And over a packet of maggie masala, we became sisters.

It wasn't exceptional, no
and yet it was no ordinary day.
I don't remember it clearly
time has faded memories, which
I so wanted to stay distinct in my thoughts,
forever.

we weren't fragile then,
our innocence hadn't been scarred,
the tears were few and far spaced out
and it was laughter that joined us,
not misery.

we didn't know the past,
nor cared about the future
with half learnt lyrics and tuneless voices
our songs were complete,
our world was complete.

boys hadn't broken us,
life hadn't been a bitch just yet,
mufflers made up our winters
and summers were made of
a packet of chips and a thumbs-up.

rhymes were intact,
worlds weren't destroyed by distance
and your smile shone
our smiles shone so bright
under the bright blue sky.

the sky is still blue,
but something has faded.
died inside.
we're the same maybe,
maybe we always will be,
but the fading memories and the blurring photographs will never be enough.

there's so much I want to say to you,
I wish I had the words
they say I can write.
then why can't I write my bleeding heart's melody
for you to trace?

neon colours
will always shine bright.
and in those colours,
in that ring that hangs around my neck,
you'll always be with me.

                                     

Boston.

For those of you haven't heard it, a part of this of this song goes something like this:

She said I think I'll go to Boston
I think I'll start a new life
I think I'll start it over
Where no one knows my name

I'll get out of California
I'm tired of the weather
I think I'll get a lover
And fly 'em out to Spain

Oh yeah and I think I'll go to Boston
I think that I was tired
I think I need a new town
To leave this all behind

I think I need a sunrise
I'm tired of Sunset
I hear it's nice in the summer
Some snow would be nice, oh yeah
Boston, where no one knows my name
Where no one knows my name


When I heard this song, suddenly the reason i came here made all the sense in the world. Like I realized that there was a reason i'd needed to get far away, yes, THIS far away from that town. Like I know I miss my family and friends like a fuck lot and it gets to my head but I needed the distance man, from that crap-all place which was fucking my head over.


The drama and the mess that came with the city was getting on my nerves. The people and the gossip and just about everything was too much for me to take. I hated the fact that everybody knew me there (no, I am not being conceited here, they did) and everybody gave a fuck as to what was happening with ME. so whatever :/


Also this place, sad as it is at times, has cleared my head beyond measure. Like now I finally know who I care about and who cares about me, who really gives a shit and who just pretended to. I know who I want in my life and who want me in theirs. Some friendships have faded for the better and some have become stronger than ever. here I would like to mention, Shreiya, Kartik, Priyamvada who have done everything in their power to stay in touch. A few have been unexpectedly nice as well.


And this is precisely what I needed. Like yeah I may not make such great friends here, i may not have as much fun but then again, I don't get as fucked either and you have no idea what a relief that is. Like there's a kind of peace in the phone not ringing anymore and I seem to have found an inner self in me which I never could because I was too busy and caught up in everything else.


I'm here at Boston, where people know my name, but no they don't hate the sound of it.
and I have started a new life.

shapes and sizes.

if I were to fall under one, now it would most likely be round :P
but I want to know the shape and size of happiness. like can it be a 5'10" overweight, once toned gigantic boy who pisses me off all day and yet makes me smile?
can it be a 5'1" very skinny girl who is like family in an oddly accurate way?
most of all, can it be a 5'8" slender, not too lean and not too muscular, boy? the one whose arms over you don't crush you but they're not non-existent either, you feel their grasp and the protection they bring.the one whose body presses against yours and just the pressure makes it all warm and fuzzy and nice. just the voice makes you dreamy and the words make you sing nonchalant melodies in your brain while they flow on impeccably.

can it be this boy? or am I being fooled by one of God's sadistic jokes all over again?

No shitting.

I am in love. yes the very word that I mull over so often and so much. the very word whose existence I debate. the very word which I equate with bullshit and crap and unreal and illusionary. that very love. I am in fucking love with Grey's Anatomy.

like can anyone love something virtual so much? enough to worship it? to miss nights of sleep over it? to actually want to be a part of their mess? Because I do.

