Holiday season. Jingle bells. Happy (ala cold) carolers. Big beautiful christmas tree. Santa climbing in through the chimney. What bull! Excuse my profanity but seriously if you are an outsider you won't feel anything beyond that. I have been in my hell hole for 4 days 13 hours and 21 minutes and still counting. Alone, unaccounted for. My smoke signals seem to be my only way out. Help! I am trapped in an empty, vast space; with no rescue in sight.

Umm...Ok. A tad bit of meloD but then I have been here home alone, while my roomie is out in the wilderness roughing it up amongst bears, antelopes, and mosquitos. Nah she's just visiting her nephew in Pittsburg. But right now anything seems more exciting. Maybe I should just go take a walk. Too boring.

I just realized that blogging is just another way of connecting with yourself. All this seems to be a conversation with the inner me. Am I talking to myself? Huh?! OK. Time for that walk now.

Running away. It seemed something that happened only in bad hindi movies. One of my friends ran away from home. I think we were 15 at that time. But he eventually did come back. Even food at Kakey da dhaba becomes expensive once you're on the run. He told us all that he had been kidnapped! Hahahaha...we all laughed inside.

I am running away from life, from relationships, from responsibilities. I seem to have picked up an amazingly mind altering escapist attitude during my stay here. Ish says that we have been living a sheltered life all this while, we knew what we wanted, we decided our plan of action for atleast the next 15 years, while staying at home with mommy and daddy. And that was our presumption of having a clear mind and strong will.

The real test is when you are thrown in front of life with no back up ammo. It's all good we tell ourselves, we can do this. We do have our bachelors degree (somewhere between a pile of old notes and Victoria's Secret holiday catalogues); and of course living in a hostel did prepare us for the absolute worst didn't it. And then I gave myself a hard whack on the head. Seriously, how deluded was I?

It's not hard to choose to live alone, to choose your major, your job, your friends. The harder part is to live with those choices. That's life. Choices.

Being single allows you to be nonchalant. For starters you don't really need to care for others (read boys) anymore. This deliberate act stems from the fact that you are building up walls all around you. I'd rather be distant and cautious than get hurt for caring. Is that such a wrong thought process? All the experience up till now would seem futile in matters of the heart. So, I'd rather not be ruled by emotions and take the rationale side rule my life.

Guess it's okay to run away. HAHAHAHA...we all laughed inside.

I am just trying to figure.

A lot of things define who you are. The kind of lifestyle you choose to live, the friends you hang out with, the clothes you wear, the topics that affect you; and probably even what you study (remotely, in my case). But the best moments to discover yourself are those that you spend in solitude. Those few seconds of peace and calm that can be so overwhelming they show you what you were actually put on earth for. Life would be so short if we all knew exactly what we were meant to do. The adventure lies in seeking your path, pursuing your dream, and discovering yourself with each failure and success.

I have seen so many of my friends go through so many hardships. And yet somehow they have survived. I don't mean the senseless love triangle drama kind of atrocities. Stuff that are not romantic to envision. So many chai breaks passed before I realized my friend was actually sending out subtle smoke signals of distress. It affected her that the boyfriend she fell in love with, did not consider her good enough for marriage. Set aside the fact that she was a law school graduate, working at the Delhi high court. He still broke her down to believe that she was just not good enough (umm..this supremely intellectual being was a college dropout, who worked at his dad's business and later on married his rich neighbor, who by the way doesn't think he is good at anything *wink*wink). I initially thought that it was a rebound thing, but I had so much more to see. I saw a girl who was never to afraid to speak her mind (she actually told off our school's basketball champ- who was 17 then, when we were in the 7th grade!!), one who stood up for her friends, and who almost slapped a convent school girl (way too long a story that one!); turn into a crumpled emotional mess.

I saw my own cousin give up her dreams. The dreams we used to talk about late into the night, under the bed-sheets on hot summer days when we were kids. Her parents gave her a great education, but they never let her fly. She was trapped in a life with conservative hypocritical ideals for weights that kept her grounded. She wanted to get her first paycheck, buy her first car, and just be an individual. But one day it all took a backseat, and I could never figure why she'd let go. She got married, and today she spends her days looking after her nephew in the afternoons and playing badminton in the evenings with her husband. Far away from home and dreams, she probably is trying to build a new life and hold on to hope.

What is the point to living your life if each moment is monitored by someone else. When you sign over your reigns to your mom, your husband or some slimeball, you lose your definition. 

Maybe we aren't defined by the things that I said before. Maybe we lead life in perception and retrospects. It would be a whole lot better if these words involved self a lot more.

the bloody pitch.

They jumped out of nowhere and attacked. Shot a round of bullets aiming at their fear.

All the Srilankan team wanted was to play a day of good test cricket. They had their strategy planned for the match. They would put up a good fight, try to score a couple of hundreds, take a few wickets. What they did not plan was to be ambushed by a bunch of lunatics out to isolate Pakistan from the world in the most inhumane way possible. Srilanka decided to pull their team out of Pakistan as soon as possible. Six of their players have been injured, one of them shot in the chest. I just could not read the news any further. These players know nothing except playing their game. All they did was do what they knew best, play international cricket. And yet they were attacked, shot at and put in danger at gunpoint. All because a few people thought it would be the best way to grab the limelight. 

