omg, for the first time i tried to organize a trip. So many problems, i lost count. So i decided to write them down. So many problems with the girrrls, so many with the guys. (Mostly with girls, sorry to say)

1. Parents-
1a. No permission if its too far
1b. No permission if its for too many days.
1c. No permission if its all girls (not safe)
1d. No permission if there are any boys (not safe)
1e. No permission for trains ( how will you carry all your stuff AND find a taxi AND reach on time?) (This one actually left me speechless)
1f. No permission if any "kids" are driving (so unsafe)
1g. No permission if its too isolated.
1h. No permission if its too crowded.

2. Budget.

3. Place. Oh god, the place. Till the night before we are supposed to leave, we don't know where we're going. Some people have a problem because its too far, they have to get back on time (make that 1i), people just can't agree on a place!

4. How to get there. Cab..? Who'll arrange it..? It should be someone we can trust. It should be someone who won't squeal all.

5. Place.

6. What to do once we get to the place.

For heaven's sake, I just wanted to get out.

Asmi

I am me, without you
I am a mind of my own,
On my own
I am a thought, uninduced
Not influenced by sage or fool

I am the wisdom to know
I am the courage to ask
I am the strength in my bones
it takes to find my own path.

I am the wish to acquiesce
I am the will to resist
I am the desire to love, and be loved
I am the whim to loudly sing.

I am not the rainbow, above the clouds
For I am but one in a crowd.
But I am whole,
And I am me,
Because I am free.

Aristotle?? Nah.. me!

Tragedy causes a catharsis, purging the soul of base concepts, said Aristotle. How is that possible? Tragedy, trauma, even just unhappiness.. Doesn’t that invoke the very base concepts that remind us of our very mortality and humble existence that is governed by feelings like pain and grief? Instead of purging the soul, it fills it to the brim. Like what they say.. pain reminds you that you’re human. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.

Tragedies are always beautiful when they’re not true. Stories of unconditional love.. always better when I know they’re not real. Take Romeo and his Juliet. I would cry and feel bitterly for their mercilessly interrupted love story, as long as I know it’s fictional. Somehow I would be highly sceptical if someone told me that they actually existed and died for each other. As if. Besides, that would just be dumb.
The cause for all this ranting is a movie I have just seen. It was an implicit portrayal of a director’s real love story with a movie star. And how he gives up everything for the schizophrenic actress who is desperately in need of help and love. Written by, of course, the director himself. It was such a blatant lie that I had to repeatedly get the thought out of my mind to enjoy the movie. It was, again, a beautiful tragedy as long as he doesn’t pretend that it is real. The whole thing leaves me with a queasy feeling in the tummy. God knows why.

Tech pest

It seems to me that I should have been born in the 17th century. Apart from getting to live the simple life, I would not have had to face the wrath of technology, which has, for some inexplicable reason, decided that I am not worth using it.
Thanks to doting parents, I have everything I could ask for. Computer, laptop, ipod, kinetic, pen drive, mobile, you name it. Due to reasons I cannot understand, they all have decided to abandon me. One by one.

First my kinetic broke down. The fact that it almost never has enough petrol has still not trained it to run on air.

Then I lost my pen drive. In college, to make it worse. Strike two.

THEN, my laptop suddenly decides to die. Just like that. Without prior notice. The details are too painful.

My ipod decides it can’t live without the lappy, so it tries to die. It is revived, but without the videos and half the songs. Putting those in it again requires loads of patience, which I regrettably lack.

Mobile phones are not happy with me and switch on and off as they please.

I think we should have like, a users union, so we can make our appliances give us a month’s notice before going poof. Then, at least I could have saved the pictures. :(

A hundred shades.. which one’s mine?

I finally thought I should throw away the pieces of conversation I’ve saved and stored for so long. They’re meaningless, I thought. Then I took them out, and I opened one. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. Conversations scribbled on backs of notebooks, pieces of paper, surreptitiously written when the teacher was saying something we weren’t interested in. The beginning of the friendship, the faint hint of there being more to it than that.. all recorded in black and white and hidden away in a file, apart from the recesses of my mind.

I was lying in bed trying to make sense out of a confused jumble of thoughts. And slowly I succeeded. Empathy, forgiveness, letting go, all of the phrases made sense. As I read these scraps a few minutes later, I felt no anger, instead, I was smiling as I remembered. And I marvelled at how a part of me had been revealed to myself, previously unknown, hidden, and maybe even non existent. Its buried now again, hidden and protected, not to be taken out for some time. Healing. But I now know that when it does, it can be as beautiful as the setting sun. And that’s saying something.

I couldn’t throw them away. Not because I had foolish hopes. Those I'd dispelled as I lay thinking about it. But how can you throw away something that makes you smile and sad at the same time, reminds you of what you held dearest, reassures you about your worth, teaches you about love? Everyone should have memories like this, that they cherish for as long as they can, even if it had a sad ending. Now I know how its better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

But, honestly, it wouldn’t hurt to have a happy ending.

“Maybe there are one hundred shades for explaining the truth, a spectrum of light to dark, depending on the vulnerability of those who have to hear it. Things are not always so clear-cut, they are not either black or white, life just isn’t like that.”

--'Hundred Shades of White', Preethi Nair