So much have been lost. So little have I won. 

The Struggle.

 

For, it is a struggle to decide..

It is almost a struggle to make time for myself these days. Most of the time, I waste on doing meaningless things like complaining about the lack of time to spend on meaningful things. It is such a dilemma. I was not meant to be this way, and yet, I struggle!

It's been two months today. I took the plunge and decided to quit my 'acquired' dream of becoming a landscape architect. I remember being gutsy about not giving a f**k about anything, and chasing my dream. But then I don't know what went wrong, or what I started feeling was right. I do not know what I came chasing after; it was the placements, or the tag of studying in an elite institution like 'IIT' or was it my father's wish to see me as a student of this institute. I don't know yet. 

In my life I have done some outrageous things. I have done some stupid things, and some disastrous feats. All of it, I have posed to not have regretted. Deep down, maybe I did, some of them at least. I just read in Ali Mese's blog, something that compelled me to take a deeper look and come here and write. I have had some of the most supportive friends, who have never really declared me a 'loser' for doing such things like quitting my internship, or leaving a job for no reason or any of it. They have almost always given me reasons for my weird behaviour, if I couldn't find myself.

But then again, ultimately I have to face it. I cannot keep on doing stupid things and look for their support, or approval. I am made to take decisions that i would have hated otherwise, but now it has become a responsibility, and I cannot shun it away. 

Life has become such a roller coaster that I am tired of pretending to enjoy it. I wasn't prepared for this. I cannot really pose as a saint and be happy about everything that life offers me. And I cannot live this life where I am always complaining about everything; people get tired of me, and I tire myself out. I should be able to find my own solutions and stop pestering people with my problems. I should be able to assess my own stupid decisions and stop before I take them. I should be able to live, after all!

It is not the life that I miss. It is the lack of sense of humour I hate here. This is not what I bargained my life for, and I shall not take it... not anymore!

Re-Start..

I think it is time..

My new life started a few days ago. It is not exactly what I imagined it would be. I cannot exactly express if it has been better or worse. I probably didn't have anything in mind when I came here. If nothing else, I was expecting it to be a life altering experience. And, it surely is turning out to be! For, this is the first time I am living on my own in a place far far away from the comforts of my home. I am unable to put it in words as to how weird it feels.

Even though, it has been only a few days but it feels like a long time. Maybe, because there has suddenly been a tremendous shift in how everything functions here. Time has suddenly become a physical entity. It's like I can almost hold it.

I am still not sure where am headed. This isn't how I exactly planned things to be. But then, my plans haven't been so good so maybe, it's better this way. 

Just Another Day...

So, I grew an year older today. It feels... well, the same! Except that I am in no mood to celebrate. I don't feel like jumping with joy and going to mom and ask her for something, like I always do on all my birthdays. This year is different. So much has changed, and how! The day reminds me of exactly an year ago; the celebrations, being with all of my closest friends and sharing the joy together, but with that, it also reminds me of the hospital trip the next day.. A lot changed in that one trip! He suddenly began to diminish in his existence, and I cannot forget anything about it. So, when people ask me what are my 'plans' for today, I am just reminded of that hospital trip, and it doesn't concern me if it's my 26th birthday or whatever! I do not wish to cut that cake and smile, and laugh and have fun. I do not want to feel ecstatic because I have grown an year old. I do not want to reject the reality, that in fact I have grown 'old' and have achieved nothing. I fail to see where is the reason for which I should celebrate. They tell me to be a little upbeat, and positive. But, how could I be. I just want this day to pass, like any other day. I just want it to be over! All of it...

To Be or Not To Be..

I think I am in love.. I try to be in. My head feels dizzy with notions of being in love, and again! Everything is strange, and a slightly brighter shade of vibrant. It cannot be.. I choose to believe!

I think it is those smiling eyes that make me want to believe, and yet all that 'wanting to' believe is dwarfed by my inner inhibition. I have traveled this road before, and I don't want to reach some place that I have already left, and happily! I do not know how far this could go, but I do hope it doesn't hit a dead end. Someone once told me that I shouldn't be afraid to fall back in love; but this is not fear of falling in love, of course I want to, but I am more scared of losing it all!

.

You must hate me, for breaking your heart... I said with no distinct emotion. 
"No, don't be silly!" She replied. 

It was the most painful smile that I had ever seen on her face.

Diary of a Dead Man..