Pakistan is slowly being isolated from the world. And somehow they don't seem to really care. They act obnoxious about every thing they are blamed for. They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws. They were armed with rockets, hand grenades, kalashnikovs. It wasn't us, these are terrorist organizations acting within the country! Well stop the carnage then. It's your country, made up of your people, whom you have the responsibility of raising and disciplining. If a child strays wrong the first thing people do is point fingers at their parents. But what happens when people start acting out, threatening innocent lives, causing mayhem, corrupting young minds! Do we blame the government, or the individual's parents, the society or the heads of the religious sects (whom we supposedly should to turn to for some sorta light or path or direction or alleged pedophiles) ? Something somewhere just does not seem right.

I'd like to believe in the good of mankind. That somewhere in Pakistan a little girl prays everyday for all this carnage to stop. That a mom actually wants her kid to just go to school and learn the capitals of the world today. That people across the border are as affected by these terrorist activities as everyone else is. A whole country is looked down upon because of the acts of their people. But then again a country is made up of their people.

All they wanted to do was play cricket.

My binary palette

Have you ever wondered what the gray shades are all about? I keep hearing about them, in relative terms; about people the world just cannot seem to classify in either...I don't know...good or bad (this is the only human tendency I seem to possess) or some similar delusional sets. If there really were those in-between people, they would probably be the residue of an indecent, explosive, rendezvous between the angel and the devil!!

If a person stabs me in the back, I wont go 'Et tu Brutus!', but would have a more humane reaction like 'what the f***!!'. Who'd waste time analyzing the situation, the working of the devious brain and contemplating about second chances. Come on, in this busy busy world that we living in today, we barely have time for ourselves let alone trying to figure out which one of those "friends" you had over last night is bitching about you in the back! I can still be cool with gossiping (its just something we had engrained in us a very long time back prolly dating back to the Big Bang....how else would that theory have survived till now!). But having double standards within your group of friends never is. My roomie says though that you can't judge a person, based on one reaction. Heck why not?? Isn't that when they show you their true colors. Throw them in a no-win situation and watch if they slime there way out of it or put up a good fight. It doesn't even need to be something complicated, just little things that show what they really are made of.  Being able to call up your buddy to drop you off at the grocery store or to pick you up when your car breaks down or when you did a bad hair coloring job at 1 in the night (totally, hypothetical situation!) or when you are in the middle of a fight with that obnoxious jerk. You can't turn to random people for help, as it's embarrassing just to ask. When all else falls apart who does one turn to if not their friends? And how would we feel if they weren't there to pick up the scattered pieces of your misery (quite a utopian expectation). 

Every person is a binary coded signal. All 0's and 1's, they can be fluctuating between either but they are never in the half zone. But every one just gets one chance in life to take the extra shot, to prove to someone that they do care if you being dragged around like a dirty alley cat (ok, my references are getting weirder by the word). Sometimes it may not seem important going that extra length, making that extra effort but for someone on the other side would think the world of you when you do. Friendships do not just last forever, you have to make them last with your own effort and perspective. Over time you'd be a happy soul with your choices.

Wouldn't it be great if we had inbuilt radar receptors, to warn us before hand about whose going to be an arse, or whose going to make sure you get home alright after an especially drunk night; without actually having to go through the ordeal of getting to know a person. I for one would wait for those to come out on sale though, as I'd rather enjoy the show.

my first time

Of all the titles possible, the one I choose to begin my glorifying journey (is it a journey if its through cyberspace???) in the quest for the Greater Good (umm actually I just have nothing better to do!) is "My First Time". At the risk of sounding like a tease, I begin a rather dull introduction.

There have been so many first-times in our lives that I for one have started to loose track. The first time I blew my nose onto a newspaper that was handy (tip: not a very good idea), the first time I stalked an elusive crush (FYI those charges were dropped after I bribed him with a fruit and butt nut). The first time I read 'Love Story ', or the first time I tricked my lil sis into believing she was adopted. Aah, the pleasures of being a complete whacko. I stare into (cyber)space today and wonder when was it that we stopped enjoying these tiny emotions.

The first time I was at an international airport I was thrilled beyond my senses! I could not pull myself away from the endless counters at duty free. London-always wanted to visit that city, but had to make do with wandering terminal 4 at the Heathrow Airport (for 5 hours!!). Had my nose pressed against the Boots store, unable to go in (it cost me $4.75 just for water!!!) nor walk away. Burberry perfumes, Hermes bags, Harrods.....sighhhh...... My friend had to literally drag me away from the airport lounge when our flight was announced the second time.
The first time I smelt the earth wet after the rains, I knew there was a reason to live!
The first time I lost faith in a friend...though I was sloshed out of my mind to remember what happened, I do know that it felt like a physical blow. It sucks to loose a friend, and shattering to loose the best kind.
The first time I realized I was living all by myself, I was stumped. It actually hit me when I was doing my groceries. My roomie and I got into this debate over which was the best toilet paper. I realized, Shit! I am taking care of myself. Along with an exhilerating sense of liberation, I felt alone in a crowd.
The first time I had chai with my roommates at 2 in the night, we rambled on till the first rays of sunlight hit our windows. I realized that the best things in life come in small packages.
The first time I wrote a blog, I just wanted to keep going.....