Teddy

I was in the midst of writing another poem but one of my friend's comment on the previous poem really discouraged me. But I am not done. I will publish another poem very soon.. :P However this post was long overdue I felt. For a while now, I have held back my emotions about Teddy, can't seem to do so anymore.

Ah well..you guys who read my blog are well accustomed to bearing my occasional outbursts of nervous energy..which is the "normal" me most of the time. But this post is special. It is special because it is about my brother. My brother who has now been gone for a year and two months. We were so similar, my brother and me. He took after me. I remember writing about Kaluram (a poem, this one too) who was his cousin (I believe) from the same street from which we picked Teddy up. But Teddy's demise left such a huge gap in our lives that I did not quite know how to fill it up with one of my meagre pieces.

Then why now? Because I was going through the photos of a Prof. in FB and she had this cute little puppy...he is so much like my Teddy. He yawns, spreads his feet and his body and is soo small. Seeing him reminded me of Teddy so much that I had to write about my little brother who is now in heaven.

On a wintry November night, Teddy came to our house. He was small and black. My sister and brother-in-law brought him to our house and then bathed him with warm water. He had many worms on him. The most surprising thing about him was that though we brought him up and bathed him with water, he did not utter a single sound. He was visibly uncomfortable and did not appreciate the dampness of water. But not a single sound.

It was then that I put forward a question. "Is he dumb?". No one answered. My brother-in-law said that in this species dumbness is not seen generally. So they took him home. Next day my sister called. "You know Ma, last night we were afraid that he was dumb. After bringing him home and keeping him for one night, we have realized that it would be much better had he been dumb." Her happy words said it all. Teddy had cried so much after staying one night in their home that their landlord had come and complained about it.

He was a handful, my little Teddy. Since both my sister and brother-in-law worked, he had to stay alone in the house and he would complain about it by shouting at the top of his lungs. So my sister requested us to take him home. I am not a very friendly person, as my friends know and though I love animals more than people, I was against keeping an animal in home. They require a lot of work and attention and I was simply not comfortable with it. So they left Teddy from where they had picked him up and went away crying.

My mother, a very gentle and compassionate lady found this to be unacceptable and went off to search for him. I guess some of my humanity awoke inside me and I went to help her. But we could not find him. Later that evening we were going to my tuition classes. The path which led to the main road was where I saw a little black figure jumping around. It was small and I was not sure whether or not to call it. My mother too saw and pointed it out to me. It was then that I called. But even before I called, he saw me and came running towards me. It was then that I knew that that was Teddy.

Since then he spent the rest of his short life with us.

(to be continued)

My Compatible Zodiac Signs for the sign Capricorn

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The Rain

A piece written by me, long ago...

The sky was dark

The leaves were green

The atmosphere was heavy

It was about to rain

Beside the window I sat

The view mesmerized me

The sensuous charm of the weather

In turn crazed me

Like a bird my mind flew

Did daring things

Rules and regulations

Were distant links.

I was a winged bird

Flew around the sky

Reached distant lands

Where observers turned a curious eye

Over mountains and oceans

Faraway places

I saw the Sirens, heard their voice

That had enchanted god-like Odysseus.

I saw the nymph Calypso, spent time with Aphrodite

Saw Helen of golden locks

Flowing on the love of Paris

When she had first come to Troy

Unbridled she had sat

Holding Paris strongly

A gift of the Love Goddess

Had held her passionately

But then she had to return

Back with Menelaos

Those love lorn days were if, only

Transient and heaved a rampant chaos.


So did I, heaved a Sigh
And with a forlorn look
Bade them goodbye
I didn't want to return
But History enticed me
The Present was unbearable


But Mystery of the Future
With its Adventurous charm,
Kept Beckoning Me
With Promises not of a Better Life
But an Exciting One.

Darkness

As I sit beside my window sill
On a lovely rainy afternoon
A thought passes by my mind
About a dark night on a new moon

No light anywhere
No scorching heat
The cool night breeze blows by
And softly ruffles my hair.

