There isn't anything crueler than not knowing why you are where you are. Being lost possibly comes with a sense of loss. Part by part a little is chipped off. One day my shadow is half its self.

Cal trip

Back in school after an amazing time at home. Yes, it sucks!

Cal was about meeting old friends, cribbing about Oly not being the same again after the ban, meeting relatives, a small city walk (few photos here). And then stepping into this room, the six wasted months took some time to recall. Football has been the high point, winning an inter college cup, some press coverage and some general feel good stuff. Lows, well...

Slept like a sleep deprived student from A on the plane. (Yes, that ought to be a new expression!) Campus seems to gearing up for the end of the month sports meet against B. Somehow over the years that's the one constant thing that feels good. Great exercise and the best way to take your mind off things.

Cal. is delightful just as always! Standing at Esplanade I heard one passionte michchil speaker blame the recession and the general gloom over the world on Buddhadeb (chief minister). I still don't comprehend metros not running on Sundays; a public transport system taking a day off! Every bus I boarded they blasted the driver for either driving too slow or too fast. One day I saw a mini bus driver stop his bus cause he saw this clown of a young couple who couldn't cross the road. So he stopped, stuck his head out, raised his hand and tried to stop the other cars coming so that these two idiots could cross the road, while the bus full of passengers waited for these two to cross!!!! And they weren't even going to take the minibus! Just two random strangers. Looking at the number of micchils we have, I wonder how there is so much we have to complain about. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad, but surely we're a tolerant lot to have demonstrations everyday in the busiest of city roads.

All in all I can't substitute the place for some other.

It was a great trip. I want to do a city walk thing badly. I love going around cities. Bombay has probably been covered most extensively. Delhi in bits and pieces managed to turn me around from my previous prejudices about the place. Calcutta is a treasure trove. Maybe next time.

I put on my tennis shoes. Slowly and deliberately. I picked up the key and the lock, pulled on the jacket and stepped out. The chill in the air hit me the minute I opened the door and instinctively I tugged the jacket closer. The key turned twice and the door was locked. Running down the stairs I recalled how I suffered from this inability to walk up or down stairs. I always skipped a step, running up or down the stairs. I don’t recall any particular moment in the past from where to source this anomaly from. Nor could I associate any deep seated memory, the kind that explains strange fears we all have.

I was outside the building by the time these thoughts finished their journey through my head and the throbbing resumed. It matched the rhythm with which I walked. Matching me step for step. There was nobody outside at this time; which wasn’t something that was odd I thought to myself. The trees were half naked, the winter air having stripped them. And the sound of the dry leaves crumpling under my feet as I walked seemed to be deafeningly loud. It was an extremely quiet dawn and my even though I had not slept the entire night I was keenly aware of everything around me. She hadn’t called nor messaged; in fact, there wasn’t any dramatic ending or any perceivable ending at all. It had all just melted away with the distance and time that had grown healthily like all unwanted things always do. I needed my walk; it’s what I did when something troubled me. I walked fast trying to outpace the throbbing in my head.

"Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way

See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind"

- S & G

The song plays slowly, while I sit in my balcony harmonica in hand.

It was a long time back, a time that seems lost now, that I'd told you this was my most favourite thing. Sitting here like this, trying to pick lost memories in the dead of the night.

At the risk of sounding repetitive:

"I have begun to long for you,
I who have no greed;
I have begun to ask for you,
I who have no need."

Spent the day learning the Elven script (Quenya style). Stumbled through random poetry sites and discovered a new poet I'm beginning to like. All this in the middle of exams. What will ever become of me, I wonder.

Sample this:

In Praise of Self-deprecation

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.

The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.

The killer-whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects is light.

There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.
- Wistawa Szymborska

Avalanche

Well I stepped into an avalanche,
it covered up my soul;
when I am not this hunchback that you see,
I sleep beneath the golden hill.
You who wish to conquer pain,
you must learn, learn to serve me well.
You strike my side by accident
as you go down for your gold.
The cripple here that you clothe and feed
is neither starved nor cold;
he does not ask for your company,
not at the centre, the centre of the world.

When I am on a pedestal,
you did not raise me there.
Your laws do not compel me
to kneel grotesque and bare.
I myself am the pedestal
for this ugly hump at which you stare.

You who wish to conquer pain,
you must learn what makes me kind;
the crumbs of love that you offer me,
they're the crumbs I've left behind.
Your pain is no credential here,
it's just the shadow, shadow of my wound.

I have begun to long for you,
I who have no greed;
I have begun to ask for you,
I who have no need.
You say you've gone away from me,
but I can feel you when you breathe.

Do not dress in those rags for me,
I know you are not poor;
you don't love me quite so fiercely now
when you know that you are not sure,
it is your turn, beloved,
it is your flesh that I wear.

- Leonard Cohen.

Easily the most lethal song I've heard in a long time. Falling miserably in love with his songs.