From Chicago~
I think I owe you for all the help you have done. I agree my own boyfriend never cared enough to do a fraction of that. I am depressed that things didn't work out the way I thought. It's the way my luck works all the time. I play it great till the pre-finals, the finals always go wrong. I am sorry I treated you bad, though all you wanted was to care for me. I am stupid. I chase after the love, that was never mine, and probably would never be mine. I chase after a guy who keeps me in an illusion of forever love, but has done nothing to show prove that love, than giving me the simple things money can buy. I can't seem to transform myself, but sometimes I think of you and I feel guilty for treating you so bad. I think I am too emotional in fact; and that you were so much same was too much for me to handle. I didn't want you to love me or feel for me...I wanted to push you away. Because, I didn't want to hurt you, when I knew I could not love you. You might think I have forgotten you, and probably it's partly true. But I treasure your letters. For some reason, they have touched me and probably I am in love with them.I don't know why, when I met you, I couldn't correlate you with the guy who sent me those letters. It was like someone else. But I am sorry, I should have been nicer.I can't make up for that.This long chapter of my blog is on you, to show I do remember you.And oh, I did include one of the mails I wrote to you. In any case that was a rare thing.
About Feelings
"Baby, it's so crazy. We hardly knew each other all these years, and now our paths cross, half a world away from our city, and how! I sometimes feel that we are not to stay together for long. Well, guess it doesn't matter much. It doesn't matter as long as the few weeks we are together, our relation doesn't turn mundane - like so many of my relations did - relations with friends - girlfriends - and buddies. I'm scared of that - of a relation losing the flares - the sparks - and turning ordinary - like so many I've seen, felt and witnessed. I detest the word ordinary.
I sometimes feel that I'm not for long on this earth. but while I'm here, I'll live my life to fullest - drink it to the lees. So as I smoke one Marlboro Red after another - damn, these cigarettes are evil - I can't help but think of you. Think of you - of my past - so much that could have been - so much that didn't happen - mostly through my own faults. Or maybe I wasn't sure that I wanted those to happen. I'll never know if I was right or wrong. Probably wrong. But does it matter? I don't think it does. All I know is that I'm happy now. Happy with my workload, with my weekly booze parties, with the soccer games, the expeditions with Carlos. Happy with my teardrops, happy with my private dreams, and happy to dream of you.
I sometimes wonder. You are a lot like me, yet a bit unlike me. I want my life to exciting, yet I want to be in a stable relation. Sometimes I feel I don't know what I want. Right now, I want to die in someone's arms - someone like you - probably you yourself. I'll probably never find anyone else like you - or like me. I didn't - the last twenty-three years. Yet you lived close to me. And I discover you so far from home. That's life!
Given half a chance I'd fall in love with you. But I don't want the chance. Your thoughts and memories will probably lead you back to India. Back to someone who possibly doesn't want you, probably doesn't need you. How I need you baby. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. We, you and I, will always want the ones we can't get. Therein lies the jest. Maybe after you go back, I'll yearn for you. I'll tell you if I do.
But before you leave, I'll want a piece of you. (sounds creepy!) Maybe a photograph, maybe a few lines, maybe a an embrace, a kiss or a smile. Something that's meant for me, something that's meant to be mine alone. Don't know if I'll ever be the special one in your life, but I want you to be the special one in mine - more special than a lover or a girlfriend"
From Chicago back to Charlottsville
Well, as I said, I am back in CVille. Kinda didn't feel like having fun. Will go to DC on the 3rd to pick up Debbie. Debbie wanted me to stay in DC. but I wanted to be alone for a few days.. alone with my thoughts.
I cried on most of the trip back from Chicago. I was listening to the CDs we compiled. So many memories connected with each song, and as I listened to each song, all the emotions came rushing back. I don't know why I cried. It's certainly not manly, at least not what not by your definition. I knew all the while you were going back to Mumbai, god knows if I will ever see you again.. but the memories are so special.. Naperville, Ogden.. remember the night we went to the Walmart? It was so snowy and so cold.. and we were singing along with Enrique's "Hero" on the way back.. the song makes me feel so teary-eyed every time I'll listen to it since then.. on the day I came back, I went to she-nannigans one last time.. the bar where we lost and found your camera and id.. guess I'll go there again if I ever visit chicago.. I loved your lab..I'll probably try to get an internship there next summer.. even if I can't get back to you, i will get back to the lab.Funny how the most stupid meaningless incidents eventually can mean so much to me. It's so special.. I hope we- you and me- will stay in touch.. but then it's only a hope.
