Negativity Alert!

It’s been a grand total of 6 months since I stepped into the hallowed halls of my college. You would think most people would lay off asking questions once the initial days were done and over with but unfortunately or fortunately for me, they show no signs of letting up.

‘So? How is college going?’

‘Oh! Very good. I love the course. Having loads of fun’

*big smile*

Nowadays all I can manage is give a smile of sorts, nod and say- oh yeah its going good.

If you still haven’t figured it out. Let me put it in plain words. College exhausts me. Mentally & physically. I wish..time would just freeze & I could go on an indefinite vacation before I jumped back into my class room.

What do I call this? The 6 month itch? Being sick of college?

 There have been a lot of things I’d been warned about. Ragging. Cat fights. Bitchy females.  Two faced people. Trouble with seniors.  Deadline races.  Boring lectures.  Tough paper correction.  End semester troubles.  And this, is just the beginning of the long list.  For the warnings, I can’t thank these well meaning people enough but they left out a lot of other stuff.

Cutting to the chase. College can be a highly disorienting experience. It is, I’ll admit, an unusual word to describe what is usually billed as one of the happiest periods of your life, yet it describes my state very well. Actually, more than well.

I stepped into the phase-2 of my studying period with values and ideas of right & wrong straight from a book that would make a prim & proper teacher flush with pride. No drugs. No physical relationships with a random boy friend. No bunking tests. And to start with I was somebody who seldom questioned the belief system I was brought up in. The foundation, I surmised must be strong. Like, really strong. Few weeks in here and BAM! The foundations begin showing the first signs of giving in. Suddenly all that seemed right isn’t all right & everything you swore was wrong is not bad.

Doing drugs doesn’t seem all that terrible now (Marijuana doesn’t  screw with your medulla, so it’s not all that awful is it? Besides doing weed is something that every second person does ). Kissing a guy doesn’t seem all that bad. Bunk a test? Hell. I’ve already done that! Eating out. Late nights. Parties. Hopping from one social do to another. When you’re at it..when you’re in the groove- Its fun. A LOT of fun.  But you get home. Collapse on the couch, close your eyes and the random scenes flash like a movie trailer, all you can think is- wow. Was that really you? Is this how you usually behave?

It’s not the greatest feeling, when you look at yourself from your highly critical & judgemental eyes.

Add to that a healthy dose of paranoia. It’s a sickening & a crippling thing to lug around. Every stare on the bus, a pair of eyes that rested on you a minute longer than necessary at class, a hair out of place, smudged eye liner, the feeling that people are talking about you or the fact that you aren’t cool enough. Too long a list? Try living with it every second.

A mind with all this is second only to a schizophrenic person.

College is a wonderful place where you discover yourself, where you can come into your own, a place where you could kick start a new beginning. It’s also a training ground and an initiation of sorts into the real world. So, I wouldn’t be very wrong if I say college treats you with the gentleness of a tsunami. I wish I could scream out that life is all beautiful & fair but well the truth is you need to fight your way out.  And until that fight is over,  everybody will have to simply stick around.

Rambling? Nah. Too lazy to come up with a title. Just read.

Its one of those grey days, also called Saturday, when I have nothing to do. Weekends are good. Agreed. But weekends are good when you have PLANS. Something that’s sorely lacking in my Saturday thanks to my curfew issues.

 No particular aims or goals to be achieved (back to college syndrome) ,no new books that tempt, no songs addictive enough & essentially I’m stuck in a state of being sleepy but not being sleepy. Yes you read that right but you need to be 17 & in college to understand the human state of inertia.

I decided to shake myself out of this  lethargy after I found myself staring blankly at the cloudy sky. Trust me, nothing can scare you more than knowing the fact that you have the ability to just stare blankly into space for a solid 15 minutes. So to get out of this apathetic state of nothing I dragged myself to the laptop in an effort to find a way through the laze maze. And so Voila! I’m putting up an article about nothing in particular. It’s a first for me. I’m a chronically opinionated female. A bane & a boon. I feel passionately about a lot of things, unfortunately today is one of those days where my incoherent rambling is flowing into paper (or screen, in this case) and so I hope you would all bear with me (an escape route: Notice that little x on the top right?)

So what’s on my mind today? Likely Facebook statuses. An imaginary story. The crush. The event.

Four things. Ah. So mind isn’t as nauseatingly lazy today after all. *smiles* The first expression on my face since I woke up 4 hours earlier. My phone vibrates with unexpected force.

‘when’s XXXX’s event? You going?’

‘6:30- 8:30. And nope. Curfew issues.’

