Tag Archives: Life

MultipleMe

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Who have I been, the last three years?

I was a film maker. I agonized over the story, the casting, the music, the editing. I spent a couple of evenings hiding in the editing room with my group, huddled up in front of the Mac as we fixed last minute glitches. There was even an evening where one nice member of the support staff let us stay on, on the condition that we needed to keep all the lights off as it was way past gate-shutting time. I sat on location with my shot-breakdown and screenplay, changing dialogues and re-changing them. I yelled and screamed when things didn’t make sense. The night before screening day, I didn’t sleep, I spent the night wondering what reactions we’d get. I cried when I watched my film being screened in front of a full auditorium. I felt pride when I heard the praises, and took deep breaths to calm myself down when I listened to the critics.

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Fifteen Authors – Part 1

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There’s a meme running around on Facebook with instructions that go like this :

The Rules – Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors, poets included, who’ve influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag a few friends, including me, because I am interested in seeing what authors you choose. To do so, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.

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The office fantasy

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Somehow, the past couple of months have gotten me so “consumed” by “the system” that I’m really wondering if the whole creative-person-who-can-write thing was a really long phase, and maybe I’m really meant to be one of those people who sits behind a desk and stays there for long periods of time.

But then I would be one of those people with a desk filled with stacks of post-it’s. The pen stands (yes, for there will be many) will be full of highlighters of every conceivable colour, correction pens that actually DO WORK (as opposed to the ones that give up half through when you’re trying to obliterate the word ‘orgasm’ when you really meant to write ‘organism’), and gel pens (gel, not ball point or fountain although I’d love to use a fountain pen except I write super fast and you know, that’s not conducive. A fountain pen must never be abused like that) in red, green and black. Not blue, I hate blue pens for some strange reason. Black seems more classy, don’t you think? And oh, my desk would probably be wooden since I don’t see myself sitting behind a cold, character-less metal one.

That wouldn’t do at all.

Trying.

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A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.

- Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Quarter life crisis

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Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I’ll be right beside you dear

Grey’s Anatomy has got me listening to a bunch of songs I used to listen to a hundred times a day. Run by Snow Patrol is one of them. It’s probably one of the most amazing songs ever.

When did life get here? I’m nineteen. My get-to-be-emo days are almost over. My little cousins are not so little anymore. One told me the other day that she likes Taylor Lautner without his shirt on, and another other one has just developed her first crush on a classmate.

Sigh.

I may not be as dark and twisty as before, love age can do that to you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss it. The dark and twisty period, it can be defining. Holed up in your room, with heartbreak songs in the background as you begin to pack away another unfinished chapter of love. Chocolate wrappers spread on the floor, and a romance novel lying spine up on the bed.

And then one day, you wake up, and you realize you’re halfway through college.

And I will try to fix you.

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When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse

- Fix You (Coldplay)

This song always puts things in perespective for me. Always. It has this power of sitting me down, face-to-face and saying look, shit happens. Chris Martin may have written this song for Gwenyth Paltrow after her father died, but everytime I listen to this song, it hits a raw nerve somewhere.

“Stuck in reverse” is a phenomenon I am slowly getting used to. It’s something I love at times, and I detest it at other moments. When I crave a whirlwind, a gentle steady breeze is a bit of a let down but as I get older, I realise I’d rather have the breeze. In all the blur of activity, listening to this song is a translucency process.

I become easier to read for myself.

So if there’s anyone fixing me right now, Chris Martin, it’s me.

Graduation.

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When the entire school gathers in the amphitheater for an assembly, the youngest class (i.e KG) sits on the bottom most step. I can still remember my 4 year-old-self gazing up at the sea of senior faces untill I found the top most step, and I wondered when the day would come when I would sit on that top pedestal myself. That day came and went at the beginning of this school year. Today, however, I return to that bottom step.

Today, I graduate from school.

I know for a fact that my class has been looking forward to this day for a number of reasons, but we all carefully blocked out the thought that although today is a day we dress up (“prettify”) , and generally have fun this is also our last day together. Most of the people going abroad have already received their acceptance letters from their respective universities, and the rest of us who are staying home have begun our application processes to colleges in India.

The past few months have been filled with conversations ranging from what colour saree we’re each going to wear, to where to buy your grad dress from, to where you’re going to holiday, and most of all, of what we’re all going to do once our exams are done.

The last 14 years have been filled with drama, fun and most of all learning. Learning in the way education cannot teach you. My sociology book would probably term it as “informal education”. A majority of who I am today, and whatever I become, is what my school has taught me inside the classroom and outside. I’ve learnt to stand up for whatever I believe in. I’ve learnt that talking things out is most probably the best way to deal with an issue. And most of all, I’ve learnt that friends are the people who you can sit with in a tent, in the middle of a scary forest after a 3 hour trek up some godforsaken hills, and still have the energy to sit through the night and gossip !

So today, as I sit in the amphitheatre for the last time as a student of my school, the cycle will be complete. I will return to the bottom step, but this time, with memories that will last me a lifetime. This time, sitting beside me will be (mostly) the same people I sat with 14 years, but this time we are not going to be shyly saying hello in our scared and timid voices, but we are going to be saying goodbye.