Moor

There was a boy she adored. And he loved her right back. As the most unfortunate of love stories go, however, this one too had the stench of doom. 
It wasn't that he was a bad sort, for that he undoubtedly was. One of those poor wretches who just can't stand a 'respectable' life and get drawn to petty crime more often than not. Oh yes, he was a bad sort. But she loved him with a quiet conviction, that is so common in a certain kind of girl, that love would transform the duckling into a swan. And he loved her back in his own reckless way.

And so they decided to get married. He was to wait for her in front of the tiny chapel. And she was to tell her commonplace but respectable parents about the impending marriage and join him either with their blessing or without. The morning of Saturday, the 25th found Jack waiting patiently in front of the courthouse. He looked at his cheap wristwatch and found that it was ten thirty, half an hour past their appointed time. He felt vaguely uneasy. She was never late.

When eleven o clock struck, he was suddenly overcome with a fleeting, almost overpowering sense of loss that left him reeling. It passed almost instantly. He waited for another half hour and decided to go over to her house. They had probably locked her up in her room, the **** (Jack used a few choice words)! Well he..they wouldn't stand for it. It was their life wasn't it.

With an anger that grew by the minute, he finally reached her front door. And suddenly, it hit him again, that bewildering sense of despair. He blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it. He took a deep breath and knocked. He had barely raised his hand again, when the door was opened by her mother. Her mother. She had passed on her fine bone structure and that slightly tilted nose to her only daughter. The resemblance was uncanny. As his eyes travelled up her face, he got a sudden shock. Instead of the familiar soft brown eyes in the otherwise warmly familiar face, staring back at him were cold light blue eyes. He shivered involuntarily. Not because of the coldness of the gaze, but because the eyes were completely blank. It was like looking into a familiar house where lived a stranger.

He asked for Jill. She told him that Jill had gone to the city with her godmother, to enrol in a school there. The voice was flat, unemotional. He felt a rising anger and took a step towards the threshold. "I don't believe it", he said, "She would have let me know." Jill's mother looked at him silently. He suddenly shivered again. How could a pair of eyes make one face so different from the other. The laughing, warm face of the girl he loved was green meadows, poetry and happiness. What he was looking at was a moor, grey, lost. He asked if he could come in. Surprisingly, she stepped aside. He went in to the drawing room and saw a man sitting there. Her father. Jill's father didn't get up from the wicker chair. He stared at the young man standing at the door, hesitant but determined. He said "You must be Jill's young man. She's not here I'm afraid." He got up then and came towards him with a piece of paper. "She left you a letter. There's nothing for you here."

Jack took the letter. The handwriting was undoubtedly Jill's. It said I am leaving here because I will never be happy with what you want from me. I know I gave you my word but that was before all this happened and I realised where my true destiny lay. Please don't hate me for I will always love you. Jill

He felt bewildered, incredulous. He turned and started walking away. Something occurred to him and he turned instinctively. Jill's father was staring after him with a smile on his face. The smile was pained, feral, not quite sane. He felt a scream welling up inside him, senseless as the realisation that hit him. He drifted out of the front door out into the garden and his feet took him to the oak tree which had been her favourite. The earth at the root of the tree was loose, freshly dug up. He fell to his knees. He screamed but only a whisper escaped his parched lips. He whispered her name once.

The ground soaked up the whisper as did the oak tree, which had been her favourite.































 

paradise (found)

so right now i'm concentrating on the screen in front of me and i'm about to write about the very first thing that strikes me. alright the south city mall. this is the place where i spend half my existence (still cant call it a life) here at home. it's this luxuriant air-conditioned 'four tier-ed' mall with polished floors and gleaming walls which boasts of the impressive tag of the largest shopping mall in india.

it might be the fact that it has both a shopper's stop and a pantaloons,or the fact that it has the biggest brands in the marketing chain vying for the shopper's attention or the icing on the cake (note: 'four tier-ed' ; a term normally used for wedding cakes) - a mega 6-screen multiplex (fame adlabs) on the second floor, that draws the residents of the city to it like a magnet. consecutively, the incredible amount of traffic on the road on which the mall is located(prince anwar shah road) is a common and not-so-pleasing sight. for the same reason, it has been described as 'evil' rather than good for the city where traffic congestion is an increasing problem. "a necessary evil" say the die-hard shopping fans.

that, again, strikes me as weird. because the exorbitant (to say the least) prices associated with the 'big daddies' in the brand market make shopping impossible and even a harmless bit of 'window shopping' embarassing. ritu kumar's for example. i think the salespersons in question would pass out if an interested customer(?) ever entered the place.

