So would you rather have every moment as an ordinary one so that your ignorance would keep you happy? Or would you have that one perfect moment and then go through the pain of knowing that nothing ever again would be able to equal it? They used to teach us in school that all good things must come to an end, I'm afraid they will one day. I hope I'll be able to live with it, when the day comes.
Just what do you do, when you are afraid of the one thing that makes you happiest. When you see the perfect moment, and you know that it is just a moment, that it would get over like all other moments. And what do you do after having seen perfection, when every other moment that follows is just not good enough, no matter how good it is. There is something wrong with the theory of relativity, because if we compare everything with the best moment, then every other moment would be the worst. It feels unfair, and it feels wrong. Because, then you become afraid of the best times, precisely because they are the best times and nothing, ever again, would be good enough.
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Tum itna kyun muskura rahe ho,
kya gam hai jisko chhupa rahe ho...
It's funny how sometimes it feels great even when nothing great happened, when you had no expectations and you got nothing in return. But it feels great, because you fought for what you wanted and then, as I would put it "Kya farak padta hai!" whether you got it or not. For the record, I fought for the one thing I really wanted, and I did not get it, not the way I wanted to. But there is a satisfaction that I would never regret this, that this would be one moment I would cherish. Maybe my smile arises to veil the sadness of my loss, or maybe, from the satisfaction of having given it all I had to give. Anyhow, I am smiling, and that is all that matters.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- William Ernest Henley
Will you look around, to see that I'm not there?
Will you care?
Will you care?
Will you still smile? Will life still be worthwhile?
Would you feel any difference if I wasn't alive anymore?
Will time heal your pain? Will your lips no longer have my name?
Would you feel any difference if I wasn't alive anymore?
Will time heal your pain? Will your lips no longer have my name?
Will your life ever be the same again?
I have fought and fought
but the answer I just wouldn't get.
I am still fighting
but there isn't much courage left.
I don't want to end this, but I just can't go on.
Let me have my answer, the times have tortured me too long.
Three days that were magical. Three days that destroyed and repainted the image I have of 'her'. Three days that blew away six years worth of thinking. There is a lot that I could overcome, a lot that I could defeat with the courage that I found. A courage that I have lost again, for the same reason, at the will of the same fate, again. I'm sitting here alone and thinking what I did wrong. Perhaps I have the answer, perhaps the three days gave it to me. The three days that made me wish again, and after which, I have lost all courage to ever wish again. Three days that gave me everything, and then took away the dream mercilessly. Three days that I wish had stayed forever. Three days that I wish had never happened.
Never again. Never ever again.
There is no water out here,
there is no way to clean my hands.
A scar of a knife that I gave myself,
my own blood that betrayed myself.
The pleasure was too great to handle,
the outcome I didn't think would matter.
The burden is all that stays now
and I am the one who pays now.
There is no compassion out here,
there is no way to end this sorrow.
The ugly darkness of my past
stays with me for every tomorrow.
There are no lies, and no escapes.
'Cos someone watched the Garden of Eden
when Adam ate the fruit of hate.
It is a sin they say, and I have no doubt.
But this soul pleads for a way out of this ugly clout.
I haven't said it out loud yet, and it seems kind of frightening to say it now too, so I won't. But with another year gone, there's so much that has happened and so much that I've learnt that I can't figure out what to put down and what not to. Life's taught me how to fight and lose, and then fight again. Victory really isn't sweet if it comes without the bitterness of loss. In the past nineteen days, life changed more than it ever did even in past nineteen years.
Birthdays always meant holidays that were spent receiving calls and getting ripped off at parties. What birthdays were not supposed to be were complicated days spent scouting around a new city, looking for a place to stay. And just when I thought that this one was going to be as mundane as a birthday can get, some people came along, and made it very special. Another nice surprise when I was least expecting one, that too from people I thought I won't be meeting again, in a place I thought was too far away to be of any consequence to me, and in a way that was outrightly sweet. Just how many times do you have balloons on your birthday that actually say your name in hindi, because someone spent the time and effort to put your name on them. Some people are simply too good, and they make you fall in love with life all over again. Yes, in love I am, and as happy and as excited as I was at 13, waiting to explore the teens. They say the 20's are harder; I say, the harder, the better. Bring it On.
