The One with The Dream

So, I have this recurring dream. It's not the same dream over and over again but I know what's common between all of them. And I don't need some Freudian psychologist to help me out either.. I havent yet fallen off that sheer almost imperceptible cliff of sanity. I know why these dreams occur, and I don't feel bad about it either.

In all these dreams, he's still there. Still a part of everyone's lives. And we all seem to be going on with normal everyday life , like nothing has happened..and well, in the dream nothing has happened.

I think, in psychology, there's something called a 'safe place' which is used for hypnosis..to recover repressed memories. I think my safe place is th
e Science Block in college.. that's why in these dreams, all of us are always over there. Lazing around, bantering, kidding with each other. And he's also there, playing, teasing, chatting.

I know why these dreams come on a periodical basis.. its because somewhere deep inside I think that he'll be back, and we'll be fine. Its because , in everything we do normally, I imagine him to be around.. and these thoughts are the ones creating visual images in my subconscious mind, and calling them dreams...

I like having these dreams.. at least I get to see him in those. I think we all do.. and I know we all feel happy that he came in a dream. I remember Nidhi telling me on some mornings happily, that he came in her dream last night.

Sometimes life can be so cruel, but one thing I gotta say about life... it gives you a lot of pain
but it gives most people the courage to deal with it one way or the other.. until the pain subsides, from a gut-wrenching one that makes you want to die to a dull throbbing one..that is so insistent that you can never forget that it is there, but at least you don't feel like dying anymore..

The One with Dilemmas

How many real decisions do we take? I mean, on an average, how many of our decisions may alter our life , and hence, we spend some considerable thinking and time to make up our minds?

Me,... I take time to decide between vanilla and strawberry ice-cream... but most decisions aren't this tough or this easy.

The most recent decision that I had to take.. The Real Dilemma...was the choice between FMS and XLRI. And as scientific an analysis that I carried out, I reached the decision based on just a hunch.. One moment I was banging my head trying to decide..the next moment, something inside me said "FMS".. and I was perfectly happy with this voice's decision, and it was like a big responsibility was off me. I had talked to literally two dozen people to come to a decision , and yet when I made the decision, it was none of those voices... it was a completely different voice.

So, the question is who makes these decisions.. the brain, which analyses every detail, sorts out information and works like a businessman, or the heart, which follows God Knows What.
I'm just beginning to realize that this heart is a very tricky fellow... it can very easily lead me into the biggest muddles of my life... do I want that to happen..or do I want to travel a safer path?

Two years back, one of my friends read my hand.. and although she was very serious about it, I was just having fun. She was quite serious, and told me that I'll reach a stage where I'll have to make a very big decision .. a hindi movie style ... maybe an extra-marital affair of some sort.. .. Now , that was too much for me , and I remember clearly that I had laughed at her.

This incident just started a thought process. What does a person do if he/she likes two people at the same time Does it make that person bad... is it wrong to like more than one person at a time? The thing with liking is, it is what your heart feels for a certain person, and you can never tell your heart what to feel and to stop feeling something...

What does one do in such a situation...? Follow common sense and stop hurting oneself and others , or follow the heart, which is devoid of common sense, and end up hurting someone or the other for sure...

I know only one thing for sure...I'll pray to God everyday to spare me from facing such a "Lose-Lose Situation" at any point of life.

The One with The Graduation Song

This one is being written with thanks to Amod. Hey, I didn't know you till a week back, but your regular comments on my blog ,which I appreciate, have led me into an acquaintance with you, heading towards friendship.

And thank you tons for recommending The Graduation Song.. I sent it to my entire class and it was as if the song was written for us only..

And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we're gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times will never change
Keep on thinking things will always be the same

But when we leave this year we won't be coming back
No more hanging out cause we're on a different track
And if you got something that you need to say
You better say it right now cause you don't have another day

Cause we're moving on and we can't slow down
These memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking of the night in June
I Didn't know much of love, but it came too soon

And There was me and you, and then it got real blue
Stay at home talkin' on the telephone and
We would get so excited, we'd get so scared
Laughing at our selves thinking life's not fair

And this is how it feels

As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be, friends forever

So if we get the big jobs and we make the big money
When we look back now, will that joke still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule

Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Can Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan?
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

And this is how it feels

As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be, friends forever

Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?
Can we survive it out there? Can we make it somehow?
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it's like we're women and men

Will the past be a shadow that will follow us round?
Will these memories fade when I leave this town
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be, friends forever

The One with The Conference

So, I took the final leap yesterday, when I finally logged onto my yahoo messenger. All the FMS junta logs on to Yahoo only, while all my friends are active on MSN, so, I have a habit of chatting on MSN.

Met a lot of people yesterday from The FMS Batch of 2K7, some who I've met and know, and some new people. And I was online till 1 in the night. They've been having this conference for the past two months, and I joined in only yesterday, and all this delay all because of sheer inertia to something new.

I don't know if this something new is only the shift from MSN to Yahoo, or the more profound shift from old friends to newer ones.

Actually, why I haven't joined in for the past two months, is because I've been spending all the time I have with my college pals, who will soon all be getting busy with their work and going away from Delhi.And as much as I think to myself , that these are the people who form the very fabric of my everyday existence and there's no way I'm going to lose touch with them, I know better.

