen after all. As if my life wasn't screwed up enough already in general with a godzillion things going on in my head that I've been trying to sort out and come to a decision for, NOW that one break that I DID deserve after a whole MONTH of exams has been snatched away.
Oh and to top it all up, I had my results today. All I'd say is 11th grade has been a scary ghost as far as an academic year is concerned and I'm just so glad it's over. I hope it rots and dies in hell and I hope it dies in pain and no peace.

Fact: I'm officially in 12th grade now.
Another fact: I'M NOT READY FOR IT.

I JUST got over with one round of boards (err a year ago) and now BAM! my final frikkkin boards are here. My parents have already started with the 12th grade-usual-parent-paranoia. My extra classes begin day after,and my formal session starts from 4th April. I plan to go semi-underground this year, cause lets face it- it's either this year or nowhere.

I'm in a morbid mood. (haha humor you?) I plan to do nothing but crash and sleep for as long as I want cause even the thought of 12th- another year of slogging is pissing the flying pig out of me.
I'm going to take my space for some more time, I need to turn into rainbows again, the blehh sad side of me is just really weird for me to handle.

A lot of fiction coming up.. that's practically all I've been doing. Sleeping. Reading. Writing a lot. Watching HIMYM. And going out a bit. Okay, a lot... so this was an update. Now the next posts shall have the stuff I've written over a while.....

I really could kill the railway operators right now.
I WANT TO GO TO UDAIPUR GODAMNIT. Also, I'm looking for some nice writing competitions.. but not really coming across many. If any of you know about any competitions happening, please be kind and let me know?

Now, I shall go eat like a pig.
Bye.
-Nil.

We wish for a world that stays.

2011-03-18T03:03:00.000-07:00

We wish for a world that stays.

The end of my feet still hold,

that ugly scar I once prided on,

back in the days when the Earth was flat,

the birds could talk,

and people were all the same.

Back in the days,

when the village school masters ran behind us,

with the sticks that hit the back of our soft palm so often,

and abuses that were retorted among us friends,

when no one was listening...

Our dirty finger nails,

dug in deeper into the earth,

the earth that loved us the same,

and hurt us even more with every fall,

from my father's broken cycle.

When I and my long lost pal,

relieved ourselves near the tree,

to realize, once we were done,

the the zip of our pants were broken in the haste,

when we walked back home,

with a banana leaf covering our boyhood treasures,

with a grin, covering our faces,

and laughed harder with our mother's stitches..

We were children,

children of a generation that ended,

once we stepped out of the margins of our ole dusty village,

and stood out as another generation,

among the crowd of a million more generations,

that were lost and found everyday,

on the face of the biggest cities of Earth.

But although we were children,

with dirty half pants,

and torn vests,

our laughter was the loudest,

our joy- the biggest,

our happiness- the simplest,

ourselves- the naivest.

And yet,

there was so much fun in that naivety,

the mangoes were so much more tastier,then.

For we are grown up today,

and still wish for the world to have stayed as it was,

just as we did,

in all our sorrows,

in all our joys,

....all those days.... back then.

-Nil.

This unfair playground of Faith.

2011-03-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

An unfair playground of Faith.

I had first seen him in one of the million street book shops of Paharganj. He had been a faithful customer of all the paperbacks those shops had, and his taste, (which I wasn't very sure of, for I only used to peek at his choice of books) seemed rather.. peculiar. He read Russian literature. From poetry collections by Innokenty Annensky to heavy literature works of Boris Akunin, Pavel, Arkady Averchenko... And I say these names with ease today, but five years back my tongue would've rolled in and tied itself into an ugly bow had I tried to even mention their spellings, forget actually pronouncing them. But a lot has changed in me, of those, my pronunciation is perhaps one of the most insignificant alterations.

Ekbal was a master of nine languages. French, Spanish, Urdu, Dutch,Swedish, Hebrew, Bengali,Hindi,Tamil. And back then, his pursuit was Russian.

Oh, just by the way, he was a Tamilian Muslim. His mind and heart were a beautiful accession of a bit of this and a bit of that from all around the world.. and maybe what charmed me even more was his gorgeous body which was a spread out map of the most interesting tattoos one could ever find. He was an alloy of all cultures in a single body.

Oh, not to mention his sincere fan craze for Rajnikant... the very blatantly humorous part of him was something I discovered later, with time.

So my visits to the hippie town grew from once a week or two, to almost thrice, some times four times a week. And since I was on sabbatical, I had all the time in the world to stalk people. So on a sunny Thursday, Ekbal and I (still strangers) happened to be going through the new set of paperbacks that had arrived in one of our mutually favorite book shop. While I raided all the sections of O'Henry, Eleanor Hallowel, and Pablo Neruda, he practically hopped to the other end of the shop hurrying through every Russian book he could place his hands on. After a considerable amount of time, we both stood to pay for a fortune on old paper that was ever so valuable to us... and I suddenly hear him remark;

"Doesn't it get bland after a point of time?"

"What does?"

"English."

And that one answer of a single syllable cracked me into a toothy grin which only widened over the next few years of our friendship.... or whatever you call it, but it definitely not love, yet.

He worked in Microsoft, lived about twenty minutes away from Delhi, and preferred to spend most of his time in Paharganj, The National Museum of Modern Art or any eating joint in the world. He wasn't the intellectual kinds that would go over board even if they saw a leaf falling from a plane and turn it into a blessing from the mighty heaven up above, like the pseudos we come across today with curly long hair and orange kurtas, but he had his intellect all right, and bothered to only keep it to himself. How a solitary bird like him became friends with a social butterfly like me is something only the gods could tell, but to be honest, it's an answer I'd rather not bother with. For that would just spoil the beauty of the amazement that fate could actually bring us, at times.

So we met up every second day. For drinks, to go dancing, to talk art, to just...... live in the most inexpensive and merry way possible. He explained me his theories. One of which explained his obsession with languages.

" Misha, it's not about learning up verbs or spellings of a discipline... it's about grasping the fact that the whole point of you breathing today is that you learn. Learn as much as you can about this world because you had a lucky bitch's luck to accidentally fall into it god damn it. You had the luck to see how there isn't a single possible barrier between the human race thanks to languages."

"But I thought languages DO make barriers.. there's a reason why we're a nation of linguistic states, Ekbal."

"Languages don't make barriers love, uptight power-hungry minds do who don't get any at home."

His humor killed. And I was awed at how he dripped with sarcasm in the most subtle way possible.. but a particular part of him always remained a mystery. His family. I knew they lived in Tamil Nadu, he had a brother Sohail, his parents were well to do and were extremely strict about their religion.. and hence he never really mentioned his friends (me and three more guys from office) as we were all Hindus. I used to find it hypocritical, initially.. but I moved on, and chose to ignore that one fact I should have actually taken up.

