To Forgotten Days

Why are there pleasantries before talking?
If I really did want to know how you were, I'd ask you, once I'd asked you what I already wanted to ask.
Asking a person how they are and just greeting them with 1 of the 10 ways we will ever know in our lives to say, "Hi" is just odd.
Once in a while comes along a person with an actual reply to the question. Like I'm good. Or I just am. Or I stand and do, but I'm open to change (In response to how do you do?)
But we cant really do anything about it can we? Because we fail to realize that the slight awkwardness/embarrassment that we might experience in the greeting is far less than the damage we infer by actually talking to them.

Dont judge me. I dont mind saying Hello? How Are You? everytime I see someone. Maybe its just my programming to expect a genuine answer. Sue me.


This piece and my current state of mind were inspired by (500) Days Of Summer. A brilliant piece of film. Because of the story. Because of how the camera is placed. And because all that I will remember of this movie will make me smile. Like that final girl's name.




Its 4.45 in the afternoon and I dont think I've ever written anything at this time before.
School wasn't my thing for today. Stayed at home and got some studying done. (Yes, you did read that right)
First thing I wake up to is no clock telling me its not the time I would like to wake up at. The clock just said Hey, you're up. Breakfast that I could eat without having to wear my shirt at the same time. A shower without my mum knocking on the door.
Now if you pictured all that, thats pretty neat innit.

But all this is just going against what I want to say.
We remember things as just the good points/parts. Like one scene in a movie. One Season in a TV series. One episode in a Season. One bite from a meal. One conversation from a million. One shirt from a wardrobe. One Woman from the rest.
Life's like that I guess and I got no issues. But is it really worth enduring all the things you're gonna forget only to forget them?
I got no answer for that. A lot, actually but none that make sense.
Maybe it will all come back to us. One day when we are doing something completely unrelated, shit like that will just strike us and slap us in the face. Tell you that dinner that day was great only because of who you had it with. You forgot that the food sucked.
Or that the movie was good only because one scene actually represented your mindset. Forgot that the rest of the movie and everything about it was a piece of shit.


Think Again.
There are days in your life which you actually forgot. Because they had nothing that stood out except the fact that they ended and there is hope you will remember the next day.
Hope that the day that you will forget will be forgotten completely and will never trouble you again like the others do sometimes.
And thats all life is. Hope.

Hope that the specific parts of things you remember are enough to fill the gaps all this forgetting leaves.
Hope that one day you will look back and not see the gaps left empty. But look for more room to remember more.

I hope for a life like that.
And for all I know I might get it. And more.

What really boils the noodle is knowing;
Knowing when really is the right time to look back?


Until then, raise them Glasses,
To Forgotten Days,
V


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"May I never miss a sunset or a rainbow because I am looking
down."



Now Reading : Barron's Prep Book for SAT Subject test : Physics
Now Listening: To my hard drive spin with data.
Now Feeling: Happy.

The Welcome Mat

I apologize if you look forward to seeing the words my hands type appear on your screen. I have been postponing doing this. There have been many weekends passing with something else more important than you. Or so it felt like at that time.
If youre not a reader and just found this by your own course of life, then take the time to reach the last fullstop and not stop at this one .

I am a thought filled person and I take my time with my decisions. But the past few months have been more or less impulsive. Doing things without sparing them much thougt. Its not like a life altering process but I feel like I dont know the person who did all the things I just did.


But a lot has happened since then and that person has disappeared only for me to resurface.
I am a bored, sleepy and lazy person and I need some boosts once in a while to realize all the beauty in life.
Jhankaar did just that. I didnt participate in anything. Neither did I do too much work. But I was there. A part of my school. For the last time. I represented that which I love. And I felt happy when I got back home. Happy that places like the field stands and the multipurpose hall and the basketball courts will bring back memories. Memories of periods bunked, of events attended. Of things I've done in these years at school. A little early to get all emotional about my school you might say but its never too early to start liking something more.
Every corridor and every teacher and every part of my school has a memory linked to it. And that memory never was and never will be the same if it weren't for me. And thats as close to the best feeling on Earth.

And here I am, realizing that in a few months Im about to lose all thats bin important for me all my life. Im not going to be a school student in a few months.
But Im smiling. Why? Because I am not losing anything.
All there was shall remain. And all there is to be shall be.


