Introspections

Alone in a crowd. Always. Inspite of a hundred other people around, lonely. Who’s to blame? Yours truly. Claimed to be an introvert and pushed people away. Never cared till now. And with the consequences showing up now, dissatisfied. Recriminations. Bitterness. Dejected. With self.

Is it possible to live forever with this knowledge and not do something about it? Will it ever change? Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

Thanks

As it always happens when you have reached a nadir, something happens to restore your faith. These are admittedly not the right words for a self-proclaimed pessimist to use, but it’s true. 
To bring it into context, I was getting discouraged by my attempts at blogging. Oh, sure, lots of people have been telling me I write well enough, and even I admit I can turn a neat phrase or two. But it’s not the same as keeping at it, regularly, with a variety of topics to interest not only yourself, but also those reading it. And the unsurprising scarcity of comments made me wonder if I was even successfully getting my point across. Was thinking of giving it up entirely. Then along came a friend and boosted my nearly- deflated spirit with a few well-chosen words. It was just the shot-in-the-arm that I needed.

Thanks a zillion Harji!!

Kitne ajeeb rishtey hain yahan pe…

Ever looked closely at inter-personal relations? Nothing is as it seems at first glance. People you think are real chummy with each other, in reality, aren’t. A glass which appears smooth reveals fine cracks on closer inspection. Not enough to shatter it, it will hold its own. But not so less as to call it an unbroken whole. ‘Friends’ take potshots at each other, behind each others backs all the time, with a vim which makes you think Brutus was introducing a new fashion when he back-stabbed. If it’s not behind the back, it’s to the face, a leg-pulling, to which if any objections are raised, the objector is branded a spoilsport. So the unwritten protocol is to take something at face value with a laugh, and return it with vengeance when those people aren’t around.

do pal milte hain, saath saath chalte hain….
jab mod aayi to, bachke nikalte hain.

Is absolutely everyone like this? Selfish to their own ends, no matter what the means to achieve it? Seek fun when you want, and ‘bye’ without a backward glance when it’s over? I know we are talking about humans here, and human tendency is not to be truly unselfish. However, having said that, what do people get from this at the end of the day? The satisfaction that they spent the day in the company of so many friends, they weren’t lonesome anytime? That they had a good time overall? Doesn’t it ever pall, good times without any foundation, shallowness, the very act of laughing and talking an artifice? Given a chance, they’d do it over and over.
And it’s perfectly fine to act like this, no one’s expecting you to be be good. Your unworldliness is jeered at, and you come out the worst for behaving like an innocent.

Is everyone true only to themselves? Or even to themselves?

Away

I feel this overwhelming urge to escape. From the daily routines and monotony. Just want to get up and go. Somewhere. Anywhere. The destination is not important, the getting away is. It’s funny – this feeling. Never ever have I felt like this while at home, in India. Ever since I came to the US, this mood hits me every couple of months. A restlessness which is akin to being bitten by the travel bug. And the only solution to getting that restlessness out of my system is making a trip.
At the end of every such trip, I vow to myself – I won’t make another trip for the next 3-4 months, don’t want to see the airport even. Catch me 2 months down the line from then, and I’ll probably be singing a different tune.
And all the more surprising is the fact that I have just returned from a month long vacation, a rejuvenating, relaxing trip home. And yet within such a short time, away I want to go again.
Hope I get to go away. Don’t be surprised to see snaps of another place here within a fortnight.

Inside looking out

Sitting on my couch, staring out through the glass at the road beyond. Seeing everything, yet nothing in particular. The occasional car zipping down the road. The odd jet streaking across the faded-blue sky, it’s fast dissipating contrail dividing the sky in two. The birds flitting across the lawn, and from tree to tree. Funny that – i don’t remember seeing so many birds in the spring or summer. they come out only during this time, the transition from fall to winter. i can see the setting sun from where i sit (wow, was that some alliteration). It lacks all warmth, yet is so welcome in the winter. The scene outside is cold, yet not bleak. There are a thousand unfinished tasks waiting for me. i am bored, yet not bored, if you can understand the paradox.
i have to do something, else i will go crazy.
And if that doesn’t explain this post, nothing will.

Snowflakes keep falling….

Experienced a ‘first’, of sorts, today. It snowed last night….not too much to make it unbearable, not too less to make it melt upon touching earth. Just enough. The first snow of the season. The type they show in movies – soft as cotton candy and very comfy-looking. Well…i am deviating from my point here. That was not the ‘first’.
It was just enough snow to make a perfect powdery covering on everything. Including my car. And for the first time i cleared snow off my car(first car, by the way). Nothing like it to make you feel like a proud owner – which was somehow lacking till now. i had cleared snow off friends’ cars last winter, and this was totally different. i felt exhilarated…though i am at a loss to explain why. It is nobody’s (least of all – mine) idea of fun to stand in the cold and brush the snow off cars. And i know this is a chore i will tire of, soon. Verrrrry soon. When it gets much more cold.
But today; it was brilliant.