15 Years Later

We did make the journey.

The road's been made now. There is no trek. For old time's sake, we got off a couple of kilometres before, the adventurous among us, and walked ahead. The lodge offers adventure sports, camping packages, a zip line and the works. And in May, the time we went, there are no flowers. The sky is a clear blue.

My cousin (who was born the year after we went the first time) and I walked along the signs that said echo point. It was a far way off. We stopped midway and got talking, never making it there. Perhaps it's just as well. In my mind, it's a wondrous fable, and we'll let it echo.

Today, I walked and walked and walked some more. Met people. Saw things. And thought and thought and thought some more. At one point, I had almost an uncontrollable urge to stop in the middle of the road and sit down and puke out whatever it was I wanted to write.
But now the urge has passed. And this is where we end.

Also I hope you don't have me on your RSS reader. It's just going to mundane.

To and Fro

Today, I went to college to submit a couple of nothings to finalize my seat for a pan-India-ish educational, experiential train journey being organized by the university for girl students. I'd gone alone, it was just a necessary two minute dropping off of documents, and I thought the college would be empty, save excessive dust, like the last time I'd been there. I entered, only to find an unfamiliar crowd, mostly kids and aunties. Turns out today was the day for submission of fees for the new academic year and the tiny place was swarmed. Anxious kids, kids lost and dazed, but mostly swaggering kids, mighty proud of making it to the coveted land, with tshirts proclaiming, "If found, drop me AT THE NEAREST PUB!" I gawked for a while, laughed a bit, till I realized what I wore at my college orientation. "Music is my drug. GET ADDICTED!"
Good times.

Hello.

I graduated. And visited Oxford in March. It was brilliant.

Aaand it's March.

Sigh.
So much for being regular.
Or keeping book reading resolutions.
Don't you just know how a post starting with a sigh cannot be happy, much?

Defenses: I started learning Spanish! I have classes beginning 9AM on the weekends, thereby obliterating any chance of being able to sleep in, any day of the week, but they're fun! Bingo, pictionary, hangman, dumb charades and role plays. Very cool. :D
Also did a small eleven day course in animation and VFX from MAAC. In 125 rupees. Snapdeal!
Of course, it was very introductory, but learnt some neat stuff nonetheless. New found respect for actors as well. Editors ka toh always tha.
High point: took photography workshops for kids at the Katha Lab School in Govindpuri. Their happiness on handling cameras? Unmatched.
Visa stuff et cetera. More in subsequent [quite likely next, owing to speed] posts.

Aaaand that's it. What was the point of this post?
Well, nothing.

1/12

Did you realize a month of the was-just-new year is over already? It's like I'm running behing a train that's perpetually rushing forward, just a little faster than me, that's bit by bit getting out of reach. [end cliche] [but true]

As a start, it hasn't been too bad though. Highlights:

• Won two tshirts at a couple of photography competitions [:D], two of my photographs were exhibited in Hauz Khas, won awesome free stuff from a Facebook competition [camera straps! memory card holders!] and Delhi100 was featured on Start Magazine!
• More freebies! Got three books by Tagore for the photographyworkstuff done for Atelier's Youth Theater Festival last year. I love my life.
• Happily attended a talk on Ramanujan As Everyman by Robert Kanigel, a photography workshop at Ramjas, and a talk by Raghu Rai ALONE, and sort of managed to get over my alone-is-awkward phobia.
• Got food poisoning, for the first time ever, and then once again. Did not lose weight despite this.
• Managed to stick to my reading list! I'm doing a book a week this year. Hopefully.
• Work/study-wise, gah. I'm supposed to be finalizing the topic for my graduation research paper, which, owing to my lack of Finance knowledge and surplus procrastinating ability, is just not being done.
  Last semester's disastrous results must also be avenged, this being my final semester of college and all.

That is all for now, a floating deejay with a shaadi ka baarat is outside my house right now, and I can feel the walls shaking with the music. Must go out and yell.

PS. Blog revival, yes? Be warned though. It's something I haven't done in a while, and if not life, my writing has become more mundane. It's my paranoia over eventual amnesia that forces me to write. :)
PPS. HELLO!

In Which You Meet Some Of My Family

The stern matriarch:

The mustache-d mother:

A fun loving uncle:

A cousin who sees things as they are:

A preening five year old:

A rather boring sibling:

And well, me,

Cloud's End

“Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”

I really don't have a great memory. I don't remember most of the things I did as a kid. What I do know, is what I have been told by family, about my extremely violent Calvinesque nature in the days of yore.


But there are things that are stark in my memory. Being forced to wear a floral print dress for a birthday. Climbing guava trees at my nani's house. And the annual vacations to Mussoorie.


My mother's side of the family is from Dehradun, not far from which lies Mussoorie. Every year, without fail, all of us would make that trip to the hills, stay at the same resort, play tambola, trek. When I was six, the resort bailed out on us. Why I remember that particular year  more than the others, I don't know.  Maybe it's the photographs, the fact that it was a new place, or maybe it was Clouds End.


