hmm...How does one start this?
I went to this nice Chinese eatery called Hong Kong today near Gulmohar Park with a few of my friends from Delhi. The food was good, the noodles and the boiled vegetables...and then we went to turquoise cottage...I am not much of a party animal. Therefore, not sure if I enjoyed it much. There was a little faux pas at the door and I swear it did not involve yours truly...however much my acquaintances might like to draw such a presumption. But coming back to the main strand of the narrative...I had no daaroo...that is because I jave come to the conclusion that daaroo n awasthi simply do not go together...although I was sorely tempted. Otherwise, the birthday girl was quite resplendent in her little black dress and the kohl-rimmed eyes and the sight of familiar faces who did not belong to the little cesspool that I inhabit gladdened my heart...
But I got up with the feeling that for the first time I just felt that I did not relate to these guys as well as I used to...the conversation was not at all lively and not interspersed with any non-veg jokes...completely cliched...they talked about their b-school exams and their internals and their b-school exams... and most of the salacious gossip I could not follow...that was because I knew nothing as to who it related to...and then there were the people whom I did not know at all even by name...and then there were the people who reminded me of some other people whose whereabouts I did not know anything about and then there was nostalgia...
The winter of 2003...it was cold......my city can be a real bitch during the winter...I was a nice kid in those days...can still picture each and every detail...and then I passed out of school...we scribbled stuff on each others shirts...embreaced each other...laughed heartily and throatily...took jhappis of girls who were way above our league and that would be the closest we would ever get to them...
and that was that...
the end...period...full stop...and there would be no more...
read a nice book...the alchemy of desire...tarun tejpal...better known for tehelka.com...did not get the message though...can romantic love be completely devoid of lust and if yes how is it different from any other variety...question raised but unanswered...or did he never raise this question and it is simply subjective interpretation...but is not all interpretation subjective...no objectivity and therefore we should not even try...
leaving for Kanpur tomorrow...would have loved to squeeze in a little trip to varanasi...but wont be there long enough...n then there will b a day-long trip to north campus...n there I will think about what I have missed out on...these people have changed sooooooooo much...I wonder what wiuld have happened to me had I stayed on...I am a very different 20 year old from what they are...although we were similar as seventeen year olds...ohh...n old friend of mine said something to the effect of "UPSC mein toh teraa ho hee jaaegaa..." liked it...nice to hear little words of encouragement every now and then since they are so few and far in between...once in a shocking pink moon...n then there is more...sometimes I wonder why they make things so difficult for us...
my psyche is filled to the brim with myriad emoitions in psychedelic colours and I keep getting confused...and it is as if somebody is using the vessel to boil water for his chaai...
Friday, November 24, 2006
previous posts
This was meant to be the story of my life. Although, I have not updated this for quite some time, I believe that there are people who have been eagerly waiting for my next post. (Or am I being too optimistic???) This entry is dedicated to all those fans of my blog...Now, for the record, this semester has been the most satisfying in academic terms ever since my first one here. I managed to put up a decent show in the "surprise" tests. The only jarring note in an otherwise perfect symphony was struck by CPC in which I again underachieved spectacularly. Just an eloquent testimony to one of my strongest convictions that bad habits unconsciously cultivated take their own time to get off your back. Otherwise, a total of 33 out of 40 (not counting CPC) was eminently satisfying.There is no white and black in this Universe .Here, you have only greys. Grey is the most remarkable shade of them all. Remarkable as it is the most prevalent. I have always liked to associate the people I know with colours and animals. I do not jud.ge people . And I also do not claim that I wear pristine white kurtas and pajamas. My colour of choice is steel-grey. Most people I have met are black with little splotches of white here and there. Instead of denial, I now live with it.Most people are chameleons or lizards. Some are venomous, most are not. Some are beautiful, their skins are dotted with diamond-shaped markings. There are still others who are dull and smooth. And then there are the nice friendly dogs. Again, some are unfriendly, although all of them and I repeat all of them are very very faithful. I have met very few lions and lionesses in my life. My own mother being one. I think I am a wolf and I like being one. A wolf whose coat is streaked liberally from the scars of the wounds that he receives in the battles he