Passion

The terrace offers a welcome solitude, broken only by the drone of planes passing overhead – a little too frequent for my liking. The cool, autumn breeze and the solitary darkness here are both missing in the street below. Light from a single street-lamp falls on the road, scattered through the foliage of the encircling trees – it plays tricks with the shadow of the occasional passer-by. And dancing to the flames of the lone street-lamp are scores of moths. They flitter in a frenzy now; most will be dead tomorrow, consumed by the very flames they desire so fervidly.

I am glad we, humans, have no such natural instincts to keep us bound and unable to explore. Free of such particular temperament that would lead us to a sure doom. But are we really?
What must it be like to burn in passion – to pledge it your very being and in turn be consumed by it… I wonder.

The Choices We Make

It all starts quite normally: a fascination for the foamy crests, forming and breaking and forming once again. It brings to mind the mariners of yore or even the present day surfers as they ride the tempestuous waves. And so grows a desire, albeit modest, to take a dip in those raging waters, to feel the sand being swept away from under one’s toes – nothing unusual about all these. On the shore, these waves seem so lovely and gentle – their roar subdued, crashing away harmlessly on the sandy coast. That is until, you accept their invitation and go deeper into their territory. There you feel their might and their unbridled roar. As the land slips away from underneath your feet, so does your sense of security. Those ‘harmless’ waves now have you under their power; buffeting you kindly one moment and tossing you around like a rag-doll figure the very next. Yet, there still remains a belief that you are very much in control and so you venture deeper. And it is there you catch the sight of a swelling giant moving silently your way. It evokes a response: it is that of awe and fear. Something inside you screams for the shore. But don’t give in just yet. Stay. Experience the thrill. And if you survive, which you quite often will, you would have lived a moment.

Life is immeasurable. Some do it in days, others in moments and no one can tell for sure whether a really old man in his peaceful death was a happier man than the guy who went out risking everything for what he loved the most. It’s all about the choices we make. It always has been. But more importantly, it’s about being happy with our share of choices through the lifetime.

Nitwit!

A lot many things come easier to me than posting on my blog as frequently as thrice a month. Nevertheless, finding one’s blog in the dark, forgotten abyss of others’ blogroll is not in the least comforting. Out of the desperation to post something… anything, and the inability to come up with anything decent, I have resorted to relating an incident – compromising my hard-earned reputation for the sake of some comments.

April Fool’s Day is quite over-rated. I mean, why would somebody bother to play pranks on the day when it’s most obvious? Well… unless you do it with panache. And here’s an instance of how it’s done (Don’t forget to check out the comments!). Not everybody, though, needs an exclusive day to make an oaf out of people. Now I’m no street-rat from Agrabah; I, nevertheless, am adequately endowed with street-smartness. Or so I liked to believe, until that fateful day….

One fine morning I alighted from the bus right at Atta, the heart of Noida. Completely preoccupied with crossing the road, I soon found myself amidst three ascetics. They certainly didn’t make for a very attractive sight, with their dread-locks and retro-looks. The  snakes wrapped around their forearm weren’t making them appear any less terrifying either. So, it was natural that I forgot all my courtesies and tried to keep as much distance as possible from those seemingly dead serpents. The ‘ascetics’ on the other hand felt it their obligation to bless me, and so it came to pass that I was found cornered against the barricades near the Delhi Metro construction site, fighting (pleading would have been more like it) my way out.

Their initial attempts to squeeze money out of me, met a formidable opposition. I cleverly fished into the deep recesses of my pocket to draw out some meager change. Unfortunately, a five rupee coin was the least I had (talk about getting lucky!). Quickly handing it over to those ‘sages’, I attempted to flee. The fate, it seems, had other plans! They asked me to draw out some ‘big bucks’. The leader of the pack vehemently swore by the names of a dozen deities that he had no intention of keeping that money. I, ofcourse, wasn’t going to be taken in that easily. Though, the philanthropist in me, well…. It would suffice to say that my hands withdrew my wallet and voila! There I was holding out a crispy hundred.  The Alpha-male apparently fell in love with my money because soon he asked for another hundred. Now I was definitely not going to give him that, especially after the way he had snatched the previous note! So it came as a surprise to me when I offered him another hundred (More reluctantly than the last time though). After all, from what he told me, he just wanted to pair the two hundred rupee notes – such noble intentions, by the looks of it! I guess, that really got them interested in me, beacause he began  inquiring about my ambitions. However lame it sounded, I managed to blurt out all the info he was seeking. Incidentally, His Holiness had been gifted with amazing sight in addition to his unconventional looks and exceptional eloquence. The five hundred lying inconspicuously in my wallet could not remain hidden for long. Needless to say, that soon passed into his hands, too. After asking me to repeat after him certain dumb lines, he touched the money to the snake’s mouth and poof! the seven hundred just vanished.