one of the very few stops (:|) for a regular south city-goer is spencer's. the MRP tag has never looked sweeter. it is common to shop for groceries and general necessities there. there is also a candy stand with a multi-coloured display of brilliantly wrapped chocolates and sugared candies, that lures kids (and their hyperventilating parents) like the proverbial lorelei (sirens,who lured lost sailors unto jagged rocks to their doom). i say 'doom' because the prices are so extravagant that they should be illegal. :|

then there's my favourite stop. starmark. *sound of trumpets*
once you arrive at starmark, you stop for a moment to take in the sight. the breathtaking sight of books, arranged to mesmerize the eye. it's a world of colours. bags, games, remote controlled models of airplanes,cars - a child's dream. the average adult seems pretty bowled over too.
it is a favourite pastime of mine to pick a book and enjoy a quiet read on one of those quaint wooden chairs...a blissful couple of hours.

phew! all that typing's made me hungry. here's what i shall do. i shall take three consecutive escalators to the very top floor and go for a chicken arrabiata (pasta) at the food court!!
yes the food court. you can ask some random person for directions or do the smarter thing and follow your nose. the delicious wafts of the vast array of dishes you get there is hard to miss. there are all sorts of counters, categorized in terms of dishes (pasta, kebabs, etc) or in terms of regions (republic of china, state of bengal, state of punjab) complete with a fast food counter. though panipuri-s are much more fun when they're made with grossly unhygienic water and served in quaint leaky,leafy cups.

the thing that sets apart the new kid on the block from the rest of it's kind is the overtly pleasing layout of the place. the infrastructure is similar to that of a ship, with the showrooms on each floor built on the periphery leaving a clear space in the middle. there are certain locations where leaning against the railing, one can get a "titanic view" of the entire mall (reason i said ship). at the very least, there is no other mall that i have seen, where it's a common sight to see people generally standing around drinking in the awesome sight.

well you get the picture. :D. the south city mall is basically a (slightly misleading) picture of what the upper middle class of the city can achieve.

ISN'T IT INCREDIBLE

Isn't it incredible how three whole years seemingly whizzed past without anyone actually noticing? Well noticing maybe, but not taking little notes in a little diary as we all should've done. Maybe it wouldn't have hit us right at the end with the force of a mini bombshell if we had. Ah well, a week ago I was dying to get done with these stupid tests and right now I feel like I can sit through ten times as many if only to get back to the old place in august with the rest of 'em lucky bastards.

I swear it seems like yesterday when we were these weeny little first years, all starry-eyed about living on our own and with set ideas about what is cool and what isn't. :D. Attending classes belonged to the latter category and so we all missed classes religiously. Of course it wasn't as funny when the sum total of our cgpa-s barely made 7 but we had a shitload of fun anyway.

Since I set out to be nostalgic and all, shrestha(/sithlord/stompy) can hardly escape a mention. To those who dont know her (and that includes even the ones who were actually present during our first sem at BITS, cuz she hardly ever left her room and preferred to watch movies/documentaries/sitcoms in peace rather than mingle with her batchmates who, according to her, had the collective IQ of a tapeworm) she was the awesome-est neighbour one could have. Apart from the fact that she was a walking imdb and a brilliantly reliable source of movies etc, she was the weirdest, wackiest, whiniest (throw in positively-insane-and-proud-of-it) person ever and I can go on writing but remain woefully unable to express just how much I miss that git.
I still haven't entirely forgiven her for scooting off to stanford as she did after passionate declarations to the contrary but I don’t think she particularly cares. So*heart*anyway.

Then there's ramu(/rithika/psychedelicgames). She remains the only one on campus who I can call a best mate and the rest can be deduced from the innumerable testimonials that I've written her over the ages. And there's a whole other string of memories there as well. For instance the day when we set out for panjim on an activa(just the two of us) to get karan(her boyfriend) a birthday gift. There were these embarassing moments when we were panting and heaving trying to kick-start the damn thing (cuz the auto start-up wasn't working) and she goes like "um dude…you're pushing…you're supposed to pull"... And this time when we went to 'Snips' (some kickass parlour there) and we were informed that just the 'top stylist' was available at the moment if we wanted something done. This was addressed to me and I went "oh...so will the top stylist do her too? ". I swear that none of this is made up. :D.

Aaand shilpa. Darling little shilpa. And her tumour of a nose (after you get over your first impression that she's wearing one of those false ones that come with glasses and a moustache and come up with an inconsequential 'there there' (?) :D). And her questions (so one night we're watching this particular video and she goes like "what is he doing?" *moves closer to the screen and stares with mouth open* "what exactly is he doing?" :| :| ). Aand her ability to socialise (:O). Aaand a million other things that are escaping me at the moment.