I go back to staring at the screen. I can see a ‘you’re-a-young- girl- get- up & get- to- work’ lecture over the horizon.

 Instead.

Somewhere through the haze I hear my mom say- Put on some music.

Is this my escape route then?

I blink. (Blink = Surprise. Is that an expression?)

 I smile wider.

Oh yes.

A Post

I came across this amazing post on Yahoo answers a few months back and i felt I had to share it with everybody possible. Unfortunately, i don't know who was the originator of the posts. Have a look anyway-
Question 1: 

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three 
who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she 
had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? 


Read the next question before looking at the answer for this one. 



Question 2: 

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. 
Here are the facts about the three leading candidates. 

Candidate A - He associates with crooked politicians, and consults 
with astrologists. He's had two Mistresses. He also chain smokes and 
drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day. 
Candidate B - He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, 
used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening. 

Candidate C - He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't 
smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife. 


Which of these candidates would be your Choice? 



Decide first, no peeking, then scroll down for the answer. 

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Candidate A: is Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
Candidate B: is Winston Churchill. 

Candidate C: is Adolf Hitler. 

And, by the way, the answer to the abortion question: If you said 
yes, you just killed Beethoven. 
Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think before judging 
someone. 

Never be afraid to try something new. 
And in case you never saw this one...... 

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 
500 employees and has the following statistics: 
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse 
* 7 have been arrested for fraud 
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks 
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses 
* 3 have done time for assault 
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit 
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges 
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits 
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year 
Can you guess which organization this is? 

Give up yet? 
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group 
of idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to 
keep the rest of us in line

Student of the Year- A long Review

I'll admit right away- I adore meaningless, logic less, Candy floss movies, i especially love movies with amazing visuals and loads of romance & drama. So it was no big surprise when i made a mental note to myself- You are going to watch Student of the Year.

When the trailers released it looked like how each and every KJo movie looks like- Picture perfect. I finally managed to sneak my way into the theater yesterday, and its with great happiness that i report that i wasn't in the least bit disappointed.

Now for the story- Rohan Nanda is the resident rich brat at St.Teresa's, needless to say he's The Guy every male student on campus aspires to be and every girl hopes to snag, but well, like most rich-talented-good looking guys, he's taken. Taken by? Meet Shanaya Singhania, the school's fashionista, with looks to boot & oodles of money, she's undoubtedly the most popular girl . She's Rohan's girlfriend, an extremely taken for granted girlfriend of four years.  The beginning few minutes of the movie make it plenty clear to the viewer where the relationship is heading (is that a spoiler?). Enter new student- Abhimanyu (Abhi) Singh. He's (another well done up) a handsome-hardworking-intelligent-sanskaari middle class boy. Do i need to go further? Predictable is what one would call it but you can't care less because the dialogues keeps you engaged. Oh my god, The dialogues! they are clearly the backbone of the movie along with stupendous acting on the part of all three leads- Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra along with Rishi Kapoor as Dean Vasisth & Ram Kapoor as Ashok Nanda.

 Okay back to the story- Rohan and Abhi get off to a rough start, the former being part of the Tata group and the latter being part of the Bata group. The rough start however falls into an easy friendship, an easy friendship between two equals. Abhi is driven and focussed (he's a sports scholarship student) he wants to grow up to be another Ashok Nanda or in other words a filthy rich & a damned successful Business tycoon. Rohan on the other hand dreams of being a rock star, a dream that is a big thorn in his relationship with his father & brother. Shanaya? well she's a love starved young girl, stupid but sweet, very sweet & well meaning. The first half of the film is an exhibit of the two boys' bromance. Its fantastic, i have to admit, its typical rich boy fun & banter but nice to watch nevertheless. Shanaya is a dedicated girlfriend but she begins to question her unswerving loyalty to Rohan who has never really appreciated or understood the whole worth of it all. His playboy antics and flirting with her rival, the head cheerleader Tanya (former child star Sana Saeed) has her constantly on the edge and not to mention- insecure. And so the long suffering girlfriend in an effort to get Rohan's attention begins a little lets-make-him-jealous-game with Abhi, with his consent of course. The game as expected has consequences that puts both Shanaya  and Abhi in an awkward situation. Soon enough, the Student of the Year competition rears its head. This trophy, the brain child of the charming & very interesting Dean Vasisth, the school's marvellously Gay principal manages to tear apart newly forged friendships and doesn't spare the old ones as well. The competition is actually pretty stupid and superficial. The end is very very well written and acted out. Its not one expected, but the angst of a lonely student and the havoc it wrecked in all the other students' life is rightly highlighted and not swept under the carpet like how you'd expect in a candy floss movie. I wish i could tell more, but I have in my opinion been quite liberal in my information as compared to other reviews.

