Going home!

You walk the street you have taken all these years to leave, to get away. Only this time you're coming back home. You remember the first time you walked here. The first time you came to this place, how the lanes looked, how many shops were there, and the way the sun shone the rain-washed roads. You think about the fresh feeling of the place back then, and wonder how you got used to it so easily, how it became such a common thing so soon. But it's been years.

You walk through the old gate, rusted over the years, but looking as fine as ever with it's recent coating of paint. You think about all those days when you waited by it early in the morning for the school bus to arrive. And you think of all those days when you got back from school to the welcoming openness of it. You walk over the tiled pavements with trees towering over you on the sides, their leaves falling over the gray concrete. You admire the contrast, and wonder how you had ignored it all these years. The array of cars parked, showing off their bright colours, the stone-laid stairs, the old wooden door. You think of all the years of having these things right in front of you, but never really admiring them. You linger outside your door for a moment, just absorbing everything around.

You wonder how, a year ago, you had just waited for a chance to leave. How you wanted to get away from the same old, dull, boring life. You think of everything you just crossed and wonder how anyone on earth could call them 'monotonous'. But then again, you had spent 10 years here. It was bound to get a little repetitive. You think of your new life now. What a change it had been back then and what a drag it is now. You had left to catch a break, and yet now, you're back here for a weekend, doing the very same thing. The irony makes you laugh, and you don't know why. Maybe you're losing it. It doesn't matter.

You think that this is how it's going to be. You're always going to find this place refreshing and beautiful, even though you had lived here a really long time. You only appreciate it now, when you come here on a few weekends. Now, you'll never call this place boring and monotonous. You can never get used to it in a few days. So now you'll love it even more. Every moment of it. But there's still a tiny voice inside you, wishing you'd never left it in the first place.

Two days later, it gets it's answer. You're bored of the same old trees staring back at you. The same old gate, same old people. Same old, Same old, Same old. And you wonder why you missed it so much. Did you really miss anything at all? You were all over the place and now you're sitting in a corner, alone, and thinking. It's not like you're unhappy, it's just that you don't know how you went back to feeling like what you did before you left home, in just two days. Are you going crazy, or are you plain confused? Or is it normal to feel like this?

I guess you'll just have to get used to it.

random thoughts :)

It's a little unnerving how everything you do, observe, or experience, every moment actually goes a long way into making you the person you are.

I mean, if you knew that right now, this very moment, whatever it is that you'redoing, or whatever you're thinking would go on to define you, would you continue doing it?

Do we really even have a say in the matter? Do we construct our lives around our moments and just go along with the flow of it all, building a life and a personality while we'r at it? Or is it the other way round? Do we, at some level, know that we'reshaping our minds, and not just our lives and act accordingly?

Some say that our personalities, our characters, are already built.You just acquire it in parts, as you grow. It's like opening levels as you move forward in a a game.

Probably then everything is already planned. All you experience, everything. They're just hurdles you cross to earn you a little piece of mind (pun intended :P) Or maybe it's stuff you take along, to help you handle the new developments in your mind as you unlock another level.

Whatever it may be, you can't deny the fact that it is one hell of a journey. An incredibly mixed up journey with even more twisted and mixed up emotions and memories. And in your whole quest to 'find the truth', you're only going to realize it in the end. And by then you're too old to care.

And you just have to deal with it, whether it is 'written' or whether you write it.

So you might as well play around with the ink a little :)

A day before valentine's i attended the Kala Ghoda art festival in VT. It felt ethereal to see the crowd of thousands blending in with the glow of neon bulbs all around me. There were people soaking in the atmosphere of creativity. Artists had put up their pieces of work for sale and the stuff they made was amazing. Charcoal sketches, watercolour,oil paintings, photography, and a million other things portrayed in a zillion different ways. It was beautiful....the beauty of a city at the zenith of vitality. All i could see was a crowd united in the quest of art and all i could feel was excitement and passion for the spirit of humanity....

A day after valentine's....i try my hardest best to see love around me but all i can see is hatred. Cold, dark, poisonous hatred. I feel like i've lost something. Its not about the fact that ive been to Koregaon Park a couple of times...its not about the fact that ive wanted to step inside German Bakery but procrastinated it every time...its about the fact that life is so bloody short, but people manage to fill it up with shit like the same hatred that surrounds us....

Its always like this....it happens everytime there's a terror attack....we have protests and peace marches and every damn thing but then we go off to sleep again and wake up with the next fuckin' bomb...its not about security measures...its not about the answers that we, as civilians, deserve....its about the questions that are always postponed halfway...

The people who died in these attacks.....its true that we are nobody to say if they deserved death or not...but what about the people who killed them.....what do they deserve??? Its not about divine judgement, or judgement of any sort, for that matter....its about the fact that justice is never given to those who need it...not when they need it...

People say that these terrorists are just misled and emotionally blackmailed youth....its probably true....its the older generation of religious (and they could be from any religion) fanatics who pass on their dogmatic beliefs to the next one but when is this going to end??? Coz the survivors from our generation are only going to pollute the ones after....and the cycle never ends. And we sit complacently in the middle of it....trying to patiently calculate who all should be convicted of making a joke out of humanity when the punchline is starting at us from the mirror....

Its not about waking up...its about not going back to sleep......

the drive :)

ive never been too much of a driver.....and maybe its a good thing....i like it when i move ahead and i dont know where im going coz my eyes are closed....and i dont have to worry bout banging into something.....no responsibility....no strings attached....just an endless space and darkness around me....
i like to open my eyes and transcend from the darkness into the whole sea of colours that define the sky....the glowing orange sun....the red...merging into purple...merging into violet....turning into indigo.....into blue...and sometimes the sun is white hot...with the tiniest tinge of yellow.....and it places itself in the perfect position...clouds all around it.....and the sun lights up just that much of a cloud thats enough to define its outline on one side....and the rest of the cloud remains in varying shades of grey....when reality looks more like a painting....
i love to look up into the sky....just straight up....and watch all these clouds skid past me.....like they're running away from something....just like i run away from reality...and this world.....its like this weird sorta freedom....you know its only for a while....but that doesnt stop you from living it....its like...these clouds...they speak to you.....they tell you that theres a place out there where nothing matters.....and they'll see you there....
i love to see the birds flying in their 'v' formation....i love the flaws in the 'v'....how its just not a straight line....and how the imperfection leads them on to better places....and i find myself wishing that people today believed that too.....
i love the sound of everything combined....all the vehicles...their honking....the animals....the people...earphones...my screaming....and yet i love the stark contrast when im on silent road....
i love the speed....the thrill of knowing that the worst could happen....but how that hardly seems to matter....i love the tiniest droplets of water that fall on my face....i love how the thin tiny strands of hair pierce my skin like needles.....i love the wind blowing right onto my face....blowing so hard that u can hardly breathe anymore....i love the breathlessness....how any moment your lungs could actually refuse to work....and how that moment could be your last....only this time its not coz of lack of air....its the excess of it....isnt it ironic how oxygen can actually take your life away???

(ps....thanx niyati for the amazing drive :) )