ye gads!

hmmm, come to think of it, i started this to get rid of my writer's block didn't i? then how come i forgot about it? oh well! it happens to the best of them, i guess. wait, in retrospect, nothing of event actually happened this past week - except on saturday and sunday that is, and i kind of haven't gotten the time to write about that, but hey! i can do it now. ok, we had this really huge cultural festival over here, organised by our college mates, and man did it rock. i don't think i have had this much fun in a while. well, i wasn't exactly paying attention to much of the stuff that was taking place on stage. what did you expect? its a college event, and college boys will be rambunctious, come what may. so there i was, screeching and hollering with the rest of them, not caring if my throat popped right out of my mouth. tell you what, i actually expected myself to cough up blood after one particularly nasty yell - you know, the kind that makes you feel as though you just tore something in your throat, only amplified about 10 times...

it was back to college today, though i didn't sit for any classes. i, who usually am of the religion 'mondaysux' thought this was the best monday i've ever had...so far anyway, and i don't think much is going to happen hereafter. since mondays will be mondays, something bad did happen today. i discovered i was allergic to my glasses. now that sucked! got nothing more to write over here. i'm working on a short story and i think i'll post it if ever i get done with it. later...

teenage angst

The crucifixion of the so-called younger generation – mine...That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? This is something that has been eating away at me for an extremely long time, and I still haven’t come to terms with the whole shitty deal. Why we should be the sole guilty party in this screwed up planet is something I can’t quite comprehend, and I don’t think I ever will. I think maybe culture has a great deal to do with this, and since I am of the opinion that ours is totally fucked up, I don’t think I need to venture into that area too much.

Let me get straight to the point. I don’t like being on the wrong side of an absurd preconception. The opinion of a majority of parents – this is especially true in the case of teenagers – is that their children will turn out to be rebellious unless they do something about it. Then they do the absolutely worst thing they can do, and set up a number of so-called rules which are there to be followed, or else...I say this is the worst thing because these rules are ever so often restrictive, and in no small amount at that. It is true that there’s a quiescent sense of rebellion in each and every one of us. However, it is also true that restriction inflames this, pokes it awake and drags it out in the open, where it is then vilified, with a sense of outrage, even. Yet there are those who abide by these rules to all external appearance – emphasis: ‘to all external appearance’. I think it’s safe to say that it doesn’t turn out too well, either way.

It’s a well known fact that we are degenerate. One goes so far as to say we are debauched. I am, of course, taking the role of an extremist parent, but it’s true that every parent is suspicious of his/her child/children. Even getting close to a member of the opposite sex can be misconstrued. In fact, it is redolent of misdirection. Debauched? I’ll give you debauched. Maybe this world wouldn’t have so many debauched people if you just let us bloody live our own lives. Which youngster wouldn’t get upset at their parents attitudes and do something like this just to irritate them? You think you know us so well, you think we are not sensible enough to make our own decisions, you think we need someone with us all the time to steer us right. See what I mean? I think I speak for everyone when I ask you to ‘stay out of our bloody lives’. I know what I want, and I don’t want you to try and ‘put me right’, so to speak. Like a good friend of mine once said – and I don’t know of any better way to say this – ‘If I screw things up, I’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing what happened was because of me, rather than be made to lament the fact that I let someone else make my decision for me.’ This is especially true in the case of marriage, in which context my friend stated the above. Our culture doesn’t promote love marriages, which is a crime in itself. And people don’t have the sense to see that just because their marriage stood the test, however rocky things might have gotten, it need not be the case every time. I mention this because this is the major cause for suspicion, that we will get close to someone of the opposite sex, fall in love, and get married, which is also equivalent to blasphemy. But here I wander...

I could go on like this and keep you here till kingdom come. But I choose not to. All the insubstantial things that lead to major crises, all the little arguments that lead up to the big fight, are, I think, understood. Preconceived notions and obsolete thinking are turning out to be our worst nightmares, and we aren’t allowed to wake up from them. So rebel, young hearts, rebel if you have no option left, for your cause is worthy and you shall be vindicated, by yourself, if not by anyone else – that is all important. This is what I’d like to say, if only there were someone to listen.

post v-day thoughts

another valentine's day come and gone, 'jus la dat'. feb 14 just happens to be the birthday of one of my very best friends. it started off pretty badly, though. i woke up late, and couldn't wish him. i just knew something was wrong when that happened. college was boring, as usual. people had developed some sort of colour code for their so-called 'status'. i am unfamiliar with the intricacies of it, but i do know that black stood for not interested. well what do you think i wore? not black, exactly; black tinged with green is more like it.

ok so i went to college and it was the same thing. i slept a lot, until there came an announcement 'english essay writing at 11.30'. 'damn, this is gonna make my day' i thought. come 11.25, i got the permission of the teacher and went skipping along to the venue (NO i am NOT gay, it was JUST an EXPRESSION...sheez!). i was all prepared to do my worst, when the topic came our way. sadly, it did not allow any of my more er...lucrative descriptions - totally serious, totally boring, totally jejune, totally INANE topic - but i still managed to be the first person to land on neptune. that was about the only fun i could have in that whole hour of sitting there and trying to brainstorm when people all around me were filling pages and pages with porno and still more porno. then it was lunchtime...

good stuff and bad stuff after the lunch break...i got to cut two sessions of engineering mechanics (i can't stand it, so this, obviously is the good stuff that happened)...walked into the drawing hall for the short story writing contest, and voila - i'm royally screwed. the theme was 'colours'. i think i should reserve my judgement when it comes to the topic, as i'll probably come up with all kinds of exotic descriptions that may not exactly thrill many. the outcome was this - deaf man forgets to wear pants while proposing to girlfriend on valentine's day; she agrees in spite of this and they dance around the whole place and finally into an intersection where 'SPLAT!', a truck gatecrashes their little shindig; they go to heaven and are forever united, all with loads of colourful descriptions - literally - and what not in between. kind of nice, right? actually, i pity the judges, i really do. who knows, they might end up giving me first place owing to the sheer stupidity of my articles OR - this just might be the actual outcome - they could drive their car off the nearest cliff.

