Reading internship rejection letters hurts way more than you can imagine. 

Art

I was good at art.

My aunt is a professional artist, she used to churn out beautiful oil paintings by the dozen and my Grandmum would gift them all over. She would say I got my talent from her because the only drawing my Dad ever did was drawing future sci-fi cars on his engineering stationery.

I had a keen interest in art, I loved to draw. I hated to color because we couldn't color beyond the predefined lines. The teachers at my school would pester Mum at parent teacher's conferences to get me to make a chart for the class walls. Losing the cloak of modesty, I reckon I was an extremely good kid. I was good at art, I played the harmonium beautifully, I sang Hindi classical music and I danced rhythmically to all the Kathak beats that my teacher churned out. I was a straight A student and teachers would sign up my name for competitions before asking for my parents consent.

And then Class Six happened,

To be thrust into an entirely new environment with strange people from other classes was something my naive mind never comprehended. The student I was seemed to be a slight shadow of what I had been once and terrible thoughts accompanied me throughout the day.

I still remember the embarrassing things I did during class six, I do not think I could possible ever rid myself of the humiliation. I withdrew into a shell so tight that even my "passions" weren't able to pry it open. The only thing I continued to do was play instruments with a bunch of coming of age boys. My instrumental teacher considered me one of his best students but the rebuke I faced from my peers during the class who unfortunately were boys who had discovered the gender difference took a toll.

As for singing, my music teacher left the school and the new teacher fell for the charms of the "popular girl gang" who couldnt sing to save their lives.

We were always given a choice between Art and Instrumental and I never failed to chose the latter.
Instrumental became my escape, something I continued to choose over art or home science for which I suffered the ire of my friends. There were times when I was the only girl in the group of boy playing my xylophone terribly.

I did a lot of growing up during those years, waiting in the wings of the auditorium for the performance with a dozen boys. Perhaps looking back, I grew shy further, withdrew further, fell in love also but learnt to be on my own, comfortable with myself (because teenage boys will make fun of you till you cry).

I just need to close my eyes and I can feel the cold that permeated the instrumental room, the slight haze of cigarette smoke that hung in it through out the day. The funny smell of smoke and sandalwood combined, the dust that covered the smocks lying over the instruments. I remember how I used to hate taking of my shoes and putting them back on because girls could never just raise the foot onto the little shelf and tie their laces.I developed long lasting hatred and love in that room for some people. I still harbor that in the depths of my heart.
Unfortunately, the dance and the music room were located right next to the instrumental room and naturally the beautiful girls got the time.

Honestly it never bothered me till class tenth, when the object of my affections decided to grow up and get a real girlfriend. My girlfriends never realized the secret I kept. Even in class ten, I had a crazy friend, my partner who no one could possibly stand. Us and the couple that sat in front of us formed our own little world of private jokes. Class eighth to tenth was the best period of my childhood, I was a good student with the exception of math, my teachers loved me and one hounded me till the end of the year regarding a chart. I had girlfriends who were cool and I was cool with them. I was good at instrumental, getting comfortable in my skin, discovering my love for books and travelling.

And then class eleven happened.

It was class sixth over again except I never found anyone. My heart fills with pity as I look onto those years at the girl that I was because high school had finally caught me and it did not let go till it broke me down.

I left instrumental to choose art much to the heartbreak of my teacher. He clearly did not understand  my need to be part of something 'girls do' because I needed to make girlfriends. The place I loved so much, that little room at the end of the corridor became alien to me as I would bypass it. My heart yearned for it.
Until now, when someone smokes that brand of cigarette, it reminds me of Sir. His voice, his name-calling, his patience, his crazy handwriting and my cowardice : I never went back.

The only brush with art I had in the years through my middle school was winning the art competition that The Bengali Association used to organize every year at the time of pujo. Once they realized that I had won three times in a row and that I was a non bengali, the awards went to worse Bengali artists.

In class eleventh, I competed with people who had professional training in art and I couldnt keep up.
I have never taken it up again. I have pencils, brushes, paints and all sorts of supplies but the drive is gone.

This is what I wonder at times : When life happens how do you keep your passions alive ?

Art has now become something that I will pursue once I leave for my master's degree because I have tried to learn it but we all know how that goes.

I see sketches, paintings and pallets of my peers and there is an odd jealously. Odd for it is not their work I am jealous of but the freedom they have.