Anyhow, so three years passed and with those three years, passed many nights at each other's apartments, and a silent rope of romance that kept getting longer and longer the closer I pulled it towards me. After four years, we acknowledged things seriously, and wanted to give ourselves a shot. A marriage was decided on. My parents weren't the happiest, but agreed anyhow. They respected my life on my terms, and that was all that I hoped from them.. Ekbal, however, had other plans. He didn't want to involve his family, at all. He was stuck up over the apparent fact that they'd never agree and that I'd see his dead face if they ever found out him marrying a woman of another religion. Another faith.

I had a mind that was of a human. And to that naive mind that was overruled by a whirlpool of emotions, I arrived at insecurity for my exclusion he maintained from his family. And so, I gave him an ultimatum. Either he'd go and at least tell, if not convince his family about me, or we were done.

Ekbal, my lover that he was, resigned to my dogmatic approach and went off to the South, for my sake, for the sake of a life we wanted so bad.

Five days later, I received a call from his brother Sohail, whispering frantically and crying on phone telling me his elder brother was hit brutally by his father because he wanted to marry a Hindu girl named Misha Malhotra. He was hit by a cane, and finally, one of the hits on his chest led to his death.

Six days later, I received a call from his Delhi office expressing their condolences of Ekbal's sudden death while travelling.

They all knew the truth, and yet, sat in their caves like hungry lions hoping to kill another incident of unfairness and stop it from reaching the world.

I hoped to marry Ekbal, on this land that was supposed to belong to anyone and anything that breathed. That hadn't been sold before we were born. That stood firm under our feet when we walked, no matter what specie,color,race,caste or religion we belonged to.

But maybe this playground of soil behaved differently to every color, every faith. That's what faith is right? Caste. Obstinacy. Hierarchy.

Faith isn't love, belief, or a common destination to peace.

And as I dwell upon this satire of Faith that's been defined skies apart from what it originally meant, by us the mighty human race,

I shall hope and pray to unite with Ekbal in heaven... or maybe my bible and his Koran wouldn't allow that alliance... for we belong to different faiths, and our faith doesn't start at the same beginning-birth, or the same end-death.

We're so different. And will always be, as long as we own a mind that manipulates reality into convenience.

Goodbye, my Ekbal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Awaiting your feedbacks as usual!

-Nil.

because we love delhi at 8pm.

2011-03-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

Hello there, World.
Howdy?
The sky has changed a great deal at my end, ever since the last time I updated.. And the colors keep shifting, promising me to not be static for a while, and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that cause right now, all I have is tonnes and tonnes of time. My exams have ended, and now I plan to do nothing but spend time with myself doing the things I like and just relaxing, and just being... if you know what I mean?
I'm taking a huge break. From too many things.. And I hope by the end of it, I clear the fuzzy thoughts in my mind and can conclude to what I'm going to carry on with, and what will I leave behind as a chapter I'd like to close and only remember with the fondest of memories.

Anyhow. Absolutely keeping the senti-maro-lines,
I had a fantastic evening after a bloody long time. So today, after school, I crashed at Remya's. We had an idea of having a completely boring useless evening of sitting at her place, watching movies and eating like hogs... however, the day didn't quite play those cards at all. So I was supposed to go to Jeffrey Archer's book launch today, but then nothing was working out for me, so I had pretty much over ruled the idea of getting there.. but as Remya and I follow the religion of Randomness, we decided we'd go! So we go on google map and try to figure out the way to vasant kunj, trying to figure the patches we'd walk/ use the metro/the rickshaw, parallely our mind is laughing its ass off even at the thought of how ridiculous our Plan of action sounded.....so after a decade of planning and plotting of transport and charges, we end up taking an auto straight to Vasant kunj, cruelly ditching all the adventurous metro rides and yada yada we were planning on :-P
After we got there, we hung around like cows for a bit, went to Mc.Donald's, burped, came out, joined another friend and went ahead to the book launch. The book launch was..........fantastic. Plain fantastic. Lord Jeffery is truly the Lord. Just as his critiques state, the man's a genius.
Out of a crowd of 60-70 fans, Rem and I were the only ones sans a book to be signed by him.. And the weirdest part was,we were fine with it. Rather we were pleased.. cause there was something about just sitting on our seats after the session ended and just stare and muse over the prodigy before us. There's something about quiet memories that we both appreciate :)
So we left.

Once we got out of the mall it was about 7:45.. and it was real quiet and shady :-P But hey we got an auto (for some weird luck, we've been real lucky with transport today, which usually isn't the case) and as we came back sitting in the auto with the wind trying to race our sight and strands of hair to a tough race, all we could talk about is at the end of the day, Delhi's the sweetest thing ever.. no matter how urban it is, sure it gets annoying, but we belong here. And this city's just... magic.

So this was one of the randomest day outs ever, and perhaps the best... after a real long time, I had nothing to worry about and just be a teenager and ....... i just chilled. In thee most honest and literal meaning of the word. And sure, Rem and I are the shaits, it's always fun when we both get together yo girlphraaaaaand ;)

So the next few days, before 12th grade starts, this is going to be my life. I'm going to give myself as much time as I want, and I'm going to live luxury just the way I want it. Be it walking the roads of Delhi with ten bucks in my pocket or sleeping till 2pm and then waking up to sleep again.

Good luck to all you 10 and 12th graders with Boards.. They'll be over soon :)

Now playing: Take five, Dave Brubeck. (the track is legendary)

And now, I shall go watch as many movies as I want and dance around the house like a total retard. (:
And all of you guys out there, let go for a while, breathe free, and smile to what you want to be.
(I didn't intend on the rhyming bit)

- A hope to a much brighter day,
Nil.

Another night of High spirits.

2011-02-28T02:49:00.000-08:00

They stumbled and walked and tripped and laughed along every time one of them fell. Their merriment crackled high up in the air with the echoes of their chuckles agitating the dormant couples in the neighbourhood, sleeping in their bed of comfort- or silence. Drunk laughter wasn't pleasing to them, they said aloud. But was it ever? They asked themselves,silently. And never answered back.

The bottles of whiskey rolled from one corner of the road to another as they kicked and rolled , the clinks of the glass and the pebbles beneath somehow sounded so sweet to their ear, it seemed like the immature cry of a celebration that was yet to be born as the night was still young, still young enough to indulge in some more amusement, in some more cheer, in some more life..

The street urchin twisted in sleep, in his comfortable bed with an open luxurious top- the sky. He twisted and smiled, deep in sleep dreaming away to the world where his bare feet experienced a flat base of rubber- a sandal, an obvious accessory for the many sleeping in the deluxe bedrooms of the fancy housing complex right next to the slum.

The dogs of the street hopped along with the four drunk friends, still tripping, still falling, still laughing.... to a humor that only alcohol taught them.

....and as they walked further ahead and reached the fork where they separated each night, they mumbled friendly abuses to each other as singing ode to the night which had only begun and would end with the street sweepers cleaning away the bottles of Indian Whiskey, that would cling and shatter away into thousand glass crystals as a beautiful something is destroyed... and morphed into something even more divine in the rawest form.

And so the night mused away to the moon about these four friends who celebrated every night to a dream that only they knew, to a dream they kept imagining, to a hope that never died in those young hearts..
...and the four of them fell asleep, in their respective cubicles of unconsciousness and ended another night of high spirits ....