I have lost touch with people, with whom at different points of time, I've enjoyed the most enviable friendships. And although they're always on my mind, and I know , I probably am on theirs, but it is a fact that life moves on, and all those endless hours of phone conversations get replaced by a single phone call once a year.

Priyanka's leaving for Cal tomorrow.. so she and I met up yesterday one last time to say goodbye. No mushy sentiments with us, no tears nothing... just a wierd hollow in the depths of my being, on walking away from one of those people, who understood my thoughts and empathized with them. Time will go on, she'll get busy, I'll get busy and soon, all that will remain will be a fading memory of days together.

The sense of deja vu is pretty overwhelming right now. It's not like these are the first friends I'll be saying goodbye to, I've been there, done that.
Life will move on, I know...

Laugh and cry
Live and die
Life is a dream, we are dreaming..

Day by day
I find my way
Look for the song and the meaning..

People run
sun to sun
caught in their lives ever flowing

Once begun
life goes till it's gone
we have to where it's going...

The One with The Music

I've been hearing a variety of songs since yesterday, and everytime I hear something I like, I think of writing the lyrics down in my blog.
It's almost amazing , how every song has some memory attached to it.. and most of the times, at least with me, it's the period of time associated with a song that appeals to me more than the song itself.

Not just English songs, but Hindi and Tamil songs too... although I don't hear Tamil stuff, but some of those also are quite dear to me.

And after hearing so many songs, I decided on a particular song which I haven't heard in a very long time, and which might be not a very popular song. It's not even the genre of music that I appreciate anymore, but here I'm writing it anyway.

It's been so long since we took the time
to share words from deep inside us
We're in our own worlds spinning our wheels
but you know how i feel

Since the first time I took your hand
my love for you has just been growing
you always seem to understand
you know how i am

I'm gonna love you till the end
I'm gonna be your very true friend
I wanna share your ups and downs
I'm gonna be around...

- Michael Learns To Rock

I don't enjoy pop music now, haven't for a long time. But hearing MLTR takes me back to school days, when they were one of the first English bands that I had heard. I remember I used to sit and listen to their Greatest Hits album over and over again, just to hear That's Why, Sleeping Child and 25 minutes.

Nowadays, I don't put on my old cassettes and hear them anymore. I don't even buy cassettes anymore. I remember a time when I had to save up money to buy new tapes since they cost more than a hundred bucks. Maybe it's because of the widespread use of the net and p-2-p sharing... sometimes I feel almost sad for all those days gone by, for all the habits lost, for all the songs forgotten...

The One with Gender Musings

I've had this thought once too many times in the recent and not-so-recent past... If only I were born a boy.
It's probably not as erratic a thought as my mom makes it out to be. What she probably doesn't understand is that the thought goes deeper than the reason I told her.

Couple of days back, we had to go attend a house-warming ceremony.. and my mom wouldnt let me wear my old pair of jeans, instead I had to wear a dressy salwar kurta.. which made me absolutely uncomfortable. And she wanted me to wear jewellery also...!!! Sometime during the ceremony, I voiced this thought of mine to mom and she was astonished, and told me all the good things about being a girl.

Is it because the Indian society is like this... ? I would call my parents very accomodating, they give me as much freedom as I could ask for... but if I tell them I would never trade my pair of denims for a diamond necklace, they find it wierd...

I know anyone reading this would probably find it shallow , that based on clothes preferences, I'm writing up a blog entry..
But the thought runs deeper...
Living in Delhi, where the newspaper proclaims everyday on the front page that, This City is Unsafe for Women, I find myself often wondering why women as a gender are always at danger... be it on the roads, or on a bus, or in the workplace? What gives men the right to treat women as they do, on their personal whims and fancies?

Being a regular commuter of Delhi buses, I know what a female faces on a regular basis on a minimal level - leceherous glances, snide comments on your clothes , and this is just the beginning.

Why are women weak? What I'm probably trying to voice is , why should only women have to even think about what could happen if travelling alone, or walking alone... why should they have to follow numerous precautions that the papers suggest? Why can't they walk free on the roads, without being treated as just an object for men to look at?

I guess, I'll never know why.. cause nobody can answer that. And until this type of treatment stops, the question of gender equality can never be completely answered, no matter how advanced the world becomes.

The One with Being Twenty - Something

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis."

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't.

One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.
You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

You are in your best of times and your worst of times, trying as hard as you can to figure this whole thing out.

The One with Memories

Good Times

Went to Aakanksha's bro's marriage yday... had good fun. Yesterday seemed like a day for rekindling old memories and savouring them.

Its funny how life brings us in contact with such different people at different points of time and we seem to make them an inseparable part of our lives.

Seeing Aakanksha's bro get married tp his college girlfriend really made me happy...kinda reimbursed my faith in the system... that is the system of going around with someone.

College is finally over and ny mind is still not getting used to the fact that I wont be seeing the familiar comfortable faces anymore. Instead I'll probably get lost in a jungle of super brainy smart people in FMS... the prospect completely scares me.

I miss all my friends... the ones who I am in touch with, the ones who I dont call or write to, and
the one who I can't call or write to...

I miss you...