It had been too long now. I couldn't open my eyes. I was struggling; struggling hard, and then I realized, my eyes were open already. I blinked twice to check, and then the third time. Yes, I was seeing; seeing 'dark'. I could see nothing but darkness. But the black was darker than the usual, I began to worry. When was the last time I 'saw' anything?, I wondered, but there was nothing but darkness, even inside my head. 

That silhouette was the first vision, hours later when I had given up all the hope of seeing again. It was moving in a synchronous motion, in combination with those beeps that now were audible somewhere far. I wanted to hold it, but couldn't. It was becoming more clear now, and soon it turned into a woman clad in white. Either the white was extremely bright, or it were my eyes, but the white was blinding my vision. I didn't want to lose what I had just gotten, I focused hard but in vain. It was all dark again, the beeps turned into a continuous unending screeching noise. I wanted to jump out of the bed, that I now realized wasn't where I had slept last night. Where am I?, the first time my mind ticked. I looked around, trying to identify where I was, but I was surrounded by a deep darkness. The black turned darker; I was amused, even black had shades. 

I wanted to shout. I wanted to cry. But everything was mute, either that or I failed to hear myself. A smile I saw; they were the eyes I knew too well. And then the smile turned in to a nothing, all gone.  

Someday, I Will...

I am just trying to find what should I be looking for!

I have waited for such a night, all my life, but tonight it just feels incomplete. I sit in the living room, taking long drags from that cigarette, not worried about being caught. The ash tray hasn't been used for ages, and it does not feel like it should. I believe it's the age that impedes my excitement of being alone. I have grown old! The football match plays in the backdrop and somehow I cannot focus on the screen. A lot has been going on lately, and to get it all out of my head, I haven't had the chance! 

I am trying to get back to where I was, but I seem to have lost the way. I have lost so much, and gained significantly nothing. People tell me I have achieved great feats; cracking the GATE with a not so bad rank, getting admission in IIT and having managed to have worked with the best landscape architect in the country. I should feel a certain pride I suppose, but it's just too shallow. The whole sense of achievement is diminished when I don't find that somebody for whom it meant much more than it means to me. People tell me I have made him proud, and yet somehow I am not convinced. Every single day that passes, I have a feeling to have failed him even more. I do not want to feel this way, it is not my intention to let him down, but I seem to have just lost the control! 

I think if I knew where I am headed to, it would put me at ease, but then again, I am not sure which direction is which. It is all so foggy, so confused. My senses seem to have been derailed from their tracks, and now they just wander off any which way they like! But I happen to have made a slight improvement, for one, I don't feel so depressed now. There is that certain anxiety of not knowing where to go, but the fear of failing escapes me. I believe I am ready to take a risk, and again! I just want this to go right, so I could go and stand on the top of that mound, and face him with contentment; so I could be assured that I have made him proud! I am just looking out for that moment, when I will...

Apathy!

Sometimes you just want to put everything to rest, and go in hibernation. I feel that too often. The world around me is full of irrational and senseless human beings, and I don't mean to put myself on a pedestal or feel superior to anyone, but some people just make you want to erase them off the face of this world! I wasn't tutored to be this way (read sensible), it comes with living for a certain time, and realizing what makes sense and what doesn't. So I often wonder how can some people be totally clueless about what 'making sense' means. They probably live in another world, or maybe I have made my world too perfect, but that does not mean that people would stop being sensible! 

Honestly, I am offended by people's apathy, their intentionally foolish behaviours. But who am I to judge! And yet, I cannot stop feeling that frustration building up inside me; or that urge to go and hit someone hard in the face..

Untold Miseries..

For the first time in a long time, I find it difficult to write about how I exactly feel. It is not a feeling I can put in words easily, it is not something I would want to! 

I have been trying to get away from the inevitable self introspection I find myself face to face with, every night. I have wandered way off the path I was supposed to take. It is not a happy feeling to be here. Someone once told me that I always had logical reasons behind everything I did, and I feel a bit sad, that for once, I don't have any. I am not sure what am doing, and more importantly why! People have stopped expecting me to explain my behaviour, because I have never bothered to. I feel my closest friends judging me, for what I have become. That makes me feel miserable. I never intended to be this way, and I cannot find out the reasons why am I here where I am. All I know is, I never wanted to be here in the first place, and am trying to get out, the fastest I can.

