Rantings of a midnight freak.

Late nights/early mornings, nights when you're supposed to be studying for your exams(supposed to, mind it) seem to be the most inspiring time to pen down just exactly things which have no particular relevance to anything at all and yet seem to be able to question the basic fundamentals of every inch of your existence. Sigh, these random spurts of wanting to write down every bloody thought that crosses your mind. You sit and watch a blur of happenings around you, and you suddenly realize that maybe, just maybe, life is not always the same when you view it from someone else's perspective. It hits you like a tornado, the realization. What all can we disregard in the name of reason? Does pain, suffering, inconvenience, things we cannot explain, or do not want to explain, things that cannot be quantified but be defied by logic always have to be given lower importance because we have convinced ourselves that reason governs our existence? Maybe sometimes, with all the reasons in place, something, some aspect of our being, is still greater than the obvious. Maybe everything we try to reason becomes inconsequential after we realize that somethings do not need reason but just acknowledgement. Maybe it is just the late night and the quite or maybe the uncomfortable feeling of questioning my existing beliefs, even though nothing has changed and the world goes on, some thoughts stick to you like a parasite. It'll drain my blood and eat my mind up, so ranting becomes essential. Its a comforting feeling, the illusion that maybe the thought will go away if its put on paper. No reason, juts the acknowledgement that absolutely random things make grave differences in your life. An uncomfortable acknowledgement. Believing everything has a meaning attached to it, nothing happens without reason and making yourself trust your logic, somewhere we forget that one day, life is going to drop a bomb on us, something unexpected and unreasonable and then we'll not be able to understand why or how such a thing happened. Humans(especially atheists) want to believe that everything can be explained. I am one of them(not an atheist, just a believer in reason) but all of a sudden, on this uneventful April night, I am rethinking my understanding. Maybe its just a moment, maybe it'll pass but for now, it is certainly leaving a strong, unanswered question with me.

Nirvana.

A feeling of detachment, the one which does not leave you hollow but with a queer sense of satisfaction. A feeling of being alone yet not that of lonliness. Obligations to none, submissions to no one and compromises for nobody. A sense of moving ahead, away from the faces that start looking all the same from a distance where the depth of each disappearing figure becomes unfathomable. Acknowledgement of the fact that others exist but the comfortable acceptance that their existence is inconsequential, for each person passing by is just a mere facade of the time and the place of his being. Letting people enjoy the liberty of making you a part of their lives yet not letting yourself be tied down to any such attachments. No achievement of greatness, no show of triumph. A peace underlying in your soul, your aim and purpose clear in your mind. Looking forward not to people or places but to events and happenings, thoughts and ideas. Freedom from cluthches of the past and worries of the future because the results of your actions become irrelevant. Present, just the present, the understanding of being alive just and exclusively for the moment at hand and doing complete justice to that very moment in present. Fear of no one and nothing, the sense of personal morality unaffected by the sense of collective morality. Judgements made with nothing in mind but the sense of an individualistic existence, with complete and pure honesty towards oneself. A life of solidarity yet of importance. A life nothing less than nirvana.

To Anonymous, With Love

Valentine's day and a rush of mush. Hearts everywhere, couples being lovey-dovey, singles being hopeful and 'its complicated' ones confused whether to celebrate or to mourn. Its amusing to watch all this from a distance when you have no sentiments attached to the day of 'celebrating love'. But the question that arises is, are we celebrating love or the constant circus of relationships? Sticking to pessimism, I am a little apprehensive about the existence of love. Of course, this topic is debatable. Some say I have never met the right person while others think I am just being myself. Whatever be the cause, I think love is an abused word. What I think we have are comparative degrees of liking- how much we like someone, more than others. It is nothing but when you find someone you like better than the other options you may possibly have. Its the same with food. You like the aloo chilli your mess provides you the best out of the vegetarian menu but when you have the choice of veg and non-veg, you'd rather have chiken biryani. If you really 'loved' aloo chilli, you wouldn't have cared about the biryani but then, we are all humans and love is just a word. So, when we like someone, we like them better than others till someone even better comes along and dreams of 'forever and after' are crushed and buried. Is that the reason there is a constant change in the relationship status of our generation? Have we become obsessed with the appearance of our relationships to the outer world? Has the idea of settling with one person for the rest of your life become redundant? I noticed something really disturbing this Valentine's Day(this could probably be due to my screwed up notions about possibly everything in this world). People sent roses to each other anonymously, through messengers. What happened to the old school way of being a man(haha) and doing the job yourself? I agree its sweet but for once, I would like to see two people who like each other say so without being confused. Which leads me to my next question- are we ashamed of being in 'love'? Have we lost love to relationships? Are we living in a promiscuous world? What we need is a more open, more honest way of communication. For what I believe, if there was true love, it wouldn't have liked to be dismissed under the name of 'anonymous'. All I have to say is, either we are going back to the stone age where nobody belonged to anybody or moving into a future where there is no forever and after, just an ongoing process of change in relationships.