If you have watched cartoons, you may be familiar with those instances when a character realizes that he has been tricked. He has this pitiable expression of the revelation that struck him, and a thought bubble that has a jackass labelled ‘JACKASS’. Well, that is exactly how I was feeling. The jerk then handed me a rudraksh, which I suspect was just as fake as them and assured me that all my troubles are going to be consumed by that snake (just like it ate all my friggin’ money – a huge appetite, i might add!). All my threats and pleads were useless. As I withdrew from the scene, a wise rick-puller decided to fill me in with his tid-bits. I was enlightened to the fact that those rascals had duped a guy of one whole grand a while ago (So, I wasn’t alone!) and that he had to approach a nearby cop to recover the sum. Now, only the heavens above know, whether it was the mention of the cops or a delayed effect of my pleadings, but the guy heading the pack returned my five hundred rupee note. That infused me with a fresh desire to retrieve what was rightfully mine! As I insisted for the remaining balance, the guy just hushed me and started nibbling at the snake’s skin. That freaked me out so much that all of a sudden the two hundred began appearing insignificant. And so, parted our ways. End of story.

PS: My first P.S. for my blog. (sob!sob!)

PPS: (No, I’m not gonna write anything like: ‘My first P.P.S. …’) Please try and empathize with my situation before commenting – I was just too restless to get out of the situation. I was taken by surprise and outnumbered! Odds were against me!…

Never an absolution

Compared to any ordinary mortal, I have always found myself to be relatively free during such days as these – bearing threats of an approaching midsem or endsem. Unlike the afore mentioned lesser humans, scuttling around in a state of hysteria, I can be found in my room doing… ummm… nothing! This apparent disposition of calmness which people may mistakenly attribute to my superior preparations, is more of a stupor, owing to the lack of the same. It is the hopelessness of the whole predicament and the acceptance of the inevitable doom that renders me worthless.

Interestingly, this uselessness gives rise to an ardent desire within me to immerse myself into all sorts of new ventures, just as long as they aren’t even remotely linked to my acads. First, it was the Rubik’s cube that caught my fancy, and hence ensued an unsuccessful attempt of learning to solve it; next followed an addictive spell of DoTA. Unfortunately, these whims of mine, rise and ebb with the tides of time - that are the examination season. Conforming with the traditions, this time around, it is gonna be my blog and my neighbor, The Sage’s guitar (which, incidentally, has been taken on lease from a particular inmate of SB; and conveniently forgotten by both the lender and the borrower – to my delight, I may add!).

Sporadically scattered across such suspended states of my existence are moments of panic which find me with a textbook – in a feeble attempt to justify my presence in the insti. More often than not, such a delusioned state soon culminates into another one with me daydreaming or better still, dozing off – the whole nine yards! Consistent through all of this is a thought gnawing at my mind – slowly, persistently – consuming, within me, any desire to savor that moment. It is the acceptance of my need to study combined with the realization that everyone else is doing it; and my innate disability to follow suit.

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Piercing through the lulling melody of  the LOTR soundtrack, comes hurtling a string of curses and expletives of most ingenious kinds! Left in its wake, are the shattered remnants of a deathly silence that only moments ago haunted the narrow corridors. Someone just failed to make or break a new ‘Minesweeper’ record!  People stir – rudely awoken from their reverie. And a smug grin spreads across my face as I get back to finishing off this post. The world is so much more marvelous, if only you aren’t alone! The future lies safe still, with those of us who will defy all odds (and commmonsense!) and follow their hearts. Not everything is lost… yet!