Broken

"The broken clock is a comfort
It helps me sleep tonight
May be it can stop tomorrow
From stealing all my time
And I am here still waiting
I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best
Like you've already figured out"

I wake up to a rainy morning tired with thoughts. It's now so many nights since I've had a good sleep, a happy dream. I am tired pretending to be happy. Pretending that my life is exciting. It's not. It's burdened with a thousand regrets and a million teardrops.It's burdened with seven years of guilt, and three years of loss. Six months of deception. And a life long of indecisiveness.

There's no love.Somehow somewhere it's lost. Gone. Burnt to ashes.Or may be it never existed in the first place. Just shackles that chains me, and force me into the monotony.Into the habit. I am tired of following rules, of being told. Just opposite to what my heart desires to hear.I don't know why, seems like the earth is turning the other way around. That night I prayed to be away. Away to somewhere far and start afresh. And everything worked out. But those bonds and chains held me back. I am being so selfish! I thought!

But I wish I was. Why do I listen, and why do I obey? To be told every time about my incapability. Yes, I knew I could manage. Yes, I knew I could do well. But you might pretend that you would let me do what I want eighty percent of the time, and mix with it some ounce of coldness and add twenty percent to let me know you won't be happy with this.I am obliged or chained, or something. I don't know what. I wish I could turn back, I wish I hadn't let this happen. But it has, and I have let it.

When I was young, I had a dream. I saw myself running free. Prisons, that's all I have, all my life..whether from my mother when I was young, whether it's from you.And all I wanted was to be strong enough to decide. But I worried too much. About you, about everybody. Instead of growing up,being independence all the choices of my life has become entangled with yours.

Aimless as Always

The time is 4 am in the morning. As I stay up in my lab yet another night, and probably during my last Sunday at TIFR, eating cold noodles that I packed over in dinner, I find myself in utter confusion. I am about to go back to the States, and I am still waffling about which school to go to. So many things are playing in my mind; so many factors to choose from, and above it I guess a sense of guilt, of failure and I don't know what.

The fourth of July is just over....I am already on the 5th, it's basically a Monday morning now. I remember my last year. I was at Chicago over the weekend, watching fireworks with the Russian guys by Michigan beach. It was so amazing. The day after I watched the fireworks again with Jesse in the neighborhood. I wonder if I knew back then what was to come in the next few months, or in the year that followed. It's been a year, but it has passed by SOOO fast! I still remember, back then I had the hope of being together with Akash,I was planning about our time in Mumbai, I was so much looking forward to all of that! And it did come...and it did get over too. Funny isn't it, how weirdly unpredictable future is?

It's weird how tough I had made myself this time. Stopping my heart to act on the thoughts of love, longing, and especially about Akash. I do read his blog even now; I do check his facebook wall too. But I try to think nothing. It's over, and I would do nothing to change it. If it was love, and he had really cared, he wouldn't have let me go : that's what I tell myself. Why should I hang around for something so fake? So transitory? I had already given too much, and I have nothing more to give.

So I made a promise to Jesse. And I actually thought it through. I don't want to date a guy for next two years. May be just be with Jesse? Time and again, he is the only one who has stayed, have been faithful, and loved me more than anyone ever has in my whole life. It makes sense for me to spend my next couple of years with him.

I want to travel.Carefree, just run around. Am I scared of death? No just the pain associated, I think. May be Nashville le is actually a better choice for me? But then why did I take so long to come to it? I don't know, doesn't matter, life is a bitch, mind is a stupid box, and we better live with it.

I am listening to Katy song. It's one from Andrew's playlist. And whenever I hear it, I think of him. I don't know if he was real, but somehow it's not important. What reality?Crystal? Jesse? Me? I don't know. I think, whatever is important to us, is real. And what's not is a shadow.

I am curious about my future. It scares me, gives me sleepless nights like this, because I don't know what's waiting : the fear of being stuck here. I sometimes think a part of me longs success, fame, money. A part of me thinks let there be enough of it, I only want to live a quiet life, do something I would enjoy, and run to the sea whenever I would want.

I heard Ohio is a huge campus (and that's so tempting!) , lots of people, and fun. On the other hand, I doubt if I really like a loud life. For most part, I guess I don't. This puts me in a confusion as always. I don't really know what I want in life.

The Sunset Boy

I have been thinking of writing about you for so long now; And finally today, as you would be leaving the country and going back to "somewhere in London", I am jotting down my thoughts that have occurred since the day you sat with me on the lunch table.