I pass by unknown paths
Darkness envelopes me
I revel in its spirit
Adventure beckons me.

But then day light dawns
Mundane life grasps me again
The call of danger is gone
And I return to civilization in pain.

Teardrops on my Guitar

A Good Day

I always have a complaint from my writing. It is this that I hardly write when I am happy. It is mostly when I am sad or tense that I write. It helps to relax me, calm me down. So tonight I have decided to wage war with myself and do something different. Tonight I am more or less in a happy mood. Day went well and in our counselling class we discussed how to manage parent-adolescent conflicts whereby most of us faced difficulties empathizing with the parents as some horror stories of how some parents tortured their kids to make them get good results were recounted. Overall, however it was fun. I also managed to say some bad things about a real sexy and rugged looking picture only because one of my friends liked it just to tease her. Sigh.

Memories came by as I sat down to reminisce about my adolescent life on a group work in today's class. The days where I kept my Biology book open while day dreaming about something else, about a certain 'someone', the huge fights back home when I used to think of a measure to rebel and to do things which would defame them all- just to rebel... the anguish, the despair all came rushing back to me..but ah..am I now too old to rebel or is it what the old folks call "maturity"? Is maturity the nice word which they use to say that you have lost the 'fire' mate, to rebel? To revolt?

Thinking of it now, did I ever have the courage to rebel? To revolt against something I did not like? I believe I had. In some things. Now I don't. Tied down by bonds of affection? Of propriety? Or is it the understanding that your actions affect more people than just you? But then did I always not know that? I believe I did. But may be the expressions would have been different then. And the expressions would be different now. But rebellion? I think I have done more rebellions after eighteen than I have before going to college.

How did it feel? To rebel against one's own inhibitions? It felt great. Absolutely awesome. To tell you the truth, the one thing that had held me back since a long time were my own inhibitions. Revolting against them gave me a feeling of defying the rules of society and family. I could try to achieve Pleasure, the supreme goal of man's life (pardon my overenthusiasm at quoting schools of philosophy). It is one goal that religion and society- any form of institution always tries to condemn. I was trying to achieve this pleasure....would I be able to? Could I? Time will tell..

The Swine Flu Scare

Yes, I am back again. Very unlikely of me. But I had to write as I am feeling very agitated right now and writing is one of the things that helps me to get a grip on myself. I did not miss my HOD's class today! Yay!! I was only fifteen minutes late as compared to the usual thirty minutes late that I am most of the days.

So then why this post? As the name suggests, the Swine Flu scare has finally got me. And I don't know who to talk to it about because people only seem to make fun or snub me down (specially my elders) when I talk of this scare. Now what started it so suddenly? Swine flu has been around the block for quite some time now. I did not get agitated then. So what scares me now?

Truth of the matter is that when I got fever a few days back, my mother got really worried and kept on asking me to visit the doctor. I graciously refused. But got scared since then. So now thankfully, the fever has subsided. So I went to see my doctor for a regular check up and guess who else was there?

A patient who had fever and who had returned from foreign after staying there for about a month. Ah Lord! I came to know of it only after we had met the doctor. My sister had seen him earlier ofcourse. So had my mother and brother-in-law. Jesus, seemed like the only person not knowing that that man muffled up inside a heavy shawl was a potential threat was me.

And when I came to know about it, I did what I do best. Panicked. I am by nature a very timid person. Having a potential swine flu victim around me was the last thing I needed in my dreary depressive life. And on top of it, my doctor actually went to visit the patient without any protection. His relatives came up to the doctor's chamber when we were meeting him. They said his condition was serious. Our doctor went to see him as soon as he had finished with us.

And I was happy that he had seen us before going to see that patient. Wonder what would happen to the patients after us? Now when I think about it, is there any guarantee that our doctor has not seen potential swine flu patients before us? Aahhh..the futility of my panic. If I have to die, much less than die of swine flu will anybody be able to stop it?