Goa changes you

Did I tell you Goa was fun.

I just realized what a big deal I made out of Goa clothes. The thing is I hardly remember the clothes, I mean I do remember looking the worst of the lot but then Goa takes over.

You remember when we were kids we used to have this camera's where you would hold it against your eyes and click a button and photos would change. It was like a reel inside and with natural light against the back, it was like a tiny projector inside that small little colored box.

Goa is like that for me.

First image is of the tiny hits barely a metre away form the rail tracks where our train stopped before entering the station. the yellow and blue low huts with large overhanging coconut trees. It had a litter of kittens roaming around in the yard, my friends jumped out of the train and stood at the gate staring at them

Second image is of two drunk girls and guy walking down the main road of Goa at two o clock in the night searching for their hotel after being dropped home by a bunch of young adults they met walking down the hill.

Third is a couple on a white Activa, driving down the curve towards the left onto the Anjuna Road with wind in their hair, fear of being discovered by their friends, not knowing the way and just riding along. 

If my eyes were a camera, it would be a video recording. I skip over the bad parts, the part where we get lost, I get into fights, where people talk, where they leave us behind and I bitch. Its just a recording of a a beautiful ride on a white Acitva behind a boy whose waist I was afraid to grip and chose to hold onto the handle bars at the back, a ride through wide roads, colorful houses lining the road, rolling sea on the other side, wind messing up our hair, not having a care in the world. There were times in Goa where the thing that bothered me the most was not time, not some pending work, not some responsibility, not something I had to say to someone, not something I had to work myself on rather it was just "Where is that damn beach"

I would take that on my to-do list anyday.

This is going to be a long post. 

Back ?

Prabhas ( on whom, unsurprisingly ! I had a tiny crush) emailed me inviting me to the CLC placements blog as a contributor. Once I had logged in, changed the God-awful background I realized I did not even remember the background of my own blog.

And then it was like flashing back to 2007 when I had started off. The journey since then, of how I have been drifting farther and farther each year. My resolves of keeping it a true account of heart forgotten somewhere among internships, college and friends.

At one time, Blogger was my friend. Random people whose names I cannot recall were friends, friends who lifted my spirits when I failed to get into a college of my choice. People who did not question the awkward phase I was going through or the sudden influx of responsibility that I was too busy shirking off. I forgot Blogger and its people when I made friends outside the virtual world. Sounds rather pathetic having "no" real friends. The thing is I had real friends, I just preferred the virtual ones. With me, preference becomes a huge deal. I make my preference known very clearly.

There used be days during exams where I would be furiously scribbling blog posts at the back of my register lest I did not forget everything I had to pour out to the online world.

Its been nine months since I thought about this.

There is this weird feeling in the bit of my stomach. The sick feeling of guilt for betraying Blogger, not my virtual friends but only Blogger. There is a tinge of happiness because I found friends I can tell things too. But  a large part of it is fear, fear of those very friends.

Goa !

Goa is okay.

I want Goa now. I have reached my I dont care phase about clothes hence i cannot be bothered now.

Sand, surf, sleep and tequila awaits me.

I promise not to worry or be bothered by anything in Goa. 

Girls :D

I am learning, to be a girl. Not just how to act and behave but also to talk.

I have friends who are girls now and rather than ignoring and not paying attention to their girly behaviour, I am actively participating !

Yes, I am rather proud of it myself.

Hopefully I shall transform before I end up getting married to a boy my Grandmum knows through someone (which btw is one of my biggest fears).

That reminds me, I must do a post on marriage. Perhaps after Goa. 

2012

2012 has been a memorable year. You know the kinds you remember when you are eighty, perhaps in a rocking chair wondering whether the dinner will have mashed potatoes. But the reason it will be memorable is because of the lessons I learned.

At the end of 2012, I am half a lawyer. I am not the confused teen I was, I know myself, my dreams and my ambitions. It has been a roller coaster year; there has been joy and sorrow, love and heartbreaks, calmness and depression and all the various volatile emotions ranging from the mad temper tantrums to those moments of perfect happiness.

I changed. Dreams changed. Friends changed. Family changed. Everything changed or atleast my perceptions did.

So lets round up a brilliant 2012,

So year started with the same resolutions as the previous ones. However, like the previous ones I haven’t fulfilled any of them. I honestly don’t remember much about January except that was the first winter in Law Faculty. I remember drinking the sweet tea from those sticky tea glasses and shivering for the morning eight thirty classes.