It is so peculiar that you wish for things to go wrong when everything is going so right, because you are not used to things going right for such a considerable amount of time. I would never have understood why people behave the way they behave, if it were not for the strangest behaviours that I exhibit sometimes. Life is going good for some time now, except for so many things that I have stopped caring about them. 

Be Back Soon..

Life is short, they say! But how do they know? I mean, they cannot measure your life to tell you that it's short, or for that matter they haven't measured their own life to know, so how do they know then.. I think it's experience. There are so many people you know around you who are on a journey to do something extraordinary, and they end up dying without doing any of it.. So maybe, that's why everyone tells you that life is short, live it right now! But how does it help, you have to end up dead one day anyway...

I was told by many people that I am the most negative person they have ever met, and most likely they won't ever meet anyone to beat me to it.. I agree! Hell, I am the most negative person I know.. So, I don't really take sugar coated things and stuff like 'life is short, live it to the fullest..' I am living it to the fullest, this is the fullest I could be, so please stop bothering me with your borrowed philosophical crap, which probably even you yourself don't believe in, but finds it okay to dump it on other people because it sounded poetic or whatever. I am not made to be happy with the way things are around me, so what is your problem? Well, I will suffer for it, why should you care? And please don't tell me that you do care, because I'll probably find you fake then, if I don't already! 

It is practically impossible for you to make me happy, and let me put you at ease.. it is not your job, you have no responsibility towards me that you go on to unachievable limits to try and cheer me up! I have never been able to explain it to anyone, and I seriously don't want to try and fail again, trying to explain you. I don't want to be normal, if you think am not normal. This is my world, and let me live in it. I don't need you to alter things. If I tell you that you are my best friend, then that is about it, you don't have to try and prove anything. I love you the way you are, I won't love you even a bit more, even if you succeeded in your mission of making merry!

I assume you are trying hard to please me, because I come out as a very depressed person, and maybe because I am always complaining about everything. Trust me, I promised myself long ago that I won't complain to you about anything, but then, you are the only person I can blabber in front of, without feeling stupid. So please let me, just don't act on it. 

I am weird and I know it. And I like it when you accept me for that. But I also hate it when you tell me why it's not good to be the 'odd one out'. I am again complaining. That is just me, so please just accept it and keep shut. I don't want any inputs from you. I know I sound rude most of the time, in fact all the time, but I also know that you know what's behind all that rudeness. So, I sit here, thinking about you, how you tolerated me for so long, and came closest to making me merry, by just being there and doing nothing. I loved you then, and I love you today. 

I will always miss you. 

Be back soon. Or just hang on, I will be there soon!

Love

Forever, and always!

Let's be Nothing..

I am suddenly reminded of a trip I went on with my friends, almost 4 years back. I have enjoyed every single trip that we went on in the last so many years, but this one in particular was exceptional. I am reminded of it today because I need one similar trip badly. It was so uncomplicated. You just call up a few friends in the middle of the night, pack your bags and head out with no particular objectives! I have always believed that the best trips are those that are unplanned... I am not a fan of routine, anyway!

Everything around me has been foggy and chaotic for a long time now, and I don't expect things to get any better any soon. So, I just want to forget everything for a while. I want to experience that feeling of being lost again; the feeling when you forget that you are real. I have tried to remain optimistic for as long as I could, but it does not go on for much long with me, it's not my thing! So, why just be anything! I want to lose myself in the chaos, I want to cross the threshold of reality and be nothing!

I plan to do just that, some day, and soon! Yet, I am not very good at realizing my plans, but I am better at realizing my dreams, however accidental the realization might be!

...

Watching the re-runs of Grey's Anatomy is difficult for me, for every frame that I watch, it takes me back outside that ICU on the 4th floor of that godforsaken hospital. It brings back the memories afresh. It makes it difficult for me to believe that it has actually happened what has happened. People tell me not to be doing this to myself, they tell me that it's not fair. But I believe that I need to watch that series. I am scared that I am beginning to forget what it was like, like I am not sure if it was the fourth floor or the third. I am scared that I may no longer remember the last time I saw you. And I believe, that I need to remember. That is my last memory of you, and I want to re-live it everyday, every moment that I breathe. 

They tell you how it's going to be alright, just in time, but they never tell you what to look out for if it doesn't. You think that one day you will wake up and realize that it's all gone, like you have wiped the slate clean. But you don't want to. It doesn't matter if people pity you or feed you philosophical crap about not being hung up in the past; sometimes you want to be hung up, you need to keep a grip on the past. I don't want to listen them talk, and pity!