Awaiting feed backs!
-Nil.

Melon.

2011-02-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

Greetings, Weekenders!
Whaddup? Sorry about the quick update, in case that was too much to handle with the last post or something. But I'm in a super random mood, bear with me?

I had my Geography final exam today. It was blehh. In my defense, Snooze buttons should be screwed. Brutally screwed. From the past two days I've been meaning to get up at 7:30am to study, but the frikkin' alarm is just useless, and the snooze almost seems to poke me and say "Sleep dear child, ignore me. Even better, throw your phone away". And hence the scratches on my phone. Not to mention that I've been stuck at home with a bad cold and nothing to do except study. Study Geography, a subject that I'm not very fond of, all of a sudden.

Anyhow. Remya just left. She crashed at my place after school, and now she's on her way to some.. err.. business convention or something with her mother and three more teachers from school (harsh,much?)
....I. I should be studying Pol Science, cause I just have two days to finish TWO books. But, since I'm useless and a procrastinating idiot, I will sit on my chair and blog about the wonders of life and snooze buttons.

Speaking of which, I plan to go on a creative drive after exams. Yeah, that was abrupt. No, I mean I plan to indulge in art, photography and writing (duuuh) A LOT in my free time. When I'm alone/bored/no one around me type. I plan to travel around Delhi on my own a little more, and just be busy. I want to be really busy. Yes, that's what I want to be.

I deleted 17 people off my Facebook today. I'm on one of those rampages where I delete people I don't bother keeping in touch with even if I'm on their list and vice versa.
I had a super heavy lunch, and I don't think I can ever get up anymore. Which brings me to my next point- I feel like having mango ice cream. Or khasta kachori.
Vanta, Guina and I are having the randomest Facebook war.

Anyhow. I think I've been random enough to content myself and torture you :)
I shall be back soon (scary laugh)
Which also reminds me I haven't watched HIMYM bloopers since a loooong time. So Youtube opens on the other tab.
Did you know Sulcata Tortoises are the largest continental land tortoise and that they grow to over 2 feet in length and can weigh over 100 lbs? :O

Okkbye.
-Nil.

That stranger we meet.

2011-02-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

Some people call it dangerous, some call it a waste of time, some people call it fate, some people call it co-incidence. Haven't we all heard that about meeting strangers?
A child is taught among the first few rules of his life that just started, to never talk to a stranger, to never eat the candy he gives, to never give out your world to someone who seems strangely curious about your being.. Haven't we all been too cautious? Cause no matter how old we grow, that conscience of ours takes us back to being the same 10 year old who sees his mommy's face when a stranger smiles at him.

But perhaps after a couple of encounters, I've been intrigued to think that maybe we've been missing out on a tiny niche on a wall by closing in a nutshell every time an alien face meets ours.
All these encounters haven't been pleasant, no. But most have been.. I've somehow always been amused to deduce things. The mystery behind every character that passes by is something I like to reach the conclusion of. It's a silent hobby, and I like it that way.

When I think about it, a couple of strangers that I've met over the years are today, few of my closest friends. And some thing that I pride myself even more with, is that few strangers remain strangers even today, and yet changed my vision about a destiny I was so sure of.
They still remain anonymous, they still remain from a land I don't know of, and they still remain in my memories of strange but beautiful knowledge.
A knowledge that a printed book or Google can never impart :)

Cause somewhere, that stranger we meet moves us just enough to realize that every face on this Earth is a stranger in the beginning to the other, and that we are just another face among those billions, who've woven friendship, love, hate, and all other relations with people who were strangers on the first day, too.

I'm not saying every face in the crowd is going to be a part of our life's mosaic, I'm not saying it's going to make your life beautiful or ugly..
All I'm saying is, we all meet that one stranger and it's never too bad to hear them out and just maybe find another story that speaks along with yours, or a story that you'd like to echo somewhere in your atlas of experiences :)

And that's why I say; "It never is a cake walk, Judie. You just gotta hope you hang in to the icing"

-Nil.

I need a new watch.

2011-02-19T07:56:00.000-08:00

Playing now: Madcon- Beggin you.

Bonjour, World!
Quite a shitty month'eh? Oh well so after two super heavy poem posts, I figured I'd spare you guys and drop in some light stuff and in short- catch up with the million FYIs and facts of the past few days.
I have decided I am going to go to Italy and Greece. FOR freaking SURE. Italy- because it's just so freaking gorgeous and with the food (Y) and woah just the place echoes nirvana.
Greece- because it would be such a waste to not photograph and write about perhaps one of the most beautiful places on Earth. All I needed was a couple of movies and google to figure what I've been missing.
So maybe I'll take a year off after college and fly off.
Or maybe I'll just wait till I have enough bucks to support that and not day dream.
Either ways, I'm going.

Today's been a bad day. Well, most of it anyway. Exams starting up from 25th. I just laugh at the thought of it, as I've already mentioned.. the thought somehow seems funny to me.

And now, for the Best news of the year, my sister had a beautiful baby girl! Yesssss. I'm a mashi now :"-)
They're coming back home tomorrow. So I've got balloons, banners, flowers, sweets yada yada to welcome my sweethearts. Heck I've been SO excited, it's not even funny!
And oh lord, she's so TINY! and so........umm...just so... TINY!!!
Anyhow, so tomorrow's the grand welcome of the cutie :)

Also, I saw this watch a few days back....and I'm in love with it. I need it. No seriously, I NEED that gorgeous machine. It's just that I can't afford it, err, not yet anyway. Hence, I'm saving up every penny that I own or find on the way and I hope to be wearing that watch on my wrist by the end of the month :)
Otherwise- you'll just have to deal with a pissed off post. So pray :)

ALSO. I officially loathe the organisers of the Bryan Adam concert. I studied so hard, behaved myself, bothered going to school even though there was nothing happening the whole effing day just so I wouldn't have to hear taunts at home when I go for the concert.
REALLY. Cancelled the gig for DOWNPOUR? yea sure, and whatever happened to the fact that those dimwits hired a place with the capacity of 6000 people and ended up selling 20,000 tickets?
AND then thinking they could pull it off? seriously, how retarded were they?
And now rumour has it that U2's going to come to India sometime soon for a gig,too. Lol. They seriously have cheeks to actually even expect international artists to bother coming here after how they screwed up so bad.

Anyhow. I should go now, stuff to do and help out with.
I shall catch you guys soon enough. Update me with how's the sun at your end, yes?
I was in a mood for a random picture, hence the photograph.

Playing now: Beggin you- for the fourth time.

Adios amigos,
some more rant to come later.

-Nil.

Their way back into Love.

2011-02-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

Their way back into love.

Her shadow smiled an unknown dream,
the sweet wait of a rather teasing time hovered,
the tiny little forget-me-nots bloomed somewhere far away,
far away where the light wished her dawn.

As he tip-toed,
daring not to disturb the goddess of his heart,
he admired from far away,
where the robins laughed in merry.

She stood on her demies,
launched into a pirouette of euphoria,
the air sung his song,
the wonders around caressed the echo of his footsteps.