Then there's teesta. I should add a series of :O-s before I start on her. This was our very first conversation (I shall just copy the stuff I wrote for the yearbook thing for the benefit of those who haven’t read it).

Washroom; third semester; random day; 11.45 pm:

-silence, broken only by the sound of toothbrushes at work-

Teesta: hi...why do I get the feeling that you don’t like me?
Tonnishtha: chokes on a mouthful of paste and turns a very interesting shade of purple.

Yes. That particular anecdote was to tell you that this total nutjob (I’m suffering for adjectives here) is outspoken to a fault. And if I were to list the maddest moments I've had on campus, it would undoubtedly be with this insane…no…INSANE female. But AWESOME FUN as well. :D. The sudden whims, feverish attempts to lose weight (she'd be cursing me for writing this :D), the truckload of issues she has and this insatiable appetite for excitement (and she damn well doesn’t care just how she gets it). :D.
* forgive the messed up punctuation etc*
I shall miss you loads dude. Allll of you. Ten points if you can guess how much.
Phew! That was long.

Well by now, whoever's reading this shit will have passed away/resorted to banging their heads against the wall/made it their life's sole mission to track me down and strangle me/… So I shall stop and sign off with the inevitable...... Weevil love ye long time

Could it BE more random

I feel like writing. However, I hate typing. Methinks I'll hire me a secretary. A male secretary with 'mussals' as they say here.

I'm at a tragic loss about what to write here. Call it a writer's block if you will..I like kidding myself that I am one. Anyway, point is, I generally write about random incidents in my sad, sad life -while I still call it that- however even though i would never have believed it possible, my life or the lack of it, is at an all time low. I'll fill you in on the details over the phone when I actually degrade myself to putting my number up as my status tag on gtalk; and that's like a diploma in desperation..the proverbial stage before you actually declare yourself ready to get betrothed to a goat. Why a goat? hmm..that might require some quiet deliberation..

Right, so my life is at an all time low. Some days back, the very important(or so I thought) committee I am a member of, decided that it didn't have the foggiest idea why it was there in the first place; I have been stalking our esteemed president to get hold of some frikkin board-pins for 'mindscape'- that has been on hold since 1888; my boyfriend has secret fancies about another man; I sometimes pretend that I'm schizophrenic just to get noticed; these dogs have started 'doing it' right under my window; I have random scary dreams about how I'm Mrs Dog and Mr Dog is 'doing it' under some poor innocent's window with Miss Dog.. a-and the "D" key on my keyboard ain't working unless I apply brute force.

I should curl up in a corner and die.

Oh an why a goat..I reckon it's my spirit animal. and dammit anD!

Random Dreams

"Blah another stupid dream" I thought glumly, cutting through the stratosphere on a firebolt at five hundred miles an hour. The initial feeling of exhilaration had worn off. So had the sensation of tipping over sideways but then i had always suspected that my right buttock was heavier than my left. And to all those kids who wanna zoom across the country on a broomstick, i must tell you, it's mighty uncomfortable.
Anyway, there i was thousands of feet above the ground, when a tongue of flame almost burnt that said body-part. I looked back to see my mum breathing fire and hurtling after me with a glass of milk clamped in her dragon-claws. "Typical", I sighed and flew faster, when there was a flash of colours and suddenly i was suspended near the ceiling of what seemed like a classroom. And without a broomstick. Which goes to say that i fell through the air at alarming speed landing on one of the chairs, making the teacher nearly jump out of his skin. "Blast" muttered AVK nervously, looking at the chalky blot and resumed scrawling on the board one hundred times -'i will not forget to slap myself before i go to bed for being an insufferable git'.. whoosh-phewwwp-whop.. that whirl of colours again and i was back on the firebolt, well not exactly on it, cuz this time i was perched on a boy's shoulder ruffling my snow-white owl feathers and thinking grumpily "this is going too damn far. Now I've actually hurtled down a few species" when suddenly a goose flew past, presumably flying south for the winter. Another one, close behind, flew alarmingly close to me and whispered urgently in my ears(?) "Wake up you ass. That mug full of water's not gonna feel pretty" and i woke up with a jerk just in time to see my mother poised with a bottle, about to tip a few drops on to my face.
She looked fairly irritated and a tad relieved. I was dragging my feet to the washroom when she called out to me "Your father's taken the firebolt dear and do try to talk your sister out of humping the goat..we really need the milk". I whipped around. "Firebolt??!!"....pardon me i've always been a bit slow..."bleeurrghh..since when do i have a sister?????!!!!!!" - and was about to sink on to the floor in a dead faint when my pet phoenix flew to my shoulder and calmly said "Wake up you perfect ass. That mug full of water's not gonna feel pretty".....

aaarrrrghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sprung up letting out a terrified shriek, almost upsetting my mother who was about to empty half a bottle on my head in an effort to wake me up from a dead sleep. She was beside me in a second, alarmed and concerned, assuring me that it had all been a bad dream.