I still don't know why I made the 800 mile trip when I could have flown.. or I could have gone straight to LV.I guess you are really special.. buddies here in CVille told me so many times not to make the trip by car.. but I made it.Rusty was great and btw, I love her. But I saw a lot on the way to Batavia. I passed through Virginia, West virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Each state is so different from the other.I love the green mountains of my state; West virginia.. wild and wonderful as they say.. more mountains, but really different.. more rocks, less vegetations; Ohio, a few hills, lots of farmlands; the grasslands and flarness of indiana; the prairies of Illinois. I had a bit of fun on the way back .I was racing with a toyota corrola at 110 miles in the mountains of West Virginia.. a lot of fun weaving between other cars (going at 70 or 80) and chasing the silver corrola.On hindsight it was pretty risky, the terrain was not so great. Lots of twists and turns.. lucky i didn't have a cop on my tail (the speed limit was 65) but what the hell, it was fun.I managed to take a pic of the speedometer. Check it out.
Went to catch avatar on 3d in DC yesterday with Debbie. Lots of color and great action. I loved the birds the natives of Pandora flew on. And I adored the ending.. that makes the movie really awesome. That he remains his avatar.. Itx still didn't know that you weren't coming to New York. Oh! and I got a big quarter dollar for you from a gift shop in DC.. about 3 inches in diameter. I guess I'll keep it for myself.. and remember *your* quarter dollar pic in the LV hotel? I had it as my wallpaper for a few hours.. then changed it.. it was so charged with emotions.. I wish we could be together.. idk what that means exactly.I know, you don't want me , or love me or even think of me in any special way. I guess I mean it literally.. I do hope you write to me once in a while.. you are so very special.. don't know if you like/ dislike/ are indifferent to the fact.. but that's the way it is.. and I hope you become happy with your bf in Mumbai.
Gtg now.. need to get a meal.. haven't had one in the last 24 hours :)
Waiting in the Weeds
And I've been waiting in the weeds
- waiting for the dust to settle down
along the backroads running through the fields,
lying on the outskirts of this lonesome town.
And I imagine sunlight in your hair.
You're at the county fair -
You're holding hands and laughing.
And now, the ferris wheel has stopped.
You're swinging at the top,
suspended there with him.
And he's the darling of chic.
The flavor of the week
is melting down your pretty summer dress.
Baby, what a mess you're making.
Not so Random
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
I don't know why, but I am feeling so crazy. It's not my work; I know I will be up to it. But I am feeling blue. How I wish you were here, how I wish someone was here. I tried to get drunk yesterday. And I tried really bad. But no good. I am still where I was yesterday. Still alone, still numb, rather uncomfortably I must admit. And I can't get you off my mind. I dunno why. I need to. I was never this clear-headed and jumbled up at the same time ever before, about somebody. This dream is not going to last for ever. I hate the dreams that my mind envisions when I'm awake. I don't want my days to run into nights, and nights into days. Then only death. Smooth. Gentle. I can't fathom myself. I wish I were in love with you, with somebody, with anybody. That would have made things simpler, maybe. But better? No.
From ME
"The time is 2.30 in the morning. As another day passes by, as another dream gets lost somewhere in the unknown, I try to dig into the past....searching for things I once treasured and yet in time, they dissapeared into nowhere. .I walked through the prairie, by the lake, and watched a hazy moon behind the bare branches of a tree. Fall is here.... almost. And for some, it's almost winter.I tried to feel. Again. To live those intense emotions that I once did.... at 16 or may be at 18. But instead now, I feel cold. Unable to feel, relate or blend myself with the nature. It hurts...like I have lost the words, and sometimes I don't know if I like the person I have become; but I guess there's no turning back.Sometimes I wish I could get those years back...there would be so many things I would want to make right...but, it doesn't happen.
There was this girl, who hardly had a friend to talk. Who lived in a world of her own...and everything else was just a shadow. Who felt pain, who felt through things with an intensity she wished she didn't. Who was plagued by the misery, by the poverty. By the truth and the lies.And by her own whims. She had dreams, she had words, and she scribbled on the white pages things, that, for me now, seem difficult to decipher.May be it was profound. May be it was junk. In either way it was better than the ordinary.
