The albatross and the tangerine.

6 years and 1283791273 drafts later!

It's not like I haven't tried blogging, but it's been so hard. It's almost as if there's a nagging high pitched voice in my head (sounds like my high school english teacher... probably something I should unpack in therapy). Which keeps telling me that I've already written everything that's on my mind right now.

And while all my dating profiles mention how I have 'varied interests and opinions' (and that 'blogging' is an interest), I feel really lost for thoughts every-time I sit in front of the familiar blogger UI. All I can mostly think of is.

1. Writing is harder now. (But I've written about that)

2. It's been so long since I wrote last. (Done that too. Like. A. Hundred. Times.)

3. Writing a post about the stuff I wanted to write about. That's what this post is about. (aaaaand of course, I've written about that too!)
4. Wanting lists to end on even numbers. (Hafta admit, this isn't that bad, I've always hated the number 3)

If only I had a niche growing up, like - [making lego blocks / writing BS trivia on Quora / anal bleaching],  I'm sure I would have been MUCH more consistent here. In fact, I'd probably be on YouTube by now, selling people finance courses to people and asking them to "Like, Subscribe, Click the bell icon."  OR calling myself a 'Visionary thought leader' on Linkedin

Come to think of it, I was creating content (questionable in quality? Yes.  but have you seen what the thought leaders do?!) before the creator economy was even a thing! When some of the kids that ask me to "Like, subscribe...etc" today were in diapers. And tbh, that's the only thing I can say to the voice in my head.

This blog and the people I met here have been really special.  And yes, there's some regret that I won't get checkins via comments from the old gang. But they are still very much a part of me, we did kinda grow up together. (Who knows, maybe some of them are actual visionary thought leaders?).  

There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.  - Gandhi

Khuda haafiz.
- Me

PS: Can't believe I quoted Gandhi and referenced anal bleaching in the same post!

Horn OK Please.

So the 17 year old who started this blog is 25, and he hasn't written words-that-aren't-part-of-coding-syntaxes in a long time, so he might just be rusty. The bright side though, is that no one's here any more, all the action is at Wordpress Tumblr Quora Medium. So just in case you're a teen  who stumbled across this post, don't judge me, but THAT is how much of an old timer I am. Also, the 140'th character is long gone so you can stop now.  Just kidding, your generation doesn't read tweets. It sexts on snapchat.

Trust me, its beyond scary to think, that I could write better when I was a 17 year old. What if it's not just the lack of practice? What if it's because I had, gasp, more clarity of thought? THAT is saying something, mainly because then, judging by my posts from 2008, my thought process, could be summarised by:

1. Wanting to get laid.
2. Hoping dad lets me drive.
3. Trying to sneak alcohol from someplace.

1. Drunken sex, while driving.

Admittedly, ^that seems like an enticing  thought now too,  but I hope you get my point.

I can only conclude this post as I resolve to wait and see if  future correspondence (yeah, it's coming baby) clears the self doubts.

PS: Till then I'll just go the easy way and submit my will to the blogging gods.
PPS: Hope they also answer drunken-sex-driving prayers.

Me.

Darr

8:10 PM: On a cold December night an innocent 6 year old incessantly flips through channels on his remote, until a stellar recreation of the visible universe jumps out at him from his television set and changes his life forever. Well yes you see the usual stars-and-space-blah ALL the time on the Discovery Channel (which is the channel we're talking about).

8:29 PM: The narrator probably said something to the tune of "In 5 billion years, as the Sun nears completion of it's lifetime, it's diameter will expand and it will engulf the very solarsystem that it would have nurtured for the past 10 billion years." *The end*.

Simple enough. But unfortunately, thanks the concept of dubbing to reach a wider audience what the 6 year old sitting in his New Delhi house gets to hear is "5 arab saal mein sooraj, dharti ko nigal jayega" and on cue, the friendly animated Discovery Channel Sun turns a monstrous red and happily expands to take up the entire screen.

The Earth is no more.  The boy stares at the screen in a state of shock. Credits roll.

Sleep eludes him for the next couple of nights which he spends with folded arms praying for the safety of his family.

In a couple of days he will come to understand that "5 arab saal" actually means 5 billion years or 50 million lifetimes (200 million if you live in Nigeria.) (Who the hell knows what arab means anyway?  Isn't that a race? When did it become a Number?)

I know kids get scared of random things all the time, but this was different. For starters it happened 19 years ago. Also, I was the innocent 6 year old.

I remember reiterating this story to my school counselor asked me to list down "when you've been scared" when I was in the 6th. Needless to say she couldn't hide her disappointment. (Newsflash: Not everyone is molested by their private tutors.) (Also, who discusses fear with 12 year olds?)

Though, I eventually came up with better (read: socially acceptable to relay) fearful incidents, "Two of us were chased by 20 people on the streets of Guwahati" etc. When I think of fear, it always, on cue, takes me back to those nights in my blanket 19 years ago.

Granted, that by then the only thing I'd thought of twice was how much of a bitch the letter 'R' is to write in cursive, but something from that night has still carried over with me, even though if it's in the form a deep dislike for counting in Hindi (and Urdu by extension) and hatred for the voice of that evil Discovery Channel Hindi dub artist. (He's still there! Or maybe, Hindi voice overlay artists just sounds the same.)