He played hide and seek,
almost floating along with her dance,
her dance to discover that one moon,
the moon she'd never considered with a spot.

And as she finally caught a glimpse,
he could hardly play along anymore,
for her face was so divine,
her smile- a silent ballet of love.....

And they both took quiet steps,
careful not to touch the elegance of time,
And they both took quiet steps to a unanimous horizon,
careful not to commove the phenomena,
the phenomena, the wonder..
the wonder that kept their wait alive,
for they both were finding their way back into love.

-Nil.

Drunken memories.

2011-02-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

Drunken Memories.

And every page lies crumpled in my temple,
my temple where the bed lies untouched,
the study perturbed with scrolls and parchment,
the long dead battery of the clock,
that puts up a show of a Tik Tok,
that only my mind can imagine,
and my temple reflect.

Each of those pages,
proud with their forced wrinkles,
seem to stand bold for every scribble,
that my ink ruled out over and over again.

My words seem to rebel in ferocity,
to my feeble attempt to demolish a past,
a past that had every right of a memory.
A memory to be remembered,
a memory that claimed to deserve nostalgia.

The silent photographs,
of all those thoughts,
of all those moments,
of all those faces,
seemed to be intoxicated with the rum of time,
and the gin of future.

And as they hiccup,
to the night's glory..
I hear all the laughter, the joy, the cries,
once again,
seeping out of the careful crevices of a woven dream,
from a silent vibrant mind,
singing along to the toast's cheer.

And as I look around,
to all those honest memoirs of the mind,
I, for once, restrain to push away,
the past that dances along an attractive tale,
a tale I know too well,
a tale I know by heart..

I, for once, let them go on..
and see for real, what an imaginary truly is,
while I enjoy the drink of my paradox,
for drunken memories don't lie...

-Insomnia stricken,
Nil.

Bellbots and farewells.

2011-02-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

Hello, Sunday people.
Since my creativity has gone to take a dump, I figured I'd update with a random post (again). I really want to go back to the 80s. With the super cool bellbots (no I'm not hungover), and the funny badminton playing, not to forget the classic Disco 82 type numbers that get your feet tapping even today. Vintage is so brilliant. Anything vintage, actually. Clothes, bikes, cars, etc. I find them bold, and that's what's so beautiful about them. I need a time machine.

Yesterday was the 12th grader's Farewell. Ignoring my tailor's super brilliant disaster of screwing my suit up, and the last minute change in plan, I'd say it was pretty okay. Okay-- because we hardly bonded with our seniors this year. So it was kinda bleh. But there was free food and music. So. We danced for three straight hours, and by the end of it, the indifference between the seniors and juniors seemed to have decreased. Which was good. Also, by the end of it, my feet were royally screwed and dead. They were as dead as a mosquito might be after squishing it for three hours. (ew). But anyhow, it wasn't as bad as I figured it would be. Though I also know that next year (our farewell) is going to be much better, cause our junies aren't uptight jerks and we seniors are pretty damn awesome.
Which reminds me for the 9834937384th time that it's us next year.
Which is scary, if you ask me. Sure, I'm on my toes to go to college, but leaving school just seems.....SHIT.
Anyhow. So if it's any consolation, I got back and had my feet dipped in warm water for a good hour. Irrelevant.

My finals are in 20 days lol. All it does is make me laugh. I wonder if they could have a subject on Facebook&Blogger. We'd all top. I know I would. k,irrelevant again.
God I'm sucha bored Sunday bug. It's one of those annoying Sundays. Where you're not happy even if you study well/ party hard/ sleep long/ do nothing. It's one of those Sundays that make you jittery and impatient.
We were so much better off in kindergarten, where all we had to worry about were crayons and our exams were nap times and A+s in sections like "Well behaved" , "Progress in Art", "Contribution to class", "Origami".

Anyhow. I should get back to my Eco paper. I have a viva due tomorrow, for the finals. Like I said, I need a time machine.

[Playing now: Drive my car, The Beatles]

kkbye,
Nil.

Friday's Lady.

2011-02-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

The warm ambience greeted me as soon as I entered Geoffrey's. What greeted me warmer was that deep, seductive voice coming from that dynamic figure firing the stage with some real jazz.. almost as if she expected my entrance in the precise moment she looked towards me to wink with that smile that knew I'd come back. I hung my satin tie lower, and walked ahead, carrying an air of complete arrogance, which apparently had an appeal. Or so I'd been told.

I walked to my dear friend, the bar tender.
"Same old?" he asked with a friendly smile.
"Always the same."
"Isn't gin a little over rated in your cocktail vocab, my friend? My fair lady's a drink that's killed your taste buds, I'm afraid" he said, handing me my glass.
"Oh no no, not at all Peter. Both my Fair Ladies keep me just as fine,throbbin' and alive" I said, waving my toast to the lady on stage.

~*~*~*~

As she shifted the mood of the approaching night from Miles Davis to Malinda DeRouen.. I slow danced with my sixth peg to It might as well be spring .. Slowly as the familiar faces of the regulars at the bar became blurred stories in the background of the story of my life that danced to the fading evening, my eyes closed- only seeing her smile through the curtains of my eyes kissing my pupil blind, only hearing her smile from the deligate and careless progression in the intonation of her voice that fell like honey in its beautiful golden dress, melting to the distinguished taste of an admirer's.

.......And just as the piano played the last note to end the song that she sang, subtly writing me a message on the diary of my heart, there ended yet another love story that started every Friday evening and ended every Friday night when the lights of Geoffry's were turned off....

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A short fiction that found its way... after a long time..
Awaiting all your feedbacks as usual :)

-Nil.

Shiva on trance.150th.

2011-01-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

Playing now: Electro sun.Pure blue.

Hello friends, foreigners, and countrymen. Lend me thy ear? So this happens to be my 150th post on blogger. And hence, I figured this should be a Catch Up post for my BlogAnniversary :)

Oh well, Jan's been a busy month. With the new year, getting used-to writing '2011', a new camera (Y), random shoots, British School's RSSRC Peace Summit,the final show and now coming up- Farewell. (Can't believe it's going to be us,next year :| ) ......and then finally the last set of finals for 11th grade. I'm still trying to figure out just how am I still alive with all the on-goings that haven't let me sit down and breathe, but I guess that's why I'm still sane? Something about being Jobless scares me.

Anyhow. So the track I'm listening to crazy. The beats are absol-uuu-tely sick. Please listen to it if you fancy trance.
Today....was a good day? I mean. It was okay?
Studied some. Got some nice shots of certain frames I had in mind. Managed to make it to the tailor's on time to plead them to get my suit ready by 5th. Had so much of Giani's Belgium Chocolate ice cream that the sight of anything sweet makes me sick. I could do anything to have a huge bowl of Maggi right now. Or hotdogs. Or whatever, just as long as it's not sweet.
Irrelevant, to you at least.