fights. Nonetheless, he refuses to learn from them. He uses the same manoeuvres again and again even when they have failed him before. He is not a very quick learner. He does not have the natural fearlessness of the lion or the simple faith of the dog or the subtle craftiness of the cat or the fox. He still manages to survive. He is courageous. However, he has always believed that the distinction between bravery and foolhardiness is very thin. Therefore, he does not mind being not brave. He believes in himself and backs himself to win against even those who are bigger than him in size and strength. He is bloody-minded. He hates losing. Reminds me of what Steve Waugh used to say about Anil Kumble, the non-turning Indian legspinner, "even if you manage to read him, you must play him". He is not dangerous but knows how to defend himself when provoked. Still very much proceeding on the learning curve, he is dissatisfied with his progress. But suddenly, he looks back and sees that there are others who have made the same mistakes before him. People whom he thought to be his superiors. And the same people will make the same mistakes in the future not learning from his experience. This gives him hope and boosts his self-esteem. Confidence in himself is the one thing he lacks. It is either misplaced vanity or self-pity.He shunts between these two states. However, there is one thing that he knows well. He is not going to follow anyone. He does not believe in that. He is an iconoclast. However, sometimes he does get a feeling that unnecessary iconoclasm is best avoided.He lives in the hope that one day he shall morph into a splendid Bengal Tiger. Ummeed par duniyaa kaayam hai...
posted by raghav at 8:15 AM 1 comments
Sunday, July 30, 2006
entry 1: Introductory ramblings
vakratund mahaakaaya sooryakoti samaprabha...nirvighnam kuru me deva sarvakaaryeshu sarvada...This is my first entry. If anyone bothers to read this I will be flattered...really really flattered. I have always fancied myself as an IWE ever since I was in school. Although, my biggest literary achievement till date is winning a "letter of the month" prize for a little piece supporting sourav ganguly's captaincy four years ago in Wisden Asia Cricket. They closed down a year later. I still have a copy of that issue with me. Sourav Ganguly redeemed my faith in him by becoming the most successful Indian captain of all time while I kept up my losing battle against an assortment of forces(my incompetence in that regard being the foremost of them) that were hell-bent upon preventing me from making my debut in India colours as a left-arm fast-bowling allrounder. Better sense prevailed all over and I decided to study law. ALthough, there was a time in mid-2004 when I seriously contemplated a career in the army. And then there was a time when I wanted to be a jockey. Although at 75 kgs, I scarcely think that I can pursue that dream now.Now, I live in this strange place called NALSAR. When I looked at the prospectus for the forst time,(c.2004) I thought this was a resort or something. Lush green patches dotted the seemingly (nay truly) huge landscape and unlike NUJS where I studied for one day, the professors seemed to be nicer and actually sounded quite literate. I was a "boy" fresh out of school and thought I could take on the world. I took justified pride in my intellectual abilities. Also, fancied myself as something of a musician and would have liked to believe that rank 13 on the admission test would imply that I had some kind of aptitude for what I was going to do for the next five years. And I was dreadfully wrong...in each of these respects.Some of the little differences between my erstwhile environment and present condition were minor but even their cumulative effect was quite enough to turn me into a nervous wreck. I have never been blessed with immense patience or steely nerves, but this was something different. First, there was this whole drama about positive interaction. Now, for the life of me, I could not see how just getting to college a year earlier than I did would give someone the right to bully me, swear at me or in extreme cases even hit me(thank god that the last right was never exercised as against me or I would have been martyred in the first week of college itself). More on this later.And then, there was this whole problem of professors who were thoroughly inarticulate. Now, I am hardly an anglophile and I do not think that I would judge anyone by the kind of English they speak or write(not being too proficient in this regard myself), but as a law-student I thought that law-professors would at least know how to express themselves in the language of the discourse that they were meant to teach. I was mistaken and this was neither the first nor the last in a long series. I cried myself to bed.Classes were a pain, apart from History. Now, history was my best subject in school. And in many ways, it still is. The professor, a Marxist from JNU really did know how to teach and was quite brillitant. Perhaps, my guide for my magnum opus on the Indian Revolutionary Movement that will perhaps have to wait for another lifetime. Being a good Hindu, I have not given up hope just yet. I had a roomie who despite being from Modern VV seemed