What I learnt in my first internship.

Like in our school days we were made to write essays on our "first" experience of something (my first dog, my first award, blah, blah), I will now tell you my first encounter with an internship. Before a child gets into law school, he/she has the most puristic view of an internship, especially an NGO internship, considering NGOs are like the superheros, who, with 'non-governmental' support, try to save the nation. I, too, always wanted to work for an NGO which helped the deprived and worked towards the betterment of the society. So, when I came to know we had to work for an NGO in our first year, I was delighted. Finally I had the chance to serve my motherland! Before the vacations began, I asked a few seniors what to look for in an internship. Their answers like "yaad nahi yaar, main toh bas ek hi din gaya tha,certificate leke wapas aa gaya" and "actually, I don't remember. It was quite insignificant" left me confused. Weren't internships supposed to be the most important part of law school? Didn't people die to get into places like NHRC and UN organisations? I decided I wanted to work nevertheless, and searched for a few NGOs in my hometown and gave the details to the placement cell. After waiting for sometime, when none of the NGOs replied, I contacted them on my own. Finally, I got an internship at an NGO which works for water conservation (yes, so much for saving humans) and river cleaning. I still did not give up. I went to work and on the first day, the head of the NGO told me I was to do some paperwork and later, I will be sent for a field trip to see how the water conservation plants worked (I was excited out my wits, trust me). Since a month I have been doing paperwork and with 2 days left for my internship to get over, I don't see that field trip happening anytime soon. So, for around a month now, I have been handling the accounts of the NGO. The accounts run into crores and my maths is as good as my dog's, so you can imagine how much fun I had doing my job. Everyday from Monday to Saturday, 11 to 5, I suffered. I wanted to call some NGO to save me from the torture. But, there is one thing this internship taught me- patience. Doing accounts for 6 hours everyday, I feel like I have been trained to digest any sort of monotony life could offer me from now on. I can sit staring at a wall for an hour straight and trust me, I'll survive. I found out internships are overrated, first year law students are of no use to any NGO and I sacrificed my beautiful vacations to save water. Sigh.

Growing up or giving up?

I always thought life was not just a mere journey but an adventure. The least you could do to keep up with it was take risks. I was a firm believer of living each day as it comes. Life was never too planned out, never too calculated. I was impulsive and reckless and that seemed to work for me. Indulging in random acts of craziness just to make life more colorful, actions before thoughts and decisions before speculations- life was simple, easy. Times change, we change. We grow up. Life isn't all that easy anymore. Everything seems to have a purpose. No more impulsive actions, no more miscalculated decisions. We grow up to learn that everything should be thought about and the risks weighed. Everyone around you judges you by your actions, everyone wants to pull you down. So what do you do? Pull them down too. Gone are the days when you couldn't care less about the rest. Now all your actions are based on what they expect out of you. The child in you dies slowly and you do nothing to save it. After all, you have to grow up. What we forget is that with that inner child, we let a part of our soul die too. The energy which used to drive us, the faith that used to keep us from falling and the hope of rising again after a fall, all die slowly. We poison our brains with the venom of sensibility. Not everything has to make sense, but we often seem to forget that. I cried before my eighteenth birthday because I was upset I had to grow up. Everyone told me "its just a number". We all know it is not. I despise having to be responsible. I hate the fact that I have to make my own decisions and there seems no one who's got my back. Yes, I hate being a grown up. The unnecessary worry of the future and of things I shouldn't even care about gets to me. I regret letting it go, and I wish it would come back. That very part of me which made me the person I was.

My Happy Place

Whenever we are angry or upset, the noise of our thoughts is louder than any other sound around. We try to shut our mind up, try to distract ourselves with something else. But my mind is the exact place I want to be when I am upset because my mind is the only place where I can be completely alone.