There is always a design, and it is always perfect. It is the reach of our thought that defines how far we can see, and usually, we don't see too far. It's only when a part of the picture becomes complete, when the boundaries become clear that we realize how meticulously it was planned, it's sheer perfection is dazzling. Now I know why this sem went the way it did. Now I know why I had to be rejected so many times. Because something lay at the end of the tunnel, something that I had always wished for; Something that came late, but did come. Something, called McKinsey.
Failure leads to doubt, and doubt leads to questions. And there's no question that I didn't ask myself in the run up to yesterday. And when I sat for this company, I found it hard to hope, for it had been shattered too often. And just when I thought that it was over, that my doing was done, I realized that it had just begun. Six hours yesterday, gave me the reward of six months of effort.
And now that I have the internship with McKinsey, life seems settled, for now atleast. Looking forward to experiencing the rigours of corporate life, and also to earning some money of my own :D
Twenty minutes before an interview, she chats away to a very nervous guy sitting next to her. Somebody looks at her for the first time and has no particular feeling about it. He talks to her and notices something about her. She is not the kind that he is used to.
She is barely five feet tall, and carries a cross bag that's almost as long as her. She gives a smile as if she's known you for a hundred years, it almost makes him feel special. He looks at her as she chats away, and he notices something more. This girl is damn smart. She can make the most droning convos sound like a Rihanna song, remixed with extra paparazzi and double the emotion. He could listen to her all day and not get tired. She's cute, almost cuddly and now, he has a problem. He likes her, and he can't let go. He can't figure how he could've fallen for her. Maybe it's the way she carries herself, or maybe it's her tomboy attitude. Maybe it's the way she makes him smile, or maybe it's just that when she's around, he doesn't feel the need for anyone else.
His problem had a simple solution, but simplicity had never knocked at his door before. And it wasn't coming now. She had never thought about it like that. Think now!, he almost said to her. Because for a very long time, that's the only thing he had thought.
Take a deep breath right now, and close your mind. Stop thinking. Stop thinking about the bad that happened yesterday, or the good that you're looking forward to. And feel yourself in this particular moment, not dependent on any other, just this moment, just you. Feel at home.
Just how many times do we define our 'today' by the after effects of 'yesterday' or the nervousness of 'tomorrow'. It is reflexive, we (atleast I) are constantly judging whether we are happy or not and the judgement is based on the premises of what was or will be. The continuity is everlasting, if you can't be happy now, you will carry this gloom into the next moment and into your own future.
I am no philosopher, but I can say this, if you want to be happy tomorrow, just dwell in the riches of the present and be happy right now.
Allah ke bande has de, Allah ke bande,
Allah ke bande has de, jo bhi ho kal fir ayega...
God does this to me because he thinks it'll make me stronger, because he thinks I can take it better than most. The funny thing is, I can.
You can make a brave face in front of everyone, the smile is always there for the showing, the careful shrug of the shoulders to show how you didn't care. But it's yourself that you cannot fake or pretend in front of. It's in front of yourself that you're powerless because there's no place to hide, not in front of your own eyes. You can give 'reasons' to others, but your self knows the naked truth and that is what hurts the most. Being alone in times like these is not easy, it's frightening to say the least. It's all inside you, every boil of frustration and there's only one person to take it out on. Yourself.
I recently had a lecture in this room and it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. It brought back memories of the time I had spent in that room as a freshman. There was something about the second semester, about attending lectures with a panache of doing well, the madness of it all; the naive (mis)understanding of what college life was. The road ahead was blocked, the puzzle totally incomprehensible. And ignorance was bliss.
I couldn't compare that with third year even if I wanted to. The clarity of this place is almost blinding, of knowing what has to be done and precisely how. Life just seems mechanical now (or electronic :P ) because everything we do feels like running a race to leave someone behind. The friendships that happened then are the ones that still stand, rest all has been a bitter face of reality.
I wish it was possible to go back to the innocence of that room, the beauty of being free within those walls. Practicality was never my cup of tea.
It doesn't matter in an examination wether you knew the question paper or wether you studied hard to complete the syllabi. The only that matters is what you write on the answer sheet.