Before i finish off however there were few areas i didn't quite agree with. Shanaya the lead female, as i have already mentioned, is stupid, she doesn't seem to have any particular ambition in life. She's pretty and dolled up and spends most of her free time fussing & getting confused between the two boys. She is treated like a commodity most of the time, a trophy to be won. Her best friend Shruthi is a tom boy, another stereotype. The movie itself thrives on stereotypes and cliche'd situations but again that's what makes the movie enjoyable. The makers have largely pandered to the average movie goers taste by not over complicating it but at the same time they manage to give attention to the more subtle details that make the movie real-  Rohan & his father's relationship, how he breaks free of the shackles of being Ashok Nanda's son and Shanaya & Abhi's under- the radar romance. As for the chemistry, Rohan & Shanaya had more of the sizzle quotient, Abhi  Shanaya not so much, maybe because their love is never in your face the way it is with Rohan & her.

All in all, the movie is pretty fabulous. Yes, my review has been full of superlative adjectives but that is mostly because even the movie has been made on a scale where only such words can justify the work that has gone into making it that way. The one memory that i walk away with is those enjoyable moments between the two male leads and as i leave the movie hall 'asi vele' plays in my head & I'm yet to kick it out.

A Thing called Broken Friendship

I look into my slam book. One of the first entries read- “The girl I met on the stairs…

And there I float away to another time, two years back. It was my first day. My first day in my fifth school in ten years of school life. I’d gone through this rigmarole four times before but why- WHY did it have to be so difficult each & every time? With jellybean legs I walked up the stairs, walked to the room that was to be my class for the next  one year. And there occurs the most delightful co-incidence, I meet a girl uncommonly pretty with stringy hair also walking up to the same place. We meet, we smile, we talk. She’s a newcomer yes but she already knows a bunch of girls and yes (much to my disappointment) they are in her class.

“….You looked like a complete tension pandi (tamil slang) walked up to me and said “do you know where 11G is?” I was quite happy I had company to walk  with up to my class. And since then, I’ve never got rid of that company..”

Yes we became friends. Very thick ones at that. We talked about nothing but laughed about everything. We got into trouble, we got sent out, never did our homeworks, flunked every now & then, hated the same things- Physics & Math. We spent hours on the phone, talking about nothing in particular, laughing, giggling, moaning, hating & loving. Life was- ah- idyllic.

“…there are just so many unforgettable fun moments we had with you. We guys bring out the worst possible childishness in each other. Pushing each other off the benches, scribbling in each other’s books, you trying your singing skills in the chemistry period and earning us both bad names from the teacher…”

We had tons of fun. Loads of it in fact, it was a happy uncomplicated friendship. We hardly had anything in common yet we could relate. More than a best friend she soon became my sister and thus proclaimed my facebook  page. As 1 year passed, our all important 12^th grade arrived bang into our lives in all its grim seriousness. But 12^th too passed and it was more of the same, almost, and I was happy. What more could I ask for? I remained in all my stubborn non serious glory, refusing to study the subjects that bothered me. I had a choice though she didn’t. She climbed up the ladder, scoring higher & eventually migrating to the ‘toppers section’. But all this while we remained best friends just like sisters as we told everybody around. Boards came and went and then came our Farewell. It was a bright sunny day. We sashayed around in our saris got bored and people watched, in our trademark style we rolled around laughing, yelled, clapped, screamed and behaved in a manner highly unbecoming of soon to be college girls. The scorching march sun shined its way through the tree leaves. In the crazy heat we smiled and beamed into the cameras and all the while knowing we would hold each other during whatever adversary came our way. Who gives a shit about results? And so school came to an end and there were no tears. We won’t be together for college but so what? We had facebook & we had mobile phones

When you are fresh out of school, in your opinion nothing can get you down or unhappy except for the disgusting thing called marks, in your opinion every friendship forged will stand the test of time, in your opinion every person who meant the world to you probably thinks the same about you. And like many a fresh faced school graduate, I believed the same. But as it happens, even the best things come to an end. I went away from home, away from a place that was the hub of all social activity thanks to which we couldn’t hang around. Anxious to kick start vacation we made plans over the phone swearing to go through with it. Perhaps I should have noticed the gaps between the calls, the way it increased over time. Maybe I should have noticed that I enjoyed her company but did not crave it. She went out with her other friends, I didn’t mind. She went out with other people whom in my opinion she hadn’t spent even a quarter of her time with in school. I still am special I told myself . But as time flew and as results came and went, temper began to fray on my end. What about the plans we’d made? What about the movies we were supposed to watch?