on the whole, it was a pretty darn ok day i thought. don't you agree with me? 'e?' hello? 'ello? o?' someone? 'one?' anyone??? 'nyone? one?'

yours in boredom

sigh, what a perfectly sucky day! well, there was a cricket match - india won!!! - but still, what a perfectly sucky day, starting right from my waking up at the inhuman hour of 9 am. yes, you heard that right, 9 am. you swear at me? ok, let me put it this way...i was up until after 1. there now, feeling better? good! ok so where was i? ah yes, 'what a perfectly sucky day' (is it just me or is there an imminent feeling of deja vu?) - now i remember :) still haven't gotten over yesterday's 'big bang', so to speak. i think that looming large had a great deal to do with today. damn i can't believe i laid to waste a perfectly good saturday. well, there is manchester united vs portsmouth to look forward to, but still, that's not until 2240. yea, and rite now i'm so bored i'm thinking of studying. damn, that is some serious boredom. i'm not going to, of course - chee, that was just an expression...like i'd actually study, what a hilarious thought.

its at times like this that i wish i had a magic lamp - stupid aladdin has all the luck, bah! he doesn't even make good use of it, for gosh's sake. all he needed to do was wish for a million kazillion wishes, but nooo...moron! the first thing i'd wish for will be a flying elephant. don't ask me why, its just some vague concept that wormed its way into my head one fine midsummer morning, as i was writing an english paper. i think its pretty obvious it hasn't gotten out. hey, all of us need something to aim for, right? come to think of it, i think i'd be in a dilemma. i'd have to choose between a flying elephant, a ballet-dancing hippo and a rabid clown. no i'm not nuts, its just a fascination, like er...ah, the birdman's fascination with, well, birds.

ok that's enough of that i think. what i really feel like doing right now is going on to the roof with a flashlight in my hand, pointing it up, turning on the switch, and yelling at the top of my voice 'come get me, alien scum! i'm not afraid of ya!!!'. hey, it'll at least cause some sort of commotion among the neighbors, if not anything else. wish me luck! adios...

sunset hath passed

it felt good to see those gates again - wide open, as usual, welcoming a member of the family. i must admit i couldn't stand the long walk, i was that bloody anxious to get there after such a bloody long time. the two globes were still there - 'look, we're goin between the two ugandas'. i couldn't help smiling. sigh, how i miss those days. i guess it is true that you learn things the hard way, you don't realise what something means to you unless it is taken away from you, or, in this case, you taken away from it.

i walked in as though nothing had happened - nothing had, indeed. the environs had never seemed more beckoning. reminiscing was something i had hoped to avoid, but alas, that was not under my control. i spent the best time of my life at this school, and it would be nothing less than criminal to say it had left an indelible mark on me. it's impossible to explain what loyola means to me, what it has done for me, what it has made me into. i can't forget a single day that has elapsed since the day a chubby youngster with curly hair made his way into this wonderland. thinking about that makes me wonder how much things can change in thirteen years. a teen stood there, with a bit of fuzz growing on his chin, not nearly the same person, but still awestruck. my juniors were there, they recognized me, told me stuff. i guess i owe them an apology for not noticing them that much. how could i? i was ensconced in my own little shell wherein i was hanging on to all that had happened, hanging on by the frayed edges of my recollections - frayed after a million or more revisits, frayed from my incessant holding on to them. the only people i did notice were my vice-principal (sweetest guy alive), and two teachers who i think have left the greatest impression on me, though i doubt they know it. there was the indomitable dp, behind every single thing that happened at loyola (omnipresent even!), and there was the ever-cheerful mrs. elizabeth mathew, the only person who has ever made me enjoy biology classes. there were juniors and there were still more juniors.

i imagined myself there, at loyola, just my classmates and i, playing football like in the old times. the sun shining bright, the clear blue sky above the bunch of us, running behind a football as if our lives depended on it. it would have been the most beautiful thing ever, just loyola, the sky above, and the bunch of us. i thought tears would stream down my face, like they did, for the first time in years...it was our farewell day. good old sutter hall, still standing after batches like us had laid siege to it, seemed the perfect setting. it was unusually quiet in there, and we, for the first time, listened to someone speaking through the microphone. i had told myself i wouldn't cry that day. the speeches were over, and the chairs were pushed back. all the teachers formed a huge semicircle. we were each given a candle and a momento. the candle was lit, and we went to each teacher in turn, saying our last words to them as their students. that was when the finality of everything struck me, and the tears started streaming down my face. it ended that way, the light of the candle extinguished by a stray drop that had trickled down all the way to my chin. there was never so clear a sign...i still have it with me - its in my drawer, the red ribbon still wrapped tight around it.

today was when i finally realised, the sun had already set...the perpetual daylight that existed when i was there was gone. its a good thing i have my memories - the way colour was washed into everything with the soft rays of the sun, the way the colours darkened and reflected the raging ball of fire with all its ferocity just before twilight...the rest is built into me, i don't need memories when it comes to that. if nothing else, i will always have the salt at the end of a candlestick.

my first post!!!

ah, this is it! i thot i'd never be able to get past step two ;) now that i've gone this far, nothing seems to be coming to me. damn this writer's block. i thot this would be the perfect way to blast rite through it. hm, i guess it could still happen, come to think of it. o well, later!

peace