I don't know if she exists anymore. I only wish, she did.
I never got a chance to tell you how well you write. Reminded me of the times when I would never live a day without writing my diary. Which happened to be a series of letter to Nick. Yes, the boyband guy, but moulded to suit my imagination and need.Obviously, I have gone out of practice. My first bf objected about entering "personal life updates" in the diary..and well envious that how an imaginary guy could have so much importance in my life.Ever heard the song "Imaginary Lover"?You would understand....
It's not often that I get to read an email I really enjoy. I don't have very many friends to write me such letters. Truth is very little of this world actually wonders about you...enough to write to you. Yes, there are one or two of them in my life... So, the ones from you are great treats for me. The letter from Cvile...or even the one to your parents, it was so personal, and even though you wrote in bengali, ...it felt like I was reading a novel...ones like those Jhumpa Lahiri stories, and I couldn't wait to read the next chapter...and I hope they go on , like Jhumpa's stories which are however not about some destiny or conclusion. It's funny, how a book changed my life ....well almost.
I'm not sure I am making much sense. It's been a while I have written much to anyone. And I wonder if the letter has ended up in being a string of incoherent thoughts, but then, really, do I have to apologize? I guess not"
Looking Back : Fears and Tears
This is something I penned about six years back. The piece, by the way, was titled "Introspection".
The dusty road stretches far, it stretches for miles ahead, it stretches thorough life, through sorrow, through loneliness, fake joy - leads you yonder to the blue hills - to the blue sky - the romantic clouds - to eternity. The fields are barren. They will allow nothing to be grown on them. The soil - the Mother Earth will be so unmotherlike - so unfriendly - hurting others at the cost of hurting herself.
I am a traveller in time. I strolled through the forest glades, the steep mountainsides, the sun-caressed valleys, the rough unyielding shale-covered seashores - all took their tolls; they are so beautiful it hurts - but none like us ourselves; we are so spectacular - that hurts much more.
Yesterday it was spring; I was admiring the azure sky resting on a leaf-carpeted meadow - surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature.. ah that was lovely. Today it's the Russian winter - rough, harsh, revelling in its ruthlessness.
.....
I resigned myself to the fact that I am somehow a bit different from most regular people, well, almost all of them. Call me a freak.. a jerk.. but that's what I decided I am. I don't mean that I'm intellectually superior or anything like that.. it's the way I think, it's the way I believe, it's the way I act. And it's not voluntary.. that's how I am. I tried to mix with a lot of guys.. and I tried to change myself for some girls.. but you can act only so far.. somehow I couldn't connect to them. So I went back to my shell.. to my own private paradise.. to my own boulevard of broken dreams. I am the king there.. and I could be happy with myself.. once in a while my emotions would tangle me up.. and I'd try to fall in love.. with someone like Mukta maybe. You know, she is the one girl I found that I really wanted to be with.. the only person in the last four years.. But it's okay.. we have a correlation coefficient of like negative one.. So it's just God's way of clear thinking.. If I can't think straight, I'm glad that at least she could.
I don't know how I changed.. have I really changed? or was it the people around that changed so fast? If I look back over my shoulders, I can still see this kid who would be happy to smile, to laugh, to take each day as it comes.. and find fun in the simple joys that life has to offer. I still find fun in simple joys.. but their sources have changed! Why can I not find happiness in things that amuse other people? Am I so much above them? How come my tastes (for want of a better word) changed so much? Why do I have to get away from people, as far as I can, to have some joy? Believe me, I don't want to.. but I can't help it.. Staying away from a lot of people is what kept me sane all these years. Yet a lot of people think I'm crazy. Trust me, I can still think straight.. It's just that some guys think in a curved line, and think that their curved line is actually straight.. Now that is crazy.