They show you a lot of crap in that TV series, I almost want to believe that it is after all a tremendous thing that these doctors do, and maybe they do, but I for one know that it's not true for this place at least. Doctors here are not taking extraordinary measures to keep someone alive. They don't really care about someone's privacy, or their last wishes. I have hated hospitals all my life, and I just hate them more now, but seeing all that in that show, it makes me want to hate all the doctors too. It just keeps bringing back that day in the ICU, finding no one by your side because apparently it is their stupid 'protocol' to not allow family inside. It makes me hate that medical staff who didn't bother to fill us up with what was going on with you, and waited till the end to tell us. I hate them for not trying hard enough. I hate the fact that it is so easy for them to say 'we have done everything we could'. I just hate everything!

I know I shouldn't be watching that show, what with all the flashbacks in my head making me mad. But I just feel that I need to. I know nothing I do, or anyone does can bring back the time, but I need myself to be okay with the fact that it has happened what happened. I was not the best person to be around you, and I get that, and I know you understood. I just want to be able to 'realize' it and be okay with it. I want to be able to watch the show and think that it was indeed the 'best they could do'. Till then I don't mind suffering, and I don't want people's pity or sympathy. I just want to be able to find closure! 

One day, I hope I do..

So It Ends...

So it ends.

I am not going to indulge in a flashback of the year this was. It has been the worst year of my life and nothing can change it. So I bid goodbye to all those things that could have been, for I hope there's something better waiting to happen.

And so it ends... here.

Thankless!

Recently I was asked what my last post 'I Quit' was about. At that moment, it was just that.. a post! But I don't think it deserves the lack of introspection. So, here goes...

I don't expect you to thank me, or even return my favour. I don't even want you to, because then it would just demean everything. Having said that, I want you to know that I am not to be taken for granted. You don't own me. I am not somebody you can just come to every single time because you are in deep shit. I am not your anchor, who you could just throw away and expect would do all the work needed for you. I am not a selfless idiot, who you think does everything for the sake of humanity or for maintaining a good image. I seriously don't care if you think of me as a saint or a satan. I don't do it for you, I do it for myself.

This bond or whatever it is, I have put you above everything else for a long time now. But now, I am just getting tired. And I quit. I quit being your last resort. I can't be of use to you. I have reached my yielding point, and this is all I could do. I don't want you to understand, or even try to. I don't want to explain anything because I am not interested in listening to your explanation. I believe that one should return favours sometimes, but then I have nothing to ask for in return. I have given up.

A Day Without Cell Phones.

Those who know me, know that I am married to my cellphone. I don't leave it for a single minute, even if there are no calls or messages or anything. I lock and unlock my phone to check if there are new messages or if I missed any calls. I take it with me when I take a bath, so I can listen to my favourite music at full volume. I sleep with it, will check it whenever I get up in the middle of my sleep. But to say that I cannot survive a day without it, wouldn't be wrong. I can live with it, I mean without it. I don't think so, but I know so, as it happened today when my phone decided to commit a suicide and give up on me!

I have so much of things going on around me, and there is just so little of me who's willing to do them. I just feel like sleeping entire day and night and again. But it's not my destiny to have it my way, so I wake up every day, make a list of what all I have to do, and what all I will do in a day. I had been waiting for today for so many days now, Monday, is when all the offices would be open and I can do all the stupid stuff that I have been doing. So I decided to wake up early, get ready and start with the task. I went from one place to another and to another, hopping between places like I was David Rice of 'Jumper', emerging at places in no time. Of course it didn't happen that way, but I did manage to do a portion of my task that needed me in three different places. It was all fine, until I realized that my phone was off and it wasn't turning back on. I had charged it all night, so I know it wasn't the battery problem, it was just the periodic realization of my phone that it runs on Windows OS. How much I hate it!

There was so much other stuff that I needed to be done with today, but since my phone decided to just quit, I couldn't do any of it. I thought you can live a day without your phone, because I am not really addicted to it, but today was impossible. It was today when I realized that PCOs have become obsolete, and there are none present at public places where you would expect them to be. I remember the phase when I used to go to the nearby PCO and make calls, and they were everywhere. You could see handicapped people running a mobile PCO unit on their vehicles, some sort of government plan or something. But they have become these vestigial entities that are no longer into existence, and I am not into a habit of asking a stranger for his cellphone so I could make a call. If it were one single call, I might have asked someone to lend me his phone, but I needed to make so many calls which probably would have consumed a considerable amount of money off their credit balance. 

