one of those days and beauty pageants

another spell of inertia. endless scrolling of the same apps, the same pages. i feel nauseous, but continue to scroll i must. at least that’s the impulse. to break from that cycle i bring myself to write. but what to write about?

my insides are filled with muck. it is making me sick. and i must expel it all out. but just like literal muck, my thoughts are mashed into a slurry of inseparable stuff. i recognize that this inability to bring out in clear terms the “stuff” that clouds my vision is partly because of my unwilling to face feelings and thoughts i am afraid of having. a defence mechanism of sorts. this cowardice is the reason that i reach out for these apps where the mindless and endless scrolling can numb me to avoid the uncomfortable. this is the reason why i eat. i realise i have been stress eating. but that’s a topic for another time.

today i want to talk about what i have been doing since last night. a certain beauty pageant has kept me glued to my phone. i do not understand myself. i am drawn to pageants i won’t lie, almost to an obsessive degree. but i find myself viewing these cultural phenomena with a certain cynicism. aspirational obsession and cynicism – two attitudes i don’t know how to reconcile.

it is perhaps the world of glamour, fame and the focus of admiration that pageantry affords that reels me in. as much as a want to say i don’t care about glamour, fame or attention, i cannot truthfully and with absolute certainty claim that. why? i don’t know. is it human nature? or has it been culturally bred? – remnants of childhood experiences.

this intense private indulgence with beauty pageants i dare not reveal in public. i feel almost ashamed about this obsession. i am not unique in holding such an obsession, i am sure of it. but i hold myself accountable to certain values that tell me there is something morally shameful in putting glamour, fame and vanity on revered pedestals. and so my obsession is to be a secret. but because it is a secret, because i cannot rage about it loudly, it cannot be exorcised.

god help me.

as an atheist, am i doomed?

begin again

it’s been years since i have written anything on this website. i don’t know if anyone reads it; i don’t think anyone does. and perhaps that was the reason i stopped writing – i don’t recall. but today i write again – both because it’s possible that people read it and because it is likely that nobody does. i want to write again. in order to, hopefully, understand what i am going through. as a cathartic experience. as an exercise that teaches me how to use words to make sense of what is going on.

since the past few weeks i have been feeling immobile. i say ‘immobile’ for lack of a better word. but it pretty much bears the meaning i wish to signify. i have been literally and figuratively stationary. hours pass with me lying on bed, only ready to passively receive stimulation. netflix. instagram. progress in work has been nil. the stiffness in my body has also led to the stiffness in my mind and resolve.

i need help, i know. but i worry about the expenses. i worry if i will find anybody truly helpful – understanding, non-judgmental, kind.

but i do wish to get better. this is why i want to write here. i am hoping to write as frequently as possible. write as much as i can. whatever comes to my find.

reader, if there is any, bear with the randomness, the bad syntax of sentences, poor choice of words.

&

Life is filled with pockets – resembling three-dimensional blotches in the visuals of the non-physical aspect of life – which contain in them discernible thoughts and emotions leading to the other and, in the process of the two leading to the other or at the anterior or posterior to the two discernible ends of such a process, are invaded so frequently with dissatisfaction of nature so vague that one wants to do something, whose nature can range from mere cathartic to constructive  to destructive – all of it for the purpose of appeasing one’s dissatisfaction. At least my life is. Of course, as I wish to do something, I seldom follow it with going ahead and doing it. For the most part, distractions dissuade me to the routines of life which are only obstructed once again with the pockets, thus rendering the potential import of such urges useless in a process as cyclical and boring as the water cycle. But once or twice or maybe five times in a life time I pull my socks up and realise few of those invasive urges and find myself doing something such as writing this post.

Emotions At Dawn

Most of the times I wish I were floating on cool water.
Sometimes – just as at this moment – I feel like immersing myself in a pool of Justin Vernon’s songs.

A Blow To Vanity And Sleeping Monkeys

It’s an awkward combination, but I am certain it is quite common. I am quite certain a lot of people are like me. I can be self-deprecating and I can be vain at the same time. My self-esteem can dip new levels of low; but somewhere in the back of my mind there lingers optimism as a result of biased self-validation of my capabilities. Circumstances have proven both of them wrong – sometimes I have exceeded expectations and other times I have not lived upto (self) expectations. But those circumstances when your self-regard has been proven wrong are the ones that affect you the most. Not surprisingly, self-esteem then hits wonderful levels of low. It’s a bad feeling. It sucks.

“I am useless. My life is going nowhere.”

I have faced two significant rejections in the past few months – well, significant at least for me. The first case was of a scholarship. It offered money. I had great confidence that I would get it (by the way, the unusual amount of confidence has a story behind it. But that is uninteresting and not the point). I had plans to carry out with that money – buy a sleeping bag of a superior quality and design, save the rest for a quality trek sometime in the future, and such. The interview for the scholarship went great. I was expectant. But I didn’t get it. I checked the notice board and my name wasn’t on the notice. It was very disappointing. I couldn’t get over the rejection for weeks.