I'd been thinking of changing the look of the blog.. To turn it into something more original and to put up pictures I've clicked and to base the theme on my state of mind....but had also been victimized to procrastination at its best. So today I put my foot down and revamped the whole of it. Tell me how you guys like it? The two pictures as the header are two of my favorite clicks. I hope you like them :)
....and School tomorrow. Bleh. All I do is go and read a novel, thanks to farewell preps,sports day and another godzillion reasons, education in classrooms has lost its meaning. I've hit a BAD writer's block.Which isn't the best thing happening to me right now, cause with too many things going on, I tend to over think stuff and people. And when I can't write and blurt out....err, lets just say I'm not the sanest mind around. I go on a high of over-intellectual existence. Which is when it gets hard for people to relate to me, and worse off- I close in nutshell.
SEE. I'm DOING IT AGAIN.

(Now playing: Sundance)

Anyway. So after finals, I hope to take a H-U-G-E getaway before 12th grade starts from Delhi. Hopefully to some place like Calcutta (NO, not cause all Bongs love the city) where I have the right people to catch up with, party, relax,write, photograph and basically just forget everything about Delhi. Not that I don't like this place.. I do. But I guess, after a point of time, you do need a runaway to some place else.

I need to watch Dhobi Ghat. I've heard the extremest of reviews. I'm not judging.. I'm gonna wait till I exit the theatre.
I also need to start studying like a nerd. Finals in less than a month :|

So anyhow. I guess that's all for my 150th post. Thanks you guys, for being thee best readers, so many more zillion posts to come ;)
Update me with how's the sky color at your end, yes?

While I dance a little faster with the city beats and just try a little harder to be graceful at the same time ha ;)
(now playing: lazarus, Porcupine Tree)

-Nil :)

The rainbowed cacophony of voices.

2011-01-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

Has it ever happened to you that you hear a million voices together irrespective, of silence or noise around you? Have they ever all found roots from your neurons mocking the various emotions, thoughts, and people playing a penny for a thought inside your mind? The trivial elements of a room seem to remind you of something absolutely vague, and out of the box. It might have been inspiration, had a dull mood not graced it with its mocking smile. Even the absence of people seem to be only an omnipresent reminder in the subconscious Galaxy of your mind. Owning a mind of your own seems catastrophic, and the happy mind of an infant only makes you envious. The roads you walk on seem to zero out the one way you're concentrating on, with the honks and people morphing into a parallel world that play games with your mind. You attempt to mind read, and you have five different stories about a single face- and then you fall into the trap of hours of deduction that runs in pace to reality.
The three different tabs of networking sites/social sites opened on your computer screen seem to be three sides of the same story- You. Each an every photograph you're frozen in captures a mood that'll cause deja-vu at some point without you realizing the cause or the origin of the moment.
The group of friends you met today make you think twice about your wavelength and question your choice of intellect and character. All this is happening while you're sharing a bottle of coke together, laughing at the same time over the funny puns that you find almost too lame to exist when you think, later.
And every time you hold your pen and start with the first alphabet in the fanciest handwriting, you stop dead. For the mixed emotions and the rain bowed cacophony of voices inside you- each, has a story that's waiting and fighting to be told and pushing you over the edge to pick them. But your hands are left frozen and your mind paralyzed- trapped again in the ocean of opinions, with yours being only a drop in the whole sea.

-Nil.

Anger.

2011-01-11T08:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Anger,
I've been acquainted to you since a while.. however, tonight seems to be different. Tonight, you seem to be feasting. Feasting on a splinter that was much carefully preserved and tucked away into a deep corner of a silent soul that preferred not to step out of me. Tonight, I feel a screech morph into a loud wale. A wale of disgust, frustration and pure unadulterated anger.
You've never really challenged my temper as such, except once perhaps. Why are you so adamant to provoke me tonight? I've tied my tongue to chains just tonight.. so it doesn't cause irreparable damage. Damage that'll distort the vision of my blood shot eyes and I will no longer have control over my senses which'll be over powered by blood lust.
I'm taming my mind to behave and remember the pleasant, the happy, the beautiful. You- however, seem to be only pushing me,pushing me as hard as you can over the edge from which there isn't a climb back, once I fall.
Don't provoke me. This silent anger in me is dangerous. It's more dangerous for I don't need muscles to tear apart the world I've made around me, the people,the relationships. My silence will kill, don't provoke me, my dear Anger.
For you're wasting me, and you don't want me to retort with something that might destroy you brutally.

-Yours faithfully,
a broken smile.

(P.S- this was saved as a draft on my account for a looong time. I thought I'd publish it anyway. Feedbacks are welcome, as always)
-Nil.

Facebook bhi ek kala hai.

2011-01-06T01:45:00.000-08:00

Morning there, winter-struck people,
How's January coming along? I have officially declared this world to not be alive anymore because when I step out on the road, the sight depresses me. Every body's gift wrapped in layers of morbid wool and the grumpy looks are only complimentary. The chilly wind (as people claim) makes you want to dig in deep to the core of the earth and burn in the heat if that were an option. Frankly, I don't get it. I don't tend to feel very cold usually, even in this month of Jan, a tee shirt and a thin cotton jacket keeps me good. You'd obviously think I'm a lunatic if I tell you that I'd rather roam around in a tee shirt sans the jacket, so I'm going to skip elaborating or justifying that.

I'm also officially sleep deprived. My cousin's come home, so we were up last night watching movies and FRIENDS bloopers on Youtube till early morn. And by the time I fell asleep, it was time for the normal world to start functioning. Which sucked. Anyhow, I also went to school today to work on this International Peace summit that I, Remya and a couple more of our friends are going to, this Jan. It's a pretty big scene with 65 country's round-square regional schools participating.. but I shall elaborate on that when I'm in a better mood. Not that I'm not in one or anything, just a little.. annoyed with the cold. And sleepy. And I have Math to do. So that's not really the prettiest combination, which you don't have to be Aryabhatta to figure out. Actually he's the wrong guy to be named.. that bugger would have probably been the kinds to scream "Eureka!" while shitting and figuring out complex math sums for which he receives very colorful vocabs by kids stuck with Math till date.

Anyhow, I'm in a mood for some nice Euro trance, hot chocolate .........and maybe, just MAYBE that might inspire me to bother with the 11th grade NCERT math book.

Abuses to winter,
Nil.

Passing thoughts and epiphanies.

2011-01-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Something I wrote on New year's night :

"As I see all those sky shooters shoot high up into what we liked to believe heaven was, the tiny motes of fire fly as high as their fate willed, burned with all its might and ferocity, tried to yell out to the world- stark naked of what lay dormant in them, and after the few seconds of lumiere, faded away and died prey to the domineering winds that blew its flame away into nothingness that once burned in the iris of a man standing arrogantly on the face of the earth, taking for granted that the fire will never die out to ashes and that time will always hang in the glamour of light.... on the surface"

Also, my blogger friend Fai has this thing on her blog called "Let it out Monday" where her readers can send her a letter on anything at all, and she'd publish it on a Monday. It can be named or anonymous. So I sent her a letter too, and I want you guys to read it and tell me what you think about it. Here goes! :-----

Dear Photograph,

you remind me of so much. So much that I might have forgotten coping with the cobwebs of city life, of other dreams that I'm chasing after, of broken chains that were meant to be only stronger with time, of myself.