In the 3 months we spent away from each other we’d inevitably grown apart. She had a boyfriend now, that took her time, trips to her native place, that took her time, Applying for colleges, that took her time. The hi’s on text had come to an end, we both had issues with our ‘phone balance’, we both -in short- had time for everything but were too busy for each other. Love, life, passage of time, college, everything we thought wouldn’t come between us did end up interfering and by the time any of us realised the damage it had created, we had drifted apart. Too far for anyone or anything to bring us back.

“…its quite weird to think within few months we  will be sitting beside someone else and sharing lunches and laughing and calling them our close friends. We just have to console ourselves by talking philosophy-This is life..”

Well so that was life. Was our friendship never meant to be? It came to an end the same way that it began. The fire started fast and burnt bright but in the end there just wasn’t enough fuel. Maybe there wasn’t enough time for us to establish it on firmer grounds or maybe I just wasn’t understanding enough. There are plenty of ifs and buts but that’s how it is for everyone right? Life isn’t black and white, there is no right or wrong, all you could do is make your decisions based on your instinctive assumptions. And that was what I did.

“..Hope you get good friends who make your life beautiful. All the best, for everything. I’ll surely miss you, with your wide smile waiting to greet me everyday.

I love you, my sister…”

And so her entry came to an end. Below was her sign dated 22.11.2011. We met for the last time 3 months back. We did the usual..ate ice creams, talked and gossiped and yes we laughed. Little did we know it would be the last time we met. In a way that must have been a farewell to our 2 year long relationship. It didn’t deserve a drama, it didn’t deserve a fight, it died what I know is a clean death. Just the way I prefer it to be. As winter fast approaches I think back to those days of summer and the light that filtered through the leaves and above all the moments we’d spent together.

Adios my friend.

My Personal Heaven

There are these wonderful moments when we stumble upon happiness. And we find it in the most unexpected of places. Here's my story & how i found mine.

I didn't make it to my dream college, my dream college is the best in the country, it has acres & acres of land & has some of the best brains in the country. Before my entrance exam that would decide my fate (in or out) i closed my eyes & prayed hard. I want to get in. I want to get in. I want to get in . 

But see, there's this thing they say about how stuff happens only if God wills it (yeah I am a believer) & only if its in his plan. I suppose this college didn't figure in his plan for me. So the nice person he is, the let down he gave me for not getting in was easy to bear- he gave me a wonderful second option, and the pick of three colleges. So i again closed my eyes & prayed hard. Please let this have been the right choice. Please let this have been the right choice. Please let this have been the right choice. My right choice, i was told by the people who understood its worth, was the right decision. My new campus was..well, tiny but green (thinking positive). Brain power? Man, it scored. And scored high. The first day was good, satisfactory. Nobody came there because it was their dream place. They came there because they were reasonably good students & had a wide variety of interests & needed a place to manage it all. We 35 students were an odd bunch. Some of us were miss goody-two-shoes-es, some punkish tattooed chics or ponytailed guys and musicians, writers, foodies & vilonists. Basically we were an interesting melange of people & yes all of us under the same roof. 

You know how they talk about being able to fit in. Well i fit in the weirdest of places, i won't say i found a niche, i didn't, but i did meet wonderful people filled with warmth & brains. They have their opinions -wacky, weird & sometimes downright humorous/offending (depending on who is at the receiving end). After years of being in intellectual wilderness, this new place with all its fresh ideas & theories & hobbies, is my personal heaven. Its just been 3 weeks and perhaps too early to shout out your love for your college to the whole world. But its just that acceptance & happiness don't often go hand in hand & when it does,  its the best thing that ever happened. 

 Yes, my college is still not awe inspiringly huge, but the bright red Gulmohars, the ancient wisdom tree & the stone benches add to its scholarly air. My classmates aren't the brightest students in the country but neither are they factory manafactured engineers fresh off the assembly lines. They are strong opinionated individuals. Remember how things don't work out because there's something better? Well, the course I had aimed for is rumored to be shutting down starting next year even though the Institute is the best in the country & attracts the brainiest of brainy people. Sometimes failures happen because there is this one bright spot of happiness (even success) to be discovered & the universe doesn't want you to round the corner before you find it.And this is the single most important lesson I've learnt this past year, So here i am a brand new college girl, feeling my way through my new life & charting my own little pathway in the big bad world. And the journey so far has been pretty incredible.