The second case occurred  just today. This one might seem like a bigger deal than the first to most, but it isn’t for me. I had applied to a school earlier, had taken tests and appeared for interview. The results were out today and I wasn’t accepted. Call it sour-graping but I wasn’t very keen anyway. I was aware that my personal interview hadn’t gone very well, and so I wasn’t very confident about an acceptance. But it is a bit of a disappointment, since I do at some level have great self-pride. The rejection was a blow to my vanity more than anything else.

On the brighter side, that is one less option, hence a little less confusion regarding the course of actions I will have to take.

And on a completely different note:

 

Those are sleeping monkeys right there. I haven’t been seeing them recently, but back in winter I’d find monkeys cuddled to sleep on the slabs (?) of the building behind mine. I don’t have a camera (I lost mine ages ago), so I had to take the picture with my webcam.

Monkeys scare me a little bit. I have had a history with them. I was bitten by one once. Besides, it is a little unnerving how they can be so uncannily human. Maybe I am instinctively threatened by that, who knows.

But aren’t the sleeping monkeys heart-warming? I wonder if they have dreams. And what in those dreams?

 

About This Dog’s Howl : Late-night Diversion

I imagine it had taken a deep breath, whoosh. Had it wanted to reach someone? To call someone? Had it been only wanting to lament separation? I imagine it had taken a deep breath before it let out its howl. A deep breath, whoosh, to give my all so you can hear it, or, so you know I miss you. I imagine it had wanted the howl to be soulful, and long, and almost majestic. It sat on its hinds and stood on its fores. Drew back its shoulders, puffed out its chest. To let in sufficient air, you see. 

The deep breath taken, its hopes not fallen, it initiated its howl, a controlled one. Owhooo…

Stop right there. You see, I imagine that it had imagined the howl to be owhooooooooooooooooooh. Something like a wolf that you might have seen on TV would have let out. Owhooo – STOP. Because we have the chowkidar, the watchman, here. Right when the dog is in its third ‘o’, the chowkidar stamps his left foot which is in a black boot and waves the fat stick (not a batton) which is in his right hand and lets out a HETTTH! A ‘hettth’ sound is commonly used to dismiss or scare off someone. HETTTH! A forcible, deep ‘h’ is to be let out.

HETTTH! Right when the dog is in its howl’s third ‘o’. 

Owhooo – HETTTH! – never mind, let me let out another one – whoosh, owhooo – HHETTTH!! – another one? – whoosh, owhooo – HHETTTH!! 

I imagine the chowkidar is striding briskly, with his lips pursed and brows furrowed. HETTTH! HHETTTH!

The call is not made; the lament is not let out.

Do I mourn a little for the dog? Yes.

Do I also chuckle a little bit at the affair? Yes.

Parched Lips and Ellipsis

As has happened before, I started to watch a movie while procrastinating to write an essay, an essay on Confucius who, the Wikipedia says, was a teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher in China. The essay is on his Doctrine of Mean and various aspects of it. Let’s say I am not much enthusiastic about writing any essay on any doctrine. So, as is habit, I have been procrastinating. The idea to watch a movie was definitely a result of procrastination, but I forget why I chose that particular movie. The movie in question is ‘Kites’, a Bollywood movie starring the very muscular Hrithik Roshan and an Uruguayan-Mexican actress Barbara Mori.

First things first, call my thoughts lacking in depth and imagination, but I couldn’t figure out why the film was called “Kites”. Incomplete, restless, fast-forwarding viewing of the movie might have resulted in me missing a phrase here or there which might have fleetingly indicated the literal or metaphorical importance of a kite in the movie. But even so, in my humble opinion, the idea of the name of a movie is to, in some or other way, give you what is the significance of the movie. Maybe if I spend some more time thinking about it, it would all make sense.

Having reproached the title of the movie, I’d move on to make the content of this post significant to the title, or vice versa, at least to an extent, as you will see. I wouldn’t call this post a review but I must say that I did not enjoy the movie even a bit; I watched it only because, as I mentioned above, I was procrastinating and there are no limits and quality to what I do when I procrastinate. Despite the grueling minutes of watching the larger part of the movie, I did watch the last five minutes (or so) very intently, because it was the ending. I want to note two observation made in those minutes, which you may come to think as completely shallow and which might make you regret having wasted your minutes reading this post. First, the scene is on this magnificent cliff overlooking the ocean and Hrithik Roshan is right at the edge of the cliff and he is wailing (because… [insert spoiler]). The wail, I must say, was a pretty good performance, quite believable (this is after having squirmed at other parts of the movie watching him act). So there he is on the edge, the wind ruffling his ruffled hair, looking rugged with the beard and a tan, and he is in these rugged clothes, and he wails… with his lips parched grey… there is the music, so you can’t hear him wail, but his face is scrunched, he looks like he is in immense pain and as he falls knees first to the ground he wails. Clap, clap clap.

Then there is this bit when the heroine is texting. I won’t tell you why she is texting when the hero is wailing. But I will tell you that she is in a situation where she has to type the SMS PRONTO! And… what does she do…? She uses an ellipsis!! Okay, I don’t know about you, but ellipses are the last punctuation I would think of when in a hurry (I don’t use ellipses too often. Of course they have been inserted often in this post… for reasons). What lack of common-sense…

That’s all.