The delicate black and white of your skin holds my tiny finger like one of a baby's and leads me into a moment of my life that was frozen into mere parchement, that frozen moment was perhaps a mere second out of the scroll long years of my life, however that one frozen smile, tear, round eyes, freckle, frown tells and teaches me so much of who I am, what I might become or might have been.

When your skin smiled of warm colors- I could only feel the warmth of the sun again, the sounds of the honks nearby, the scream of the roadside wender, the bark of the angry dog, the whistle of the ticket collcetor... you take me back to yet another day of reality that makes me feel so alive and present again.

You have always had the strength to reduce me to my knees and pray again, pray for what only seemed like yesterday to come back. Pray for those people who've somehow let go or the ones who have held on so tight.. You have had the strength to show me the past as it was, without being biased or emotional.. as ironical as it sounds :)

May you capture me, many more of the sides that prevail and the ones that are hiding in somewhere, waiting for the time to step out.

For you let me make memories, and that is something that only completes the mosaic of my life with everything right, wrong, perfect and imperfect.

For you are a frozen me, that can never disappear and will live on forever, as simply as one can ever ask for.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Awaiting feedbacks!

Nil.

Steppin' on 2011

2010-12-31T06:31:00.000-08:00

Another five hours and kaboom!, we present you 2011. :)
So like every year, since 2008, I shall now write a farewell note to 2010 and welcome 2011. That's a little hard to do when you can't remember much about the year that went by, but at the same time, remember the slightest of things in the most intricate way possible. (Dear readers, I've stopped making sense) :)

Anyhow. The past year has been no exception to being a roller coaster ride. It had everything, starting from new experiences like the Boards, new people, new things, wants, ambitions, love,drifting apart, friendship, heart breaks, achievements, euphoria, epiphanies..
11th grade was supposed to be the year of adventure and self-realization, yada yada. Well all of that happened. Shit happened. A LOT of it. I was hardly in class the whole year, cause I was either out on a competition or up to something else. 11th grade taught me what's it like to actually fail a subject, and laugh about it. 11th grade initiated new friendships, fun, laughs, jokes, pet names.

Apart from school, year '10 has kicked some serious sense in to me. I figured it's useless screwing your head over things and people. It's just not worth it. At the end of the day we all are individuals with different lives, thoughts, and everybody wants different things. There's no point expecting a lot out of people cause you end up with disappointment. Not always, but that's where the difference lies. The expectations that have to be full filled will be, the one's which don't- there's not point screwing your day and head up for it.
I've learnt to chill. To be on my own, pay heed to things and people who pay heed me and be happy with life around me, and let it be.. Yeap, I sure have learnt to let it be. Things will work out if they have to, and if they don't- I've learnt to move ahead.

Like every year, I made good decisions, and bad ones. And like always, I don't regret them. None at all. Few achievements that I made this year made me very very proud of myself, and I'm glad I could live up to my own expectations.. There was a point of time when I felt absolutely unworthy and untalented, but it was a phase and it's passed. I've learnt that at times, you need to figure out what you want, and not always worry about the rest of the world. It's not worth it, if it doesn't make you satisfied and happy. There's no point being sad and upset about some nagging thought or reason that keeps you dead and deprives you the adrenal of the living. Cause I swear, as the cliched goes, life's too short- you need to live it. Not for the world, but for yourself. People who have to stay will stay, forcing any body's presence won't etch that person in your book, it'll only erode the feeble remains of the good memories you might have made together. When something ends for the good, it's better to just close it with the final dot and treasure it as an experience that helped you grow and made you smile.

As the past year reflects on my mind, I'm so happy and content.. cause the people in it are the ones I always hoped for. Few people have been a rock solid pillar for me, through thick and thin.. They've truly helped me realize myself and the latent strength that was dormant in me. I've realized that there are some relations that'll never fade away....cause they're a part of what I am now, and they'll grow old with me :)

I might not ever be perfect, I'm not competing for it either. I'm flawed. I'm happy for what I am, and I hope to always toast a cheer to what a beautiful bokeh of colors my life is becoming with each and every second ticking by with the imperfection of perfect people, things, and the time- that's only running, but I'm catching up well with it :)

For those of you who're in my life and those who are about to enter in--- A very happy new year to all of you. It's been a joyride and it just becomes better and better with time, as you guys multiply and my entourage just grows bigger and brighter.
For those of you who aren't --- I wish you all the same, and good luck. And whatever the reason be for drifting apart, for the good or the worst- I am sure to miss you somewhere, some how, in some odd minute of the day :)

Cheers to all of you guys, and lets bring in 2011!

Much love,regards and well wishes,
Nil.

I like to sleep like a log.

2010-12-23T09:14:00.000-08:00

Good morning, World. I woke up a bit back and I slept like a frikkking LOG today! After a very long time. Hardly got any sleep last night, so I figured I'd sleep in the sick room in school........but when you have an annual day in a week, the teachers are on the hunt for office bearers. Try coming in sometime during the annual preps, students with badges almost look like slaves being sold in the auditorium to the smartest of teachers. And no, I'm not trying to be funny.
Anyhooo. Coming back to sleeping like a log. I've never been the sort to sleep in the afternoons.. Irrelevant.

Okay so I don't remember studying in school in the past....two weeks? Cause that requires being in class which is a criteria I'm most opposed to when you're given the opportunity to "work" for the grand annual day preps. (LOL grand my rear). But the rehearsals are crazy fun. Today morning was EPIC. The drama teacher's pretty much never been real-life in his whole career, cause his normal self is so effing melo dramatic!
Speaking of which, mind you, I'll be dancing in the beaches of Goa when our Grand Annual Day is executed. I'm just merely helping.
YES. Oh yes, hate me some more darlings, I shall be in Goa in a weeeeeeeeeek! :D
I've had bloody enough of Delhi, and so I resigned to the beach which is the ultimate feel-good runaway. (had enough of mountains this year!).. I can't even WAIT to be there in the middle of a nice beach, a nice hat, shades, naariyal paani, and a good read!
I can taste heaven already =D

I'm really looking forward to 2011. Cause I'll be off for a trip again in the very first week with school friends. Considering it's my last trip in school life, I'm pretty damn sure there's going to be some Major partying, ladies and gentlemen. And theennnn, I shall come back only to start afresh and hope that year '11 will be better than 2010. I mean not that 2010 was bad, but surely not what I'd preferred. Anyhow, that's alright. I'll be in 12th grade in about six months, or less actually. Yay? maybe not. I'm looking forward to it anyway. 11th was kinda... laid back? really REALLY laid back. I mean sure there was a lot to work for, but 12th grade's going to sort of be.. a bigger push to work on something and kick some ass, if you know what I mean?

Yes, I ramble a lot when I wake up. A LOT.

okay it's about to be 11 and I shall go back to sleep now and look forward to the Delhi trippy that's due tomorrow : )

Gnite, World.
Peace out.