I learnt to find fun staying with myself. I talk aloud a lot.. I talk to myself. I am my best friend.. perhaps my only friend. Some of my happiest hours in Kolkata were spent in scavenging second-hand bookstores in Gariahat. People thought I was crazy. Who would want to know of something that happened half a century back, half a world away? But I wanted to know. And I wanted to know so much, that I filled up a whole bookshelf with such books. It was the film Memphis Belle that started it all... those quaint old prop planes turned my life on its head. I can’t explain it, and I am not going to try; but I felt I just had to know more about those insane days- about the flak-torn skies over wartime Europe, about the loneliness of a freezing airgunner six miles up in the sky, about the air armada laying siege to a city, and about the airmen, most of them kids scarcely out of high school. Those books, my flight sim that I can't fly any more, my music collection.. these kept me happy.
One of my favourite verses.. written by a Spitfire pilot, John Magee Jr..
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Everytime I flew my Spitfire, virtually of course, I could literally feel his emotions. I wait for the day I can fly. I wish I could soar the sky alone... where all is clean and pure, where there are no lousy people - like me - where life is simple and you can talk to God and be of God, without shame.
I too maintained a diary in those days.. That's how I communicated with myself. There was still a bit of the ordinary me left in me those days.. So I guess I needed a medium for communication. Sometimes I flip through those words I wrote six to seven years back and I have to wonder if that was the same person as me who wrote the stuff. I still have my dreams.. it's just that I don't have the words anymore..
Another World
TRANSIT:
The Indo-Pak border fades away under the port wing with strains of Jimi Hendrix. The rolling sand-dunes of Afghanistan and the sparkle of water far far below. The sandhyatara gives company to the lonely moon, and Bob Marley. The moon, and the evening-star stays with us almost up to NYC. The AI flight took the polar route, and we had a 30 hour day. One good thing about the flight; they gave us a lot of good music. I mean, they had Bob Marley, the Stones, White Stripes, Sinatra, and a lot other. And yes, good movies, too. Watched a bit of The Bridge on the River Kwai before I felt I needed some music. We flew over the Russian plains. Knopfler and the vodka. Damn. I was so cocky I took two shots neat, and then the magic started :P This Mark Knopfler album I was listening to had like 15 songs. When the vodka hit the bloodstream, I was listening to the first track, Beachcombing I think it was. Boy, I hardly knew what happened to the next 14 songs. It all felt like one eternal piece of music. All I wanted to do was look at the moon, the stars and the tundra. The effects stayed right up to the Scandinavia, if I recall correctly, and would have stayed a lot longer. But I had to fill in the I-94. Damn! I could hardly focus my eyes on anything, and I had to fill in this form. Why the hell didn’t I take a beer? Damn! Why the hell didn’t I stick to Coke? I slapped a lot of water into my eyes, filled up the forms (there were 2).. with a lot of help from the kindly woman sitting beside me, and promptly went to sleep. I needed a bit of sleep before I faced the immigration interview.
CHRISTINE:
Christine Williams: BS, Maths, Univ of Alabama at Birmingham; PhD, Economics, Univ of Virginia (starting Fall 09). Whoever said Americans are dumb? This girl is a couple of years younger than me, and I can figure out she is way smarter than me. She had a single complaint about her Econ PhD program batch mates: nobody smoked. Nobody, that is until she found Rahul (my room-mate). So the two of them worked out a plan, a secret plan. The two of them will only smoke in each others company. Well, I was around of course, and the three of us ran through half a pack in short time. She has been all over the world. Italy and Canada and China and Tibet, and the other countries I forgot. And then she talked about her experiences with food and drinks and a few other things :) I think I'm going to a concert coming Sunday with a few econ guys.. It costs 10 bucks to attend the concert legally, but there's a restaurant on the other side of the gate where you can sit, eat, drink and listen to the music; free. I mean only the music is free.
BOOZE and FAGS:
Booze is dirt-cheap. At least the cheap variety is dirt-cheap. The sort of nameless faceless stuff that gives you a good high and a tremendous hangover. I can't stand the taste, so I put in some coke. Not Coca-Cola, but a cheap cola. I've been taking alcohol with tea, coke, coffee, water; and alcohol. The only good thing, I suppose, is that I'm taking in a lot of fluids :) Fags cost a hell of a lot, though. Most brands are like $5 to $6 for a pack of 20. But there's usually a discount of a dollar on at least one of the Marlboro variants. I like Reds, but well, beggars can't be choosers. According to Christine, in US, grad students are below the poverty line. How true! Rahul and I decided to get rid of the furnishing. That will save 25 bucks a month. 25 bucks is almost a carton of fags, that's 200. That's not too bad.
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