Have Not Studied A Thing

I have a test that counts in for my grades at 8:40 hours 28th of October 2013. It is exactly 00:20 hours 28th of October 2013 as I am typing this sentence. I haven’t started studying for my test yet. I had a whole day but I didn’t study for it. I spent my day reading the newspaper; watching videos on YouTube – vlogs, videos about serial killers, documentary on a serial killer- and a movie; and eating even when I was not hungry, among few other things. I have eaten exorbitant amount of food and I feel sick. The last meal I had was even after I had something not long before and felt quite full.

What causes this self-destructive behaviour? Or is it just procrastination? Or maybe self-destructiveness is just a part of procrastination. I had the time to study and I knew it was urgent for me to study, but I still didn’t study; I am still not studying. I have done this before. But I have realised this habit started only after I had started college. Earlier I always managed to complete my work on time. What has led to this?

If I were carefree, this whole behaviour wouldn’t have worried me. But I am not carefree; I have always been extremely finicky about my grades being good and I still am; which means this whole procrastination drives me crazy with worry; but at the same time I don’t make myself do anything about it!

Is this a sign telling me that I absolutely need a break from studying, and get a change in life? Or will this habit continue no matter what I do?

He would move very fast. He would jump from rock to rock, take long strides, scramble across climbs like doing it was second nature to him. I always wanted to be close to him; so I would walk as fast as possible, try to step across crevices faster, be more alert. But he was faster. I had urges to call out to him and ask him to not move so fast. But he would suspect something was up if I was being so frank with him. So I never asked him to move slower. I just walked faster. And when we would take stops, I would just stay near him.

For The First Time

I recently went for a trek to the Himalayas. It was an easy, 4 days trek. I more or less fell for this guy while on the trek. He was one of the two locals who had come along with us to the trek. Let me just call him A. A had come along with the other guy who was a guide proper; they were friends and he just came along.

A is twenty. I am twenty. He looked older though,  maybe 25. I first saw him when the bus we had taken from Delhi arrived at the Manali Bus Stand and he was there with a crowd of other people who were there to perhaps receive someone or maybe to catch a bus. I immediately noticed him. He was quite good-looking, in my book at least. After I got off the bus I saw him helping our group with our stuff. I did a little dance inside. That was how it started.

The trek was great. I wish had better words, better way to put how nice the trek was. Let’s just say nice sun, flowing water, wonderful walks, bonfires, songs, games and A.

Now that I am back from the trek, and it’s been around 6 days since I returned from it, I still long to pack my bag and walk. I miss it so much. I phase out now and then and start day-dreaming about the trees, the cold, the water and the tingles I felt when around A. I was in a discussion today and I just ended up staring out of the door at an eucalyptus in our college and started to think about the walk from Bakhartach to Beas Kund. It was a rocky walk – lots of rocks that rocked. And A was there most of the time around me. There was also this dog that met us on the way. It was a huge dog and it had a huge head. When we had sat at this point to rest I started playing with the dog (I am usually not so playful with dogs) and A came sat down near me to play with it too. Oh the bliss! I remember almost every instance he came sat down or stood near me. It would make me so nervous. It made terribly happy too. The night before, while sitting near the bonfire, I had offered him a cigarette and he had accepted and sat near me for the first time.

I don’t have any form of contact information of A. I never asked him for it. I was too shy. He didn’t ask me either. Was he shy too? Or was it just that he wasn’t interested?

I think a lot about what happened – me falling for him. He was quite good-looking like I mentioned. He had a wonderful laugh, childish almost. What else in him did I find attractive? We hardly talked. I don’t know much about him.  I don’t know what his interests are, if he shares any with me. I wonder if the attraction was a result of me being totally depressed, torn in my life in Delhi, and me seeking a way out. He was from the hills; all he did was go for a few treks, help out his parents and relatives with their business; he had stopped studying after +2; he understood very less English, spoke even less – his life was quite different from what I was going through. Was it that that made him so attractive to me?

I realize this entry is a little more personal than I would have once liked my entries to be. But my blog is hardly visited. That gives me more liberty regarding what kind of things I post. It’s stupid really; after all whatever I post will stay on the internet forever and so there is always a chance of many people reading it. Besides, why the heck would I post it if I didn’t want people to read it. I guess I am posting this because I have been thinking a lot about A and I really felt like telling it to a lot of people. And since I fear consequences of what I tell people, what better way to tell people than write an entry and post it in the internet which may be read by people and may be  not read by people?

This was the first time in 2 decades of my life that I have “liked” a guy so much. I don’t know what I should do about it. I don’t want to give my feelings for him the name ‘love’. Because I don’t know if it really is that – I hardly know him. Is it infatuation, then? I think about him a lot. I think about the ways I could go to Manali, search for him, and then pretend I accidentally bumped into him, and then ask him if we could hang out. I think of us going together to all the nice places in Himachal. I wish I were there in Manali.