But my attempt to rationalize by means of writing it down should also embody the reactions I received from people when I confided in them. My mother got worried but she consoled me that nothing would be wrong. My very rational brother-in-law who is in Pharma put forth a whole length of logic of how swine flu spreads only through phelgm and the man had been very far from me, to which I replied by saying that the virus can spread upto six feet distance. My sister tried to console me first but I guess my hysteria was too much for her. In the end she gave up and became angry.

In some ways or the other, I think that we all were scared some how or the other otherwise my panic would not have generated so much reaction. May be everyone was thinking about it, I just brought it out to the forefront. Oh where are the exercises for anxiety management when you need them? Oh that's right. I never practise them!

A few moments till now I had been talking with a few of my friends about this latest incident. Their reactions were varied. One of them living in the States told me not to kiss any guy as that is a common way for the virus to spread. She also told me that if any such situation arises, I should ask him before kissing him whether he has swine flu or not. Seems more potent a question than whether or not he is gay.

Two friends with whom I am very pissed off and who have been pains in the wrong place for quite some time really helped me to get out of it. One of them put forth a lot of logic and assured me that we should be careful but not panicky. The other one was empathetic and asked me to be careful in public places. Nice gestures from both of them. Doesn't mean I forgive them though. But all the same nice gestures.

I had this huge aggressive discussion with my brother-in-law about the flu getting to me by which he annoyed me (not irrationally mind you)and then my sister scolded me over the phone. I got so agitated that I cut the line and then contemplated reading a bit of Edward Cullen. May be he would cheer me up.

But this post and my chats have taken up much of my time. And I am HUNGRY!! Thought I would have no more appetite after tonight's incident eh..but what do you know? From 2:00 am I have to watch one of my favorite TV series, Supernatural- can't miss out on the two hot brothers there. Saturday and Sunday are holidays so I will just stay at home and see if there are any signs for concern in me and then react accordingly. I do just hope that I have the courage to face the truth if anything bad happens.

Before that I think I will fight a bit with the pains I have. One of them is already anxious and the other one will be agitated after reading this post, so I better get ready. After all, I may not be able to fight the virus. But no one said anything about friends, right? ;)

Goodie Night

Random Thoughts

It's been quite a while since my last post. Truth of the matter is that I did not have anything to write. Or may be I had a lot to write just did not know how. So many things happened so quickly. I was losing my cool, becoming hysteric. But then three consecutive classes of conflict management helped a lot. If I could, I would never want these classes to end.

They give me the booster dose I need in surviving in the jungle of human beings. Matter of fact, I hate human beings. I love most animals but I hate human beings. As Feluda said once, conflict with a dangerous animal is much easier to handle than conflict with even the simplest of human beings. The conflicts have not been sorted out yet. But this time, I won't be the first one to take a step. Will I empathize with the ones who wronged me?

Let's see. Technically I should. But my logic and emotions flow in opposite directions. Empathy is something that comes natural to me in case of strangers and that does not come at all in case of near and dear ones. So right now, I am busy thinking whether I want to keep any relations that pain me at all.

It's true that not having them would pain me even more but time is a big healer as I have already seen. No one is perfect but do I have the courage to forgive the mistakes of loved ones even when they hurt me? I guess time will tell.

As of now I am in a stable condition (which by the way is a very temporary condition) and I don't know how long I will be sane again. I guess unless the matters are sorted out, I will be restless. Can I not approach them? Sure I can. I just don't want to. For I have done no wrong.

Guess it's not my rational self but my ego speaking again. Sometimes I wonder though if all of us became such perfect beings owing to counselling courses, the world would become a very peaceful place. But would that not take away the life from us? Always having to behave rationally, logically. It is so difficult. And painful.

Back in real life, work is already piling up. I am not comfortable with pending work. My few days of viral fever has already loosened the all-time loose screws in my brain. I was acting madly for a few days. Screaming, pushing people away- only because they were getting on my nerves. I am not fully recovered till now. Oh and the swine flu scare got me too- and I was mistaking my fever for the flu. Guess it was just fever after all.