February was completely different, I was interning for the first time in my life at an “Uncle” law firm. The lessons I learned there (academic and non-academic) will stay with me all my life. It was my first brush with office life and while we were treated to a party on the second day there, backstabbing, gossiping, office culture were things whose existence I acknowledged for the first time. Frankly, I learned as much about law as you would learn from reading a Law Commission Report but what I did learn were Three Golden Rules. These rules have helped me through countless hard times. February was also the month of Comic Con, which was like visiting my childhood again. Pinki, Chacha Chaudhary, Tinkle were comics I consumed by the dozen. I suppose seeing them in existence ten/twelve years later brought sweet satisfaction, that even though Cartoon Network had changed there are things which remain the same. February also brought my first semester result, I have not jumped so high with joy since. It was also the month when I first kissed a boy.

March was Muscat. They say third time is a charm and it certainly was. If it felt like home in year before that, this year we did homely things, wined and dined with neighbours, exchanged cups of sugar and stories. If I concentrate hard enough, I can feel myself standing at the Seeb beach with those round stones under my feet and the turquoise water in front of me, amazingly I can recall watching the group of Muslim school girls chasing each other’s hijab as they flew in the cold sea air, the two Pakistani men who sat silently gazing at the horizon perhaps remembering home. Muscat is a tumultuous time always, the need to stay away yet the yearning for home.

April and May are months which flew by fast. Exams, notes and comprehending who were friends and who weren’t sum them up. Unfortunately I remember a lot of tears, heartbreak and anger. This was my low point of the year. I would love to disregard this time however it was rather significant. I was insecure about myself, doubting every move I made and had the confidence of science student giving an accountancy exam.

And then came June, I was at my second intern. The first ten days I spent as an actual law intern and I worked on drafting, Manupatra, privacy policy agreements (terms I had heard for the first time).  The rest twenty days were a never ending party, endless laughter accompanied with terrible read yummy dhaba food. I became friends with people from different backgrounds and colleges, it was exhilarating to know that I could go toe to toe with a student from a NLU. I will always remember this month not only for the lessons but for the laughter because it was endless. It reverberated through the room, I can hear us laughing about the things we did. The simple joys of food or smoking and having your senior come over and ask for a smoke or the rush of having spent an entire day doing productive work  and coming home to tell your Mum about it. It was about those small things and large but most importantly, June gave “me” back. I was me.

(second part coming next week or when I stop smiling because I cant stop remembering how much we laughed)  

Go Goa

When I was in class five or six, we went on a family vacation to my Dad's favourite holiday spot Shimla. We travelled in the Toy Train, stayed in a gorgeous hotel, visited Chail and Kufri and did tourist-y things. 

That is the last memorable vacation I recall where it all seemed extremely simple.

Subsequent vacations to Jaipur, Rishikesh and even Muscat were adventurous but lacked the element of holiday. 

So when the Goa holiday with friends was propagated, I got excited. I was ecstatic, daydreaming during exams, using it as a bargaining tool to finish chapters, using it as a motivating factor. 

However, now as the fifteenth of January draws nearer, the thrill is slowly seeping out.

When the Goa vacation was created, I imagined days spent lazing, not worrying what we ate or what we wore, not having a schedule of places to visit or must do things, hours spent lying on the beach writing/filling my diaries, sipping at pina coladas staring into the sea. That's the image I had in my head.

Its increasingly becoming something far and far away from this image.

Shopping, clothes, accessories, suitcases, money, dresses, shorts, sunscreens, hats, things like body image, party behaviour, swim ability and adjusting are becoming the major issues.

The things I want out of Goa seem terribly different from the things that other people are going for. 

My reason is simple : I want a vacation from everything. I want a holiday from life in Delhi, some days to myself to process and think without being distracted by mundane things. I want to enjoy, laugh and have fun for five days without giving sparing a thought about anyone. I want to sleep. I want fun. No partying, no friendship, no family. 

Most of all I want peace.

Terrifying

The last three days have been particularly hard. It is not easy to deal with the real side of dreams. We were taught, dreams are endless but are they really ?

When  terms and conditions render them all but useless, does the integrity or the very essence that makes it a dream remain ?

In my head, the steps I had paved to my dream were enough. But I realize they aren’t, and I suppose it’s the worst feeling.