Wild and flawed.

2010-12-18T03:53:00.000-08:00

A perfect isolation, a perfect sculpture, a perfect skin, a perfect language, a perfect person.

What a waste. :)

What's isolation without the anxiety of interference?
What's a sculpture without a missing angle to think more about the artist?
What's skin without the signs of youth or age?
What's language without tongue twisters that make you smile?
What's a person without accepting a perfect blend of flaws and perfection with love? What's a perfect person worth if you can't feel a human touch?

I adore flaws, I adore wild. For perfection is something that I might appreciate but rather not have. Not by the world's definition, no. For perfection to me is a mosaic with just enough colors to confuse me and help me think straight. Perfection, to me, is a hue that lasts just long enough for me to want to remember it as long as my mind allows and my heart enjoys. Perfection to me is a mad glint of brilliance and innocence on an uncared face which still commands respect.
For perfection, to me....is wild and flawed. Very very flawed. :)

-Nil.

We want some rant!

2010-12-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

Do you know how annoying can winter get? Specially for people like me who don't believe in sweaters? Every time I go on Facebook, I see cheesy people ranting on about how winter reminds them of love, romance, memories, songs, sobs, sobs, sobs, blah blah yada yada. Which is awesome for them. No offense, really. And in usual days, it wouldn't bother me. I give a penguin's feather to what people think of winter. And weirdly enough I actually started liking the season. But no. Winter feels crap now cause it's just so.......woolen.
yea, I'm weird. deal with it.

And JUST when I'm in a mood to rant about all the miseries and fortunes of my life, my darrrling mother calls to tell me that I'm supposed to move my rear and get ready for a wedding to which I don't intend to go to. But some how, I have a very funny feeling that she'll chop my head of into tiny pieces and feed them to my loving dog who's always hungry and happy.
If you haven't figured already, I'm talking from in between my teeth, and just cause I sound sweet doesn't really mean that I'm very happy about the on-goings of my crazy residence at this very moment when I can hear TV shows at full volume, my brother listening to his bike roar (he's always been peculiar), the dog barking and not to mention THE COLD.
AND IN THAT COLD, I AM TO DRESS UP FOR A FREAKING WEDDING AND LOOK PRESENTABLE WHEN ALL I WANT TO DO right NOW IS BURY MYSELF INSIDE A HEATER AND BLOG FROM THERE, if there's any connection.

I'm sorry if that hurt your eardrum. Actually, I'm not.
So this week has been eventful. VERY nice, actually. Getting into details will make me happy, but today is one of those days that I'd rather be grumpy in. You know what I mean, right? so don't text me, do yourself that favour. Or else, you shall receive a reply in upper case which will be a spectrum of delightful screams and shouts. Thank you very much.

Now. I should switch my computer off which gets to sit at home and chill every day, without having to worry about food, clothing, grades, people or WEDDINGS.

I'm irritated.
Bye.

The asylum's sleep.

2010-12-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

He read her name in the newspapers.. Sipping his black coffee, the one with the perfect blend, he flinched. Confused if it was the bitterness of the taste, or the bitterness that penetrated his insides. He knew her..Oh he knew her so well. The long years of bereft had left him puzzled staring at the newspaper.. the old dust of comfort, the comfort of escaping had only been too thick to be splashed over with water and the carvings of memories to be revealed.

"You know Tarun, you're forcing and letting go off people. People who're trying to hold on to you so tight that they're the one's who bled. And the stains of those remain on the cloth you just merely shrugged off.. but when the time comes, and when the smell of those blood stains get unbearable, you'll try to wash them away but they'll keep disappearing and appearing again.. and again.. that will ultimately lead to lunacy." - he remembered what Rajji mama told him once..

His phone rung. He didn't pay attention to it, and kept staring at the photograph. The photograph of that one woman he hadn't slept with. Of that one woman he hadn't hidden anything from. Of that one woman he found a best friend in. Of that one woman he tore out of his life.

He remembered those long walks in the street behind her house. The one time when they both walked in silence with their respective packets of uncle chips. The one time when they both had so much to talk about that they literally completed each other's sentences.
He remembered all those 18 years of winter, summer, spring, autumn. They literally saw each other grow up.

His phone rang the second time. He ignored it, yet again.
..... He heard the heaven's growl, up above. They were soon going to cry to the dominating black clouds. Just as denial stepped into his eyes...his heart. Just as he chose to be oblivious. Just as he slowly and strongly detached her from the delicate mirage of raw cotton threads loosely knot together- his life. Just as he stopped responding to her efforts.....and just how finally, one day, she gave up... and cut his call the one time that he bothered calling back. That was the last call he made.

~*~*~*~*

"Oh Mr. Shah, the bell for dinner rung twice! Why haven't you reported yet?!" -- the nurse came bustling in and ranting. The nurse of the asylum.

"What? Who are you!? What are you doing in MY house? Security!!"

"Oh dear you haven't had your medications for the day have you darling? .. oh dear.." - The nurse said sympathetically, reaching out for the sedatives.

"Medications? What, don't you see? I'm enjoying my coffee and reading about my old friend! who are You?!"

The nurse looked at the glass of water that he fumbled to hold like a coffee mug.

"Mr. Sha---"

"OH so it was you who tried calling me! Don't you understand it's not nice to disturb people while they're busy, m'love? I'm meeting an old friend after a long time" ; he said, a dangerously lopsided smile as a mad glint trickled into his eyes.

"No, Mr. Shah. You don't have a phone. It was the dinner bell. This is not your house. You're here in a mental asylum, and you're doing really well for recovery, Mr. Shaa--- "

"NO NO NO! I'M IN MY HOUSE! I ... I AM TARUN SHAH. DON'T YOU TOUCH MY COFFEE! YOU CAN NEVER MAKE THE PERFECT BLEND! LET ME LOOK AT MY MANJARI! I'VE SEEN HER AFTER SO LONG. .OH GOD OH I.. I .. missed my dear dear friend so much!" ; as he resigned to violent tears......

"Guards! some help here.. the periodic attack, come quick!" - the nurse yelled out. And the guards followed to handle something that they were only too used to, and were well practiced for.. It was getting worse with Tarun's age..

As the asylum heard the cries and shouts of Tarun Shah the second time that day, the sedatives slowly lulled him to sleep. Sleep that was dreamless, uncomfortable, and filled with an unexplained longing. The longing to reach out, to reach back to those 18 years of the four seasons when life was only simpler, and escaping was never an option for him.... When he'd never give up on his bestest of friend, Manjari..

While Manjari's face on the newspaper smiled- white and lifeless- as the headlines screamed the death of a famous dancer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photography Credits: Niloy Ghosh Dastidar.
And I'd like to take this perfect opportunity to introduce this amazing photographer's (a very dear best friend of mine) recently started Photo Blog. You can check it out Here. I'd advice you not to miss it! :)

Awaiting all your feed backs on this one!
-Cheers,
Nil.