Sentiments apart and onto what this post is about.
Im going to watch Shawshank Redemption again for the nth time and I already know I'll be a happier person once I've seen it.
Because the movie doesnt talk about redemption by actually killing a woman and going to jail. In fact many people feel that Andy finds redemption by becoming the rich man in the convertible car and the beach scenery. But thats just a picture to hang on your wall. Or a welcome mat.
Redemption is with Red. Redemption is in decency a man shows even in prison. Redemption is in how a man retains integrity till his death. Redemption is in leaving prison a more peace-filled man. Redemption is in saying True Salvation Comes From Within.

Redemption is in living a life with simple emotions.

You could do the flashiest of things, eat the unhealthiest of foods and drive the fastest of cars and still live a simple life if all you are made up of are simple emotions.


Life is far too complicated as it is for us to make it worse.
Make simple choices. And express simple emotions and life is good.
Complex emotions stop a man from walking up to a woman and telling her that she looks good. Complex emotions stop someone from going upto someone and just asking them what the problem is.

But without exception, you will disagree. And if you actually tell me that, whether we know each other or not. Whether we like each other or not. Whether we care or not. Then you just proved me right.


Redemption is in Simple Emotions.



Cheers to Good Movies,
V



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Now Listening - Nothing.
Now Watching - The Shawshank Redemption
Now Reading - Eldest - Christopher Paolini ( I Cannot wait for the fourth book)
Now Feeling - Oddly Happy

Fire In The Hole

Its that time of my life again when I have an exam coming up and have a compulsive urge to write.

Exams bring out another side of me. An irritable, sleep-deprived, hungry, bored and slightly, sorry, extremely confused side.

I dont remember the last time I was excited because of an exam. Many of you might actually say who does? But there are people like that. And in all probability, you fit into the slickest of groups and just blend and wait there. Wait for an exam to let your true side awaken.
Dont protest, we all know who you are. Question is, do you?

Past the pleasantries.


I often ask myself if I dislike exams because I dont do well in them. And I've done well a few times and the answer was no. I still didnt like the exam.
I then asked myself if I hated what they asked in the exam. Then I realized I hate examinations as an institution. As a concept. I hated how it has become a part of my wonderful life. Always around when I dont need it.

I had a physics exam today and it went better than I hoped it would. Needless to say I still dint enjoy writing it. A guy, like 4 desks in front of me puked halfway through. God knows what he ate last nite.
And twice after that the fire alarm rang, screwing my already pounding head. It happens all the time where I study, some dude (or dudette, with all due respect) pulls the alarm giving us an easy 5 minute breather.
This time, everyone, including me, had the idea that it was all just a joke and you wouldn't really care.
Or so I thought.
I could handpick maybe 15-20 people who actually looked back both times.
For the sake of an argument from a person who didnt write much today, put aside the fact that we instinctively knew it wasnt serious.

The first thing that struck me was that if we continued to be the ignorant, assuming fools we usually are, I would die writing an exam. I leave the repercussions of that thought to your own insanity and ingenuity.

Most people just continued writing. Wrote and wrote while the alarm slowly stopped to exist in many of our minds. It represented that which did not exist. A false hope. An emergency exit that always remained locked. A car that always remained parked.
As I saw the back of all the inclined heads, trying to find redemption or atleast the charge of a particle, it struck me. The silent, unassuming brilliance of it.


Somehow, this institution of exams is so deeply imbibed in you that your subconscious rules out the possibility of danger due to fire, placing higher fear and importance to the paper and pen that lie in front of you. It sounds practical actually, to place importance at what lies in front of you rather than at what lies beyond you.


If you are trapped by this perspective, do something about it. Im not asking you to start hating exams.
Im asking you to put out the fire. In whatever way that affects you.


In one way or another, a fire took place today. Not a fire that helps us live but one that tries to stop us from doing so.
I put it out today. Not out there, but in here, in my mind.

But at the end, this is just an argument.
Its your call whether you argue for or against me.

Unscathed, for now atleast,
V

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In other news, Im reading The Zahir- Paulo Coelho which contemplates what a Free Man is. Ironic that I must read and agree with him, when I am at a stage of least freedom.
Also, I'm on a rediscovery of Coldplay. Comforting when you're up all night with a headache.