It terrifies me to admit this but I am back to square one now. What is worse, I don’t know where to begin. 

Stay

Some people leave, others come back and then leave and then there are some who just stay.

It haunts me

Nothing brings life into perspective like death.

Death is unpredictable, happens out of the blue. You don’t expect it; you cannot make contingencies for it. It hits you like a slap in the face. You stop living your life like you did the moment before that.

The perspective that hits you may or may not last. The attitude change may affect life as general or not.

You just hope that the perspective lasts, that it stays like a filter or perhaps a pair of glasses when you see the rest of your life. Because that is the only way you would do everything without a care about the consequences.

Death shocks you, the suddenness of the event gives you goosebumps.

She may have been sitting in front of you one day asking her Dad on the phone to book tickets for the movie and the next you have a text in your phone about the sudden demise of her beloved father.

The jealousy, the anger, anxiety, evil thoughts, hatred, envy, scepticism and the resentment it all drains out of you. All that is left is shock and perhaps shreds of pure guilt for having such thoughts.

And then you think about all those people who are dear to you and what if something like this happened to them?

What would you have changed or done more or said more or perhaps just loved more.

Lessons

Star World, it seems has taken upon itself to educate the younger generation about the joys of TV series extending beyond five seasons.

It recently came back with Grey's Anatomy, everyday at ten o' clock.

I have not been watching everyday mostly because I cannot stand Meredith and Derek. To tell you honestly, I am waiting for Hunt to return and spar with Yang. I like my love stories with a little fight between the lovers and not with the others.

Anyway, what I have realized is that life is not like Grey's Anatomy. Save me the roll of  eyes saying "told you so".

I did think so. I thought you could describe your feelings to someone as it came to your mind without thinking, that eventually you could fall in love with your friend and it could be all you wanted and a hundred other things you assumed.

I was eighteen. I was naive. So yes, my younger Grey's watchers don't expect life to unfold like Meredith's.

You cannot express your feelings to another person as they are in your head. They need to be moulded and created accordingly.

So even though it may seem so easy to go upto another and say what you think, here are repercussions to that. 

Things about me

I pray for this every damn time !
Except when its Mum.

DT

We were talking about studying abroad when he asked, Why I preferred the US over any other country ?
At first I could not think of any specific reason so I told him I had family there, more than anywhere else.

Even after that conversation ended, this stayed in the back of my mind. Why did I prefer the US ?
I do have close family there but I knew that wasn't the reason, neither was the fact that I saw it on the TV shows.

A few weeks later, flickering through channels, I came across Vijay Amritraj interviewing Donald Trump. It was at that moment that it struck me, why the US formed such an integral part of my dreams. It was when Trump started talking about what a success Apprentice had become that it came to me, like an epiphany almost.

The fact that I had given up on the one dream I have had since I was fourteen. I had given up on it because of the dismal dark place that my career was heading towards during graduation.

Now I am at a better place, I am going towards a better one. So even though I may not have a twelve year old postcard stuck to my table that I daydream to but now I am taking my dream back.

Trump is on !

Rainbows

Is there something at the end of this not-so-pretty rainbow ?

So you trudge along, waiting and silently cursing the difficult path. While others jump along the way, faster and happier. On some rocks you trip, others you kick while they have no rocks in their path.

So you get the plot right.

Now my question, do we all get the same pot of gold at the end ?
If yes, why ? If no, do we even get a pot of gold ?

One day. Again

A picture was all it took to convince me to write again.

A picture says a thousand words doesn’t it ?

It said to me a few, something you love isn’t given up just because you are bad at it.

And if you think about it, its true.

So I’ll write. Write about all the stupid mundane things I used to.

Lawyered

You know you are a law student :

11) While travelling in the metro, big “seat want” aunties offer you their seat when they see the five books that you are carrying weigh atleast thirty kilos.

2

  2)  Watching the movie Speed : Cruise Control for the tenth time, all you can think of are the number of negligence and tort related suits that would be filed in the court in when the ship enters into the harbour city.

  3)   When you bribe naïve siblings to pretend to be judges while you as the Defendants lawyer present your      case

  4)  Anytime you start an argument, atleast one person says “ab please lawyer-giri mat jhaad”

  5) When you know what Hrithik Roshan refers to Article 21 when fighting for his life in Guzaarish

66) When Hotel Management students complain about wearing black and white to serve as stewards and the only thing you can think of is, black and white is for lawyers bitches ! 

