holidayendingpost.edu

Today is the last day of the holidays. Tomorrow onwards its back to hostel and mess and college and all. Since it was the last day I thought I'd update the blog once more, I tend to blog a lot more frequently during holidays, I notice. Don't know, maybe because I have very little to be engaged with otherwise during holidays. Truth be told, I am one of those guys to whom listening to things like 'wonderfully written' gives a great kick, but then, to whom it doesn't. Everyone would like to discover that in their rants was hidden a spectacular philosophical treasure. Its like going to an astrologer all depressed and tired and getting to know all of a sudden that the grihas at your time of birth are ones that repeat only after thousands of years, each time to see the birth of a polymath and stuff, and the last time such griha combinations happened was when Lord Krishna was born. So I thought I'd make one last try at being lord Asaaramji.

Today I went to college for the registration for this semester, where I met many of my classmates after about forty days. Its always a good sight seeing your classmates after so many days. Even during school days, I was always eager to see them after the summer vacations and all, I don't know what inside me made me think that a lot must have changed in these guys in these 40-50 days. And even after all these years of repeatedly finding out that no such Johny Lever to John Abraham change is possible in this much time, I still look forward to it. Habits die hard, really. One of my friends was visibly depressed there. Not the unhappy kind of depressed, but the not-happy kind of depressed. I mean when you're supposed to smile and all when someone wishes you Ooyey happy new year, he just remained blank as if he's just been yawned at. And after a pause added a hardly audible 'you too' that ended before it started. Then I prodded him, out of habit, to know what was troubling him. You know I get a bang out of asking people why are they so badly down and depressed, when they aren't actually all that depressed; because being asked this makes them all the more depressed.

'Who's down, me??'', he said faking amazement.

'I thought, you know..'.

"Who told you to think? Don't strain your knees." Boy, he was down.

"Okay if you don't want to tell, Ranjana was asking, but who cares"

"What did she ask?"

" Nothing, duffer. You thought she really asked. You really believed that, did you." and I deliberately followed it up with a big sarcastic laugh.

" You know what, I've made no 'progress'. Holidays wasted." Its funny that people tell you what it is only after you stop asking them what it is.

" Shake hands bhai, no progress here either, didn’t study a word." I added just to incite him further.

" Shut up, you know what I mean.", he replied. He'd have licked the books all month anyway. And after a brief pause he went on to add," S*****t, I am a loser."

You know you are a loser when you start telling your friends you are loser, expecting them to reply by saying that you aren't a loser. You know that they are being polite, but that politeness is all you want for that fleeting moment.

And then I replied," No, you aren't a loser" :)

Just as he started to look relieved, I feared that he might have actually believed me when I said he wasn't a loser, and added," You don't need to worry too much about it yaar. You know you are far better any day". I shouldn't have been lying all that much, that too right in the beginning of the year.

"Do I look like I care", he retorted. He looked like it was all he ever cared for.

"No dude you don't, at all".

And then I saw for the first time signs of true relief on his face. I don't know what it is about these guys nowadays. You try to lift them up, they pounce back at you. You call them dude, you lift their mood.

Anyway, enough for now.

Just like that

Vacations are good times. Actually all times are good times. In the beginning though, we show resistance to any change but slowly carve our comfort with it, start liking it, until the next change comes, and then we resist that change and so on. Like when exams just got over and vacations had just started, I didn't like the idea. But now, after slowly getting used to the blasé being, I wonder if I'll be able to cope up with the routine-bound life once college reopens. Of course I will be, just like every semester, but still those apprehensions. Just when I've slowly started liking the slow life, a change comes up! College reopens in 3-4 days and I am like Nooooo, the way you do as a 1st standard student, only that I don't do it in real, I just think of doing it.

Noooo brings me to Taare Zameen Par, which I went to watch yesterday with Mummy. Words will fail me if I sit down to describe how much I loved the film. You don't expect pretentiously tough twenty one year olds to be sitting and crying in a cinema hall, which I actually didn't, but certainly would have a number of times if Mummy wouldn't have been around. Even then, it was a tough task for me to control the rush. Both Ishan played by Darsheel Safary and Nikumbh Sir the character played by Aamir were extremely likeable, obviously for the purity that Nikhumb Sir and Ishan exude, but also struck a deep chord with me as, people, or just cinematic characters you'd unusually identify with. I often heard people talk about such and such character they could identify really with, but could never truly understand what they meant by that. I got a feel of what they meant for the first time when I saw Swades. In certain parts where Mohan Bhargav is this reflective, guilt-prone, vulnerable self, coexisting in others with someone who thinks of shielding the susceptible and has fun with those who don't, in his own little way. Paradoxical to some extent, but true to a larger. Yes Swades is one of my favourite films; and now Taare Zameen Par, after a very lOng time a film that set me thinking, reflecting, and agitating within too.

There are many sensations that happen to you and you feel like asking every single person if that happened to them as well, only that you never actually get down to asking people. If I list my questions of that variety it'll perhaps need a full post to itself, but the reason I am putting it up now is because a scene from TZP just flashed beneath my eyelids. There's this scene in which Ishan moves around, disillusioned, on the roads outside his school, staring at random things and thinking about them, and remaining disillusioned all along. I did that a lot as a child. I don't know any other person in my life who gets such fits of near insanity walking on the roads. I still do that daily when I leave for a long slow stroll after dinner every night. But it is different now than it was as a child. Now I worry whether I appear a c…..a this way, or should I be impervious to it even if I do, and some more insignificant, extraneous doubts other than the one that made me look, stare, glare as a doubter. As you grow old, you're no longer certain in your doubts. Ironically, you doubt your doubts and are not faithful to them. Coming back, so seeing Ishan in that particular scene made me think that Ok yes now there's someone with whom this happens. Maybe not Ishan, may be the writer Amole Gupte, or maybe Aamir, the director. With whom is anyway irrelevent, but I knew for sure that it does.

And Why does English slander like fucked-up-slob,f..u, f..er, invite far less scrown than their Hindi counterparts, which mean pretty much the same, and sometimes provide a more appropriate description than any other word ? I've stopped mulling over this, for a change, now. After all, double standards are the order now, and who ever said it shouldn't be.

Added Later : Yeah, the kid who played Rajan Damodaran also deserves a special mention. If I were the jury, I'd be confused between Darsheel and Aamir for the best actor in the leading role category, but wouldn't take a minute to decide whom I'll vote my best supporting actor as. This boy.