I have this place in my mind which is my Happy place. A place where I am alone, a place where I can hear what my heart wants to say instead of the screaming thoughts of my mind. I always imagine it to be a beach, on a sunny day. The sun is setting making the sky a beautiful shade of red. I sit on the beach in front of my house. I know its my house because its exactly how I wish it would be. Small, white, with huge windows. As the sun sets, the sound of waves overpowers the sound of my thoughts. I settle into a comfortable silence, with no noise except of the waves. The sun sets and the night takes my breath away. A star-lit sky looks down on me. I have always had this fascination with stars and planetariums, and the sky is a real life planetarium. The sea is not scary, its like a lullaby, gently soothing me away. Cool breeze and my dimly-lit home behind me, it has to be the most beautiful place in the world.

I do not know if any such place exists. But I have decided to find out. If not, I would still I have my Happy Place in my mind :)

Teardrops and Insanity.

This is a dream I had a few days ago. Enough reason for me to think I am schizophrenic.

 I was touched by his invitation. He was a lonely man and he craved for some company. Yes, He was a little weird. Many people thought He was scary but I just perceived Him as different. A friendly smile or some times a little chat filled with awkward conversation would be a part of our daily routine. I think I was his only friend at the office and when He invited for dinner, I couldn't refuse, more out of pity than eagerness.

I was a wearing a blue dress and carried a bottle of wine to his house. I rang the bell and the door opened when a white puppy came out from nowhere and started taking extraordinarily huge leaps and jumped on me. The bottle fell from my hands and the wine spilled all over the floor. Suddenly, a girl of maybe 13 appeared and started cleaning the floor. Soon, He arrived and the dog and the girl were nowhere in sight. He gave me an awkward hug and invited me inside.
His house was tiny and the paint from the walls was peeling off. He kept many books and a desktop computer but there was no other means of communication or entertainment in sight. His dining area was small and congested and suddenly, it made me sick. I managed a faint  smile but something in my mind was telling me everything was not right.
He had gone to heat the food while I looked around his apartment. There was a lot of geeky stuff and CDs of bands I had never heard of. The furniture was old and dusty and the house was as if the windows had never been opened. The air was heavy and the atmosphere damp. I asked Him where the bathroom was and excused myself. I entered another corridor and as I was reaching the bathroom, the puppy reappeared and started running towards me barking loudly. The puppy was an off white color and at other times I would have considered him adorable but suddenly, I was scared. I started running towards the room. The puppy grabbed the end of my dress and I shook my leg hard to get it off. It flew and hit the wall. I thought I had killed it when all of a sudden, it started attacking me again. I got into the room and shut the door. The puppy kept scratching the door and howling. I stayed inside till everything was quiet. After some time, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door. He stood there with a confused look on his face. "What took you so long?" He asked. "I was just waiting for your dog to calm down so that I could get back to the table" I replied, not able to gauge his feelings as he was both amused and confused. "I do not have a dog" He said with a smile.

We were seated at the dining table. He had prepared a decent meal and served me some wine. I was still shaken up from the whole incident. I felt nauseous and uncomfortable. I just wanted to get out of that place. Then I suddenly realised that my dress was torn by the dog. I looked down and saw my dress was perfectly alright but there were marks of a dog's teeth on my right leg. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I went into the kitchen to fetch some water. My hands were trembling and I spilled some water on the floor. The same girl appeared again and started wiping the floor with a cloth. The girl was wearing a shirt and a skirt. She wore two plates and had extremely dark circles under her eyes. She had a sad look oh her face and was cleaning the floor with extreme dedication. She cleaned the floor spotless and turned around and went out of the back door of the kitchen. I went back to the dining table. He was waiting for me. He served us dinner and we ate in complete silence. He didn't say anything and I was too tired from the earlier events to think of anything to say. After dinner, it was time for desserts. He had made mango souffle. I gulped it down as all I wanted to do was go home. In my hurry, I dropped some of it on myself. I dreaded going to that room again so I asked him of there was another bathroom in the house. He told me to go through the backdoor and on the outside there was a bathroom. I went in the bathroom. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I was scared. I felt like a little vulnerable child. My tears fell on the bathroom floor. All of a sudden, I could feel something near my feet. I looked down. The girl was sitting near my feet and wiping the tears off the floor. I screamed. I looked at the door. It was bolted. My screaming made no difference to her and she continued cleaning the floor. "What..How.. How do you appear every time...?" I asked while gasping for air and crying loudly. "Who me?" she asked and looked at me with an innocent smile.. and blood dripping from her eyes.