Lost in Time

Not just another result. It meant a lot. The morning was a threshold - this way or that, it had to be decided. A few clicks and fewer websites. A silent walk back home.

Much (melo)drama has been played out since then. Tears, anguish, intolerable silence, smothered passion, the voices which express solidarity, the voices which express rage, the voices of consideration, the voices which betray agony and pain - everything is now spent. The delusion has succumbed to its own greed.

It makes me wonder with what ease I have slipped into a comfortable existence. As if an injury never left any wound.
The voices never made much sense, except that each utterance prickled me which later on saddened me. The sympathy was never conveyed as each expression betrayed the hypocrisy of it all.

The urgency of the present bemoans the desperation of holding on to it. The past, though not dead, does not want to wither away. It exists only as an old ghoul in the attic which still peeves me sometimes.

Lately, the hope which future gives has been too strong to let the past linger. The commitments of present have been strengthening and the will to do that even more so. Every engagement has fuelled the idea that what has happened is just another event. The people might have noticed and made judgements. But that hasn't changed the event in any way. The significance it transpires is determined by my own doings and not by others. The passion was for me and the bearer is also me. Others' affectations have no relevance. The self learns much more in such times than it does in happier ones.

There is always fear which is at work in such situations. Being a necessary evil, it helps in escaping the present with any possible diversion. Imagine a condition in which the mind is not burdened by any commitment. The fear will grow like cancer and collapse every possible order. Thus, it works quid pro quo, helping, ironically, in creating an ordered way of life. Perhaps, it is this fear which has helped me move on with the way things are, mitigating the hopelessness left behind by past.

All this balderdash may not convey the central idea. Griping about it makes no sense. I have achieved no catharsis through it. But it does help me relieve some frustration, allay some fear. Another time will call for a more positive outlook on the situation. Till then I let it sail.

Comments!

I saw comments on this blog which I thought I had left forever. I was pleasantly surprised that a few people had taken the care to wade through entries which were gathering e-dust. I have decided to keep this blog as it will stand to remind me of the silent spectators who approached it but didn't mind the junk or the stink of the same.

It was a pleasure watching....




I started the week with the romance film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. My friends had been raving about itsince weeks. But I didn't find the movie that good as it was promised to be. It turned out that it is a 'moody-film'. So you should watch only if you are in a romantic mood. The whole concept of running after memories and hiding Clemency in obscure memories seemed too far-fetched to me. What I mean is that why run after a girl who has already got you erased from her memory? The whole exercise was futile in my opinion. Another point is that the director should have focused more on the psychological tangle Joel was in. This should have been dealt with more seriousness. Except during the background song by Beck, there was no instance when I felt sorry for the poor fellow.

I loved Cinema Paradiso. There is no other word I could have used instead of 'loved'. It is a beautiful tale of a child who grows up in a small town in Italy, appreciating cinema and learning how to show cinema to others. After he comes of age, his mentor convinces him to leave the small town in pursuit of a more fruitful career. Many years later,the young boy who has matured into a famous man returns back to his village. Some scenes were beautiful. When he come back and knocks at the door of his house the mother abruptly gets up holding the needles in her hand and walks toward the door crying, "It's Toto!". The camera focuses on the unweaving sweater. It showed how eager she was to meet her child whom she hadn't seen for the past 30 years.

Sleep job

It is known that people can do weird things while sleeping. Some talk, some walk, some snore(for that matter) and some sleep peacefully.

I remember many instances of my parents telling me about wild tales which I narrate in my sleep. The last such incident dates back to my tenth class. Parents were amused by what I had ranted to them in my sleep. I also remember that each such uncanny occurrence embarrassed me deeply.

Another thing I have noticed is the way people react to certain situations immediately after waking up. The reactions can be amazingly funny and at times totally preposterous. My earlier roommate was one with an extremely weird reaction. Actually he didn't react at all for the first ten minutes. I can say that because I have a lot of experience of waking him up. Another friend of mine can't help feeling groggy for about 15 minutes. While some of them become very attentive with eyes wide open others tend to be scared if you get a little aggressive.

My own reactions are varied and depend upon how much I have slept. At times I am very attentive and tend to stare hard at the person. My behaviour at that moment is a function of the how sleepy I felt while falling asleep and how badly I need to sleep at that moment. I can remember shrieking at some time as well as laughing or behaving quite normally at other times. But this is just one side of the coin. I must say there have been instances which suggest a different story.

In the last semester a neighbour dropped in to return me a book. I was shocked. I asked him that how he got that book because I didn't remember giving him the book. He said that he had come the previous night and I had been asleep. I had opened the door and given him the book. More shock. I gaped at him and it seemed incredibly stupid to believe such a thing. I tried to recap the events of the night before and this just didn't fit in!

This has happened with me more than a couple of times. May be I am in some different state of consciousness. In that I can only respond to such external stimuli and can't be aware of any other detail. Sometimes it makes me feel weird.

Living by Proxy in the city of Djinns

The decision by authorities to provide every student with a proxy of about 200MB/week has been welcomed by one and all. And why not? Who wants to waste minutes without successfully opening even Google? The last three semesters have been tough for me in the hostel. Being an avid Wikipedia aficionado, the curtailing of basic surfing rights pinched me very hard. After all the authorities boasted about providing the students with Internet and LAN facility, though the former had no utility whatsoever. Only if you were a Computer Science Engineering student, did you get a paltry 100MB per week.

I just completed City of Djinns. It was very heartening to know so much about Delhi, considering that I've spent half of my life here. I realised how ignorant I have been about the city which has such a beautiful and justifiably the most tumultuous history. There are only a handful books which have captivated me by the first page itself. In this the author meets a Pir(a Sufi saint) who tells him about the djinns of Delhi. When the author asks whether he can see them or not, the Pir replies that of course we can say them . But the only reason we don't see them is that we would run away in fear and disgust.

I haven't been able to read any book lately. Apart from The IITians by Sandipan Deb, and another visit to Eloor there has't been much work in this direction. The best part of going to Eloor is that I take a meal at one of the outlets, be it McDonalds, Bengali Sweet Corner or Barista. I generally prefer going to Eloor with a friend. The opinion of two people makes it better suited to select the books(of course two is company, but here three is not a crowd).

But sometimes it pinches me when they are reluctant to eat out. We hardly ever venture out of the campus. At those occasions also, they don't feeling have anything because it costs. Why do people have to be so frugal? There are times when it completely pisses me of. What I don't understand is that people consider eating good food as waste of money. There is not enough sense in them to differentiate between proper and improper use of money. It is good to be careful while spending but it's equally awful to be stinkingly(pardon me but I'm venting my anger) stingy. They rather wait for others to pay for them even for a small meal and the worse thing is that they don't have any sense of returning the favours later.

Criticism apart, I've discovered many new eating joints during the past two years. Though I may crib but more often than not I enjoy hanging and eating out with friends(where ever we may go). There is considerable excitement when going out with friends and the nonsensical discussions we have really set the tone of the outing. Also you tend to devour more food if you are sitting with friends. I've noted that I'm capable of eating only 3 naans but with friends, at times, I can have upto 5 naans! Naturally, with more naans one needs more sabzis and daals. So you can well imagine the gluttony I indulge in.

Before the Devil Knows, You're Dead turned to be a dud of a movie. The director couldn't focus on any particular theme or character. At times the plot lost focus and the movie became a drag with its slow sequences which failed to convey the spirit of the plot.