It took a while to calm me down. When i was suitably reassured my mum got up to get me a glass of milk. At the door I called out to her "Mum er..I don't er..have a sister right..?" She turned around and gave me a beatific smile...

Mostly Random

That day i googled the definition of a blog.

A blog (a contraction of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. So says old wiki.

The word that struck me was 'maintained'. For God knows i cant 'maintain' anything (the word foremost in my mind was 'shit' but that would've been blasphemy).

My room for one. My dear corridoor, back in my dear hostel, at dear old BITS, reeks of smelly socks. Laughter would be inappropriate at this point. I'm possibly quoting my friends, who do not find the fact, that they have to rush to -and more often from- my room gasping for oxygen, even remotely funny.
I find this affronting. 'Gasping for oxygen'? So the oxygen within a few feet of my room smells of unwashed socks/dead rats/eggs gone bad. It's still oxygen. Need they be quite so unkind about it? Some people are allergic to washing. Angry-red-rash-allergic. Something they would do well to understand.

I do tend to go off the radar at times. Where was I? ah yes 'maintaining'. Once you enter my room, after you become immune to the smelly socks, you'll stop to admire my bed. Not that my bed is pretty. Just that it is incredibly neat compared to the rest of my room. My table practically lets out creaky protests every once in a while, on account of an incredible amount of things - from books, kettle(s) and table lamp(s) to month-old newspapers, fiction, paper bags with rotting contents, a couple'a spiders and a dying laptop - piled on it.
Then there's my chair that usually has last month's (and the month before that) laundry piled on its back. I usually have to sit on it to balance the said stuff.
And i'm not even getting started on my cupboard. The fact that a friend had to help me force the door shut, is hint enough.

Certain well-meaning people raised the question of hygiene. I had to google that too. *straight face*

RANDOM

Alarm clocks! What’s the point? No really. Cuz if there is one, a point that is, what’s the point of being able to switch it off anytime it gets too frikkin irritating. And then stupid people blame YOU for not being able to trip your way to class…which you try your best to do and suddenly CRAP! You’ve just been dreaming…

I need sleep. Seriously. It’s like the ONLY state where cgpa and stuff cease to matter. That DOESN’T happen. Ever. Here it’s like everything you do in one semester – laugh, crib, study, have fun, dance/ engage self in twiddling thumbs/ bitch about how you are simply talentless and blame it all on religion or politics... ; anyway all that’s penned down and ultimately succumb to stupid calculations on stupid computers (which is incidentally, a stupid machine which you can just shut down when you’re tired of it)… erm... I think I lost track … yeah so your life in one WHOLE semester, becomes a three-digit decimal. It’s so-o unfair.

What I did today? Oh nothing of much importance. Oh yeah I cribbed. Something about Cumulative Grade Point Average, all over a piece of paper, that people will probably be spitting chewing gum into in the near future. Poor, unsuspecting idiots.

You know what I really want to be? A dog. A BITSian dog (yes that’s a species). Just wag my stupid tail and people will feed crumbs off the table to the poor, dirty, dumb animal that hasn’t got a life. Dude! At least mine isn’t a three-digit decimal. And ‘dirty’ – I don’t take baths anyway.

And if life at Bits gets too boring, ooooh looky here, we have culturals!!! (yayyyy…NOT!). We have one for every occasion. Or no occasion.

Anyway it’s all just a battle between these nutty professors who try and teach us stuff (they don’t give a shit really) and us, these fearless souls who were oh-so-sinfully tricked into the engineering stream with false promises of minimal hard work. We refuse to be tamed though.
The hour long lectures (biology being a particular favourite) were spent in scribbling all over the last pages of my bio notebook, mostly about how the bio teacher in question was an evolutionary aberration (with little footnotes at the bottom and references to the bitsian evolutionary scale) or what would happen if all the hundred or so students in the lecture hall were to fart simultaneously. Etcetera.

There are students who actually listen though. Glasses in place, oil-slicked hair, they listen in rapt attention to that shitload of haloobashentonian (that's what it sounds like anyway) and take NOTES!! *expletive*

And so we lurched on. Without a purpose or meaning in life, when an angel from the heavens (sithlord this is you), put forth an idea that was going to change our lives. *pregnant pause*

The idea of putting up, that trash we had rambled all over the last pages of my bio notebook, on a blog.

However just then, we noticed a very interesting dog, spotted in all the right/wrong places and the idea that was going to change our lives vanished in a wisp of forgetfulness. Finite incantatem. The end.