   (Shall be updated as and when :) )

One Year

It has been exactly a year since I blogged. Well a year and one day since I wrote without being  asked.

One Day

Oh I know that when Dex puts his hand inside his pocket, he will pull out his lavender scented invitation and I know that when I turn the page Emma Morley will guide their way through the maze. I know I will dread turning the pages once Dex reaches Paris.
What I don't know is why I come back to this book again and again. It begins as a casual read, something to pass these dull summer moments by and suddenly it turns into a mystery of known facts.
I suppose its Dex and Em that pull me to read, they seem like old friends now. People I once knew an its oddly comforting to read their story again. For here there is no pretence, just plain in your face honesty.
Finding me and relating myself to a character is what I did the first time I read the book, the third or the fourth time that I am reading it now, I am not able to identify with either because they seem like people I would know in real life.

I know I am like Emma, yet I know this too that I would not have the courage to do half the things she did. At times, the emotional daftness and the false vanity of Dex is like looking into a mirror.
At the end  with Ian, Em knows in her heart that she loved him yet she was not in love with him. It makes me ponder and wonder every time I read it. It is such a difficult difference to make and yet it is one that makes all the difference.

The yearning and the desire that flows between them isn't what keeps the pages alive but rather it is the narration, its like being in the character's head. It almost seems an autobiography.

When I started the book, it seemed like a stiff upper lip British novel and I looked forward to chapters of annoyed phrases stacked together against each other and love and feelings described in single lines but instead I don't know when I fell for Em and Dex.
Em first and Dex later, you always fall for the playboy later.
The arrogance of Dex is hardly endearing but over time you discover that it conveniently hides the complicated person that he is. Em could be any girl, every girl.

As a reader you know when it is more than just a book that you are reading, it is when you feel that intense dislike for Dex or Em which lasts only until they explain, almost cajole you into understanding until you are unconsciously bobbing your head in compassion giving them permission to mess up further.

So what makes it special ?
Its not the love, their love story is highly unremarkable, cliched and predictable.
However, the journey is anything but. the ups and downs most importantly the friendship that continues irrespective anything.

This book teaches you about friendship, that bit about it which nobody teaches and nobody writes. Its about the bond, the bond between friends and the need, to discuss, for each other. It forms the foundation of it all and losing it will be fatal.

On page three hundred eighty two, Em says and I quote "Ridiculous, at thirty eight, to expect a song or book or film to change your life".
Well I am twenty one and this book though did not change my life but it did change the days of my life. Those days when I forgot everything and concentrated on the book. For if you read it, you know its not the kind that you read in chapters.
So here's to Em and Dex
and to One Day for being this brilliantly written book that I will always come back to.

(One Day by David Nichols is officially the fourth book to be added in the Forever Collection)

Habits

Once a habit now a hardly remembered memory, that’s what blogging has become sadly.

When I wonder ?

When did that need to write disappear, when did that urge to discuss and pen down the details fritter away, when did I forget about writing. Frankly I know the answers to all of them as shamed as I am to admit that.

Shamed I am to admit that I have lost a considerable amount of time I used to take out for myself. I could blame it on a thousand different things or even my favorite thing to blame “college”; but lets make this blog truthfully (unlike the other ones).

To blame I have only me.

I think it started with college, the reason that I cared for things or people which would eventually mean nothing to me. I am slow in picking up these things sadly. I became so involved in the juvenile things that happened. It was high school all over again just that I wasn’t the cool kid I was. I was the worrier, the wannabe, the acceptee.

I am not out of those clutches but I hope this knowledge that has dawned on me rather late doesn’t go futile.

Of course there are some other reasons also, the phone talking with my self confessed best friend. I think the need to talk which existed flies out of the window when another person listens. Listening is hard I have realized. You don’t need ears to listen, you need love which does sound corny. But if you don’t love a person I can indemnify that you wouldn’t bother to listen.

A theory to test out eh ?

Be careful this theory may not work on girls in case of absolutely lip smacking gossip.

Scarlett ensures that blogger wont work on her system hence to ensure regular posts I have to wait to get an actual smartphone.

However, I Bluebutterfly solemnly promise to tell the truth and only the truth and nothing besides the truth irrespective of however gruesome, hurtful or rude it may be.