Today it's a rainy sky. You must have loved the rains. You have told me always, how eager you were to see the monsoon in India. I hope you have enjoyed it, I hope you saw the lush green mountains of the North East, the valleys of Kashmir, the roads of Delhi and the Taj of Agra. As I made some trips by myself in the last month, I have thought a lot about you.And in a very different way than I have for any other man. The thoughts were not of love or lust.You were true: you were a part of a universe sending me some messages. And I heard them over and over again, when you weren't really with me. You bade me goodbye, and yet I was smiling. May be you would never know what you meant, in a time I had completely lost hope in myself. And couldn't even confess the loss I faced.

Today I went to lunch in West Canteen. It's been quite a while with my travel to Delhi and Kolkata. There were your friends at some corner table. I looked at the small table by the window, where we would often catch up for lunch; I remembered you sitting there wearing your white shirt, with your notes that had all geek stuffs on it. I remember reading your funny poems. Table boy. I remember the first time you told me about Margerita, and that you left her...I felt like, damned all men are same, just like my ex. What was I doing with you?And yet, it was all those contradictions in you that made me understand people and life so much better. I had blamed Akash all the time, I had refused to accept the reality, I ran from it, I had to depend on Crystal for dealing with everything I couldn't. And with you, everyday I came to understand that heartbreaks or tragedies or goodbyes, it's all about acceptance.Once you accept, life becomes easier.

It had been a month of my break up, when I met you. A month since I had cuddled up to someone's arms. Was I naive about the night you told I could sleep over in your place? I didn't want to expect anything, yet I wasn't scared. A part of me saw you as a strange friend sent from somewhere, and Crystal thought you were like the one she always wanted.That night, when I lay next to you,it wasn't lust that I sensed. It was strangely the first time I felt connected so spiritually, and I couldn't even explain you. We did nothing, but being there, feeling the warmth of your chest and being held like that, felt so amazing.I still think of those kisses, and damned, I miss you. I loved how gentle you were, and so much of it was like a dream. And when I woke up, there you were in front of my eyes..

Tonight I thought I want to see you again. At the airport. Even if for a few minutes. But then I realized, I don't want to see going, departing. Airports and all those places are too symbolic of departure. I just didn't want that. I want what we shared to be the last and best memory of you. When we sat on that rock, kissing, as the waves rose high, in the moonlight...as we talked, and as we danced...That's what I want to remember of you...And trust me, just the mere thought of you makes me so happy, remembering things you said, times we spent watching the waves and the sunset day after day. Isn't it funny, knowing I neither I can have you, nor I am planning. Lol, life is funny, my sunset boy.

PS: Nowadays, I only play your songs on my road. That's all I have of you, I guess.

A song close to heart (by Tagore)

Sakhi, bhabona kahare bole?
Sakhi, jatona kahare bole?
Tomra je bolo diboso-rajoni,
Bhalobasha, bhalobasha.
sakhi, bhalobasha kare koye?
Seki keboli jatona-moye?
Seki keboli chokher jal?
Seki keboli dukher saas?
Loke tobe kore ki sukheri tore,
Aemon dukhero aas?

Aamar chokhe to shokoli sobhon,
Shokoli nobeen, shokoli bimol.
Suneel akash, shyamolo kanon
Bishodo jochona, kusumo komol.
Shokol amari moton.
Tara keboli hanshe, keboli gaye,
Hanshiya, kheliya morite chaye.
Najane bedon, najane radon.
Najane shader jatona joton.

Phool se hanshite hanshite jhore,
Jochona hanshiya milaye jaye,
Hanshite hanshite alok sagore,
Akashero taara ke aage paye.
Aamar moton sukhi ke aache?
Aaye sakhi aaye, aamar kaache
Sukhi hridoyer sukher gaan
Suniya toder judaabe pran

Protidin jodi kandibi keno,
Ek din noye hanshibi tora,
Ek din noye bishado bhuliya,
Shokole miliya gahibo gaan.

This is one of Tagore's song that I learnt from my father. Recently it was featured in a movie, sung amazingly. Many of Tagore’s songs are very close to me. They intrigue me in a way; they make me dive into the fundamentals of emotions and feelings. This is one of the song, I relate a lot to. My father had once explained the meaning, the background of it. It's about a young girl who sees the world with it's complex emotions and asks some simple questions about love, pain and tears. Because she yet doesn't understand those complex bonding and ties. The song goes like her asking to some friend, " What are feelings, and what is pain? People talk about love day and night, but tell me what is LOVE? Is it only pain? Is it only tear drops and sighs of sorrow? Then for what sort of joy do people want to embrace such sort of love?