You know what I do everytime I am losing focus or becoming uncertain as to my purpose in life or as to what it is that I really want to do. No, I do do the whole routine where I think but then there's this other thing, when I have formed it in my head that I want to be a doctor. Yes, that's when I switch on Grey's and watch it until the seasons run out and maybe even after. I'd watch reruns or old episodes that stood out to me, anything to get me connected to that show, to link me to a drama that is so much my reality. 

Like I can feel the pace, I can feel my pulse quicken with every case that enters the ER ward, I can feel the tears when one of the patients I grew fond of dies, I feel the pressure of saving lives without so much as holding a scalpel. I feel it all, in one beat. There's nothing I don't like about that show. I know people outgrew it and tagged it monotonous but it never is. Each day is different, and yet there is one constant. Medicine.

I know it's a little melodramatic but come on how else do you expect it to make an impact? The crash carts, the MRIs, the clinical trials, they're all not just a thing of fantasy. These things happen. They happen to real, actual people. More often than not doctors witness deaths rather than Medical miracles. They may make history, some day far far away from the onset of their practice, yes they may, but chances are that they will lose lives along the way. 

But they mean it when they say, we did everything we could. I know people disregard the show and say it's too much drama for real life. But I've heard a doctor get shot. Actually heard it at the crack of dawn because he couldn't save his patient's life. And that sentence seemed fake to the angry father. But honestly, there is nothing that a doctor doesn't do, he does everything in his power to save every life. How does somebody have the audacity to question that? I mean they're here to save lives people!

Why doesn't then, the world bow down in front of Doctors? why aren't they like, placed on pedestals or something and worshiped? Because frankly I would worship a person who saved someone's life. And not just once. They do it over and over again. Like the only people I have more respect for are people in The Military. Since they actually kill themselves in the process. Coming back, however why is the society not in awe of what a fucking big deal doctors are. Weird world, this.

Also, I can't believe that I'm normal since this one show cannot possibly make me think so much. Feel so much. All at once. it clutters me up and yet it guides me home. in a weird way, it breaks me only to help me get fixed again. It helps me find my way. It's funny how a soap opera is life changing for me. Yes, that makes me a odd person.

The odd person that is inspired to be a doctor because of a television soap. 

Well what can I say?

Alcohol is no remedy and yet it's a cure to few

Love and it's sick metaphors also have many a hue,

Nicotine works for some, others like a cocaine.

Me? Well I just like a bullet to cure my pain.

are you shitting me?

You shot him in the chest?

Noooooooooo.

The chest? I mean seriously?

My favorite guy in the whole damn world?

are you fucking shitting me?

Shonda Rhimes, he better bloody wake up in the next episode or I swear to god I will chop you into tiny little one millionth of pieces and feed you to rabid dogs and hungry wolves. Go die somewhere you sadistic little bitch.

Ah, Morrisson, will there ever be another you?

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.

A writer?

I sit here and ponder ( a thing I like to do a lot to fuck my head over) what it is that I wanted, really wanted to do with my life. Am I really doing that or living someone else's dream? For as long as I can remember the only thing that has ever made sense to me has been writing. Words are coherent. Words are definite. Words don't cheat on you, ever. I've had a way with them. They've never betrayed me. They understand me just as well as I comprehend them. They make my emotions explainable, well almost. They let me express myself. They say a musician's music speaks to the world; a dramatist's eyes and actions speak to the people; my words spoke to the universe. But more importantly, they spoke to me. In the silence of the night, in the dark, in the shadows.. in the gloomy mornings, in the late afternoon, in the dusk and the dawn.. in the first rays of the sun, in the last faint outlines of the moon.. it was words in my head, words in my mind, scribbles on papers, that got me through. Does that make me a writer then? I think not.

my words were never for an audience, as much as they've been loved by them. They've always been a private thing, like a connection that only I could share. Nobody who reads what I write could know exactly what I mean at the moment. why? Because I don't let them. There's a mystery in everything I've ever written that neither my best friend nor a total stranger can ever fully know. It may be a line, it may be a word or it may just be the hint of something.. you'll never know. because words for me were like my personal property. nobody else quite has the right to them like I do. Does this then make me a writer? I think not.

When a serious professional career was what people started talking about first, words were what came to my rescue again. That was what I wanted to be. That is what a part of me will always want to be. A journalist or a reporter? I don't quite know if it's that. But anybody who gets to write, is somebody blessed I feel. I would swap places with them, give my right arm to be were they are. why then did I give it up before even starting it? why did a dreamer like me not struggle for her one dream? was I oppressed and forced into submission? Do these circumstances make me the apt material for a writer? I think not.