It wasn't the first time we were at Mussoorie. So it was strange that we hadn't visited this place before. We took a cab till the foot of the hill where it was, after which the road necessitated a trek. We trudged along, all of us, ages 11months to 79years, through the long uphill climb on gravel. Wheezing, we reached the summit where the lodge was located.


Except that we couldn't see it. The entire place was enveloped in a blanket of clouds. Like a creamy white cradle descending upon us.

And then the flowers. Five feet high, pink and white, and you could run through them, lost under their towering selves. They ended at an old board announcing an Echo Point, quite the norm in the hills. But through the white cotton candy, even that took on a mystical, secretive form, like we were the first discoverers of the platform, after decades of its hiding.

*

Would I go there again? I don't know. From what I read online, the place is actually called Cloud End, the lodge old and failing and food passable. That's not how I remember it. I remember it for the day I hid under an expanse of white, when I stood mortified, posing for a photograph as the horsekeeper handed me a bunch of flowers, while the family clapped. When we went as high as we could, and there was nowhere left to go. I'd rather live there.

Places To Go To

• Leh [is it me or does everyone seem to be going to Leh suddenly?]
• BYOFF, at Puri. :D [Facebook group here]
• Landsdowne
• Shillong
• Andaman
• Kanyakumari
• Kunzum, Hauz Khas. 
• And then the Hauz Khas fort complex.
• arts.i, Saket
• Khajuraho
• Bombayyy
• Old Fort
• Khet
• Interestingish cafe place.
• The kitchen. Bhooooook. Okaabye.

Birthdayyyy!

I turn 20 in three days.




Crap. When did that happen?

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-nananananananananananaaaaa

Original here.

Awake.

Sometimes,
I want to

dig a hole

Cover myself with a quilted snuggle

And .............. into the arms of slumber.

...........fall

Home and Away

It feels nice when you're back after being away for a week and nothing changes. Not even Facebook display pictures.

In which we display link love

Things you should totally dig:

• The Mahabharata just got a sense of humour. Go ha-ha.
• Oh bete.
• Why? Why not. Why EVER not.
• Um, no really, why?
• Make me happy. Buy me stuff.

Jao khelo.

-

I drew a line,
I drew a line for you.

_______________________

There.

I've gotta say, I wasted all your time, honey honey

The Kewlest Five Pending Friend Requests On My Facebook

[Psst: SPECIAL MENTION]

Numbaah 5



Honestly man, had your hand not been so strategically placed as to make me think there's a teeny-weeny tear somewhere, I would have accepted. Sachimuchi.


Four

I think this guy has something to do with the Dance Soc of the college, considering the mutual friends. But, but. I don't. Also, my name isn't Vasu Vasoooz Vazoodha on Facebook.


Numbrrr 3



He's got a human display picture. He's got four pack abs. And a three pack upperchestishthingy. He can speak two languages. He can type two languages. He's hot. You're not.

Is it me or does the bracket say Dheen Jawaak? Duuude. Three languages.


Two-ooh-ooh

Now this guy.
He. Is cool.
He's caring. Isn't pushy. Is accessible. Is religious. Is sax, blue collar et al. And shares my mum's name. Oh.



And the kewlest, fraandsippiest guy is...

No kidding.

Loose Ends

Those threads that wiggle out of a cloth. Little insipid twiddles that risk carrying away the pattern with them. Or not. Do you pull them off or let them stay?

We Found Some Lego Today

It's a giraffe, aiight?

The Necessary Precursor To A Wedding

From the inbox and out:

Shining in the setting sun like a pearl upon the ocean come and fee-ee-eel me. :P

Ewww, I don't wanna feel you! :P

You're such a spoil sport. :P

No, I'm just straight. :P

You're bleh okay! Suk sent the continuation to this song, and Dish sent yellow, why couldn't you huh?
Cheap you are!

Cos, see. Pearl pehli baat ocean ke 'on' nahi hota, 'in' hota hai. So even the setting sun can't make it shine since it's 'in' an oyster 'in' the ocean. Thus,

Dulling in the setting sun like a pearl-in-an-oyster in the OHHHHshun,
Come and feeeeel meh. :P

Random. The lyrics aren't even about the pearl, they're about the sun which is being compared to the sun which is being compared to the shining pearl, and it is setting upon the ocean. Get it, topper?

Ohhh. But wait. It's about the girl who's shining in the setting sun. But it's the sun and not the girl who's like a pearl. So galat sentence structure hai na?

Okay no wait. They're talking of a person who's being compared to the shining sun, like the pearl, which is setting upon the ocean, and the guy wants that person to come and feel him. :P

Basically.
(You're) Shining in the setting sun, (which is) like a pearl upon the ocean, (so please you, and not the sun) come and feeeeeel me. :P

Ya I just sent you that, the correct thing. :P
Gosh we think alike, we should get married.