That's how I've been fucking myself for two years now. And I'm going to stop trying.
There is an pessimist that resides in each one of us. And then there is the optimist. Sometimes you look up at the sky and it only appears black; it becomes the boundary you cannot cross. And yet at times you look up, and freedom beckons.
There are so many things that happen around us that define the way we think and who we are. But really, more things happen within us that define what we become and what we make of what we have. If we could only control ourselves, we would realize that controlling the world was never a tough ask. I don't know why it becomes difficult at times to be the optimist or to smile, because as someone once told me "Always remember to have fun and smile, things will seem smaller and much better."
Life is right here, and Life is also a long, long way away.
I waste around half a day everyday sleeping in classes and getting myself through labs in a college that I've given up on. I have started to prepare for my post grad studies which is going to take pretty much the whole of my college life from now on. I am probably going to do my MBA from a good B-School (hopefully, at least) where (from what I hear) spending ten hours a day on your college work isn't enough. And then, I am going to land up some sixteen hours a day kind of jobs with a good pay package for some corporate bigwig where the whole mantra would be to make profit.
That's the plan, and it sucks; Big Time. That's not the life I ever wanted but it seems like I'm not the one making decisions here. Money was never really important, and that's the only thing I might end up with (that too, in a best case scenario).
I mean, last I knew I was still a young guy getting used to college. I'm not even ready to do a professional post grad degree forget doing a job and actually earning money. That's supposed to be far away in the future isn't it, when we become all old and mature and when we finally realize what the 'right thing' is; and yet it seems so woefully close, just a blink away. And I'm afraid to close my eyes because the next thing I see in the mirror might not be me, but a money hungry technocrat working his ass off to deadlines to keep on feeding his greed.
And there's no way out.
As I start this race today, I Pledge that I will have faith, that I will believe. And One Day, I'll be The Best.
I never thought it would be Theodore Bagwell's words that I'll carry with me when the series ends, but here I am, ' a prisoner of my own freedom, caught in the captivity of negativity'. It really didn't mean much when I heard it the first time but it seems so apparent now. We keep telling ourselves that we are free, that no one controls us but our own self. But does it? Every time we run after freedom, it's exactly what we lose. Because we are controlled by it, by our own freedoms, by the fact that we can't sleep till we have it, and we can never have enough of it. And here we are then, prisoners of our own freedoms, enslaved by the very idea that is supposed to set us free. And we can't break out of it, because it's a part of who we are.
We're all the same, in pursuit of a freedom that we can never truly possess, and yet running after it, because that is what we were programmed to be. But it is the pursuit that makes it all worthwhile, not the end, but the means to it. Because we would be men of stone if we didn't fight for it, and it is the fight that makes us believe that we can reach it some day, and it's this fight that we call our life. We can't break out of our own lives, all we can do is fight, and never walk away because as Michael Scoffield says, "All we need, is to have a little faith."
Sem 5 is finally rolling and after two days in college I have no particular feeling about being back there. College has been good, bad and ugly at times but it's never been mundane, and now it seems to be becoming exactly that. There was always something worthwhile to look forward to, something I could keep my mind on, and drag myself through the umpteen classes. Now though it's just classes and when they finally get over for the day, I'm left wondering as to what exactly to do in that place. Wish something cool would come up soon (and by that, I definitely don't mean PecFest).
A lot has been going on apart from college though; gave my MBA scholarship test and very, very surprisingly, I did well enough to earn myself an interview call :D It's scheduled for tomorrow and I'm totally looking forward to it. Interview is one place where someone is sure to get fucked and the whole effort of making sure that that guy isn't you gives me quite a high :P
By the way, we have 4 core subjects this time and 5 subjects in all and the numbers can be quite depressing; but another surprise, most of the subjects seem interesting and even the teachers seem to be a couple of notches above the level we have begun to expect from the so-called PEC University Of Technology (If there was any doubt, no, I don't like the name).
One of the teachers yesterday asked us the one question that is supposed to be a taboo, and it brought back some really stinging memories of last semester; the cg downslide has been quite an issue for the past year and it'll take some serious work to make it respectable again ( Not that I didn't work in the previous semesters!).
Bring On the interview!