I damaged my own sim and invited virus to my comp. set and they were all ill till yesterday. Now they are ok. Ah my poor baby comp! How I missed thee... Shall I compare thee to a lovely summer's morn?

But enough of it now. I still have to submit an attested copy of my recent marksheet for the admission to the PG course. I still have to get my I-Card done. My results by the way were quite impressive. CGPA (Hons) was 9.51 and CGPA (ED) was 9.75.

Not the best. But I am pretty glad, you know. Atleast something going right in life. This is one of the things that can go right coz it does not involve the "human" factor. Lord, how I detest human agents. They will only spoil a work not contribute to it. I work much better when I work alone.

Speaking of results, I am quite unsure of whether I shall pass this time- considering I sleep through most of the morning classes and our HOD has asked me more than once why I am missing classes. Thought of telling her what I do in the mornings (i.e sleep) but then decided against my better judgment.

My internal assessments are rocking- i.e they are on the rocks. I badly need a change, specially from people who agitate me so much. Escapism? Dunno. Don't care also. I am not the sweeper- as in you know, people make mistakes and you keep on sweeping them away, like the crow. Think I am being delusional? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Talking of spending time with oneself, I watched a movie today. Love Aaj Kal it was called. I considered the possibility of whether I wanted to write a review on it but the film had nothing worthy to be reviewed in it at least by my standards. I liked it though.

I watched the movie alone, in a near to empty hall munching away at a Rs.75 popcorn. It was pretty fun though. So many people discouraged me while going to the movie saying that it was not worth it. But I still went. I was in a romantic mood and had to see the film.

I remembered that the last thing I asked one of my classmates before going to watch the movie was whether or not it was "logical". I was about to laugh at my own words later on while watching the movie because the very concept challenged my notions of rationality.

Two people break up because they know that the going will get tougher with time. Hehe! I would have been tempted to do the same thing! I loved Rishi Kapoor when he said that "our" generation has brains but no heart. Alas!

Giselle is good. She does not have many dialogues in the film but she embodies the very "Indian" concept of beauty in her looks, poise and she does it with dignity. Saif pretty much replays his roles in Hum Tum and Tara Rum Pum without much change. His Swiss girlfriend looks a lot like Miley Cyrus.

But the icing on the cake is Deepika. She's hot, she's sexy and she will make men go nuts after her and make women want to be like her. I know at least I did.

The very epitome of sophistication, Deepika would not embody any less than a modern day 'femme fatale', the kind that makes men go weak in their knees, not only because of her looks but because of her very personality. She is not that typical Hindi film heroine who cries for her lover. She is the one who does not hesitate to tell him what she thinks of his sister, how idiot he looks when he "tries" to look sexy.

When Saif tells him that she should not drink too much as he has "taken advantage" of her in such situations, Deepika blankly tells him that she acted on being drunk so that he "could" take advantage of her. When Saif tells her that it seemed she had stopped trying to look beautiful after their break up, Deepika jokingly says that she had "been heartbroken" by the break up.

Such is the capacity of laughter- it can portray even the most striking snub in a positive way. I could go on about the overpowering force of laughter to lash upon patriarchal society which always tries to "save" a woman in distress (agitation) as has also been portrayed by Hindi films but I think you get my drift.

I must say that one complaint which I always had about Deepika is that she seems very detached in her roles. No overpowering sense of emotion, no passion. Love Aaj Kal is not different. But here the character suits Deepika's sense of detachment.

Did I mention that Deepika behaves like a positive Capricorn throughout the film? Imtiaz Ali's previous film Jab We Met also portrayed Shahid Kapoor as a complete negative Capricorn. I could immensely relate to him and I do relate to Deepika in some ways in this movie.

She does a good job and if you are still wondering whether or not to go watch this movie, I will give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. If you are experimental and in a romantic mood, then probably you should go for this movie. But don't expect it to be anywhere near to Jab We Met.

There you go, I have given you a complete review of a movie in a post about my personal life. It's 2:30 am now. I better go sleep or tomorrow I will be missing my HOD's class again.

Tc and keep rockin!