I'm not a sad story who has given up on her dreams for the greater good.

No.

This is for all of you there who ask me repeatedly why I am not a writer. Because I want to be a doctor. As simple as that. I want to save lives. As naive as that sounds, that for me is something which will give me a rush higher than any drug in this world. But the more I see of the so called aspiring doctors around me, the more uncertain I get. The people who're in it now are in it for the money, for the prestige, for the respect. All the wrong reasons. All the selfish reasons in the one profession that is supposed to be the most selfless. why is no one becoming a doctor for the basic reason? to do good? I don't think I am competent enough to run in this mad race, compete with people who have backtoback eighteen hour days, people who go without food, sleep, recreation in order to finally just become a money minting machine.

But this is the life I chose for myself. I gave up one dream for another. Besides, words can never desert me. they've been my loyalest friend for a decade now. I know them, they know me. through and through. and we have an unsaid understanding. they come to me, when I need them most, when I think of them least, when I want them not. always.

They however cannot answer this one question for me that seems to linger in my mind, more often than I'd like for it to stay:

What am I doing here?

I don't belong here.

heavy words, these.

Hope.

Love.

Faith.

They say pain, you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that cause it, heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers, you just breathe deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be manage but sometimes the pain gets you where you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn't let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can't outrun it and life always makes more.

The funny things is I feel the same about hope. Like no matter how wrong things go, you always hope. You hope for the newer, the better. You hope for what you don't have, you hope for what you have to stay the way it is.

Love is contradictory. Like it's a one syllable word I will never be able to comprehend which is a major flaw as a writer, if I may take the liberty of calling myself one. We're all made to believe in this emotion since day one only for us to realize later that it's all a chemically-defined, hormone-controlled feeling, no different from hunger or thirst. But is that it? Hormones responsible for how someone sweeps you off your feet? Chemicals for that sinking sensation when somebody says I love you? Again as I said, it may be true but we hope it's not. Hope my friend, is a funny thing. It leads you into believing things that may not even exist.

Which brings me to the last word, faith. Faith is something we all need to have, it's something that makes us rock solid inside. I have faith I will do well in life. I have faith I will be loved. I have faith that someone's watching over me, across all this distance. These are just illogical connotations in my head but they're what get me through. I need faith, not as a crutch but as a pillar to support me when my legs give way. I need faith to pick me up when I'm out cold on the floor. I need faith, to be miles away from everyone I love and still believe that they love me the same. And I definitely need faith to think that love will find its way to me after the disasters it has caused me in the past.

Faith, at the end of the day is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. Its like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than you dreamed. The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And its not so important happy ever after, just that its happy right now. See once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you , and once in a while people may even take your breath away.

Disappointment.

You did it again, didn't you? Proved to me exactly why everyone is right when they tell me I'm a fool? Slapped me in the face with your words. Let me down, just like the rest. I can't even say I'm surprised anymore. I should learn to lose faith in humanity, one person at a time.

It was uncalled for, your behavior. Better yet, I didn't deserve it. Neither the bitter word nor the wrath.

Is chivalry really dead?

Like where are those polite gentle men these days who pull the chair for the girl? Because all I see are ones who freely abuse girls in our mother tongue and with pride, let her walk alone in the night and don't offer the jacket when she's cold. I know this is all old school, but do you know how nice that makes a girl feel? How her heart jumps and skips a beat when the guy does just something thoughtful? You don't have to give her the world. Hell, you don't need to. You are her world. But it would be nice to stumble upon a good guy every once in a while. It's been too long between jackasses.

I like it when my friend pushes away the bulkier guy away from me on the dance floor. I notice it when he pulls me away from harm's way. I appreciate him keeping track of how much I've drunk and when I should stop. I loved it when my boyfriend held my hand in public or just rested it on my leg; let me keep my head on his shoulder or slow danced with me without a care in the world as to who was watching.

These guys exist.

Somewhere, they do.

I know a few friends who do all the above for me and if they're reading this, they'll know how much it means to me. I'm waiting for the boyfriend part to fall into place.