tolerable enough and next-door neighbour who was a friend of my favourite cousin back home and then there was the loneliness that assailed me constantly and still seems to do so even after two years of this hell-hole having been put behind me.I have been told often enough that I am an underachiever. My CGPA is just about acceptable at 6 point nothing and I have not mooted apart from this intra-college thing called the "mootathon" wherein I underachieved again in spectacular fashion. In school, I was always above average academics-wise although never the model-student. I hated debating and quizzing with a zealous passion thinking both of them to be unproductive activities although I was something of a quizzer specializing in cricket lore even till I was fifteen years old and just missed being part of the school-team that went to BQC and gave a decent account of itself when I was in class 8 or 9. However, I was too lazy to really take all this seriously and when model students of my age were striving for that extra-half mark for their high-school mathematics I was trying to master the intricacies of how to accompany a sitarist on the tabla or the more banal pursuit of trying to break 4-inch thick marble-slabs at my dojo...ohh...n there was this smattering of german that I picked up from this professor at Maxmueller Bhavan and a slightly more generous smattering of Sanskrit that I picked up from my mother. I did well enough in my tenth-boards and my 90 pc in ESM would have meant that I would have qualified for admission to DPS RKP even as an external student(read mostly bihari biharis frm places like Darbhanga and Ranchi whose sole ambition in life was a "cent-percent" in math and phijiks). Thankfully, I never belonged to that category ever in my life. For reasons not to be disclosed on a forum like this, I decided ti study science for the first two month of my class Xth. The purpose fulfilled, I went back to being a stident of humanities and spent the two most fab years of my life, bunking one day of school per week(sometimes 2, but there was attendance only once a day), trying to learn how to ride motorbikes, gorging myself silly at Pizza Hut once a week and ogling at women at M-Block market. But then, all good things have to come to an end and they also tell me that happiness is relative and you realise how happy you were at a particular point of time in your life once that phase has been put behind you. I think they are all lying.Pleasant times, I went to school by car in the morning, came back by bus, won gold-medals for excellence in academics and that black-belt seemed to be ever-so-close and then it all came to an end in an instant. I think I can relate to the agony of the Mughal princes many of whom has to take to beggary after 1857, a lot better now. But then, we have to move on...I have moved on...instead of the dojo, I spend a lot more time at the local gym these days and the tabla is still there but there is nobody to sing, dance or play music while I play. I try hard to mug up the statues and the cases that I have to. I am chasing a dream and a thoroughly enticing one at that. It consists of me, a bigger car than my dad, club-membership, fat pay-packet and a trophy for a wife and two bratty kids as well. But is this all really mine or is it merely a vulgar bastardisation of all that I have ever longed for and loved???The answer to this will have to wait at least for the time-being...
posted by raghav at 8:15 AM 1 comments
Sunday, July 30, 2006
entry 1: Introductory ramblings
vakratund mahaakaaya sooryakoti samaprabha...nirvighnam kuru me deva sarvakaaryeshu sarvada...This is my first entry. If anyone bothers to read this I will be flattered...really really flattered. I have always fancied myself as an IWE ever since I was in school. Although, my biggest literary achievement till date is winning a "letter of the month" prize for a little piece supporting sourav ganguly's captaincy four years ago in Wisden Asia Cricket. They closed down a year later. I still have a copy of that issue with me. Sourav Ganguly redeemed my faith in him by becoming the most successful Indian captain of all time while I kept up my losing battle against an assortment of forces(my incompetence in that regard being the foremost of them) that were hell-bent upon preventing me from making my debut in India colours as a left-arm fast-bowling allrounder. Better sense prevailed all over and I decided to study law. ALthough, there was a time in mid-2004 when I seriously contemplated a career in the army. And then there was a time when I wanted to be a jockey. Although at 75 kgs, I scarcely think that I can pursue that dream now.Now, I live in this strange place called NALSAR. When I looked at the prospectus for the forst time,(c.2004) I thought this was a resort or something. Lush green patches dotted the seemingly (nay truly) huge landscape and unlike NUJS where I studied for one day, the professors seemed to be nicer and actually sounded quite literate. I was a "boy" fresh out of school and thought I could take on the world. I took justified pride in my intellectual abilities. Also, fancied myself as something of a musician and would have liked to believe that rank 13 on the admission test would imply