It is just so disappointing that the PCOs that were once in abundance have just ceased to exist. It might be a positive thing that everyone has a cellphone these days, so there's no need of them, but doesn't people lose their phones, or run out of battery or doesn't their phones give up on them? I can't wrap my head around the fact that I couldn't do so many things today only because I didn't have a phone with me. Has life become dependable on an inanimate object like cellphones? I never thought I was so dependable on a phone, but 'today' just proved the point!

This Journey..

This car journey is the reason I never wanted to grow up. I am surrounded by so many of my cousins and uncles and people I don't even know - they are relatives, that's all I know, but I am not sure how are we connected. 

I have always been this ignorant child of the family. All my brothers and sisters can recognize people when they come visiting us at our home in the city, from the village I used to hate being connected to, but I would always tell my mother or my father that 'an uncle/aunt has come from the village', to which they would just smile, knowing that this was the best possible description that could come from me.

I remember my childhood when every summer vacations, we used to pack our bags and head for our village. I still find it amusing how every summer, without a miss, every summer, someone or the other was getting married, and as a part of our family tradition, we were supposed to attend the function. I cannot say that I hated going to the village, but I wasn't fond of it either. The only push I needed to go, was that my mother was going, and I couldn't stay back in Delhi without my mother. So, we packed our bags and happily headed towards the village.

We would rent a car and put all our stuff at the back of the white Ambassador. My father was fond of those cars, Ambassadors. I always fought with my brother to sit on the front seat, and would end up sharing it with him. My father would tell us stories of our forefathers, how ours was the most royal family in the entire region at that time. I was fond of listening to the stories about our haveli, the treasures, my grandparents and our royal lineage. I grew up without any grandparents. I never saw any of them. My mother tells me that I was raised by my Naani for a few years, but I was too infant to remember her now. So my parents' stories were all I had of my grandparents. My friends in school used to boast about their visits to their grandparents' place in summers, and all I had were these beautiful stories I grew up listening.

I, being the youngest, never thought that I would be needed to learn about my relatives. It wasn't my job to entertain the guests from the village, or to know how many millions of cousins or uncles or aunts I had. All the gaaon related matters were dealt by my father - the relatives, the lands, the disputes, the functions and everything. So I never thought that I needed to know. On days when our colony's power was down, all the family would take mattresses and pillows to the terrace and arrange on the chaar-payis and khaats, where we all would fight to get the second best khaat or chaar-payi to sleep on - the best one was reserved for our father. I used to share mine with either my mother or my elder brother, I was afraid of sleeping alone. They used to be long nights, and on many of such nights, my father was posted on night duties in some corners of Delhi, and on the nights that he wasn't, he would assemble us all on the terrace and tell stories, he would quiz us on villagey terms, idioms and phrases. I never knew any answer but I would try guessing, and whenever I was a little close, my father would give me a one rupee coin as a prize. That one rupee coin was the incentive I needed, to know more about our gaaon. 

I was oblivious to my relatives in the gaaon for a long time, until today, when suddenly I have grown up. I am made to talk to people who are connected to me through my father's brothers or sisters or their sons or daughters, etc. It is such a huge khaandaan, I can never remember all of them. My mother tries her best to make me remember their names and their relation to me. My father used to introduce every one of them to me. He always used to say 'you should know your relatives, you will need to know them some day' and I always wondered 'when, when would I need to know them?' I think I know now. This is when I am needed to know. I miss my father because he's not here to introduce these people to me, and my mother can't do that because she's forced to hide herself from everyone for 4 months and 10 days. This isn't fair. I don't want to know any of these people, but my mother tells me it's important.

I didn't want to grow up. I never wanted all these responsibilities put on me. I was supposed to stay 'the youngest kid of the family'. But suddenly I am surrounded by all these people in that same white Ambassador, and I have no idea who are they. I don't even speak their language, I can understand every word of it, but I can't speak, so I just sit here sandwiched between two of my distant uncles (that's all I have picked up from the conversations) and I keep nodding when they direct a question to me, or I smile when they pass a comment on me, or on someone and they expect me to acknowledge. This car journey is the reason I never wanted to grow up. This is the reason I need my father, to save me from all of it, to evict the purpose of this journey. I shouldn't have to be sitting here, nodding and smiling. I wish I wasn't!  

I Quit.

I am simply tired. I give up!