Now Listening: Coldplay
Now Reading: The Zahir - Paulo Coelho
Now Feeling: Warm

Freedom Is Just A Word

Hey you.
How are you?

Those 3 words I just typed, I ask them everyday, a million times to everyone I meet in all the languages I know those words in. But I dont know how many of them I actually care about. How many people's replies to those 3 words will actually affect my state of mind. But I still continue asking this question everyday and will continue to do so till I exit. Why? Because I might just start caring.


Now, onto what this post is all about.
What is freedom?
Most people spend an entire life never answering that question. And if you think a 16 year old can answer that in a blog, you should probably go read something else.
I know people in my family, and even teachers from my school who have tried to capture that would get them freedom and failed miserably. One who found that freedom was less freer than what he just escaped and another who found freedom in what he once despised.
Point is freedom is not something we all want. Freedom is an opposite of what one currently has. Freedom is a perspective different from reality. Different as in an altogether 180 of reality. The other side is greener. And most of the times when you cross the road, you get run over by a truck. Most of the time we're like bugs, fascinated by the lamp but unaware that touching it is gonna burn us. Fascinated by the outside but fail to see the glass that stops us from going through.

Freedom is a concept that we have to understand, we may never truly understand.
Freedom is in Manual labour. In driving a convertible car with the wind rushing past your face. Its coming home to a beatiful son/daughter. Its living life on your own terms. Its yourself. Its Literature. Its Music. Its Chocolate.

And while this is freedom to you it may be what I'm trying to free myself from. That is perspective.

All said and done, we all fight for freedom, live for freedom. But how do we know we actually have it? I dont know.


But, as ever, there is a possibility (isn't there always?) that what I've written is all wrong and there is no freedom. For all we know, that may be the truth.
Maybe accepting this truth is freedom.


Think Again. Maybe Freedom is just a word. Another word for life.
So find life. Find life in your life. And you've found freedom.


A Free Man,
V



_________________________
Now Listening : Coil-Opeth
Day That Never Comes - Metallica

Now Watching : Traffic. Muscat Traffic.

Just Read : The Blue Nowhere - Jeffery Deaver (Awesome Book)


Now Dreading : The Approach of the Exam

Its Because You Disagree

Hello,
The FIFA World Cup Final is running in front of me but I'd rather stare at this screen. Why?
1. I'm not much of a football person
2. This has turned out to be one boring match.

All our lives we work and then procrastinate and blame everyone other than ourselves for the absence of a vacation. And when you are on vacation, what do you complain about? Exactly. Nothing.

Maybe conspiracy theories are all wrong. Maybe there'e no peace on Earth merely because that's not possible. Why you ask. I, being the generous one, shall oblige and enlighten you. Its because when things are perfect, everything is short-lived. I understand that the logic takes a while to settle.

Picture this.
Your neighbourhood, your school, your friends, your life were all just perfect. It actually takes an effort to imagine this in the first place. Now, what next? How would you actually choreograph a life where everything is perfect?
Now you go back a paragraph and read again and agree that its not possible.


But like all problems in the world, a solution exists. And its not a complex equation or a long Bill or Capitalism. Its one word. A word that I associate with one great man. Einstein.
And the word : Relativity.


Perfection is not possible, but relative perfection, I believe, is very much attainable.

But where there is relativity, there is perspective. And where there is perspective, there is everything you and I love about humanity.

When Morgan Freeman explains the beauty of free will in Bruce Almighty its more than profound to say the least.
That whole movie is a symbolic reverse of yesterday's notions. That the white man is greater. Whoever decided to make a black man play the role of God, God bless him.

Even if you never realized the symbology, your sub conscience accepted it. And that is the beauty of it.
And by giving his powers to Bruce, he establishes equality among the races, and in his own way ending the debate once and for all.


Now you may agree, disagree or laugh at what I've written above. And its because you can and will. And thats why you are human.

And its learning to weave acceptance and tolerance in the wee gaps between prejudice and irrationality that perspective produces that helps each one of us become a better human.

Take any random person, and you will disagree on 99 things but agree on one.

And that Ladies and Gentlemen, is the Beauty of it.




Hoping Someone Scores Soon,
V

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Now Reading : Not Much
Now Listening : Suno Aisha - Aisha
Revelations - Audioslave
Just Watched - Titanic

In another note, its about time Indian Music channels take a break from Reality TV and start playing some bloody music.