that I had some kind of aptitude for what I was going to do for the next five years. And I was dreadfully wrong...in each of these respects.Some of the little differences between my erstwhile environment and present condition were minor but even their cumulative effect was quite enough to turn me into a nervous wreck. I have never been blessed with immense patience or steely nerves, but this was something different. First, there was this whole drama about positive interaction. Now, for the life of me, I could not see how just getting to college a year earlier than I did would give someone the right to bully me, swear at me or in extreme cases even hit me(thank god that the last right was never exercised as against me or I would have been martyred in the first week of college itself). More on this later.And then, there was this whole problem of professors who were thoroughly inarticulate. Now, I am hardly an anglophile and I do not think that I would judge anyone by the kind of English they speak or write(not being too proficient in this regard myself), but as a law-student I thought that law-professors would at least know how to express themselves in the language of the discourse that they were meant to teach. I was mistaken and this was neither the first nor the last in a long series. I cried myself to bed.Classes were a pain, apart from History. Now, history was my best subject in school. And in many ways, it still is. The professor, a Marxist from JNU really did know how to teach and was quite brillitant. Perhaps, my guide for my magnum opus on the Indian Revolutionary Movement that will perhaps have to wait for another lifetime. Being a good Hindu, I have not given up hope just yet. I had a roomie who despite being from Modern VV seemed tolerable enough and next-door neighbour who was a friend of my favourite cousin back home and then there was the loneliness that assailed me constantly and still seems to do so even after two years of this hell-hole having been put behind me.I have been told often enough that I am an underachiever. My CGPA is just about acceptable at 6 point nothing and I have not mooted apart from this intra-college thing called the "mootathon" wherein I underachieved again in spectacular fashion. In school, I was always above average academics-wise although never the model-student. I hated debating and quizzing with a zealous passion thinking both of them to be unproductive activities although I was something of a quizzer specializing in cricket lore even till I was fifteen years old and just missed being part of the school-team that went to BQC and gave a decent account of itself when I was in class 8 or 9. However, I was too lazy to really take all this seriously and when model students of my age were striving for that extra-half mark for their high-school mathematics I was trying to master the intricacies of how to accompany a sitarist on the tabla or the more banal pursuit of trying to break 4-inch thick marble-slabs at my dojo...ohh...n there was this smattering of german that I picked up from this professor at Maxmueller Bhavan and a slightly more generous smattering of Sanskrit that I picked up from my mother. I did well enough in my tenth-boards and my 90 pc in ESM would have meant that I would have qualified for admission to DPS RKP even as an external student(read mostly bihari biharis frm places like Darbhanga and Ranchi whose sole ambition in life was a "cent-percent" in math and phijiks). Thankfully, I never belonged to that category ever in my life. For reasons not to be disclosed on a forum like this, I decided ti study science for the first two month of my class Xth. The purpose fulfilled, I went back to being a stident of humanities and spent the two most fab years of my life, bunking one day of school per week(sometimes 2, but there was attendance only once a day), trying to learn how to ride motorbikes, gorging myself silly at Pizza Hut once a week and ogling at women at M-Block market. But then, all good things have to come to an end and they also tell me that happiness is relative and you realise how happy you were at a particular point of time in your life once that phase has been put behind you. I think they are all lying.Pleasant times, I went to school by car in the morning, came back by bus, won gold-medals for excellence in academics and that black-belt seemed to be ever-so-close and then it all came to an end in an instant. I think I can relate to the agony of the Mughal princes many of whom has to take to beggary after 1857, a lot better now. But then, we have to move on...I have moved on...instead of the dojo, I spend a lot more time at the local gym these days and the tabla is still there but there is nobody to sing, dance or play music while I play. I try hard to mug up the statues and the cases that I have to. I am chasing a dream and a thoroughly enticing one at that. It consists of me, a bigger car than my dad, club-membership, fat pay-packet and a trophy for a wife and two bratty kids as well. But is this all really mine or is it merely a vulgar bastardisation of all that I have ever longed for and loved???The answer to this will have to wait at least for the time-being...
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