Dear mom and dad

2010-11-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

Dear mom and dad,
Hi. It's 12:45am and I'm blogging, and you hate that. You hate the fact that I'm always up so late, working on something or the other glued to the laptop and earphones stuck to my ears. You dislike the fact that I'm so tech-savy. You dislike the fact that I text so much and am on the phone pretty often. You don't like it when I read novels till 3am in the morning, you disagree strongly with my sleeping cycle. You don't think I get enough sleep. You think I'm exploiting the limits to which my body and mind can take "it".
And I agree. I am. But hey mom, I'm 16. That's how every teenager grows up. That's how your daughter will grow up. And I know somewhere behind all the shouting and the protests, you're okay with that. You know it's natural.

Over the past few years, there's been so many transitions in me. The metamorphosis isn't over yet, and it shall continue for a while. And perhaps you're more aware of that fact than me.
I'm in this phase where I feel like this tiny ant staring out to the world with dazed eyes. Extremely excited about what awaits me, and etremely scared at what I might have to go through in the journey of reaching my goals, as well. I'm discovering places, people, emotions, paths, ideas that are new to me and become old by the clock ticking by in seconds. I'm extremely sorted and confused at the same time. I make mistakes. SO many of them in a single day.. and to be quite honest, I enjoy making them. For I have the liberty to, everybody does. That's how we learn the same lesson every time, only in different ways. I heard that thought from a dear friend of mine, and it really did leave an impact. I will keep making mistakes, and I'll keep learning, and forgetting, and learning again.
All I'm saying is, trust me. Trust your daughter with her decisions, she won't let you down :)

I'm a happy person. I know I have the saddest face when I'm off, I know even more that it upsets you both more than anyone even if you don't show it all the time. But I need you to know that I'm content and satisfied with the person I am and with the person you have made me. Sure, I struggle to be something better everyday, and that fight will go on till the very last day of my life (god I'm just 16) ... but don't worry about how I feel about myself. You both have taught me to rely on emotions and rationality- both. You have taught me love. And perhaps that is why, I have a strong faith. A faith which is not about idols, gods or goddesses. . but about the fact that good things happen to good people. Sure, life can be unfair at times. But that's alright. What's life without a pinch of salt and sadness? We'd never learn to truly appreciate happiness then :)

Mom...... you're the most amazing lady I've ever come across. The amount of strength your hands and heart hold, perhaps an army full of soldiers wouldn't be enough to substitute that. You've been just the right balance of strictness and easy-going. I might not tell you all of this when we fight, but it's important for you to know that I couldn't go a day without you. Even as I write this, I swear my eyes are moist and there's a weird lump in my throat. Your girl has always been the sentimental kinds, you can't blame her. She's seen so much of love and felt so much warmth. She's bound to be over whelmed!

Dad.. you're my hero :) I mean it. Perhaps if I could even be a quarter of the kind of person you are, I'd be the happiest person on Earth. It doesn't matter how young I was or how old you grow, you'd always be the strongest man I'd have ever come across. Your humanity and immodesty of the zillion achievements leave me in awe.. I look upto you so much, baba. I just really hope I can make you proud some day.

I respect the both of you with all my heart. I could never love anyone more. For all those years of childhood and all these years of difficult teens, I could never thank you enough for being there for me, always, rock solid. I could never equal up to the kind of living legends you are to my eyes, and I only hope to be like the two of you to my kid.

Mom, I know you hate the fact that I don't take care of my skin. That I look so wild all the time. So unruly. So casual. "Such a boy" -- as you put it. But your daughter is growing up, and she'll learn all of it. And I know you know that better than me.
And dad, I'll try to give in more hours to math okay! .. That's a very tiny request compared to all the kilos of requests you've fulfilled for me :)

I want you both to know that I'm a better person cause of the two of you. I'm writing this letter tonight because I feel it was important for me to let you both know a few facts and figures about your kid ;)
Cause I know you guys are anxious and worried about me growing up, just like me :)

Don't worry. I'm on my own, with your shadows never being out of sight. And that's going to keep me going to places we all hope for. I love you both, and I could never thank you enough for the unconditional support you both have given me- be it writing, dancing, studies, or whatever. You've been there, and the best part is, you've never disliked me making mistakes. You've just always taught me to be careful the next time and learn well the lessons that every mistake taught.
Maybe that is why, I'm bold enough to stand up for myself, shout a different opinion, and hope to make a difference.
For hope is what keeps us going. :)

I should go now. I promise I'll do only five.. okay ten more minutes of Facebook, and then go to sleep :)
Goodnight mom and dad,
see you tomorrow when you two try to drag me out of bed for school :)

-Your only and only crazy daughter.

.....of busy weeks and catching up :)

2010-11-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

Hello there folks. So I've had a crazy week. It's been packed with something or the other to do, and I enjoyed it :) Cause it wasn't the pissed-off-busy, but happy-busy. Yes, I know, I know. I've stopped making sense. But that's what you can expect out of a sixteen year old after a week of madenning rush. Anyhow. The starting of the weekend was amazing. The movies and then dinner :) After quite a long time, I went back to being random and found an old friend, again. It was fantastic to get out in the cold and catch up about the randomest of facts. Haah, never mind that the chicken for the dinner sucked ;)
But it was nice. Informal. Laughs. Jokes. Memories. Thai food. Oh oh not to forget the last minute arguments at the ticket counter for the suddenly decided movie that ended up impressing the both of us.
I'm glad the craziness has started again :)

There was Atreyi's surprise birthday party,too. Damn was it nice! Her face was priceless when we girls showed up at her den and cut the cake at 12. All of us danced and hogged like pigs.. Not to mention the car ride that followed with nine people stuffed in one car :D

Oh and there was the Ramjas Annual debate yesterday that Remya and I went to. We did a pretty good job, and made it for the finals. And I got to know today that I also won the best interjector award. So yeah I'm happy about that :)

The cold's finally set in. I used to loathe winters.. I don't mind them so much anymore. Actually I've rather started to enjoy them. Ofcourse, it's a little odd when I have everybody on the road staring at me wearing a half sleeves tee with jeans while these guys are already out with their winter woolens, but whatever. The breeze is actually pretty nice and pleasant :)

Went over to Shiv's after a loooong time,today. Haha had the speacial maggi after a bloody long time.
I might be going to Raghu Dixit's concert tomorrow, but not quite betting on it yet. Eco paper on Monday :|
There's a reason why everybody hates Mondays. No seriously, I think it should be banned. For that matter I think we should only have Fridays, Saturdays, and a LOT of Sundays :D
I'm going to be starting on a book on photography tonight :) (If economics allows it) should be fun. I've been out of touch for a while.. Infact, I've been out of touch from a lot of things. I should really get back, perhaps this year I'd get back to all of it. I hope to. :)

SO. You guys update me with what's been up?! I'm totally over the morbid, anti-social mood, and am all set for all the unanswered texts,calls,emails! How's the weekend going, guys?
Update update updateeeeeeee!
Okay, so it's past midnight, and I'm sleepy. So gnite, World. I shall wake up and ramble tonnes more tomorrow morning :)

Sweet dreams,

Nil.