And I'm hoping that you know how much you disappoint me everytime you do none of the above. You break me. You have that power as of now but you know it wouldn't last long right? It never does.

One day you'll reach deeper in your pocket and as you try to pull me out, you'll gradually realize, there's nothing left to pull.. I drifted away on my own.. dissolved..

You, and everything you do.

-you leave me warm and mushy, in a way that makes me hate you, love you.

That's the crux of it all. If you weren't to have the time to go through me droning on and on, you could read this one line and know it all. Though I'd much rather you see it till the end.

I don't know what part I am playing in this story. I don't know if this even qualifies as a story. And I don't know if it does, then how long am I going to be a character in it before the story in itself dissolves. I don't know why I have given up on fighting you. Why I have chosen instead to give in to you. But then again, was that even my decision to make?

Maybe I was just fooling myself until now, telling myself that yes, I am in control. Then again, at least I was trying. The pretense may have been false but at least it was there. Now it's becoming increasingly difficult to hold on to it, any of it. You see through me. I'm a transparent cello. I'm shapeless and you use that to your benefit, mold me as you see fit.

I like this dream I live in. I am growing fond of this dream you made me see. The dream you make me believe. I don't see it coming true but this version of you makes so much more sense, I want this to make all the sense in the world. I want us to make all the sense in the world. Just us.

I want to lie in your arms and not care about the morning creeping up on us because I know it can't take you away. I want to breathe in your chest at night knowing that you'll keep me safe. I want to fall asleep listening to your muffled breath and your soft snores. I want to have meaningless conversations all day. I want to study in silence with you, our eyes glancing at each other and looking away when caught not reading the book. I want to look up and see you walk towards me, your gaze burning into my eyes. I want to hug you from behind when you think you're by yourself. I want you to pick me up in your arms and not let me down without a kiss.

There's so much I want. But this is all me. What do you want baby? Will you never say it out loud? Do you want me to run in circles for a long time before you lead me to the exit.. or the beginning. which is it going to be? do you even know that yet?

you say so many things. why do they make such an impression? These sentences. These phrases. Everything that you so casually put across, do you know how much time and though I give to every word uttered by you, for me? do you know how simple it was for you to say those three words? and how difficult it's been for me eversince.

you.

why did you happen to me? I was happy before this. Not as much, but yes I was whole (and alone, but nevermind). The very thought of you scares me. It scares me of the million possibilities it brings. The possibilities I don't think I am ready for. I am afraid of how much you matter already and I am terrified of you mattering any more than you already do. More than anything I am petrified of me giving myself to you and you breaking me, again.

you.

somehow when you're with me, none of the above crosses my mind. all I want it for time to stand still and for us to be together. I am not scared, rather I feel safe, so safe. I feel like nothing can go wrong anymore. you make me believe. you make me lose my fears and my insecurities for once. you make me lose me.

you.

are you the best thing that's happened to me in a long, long time or the worst. are you the devil or the angel. I think you're Satan in his purest form, and that's where your charm lies.. and your magnetic pull. I think you're an illusionist making me see things which don't exist. I think you're going to break me beyond repair.

But baby, I think I'm up for the ride.

I finally think I am.

Dream.

There are some things in life which tend to make an impact and leave a lasting impression on your mind and your senses.. on your existence in general. A movie I saw today did that for me. October Sky. It's not an Oscar winner, I doubt it was ever even nominated. It doesn't star any hotshot actors or any skimpy models. It doesn't have a soundtrack you'd even notice and yet it has a certain magic, a magic I had once felt long back while reading Paulo Cohelo's Alchemist.

It's true.

When you really want something, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it.

I saw this bunch of boys and I could find myself realizing that this is what dreams are made of. This is what it takes to make them come true. You know how we always crib our dreams remain dreams and never come true? That's because we never find the strength in ourselves to work on them until fate has no option but to give in. I believe in luck, yes. But I feel a man is the master of his own destiny. A man can chose to be that. It just takes grit and courage and a never say die spirit that not many have.

It doesn't take much to make an average person. then why be one of the crowd? The secret of life is to fall seven times and get up eight times. Nobody said it would be easy. Life was always going to be a bitch. So you can sit back and crib or you can change it for yourself and live your dreams by making them come true.

Which is it going to be?