Anyway,
Me.

PS: Yes, that post ended abruptly.

Reincarnation.

Hello world. Kaise ho?

Okay, so 2 years and 6 months, yeah, I know mammals with shorter lifespans. Considering that anyone who ever read my blog has probably moved on to greener pastures, like LinkedIn posts,  Facebook Photography pages  or raising kids, this does seem like starting anew.

Basically, this is what my side of the universe has been buzzing with:

1. I grew up, left college.
2. I got a Job.
3. Then I quit it.
4. Also I started something of my own.
5. I haven't really learnt how to drive yet.
6. Oh, and I still like it when lists end with even numbers.

I do get that I'm slightly rusty while posting stuff that isn't accompanied with a meme, but then again, I did learn quite quickly after my first couple of blog posts, where i usd 2 typ lyk dis. Here's hoping I'm still as quick on the uptake ( I should be, cause: 7. I got into MENSA, and yes, I did think of a way to sneak that in.)

Reincarnation it is.
Me.

PS: There's still something about writing here that makes me feel 17 again. :)

The theory of everything.

 

The age of rocks vs The rock of ages

THIS is what one should not be spending time doodling on walls 8 hours before a Distributed Computing end-semester examination when you have 1000+ pages left and to top it all you're down with dengue.

Fml.
Me

Women101

Firstly I’m in Calcutta, basically to load up on some mata-pita ka pyaar before I go back to the Assam ki vadiyan  which are waiting for me. I turn to my cool little blog to while away the next couple of hours, the pretext being that it’s 2 AM, my flight for  Guwahati is in 4 hours and  my parents flew away on a jet plane 6 hours ago. Anyway, I was told by someone that my blog usually is some sort of glorified amalgamation of kiddishness and cynicism and I should try something new before actually judging people whose writings are a confluence of meaning and contemplations, and here it goes.

Note: Do tell me if it gets a tad bit boring, then next time I can write poems! :)

Okay, it’s about 2 women I know. One’s barely a college student while the other’s a working independent executive staying alone in a new city in her mid twenties let’s call them A and B (clearly, I’m NOT that great with story telling). About a year ago, I broke up (she prefers to use the phrase ‘dumped her the second time’) with A. There were circumstances and loads of other factors at play but I think THAT will suffice. Anyway, a couple of months later I realized that I made a mistake, and sort off did the stereotypical running around like a puppy, she wanted none of it. I guess she realized ‘she was happy earlier but she’s happier now’. Enter B. SHE was is was is my friends girlfriend.  I spoke to her for quite a bit, she was going through a rough patch with her paramour and did advise me to go all hopeless romantic on mine. Though her suggestions did fall flat, it was fun to know I could actually pull off the filmy things for someone. After a month or so, we realized that it was not happening, we cursed A, laughed a bit on how idiotic some of my actions were. She let me on to a bit of her fucked-up-ness and that was that. This blog post would have ended here had I not got a phonecall from B yesterday.

Basically, my friend realized he was screwing up, called her up, apologized and tried to  get things back to normal again, but THAT is when things get interesting. Speaking to her just took me back to my conversations with A from 6 months ago. What was really remarkable was that I was literally hearing the same dialogues, I mean ‘I was a doormat’, ‘I need time for myself now’, ‘I was obcessed with him earlier but now I’ll obsess over work’ . It was EXACTLY the same rhetoric. And THEY were coming from someone who was basically my Valakyrie of hopeless romance. I didn’t exactly know how to reason with her, so I heard her out. Cut the phone. And here I am. I guess most of this post makes me sound like some weird cynic who’s cursing women and who even Gandhi would advocate burning alive, but it really is not so. I’ve been friends with both of them, seen them through very weird times, heard them cry etc, and I really REALLY believe that it is for the better that they’re not blindly following someone who put them in that predicament, but what’s fascinating is that, this hulking up didn’t happen when they were in that state of ‘unspeakable pain’ it happened when they were finally going to get the compromise that they were craving for months. I know both of them might not like me hyphenating them with eachother or summarizing stuff with a sentence. But it’s just so obvious. I guess people, women even more so are hardwired to appreciate what they have to work towards (Yeah, so if you’re one of those ‘serial likers’ on facebook, it’s NOT going to help.)

I guess I FINALLY know why people adopt the ‘women are sex objects’ attitude, cause it probably works better, but I guess it’s just one of those things in life that makes your jaw drop. This post isn’t meant to be some sort off killer guide to women, but as that friend of mine is going to realize very VERY soon it’s true, in facts and in surmise. It does seem like that double date I planned with him a year ago clearly isn’t happening.

Anyway, I’ll get some sleep leaving you with my co-author for tonight....

THIS is Partho Dada, sadly I couldn’t completely do justice to his points on this topic due to my rustic Bengali, but yeah we did end up making some amazing Macher Jhol for dinner. I COULD have just gone clubbing on my last night in Kolkata, but this was just so much better. :)

P.S.    I’m kinda psyched about my first date in almost a year!
Me