In my eyes, everything is so pretty, young and pure. Everything is full of life. Whether it's the blue skies, or the green forests, poisonous fireflies or the blooming flowers. They are all like me.They only laugh, they sing, and they live their life so merrily. They don't know pain, and sorrow and they don't know all all those complex bonding that cause those pain..

The flower withers away smiling, the fireflies disappears with a laugh, and in the cosmos, the the stars comes out smiling. Who is so happy like me? Free of pain and sorrow? Come to my house, friend. We will sing the song of happiness and take your heart.

If you cry everyday on the trivial matters of life, one day you will learn to laugh. One day you will realize life is too precious to waste in tears and pain, and, you will see life in a more positive way, and sing the song of joy."

Well..I have done a like line to line interpretation. But the real philosophical meaning is far far and my literary skills have died down long back to explain that. It's amazing.


Here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPs1fONKaeM

Time passes by

There are times you wake up to a dream, wondering if it was real. I had a dream today morning; I saw myself and Akash happy together, and in love, like I believed we were. Everything was perfect in the dream,just like it was apparently. I had such dreams when we broke up for the first time and I was in Chicago. I used wake up and cry. I would try to call him; I would bike away to some far off place and think of dying.I would want to do everything to make it right. Even now it feels heavy in my heart, when I remember our time together early this year.About the fact, how much I loved and trusted him. How much he meant to me. And yet this time, I would change nothing. May be it's a part of growing up, when you accept the truth and realize that sometimes we do live the wrong dream.

I have been traveling on and off from Mumbai. The last time I flew from Delhi to Mumbai, I remembered how excited I was when I was flying there after coming back from US. I couldn't wait to meet Akash. I couldn't wait to kiss him again, be in his arms. It's funny how we sometimes we go to a place with some purpose and life gives us some different reasons.

It's been over ten days I am in Kolkata at my home. I realize I have done nothing except some occasional visit in my college to do some fixing on my project work.Staying with people makes me lazy, captivated. The city still gives me the freedom, but the fact that I have to explain my when and where I want to go and so on suffocates me.Somehow days are passing like in a wink of an eye, without doing anything at all. I have lost count of these idle days. I need to return to Mumbai desperately.

The fact is, here my decision to go somewhere would be met with so much dissatisfaction and commotion, that staying home becomes my only solution. But I usually have a tendency to get into a depression.I should so something I leave; before I become convinced my time here has been an entire waste. I came here for the paperworks of my visa, but turned out to be a bad idea...it has been delayed.I have to come back again.

Today is a vehicle strike. A bandh. Some bandh happens atleast once every month and the city gets a holiday. When you can't even step out of your house. The young leaders of "elaka" would make sure to get you out of your own car if you try to defy the bandh called by them.Or burn few buses and cars. The city stays paralyzed. And the party which called the strike happily announces the success of the strike.

There is some truth to this : Once you start living by yourself, it's so difficult to go by someone else's terms.

Some quick updates!

I am in a cyber cafe, somewhere near my home in Calcutta, realizing, life without a laptop and internet is like half survival.

It's monsoon here. The sky is perpetually cloudy with drizzles of rains then and now. Still waiting for a decision to fall from the sky, atleast make arrangements of where I should go now. Half of the year has passed by in a wink of an eye, and the next half..I am quite a bit nervous to face. I want things to fall in place.

So many things going on in my mind, wonder why taking a decision is such a tough thing to do. A part of me wishes and longs to travel to Paris, be just on my own, and do away with all those bonds and needs. I am still wondering if I should study at Ecole rather...I don't know. The thought is tempting..to be in a land where no one would know me, and I can start afresh. And there, there is the United States, the place where I keep going back- Chicago.

Sometimes I am scared that I am going into an endless loop of the same thing. Not finding the right thing I am passionate about. I hope I do, I need to.

My hours are over. Will write more later.

Delhi

Damned! I've been thinking of scribbling for a while now, but didn't happen.

I am in Delhi right now, staying at my sister's place. Meanwhile traveling the city and to Agra as well. It was fun. Came here for an interview by the French embassy, which worked out great and got an offer. However still indecisive about where to go and what to do.

Meeting my family after over a year. Feels strange. The ties were weak before, now they are barely there. I feel like another stranger among a bunch of familiar faces.