Monsoon

Unending Rain
Grey, cold...
Separation
Old friends, mellow songs
Nostalgia...
Lost in the future
Uncomfortable goodbyes
Avoiding conversations
Guilt, love and hope
There will be sunshine tomorrow.

Findings....

I have been delaying this cos I didn't want to start the New Year with this kind of a post.... This might sound depressing, but it's actually not, once you overcome the first, emotional level...
Don't get me wrong, my state of mind is actually pretty good right now.... :)

Some of the things I have learned at NID:

  • Confidence is something that does not come from within. First you fake it, act it out, then you get used to it being around, then it slowly gets internalized and you start believing it. Looking withing yourself is dangerous.
  • You are more screwed up than you know.
  • If you want to be happy today, don't delve into your past. Don't try to figure out why you are the way you are. Sometimes, rather, most times, it is better to leave things to the surface.
  • Your problem remains the same, only the context changes and the people you discuss them with change. Do not discuss the same problems with the same people every time; they'll get sick of them.
  • You don't learn what you expected to, or came here to learn; but you learn other things which may or may not be useful.
  • You don't "become" a designer. You just start to act like one.
  • Being depressed is the easiest and the most tempting thing.
  • You might think that you are not wasting time, but actually, you are.

If you're not thin, you're fat


Changing Standards.. different places... You still conform. Wherever you go.

NID - a place so different from the "outside world" that you feel that here everyone is absolutely free to be whoever they want to be... But it can be the exact opposite of this here. We might be different from outside, but very similar to each other.

You are weird if you sleep on the same date you woke up, if your clothes are clean and your hair is perfect even at the end of the day... and we all conform.

Standards of thin... There is no in-between, no average. If you are not thin, you are fat, no matter what the world may think.

One thing I absolutely love about this place is that there are so many places to sit everywhere, platforms, concrete chairs, blocks, anything...; and what is even better, that we still sit on the ground around those places... anything goes...

You get so used to the "weirdness" here that you feel like an outsider to the outside world.....

Cake

Sitting outside the rec room after drizzle 27-8-7 11:20pm Monsoon.... Chai.
Sounds
1 A constant, faint base note - the regular sound of water flowing down some pipe
2 Water trickling down at different places pit pat splat
3 Constant blaring of tv in the background, loud and heavy
4 Cricket
5 Feet of people passing by, crunch crunch crunchy
6 Some bird - high pitched, quite regular
7 Very pleasant, delicate, faint drops of water, garnish
8 And if I listen carefully, the sound of my own breathing.

Birdwatching :)

One of the best things about sitting in the library (apart from The Art of Looking Sideways) is that when you sit next to the window you get to stare at the lawn for as long as you want...

So, on one such afternoon....

Birds on the lawn; they are just like us; maybe us as kids, when our behaviour was unpretentious, directly reflective of what we were thinking.. Chasing after useless things... polythene, feather.... and when someone has it, they all fight for it. After a while, they give up and look for something else so the one who has it, now not getting any attention, loses interest in it.

So much like the way we are....

Catcher in the Rye

When you can see yourself in a story... Right when you are reading, you ARE the character. It's like reading a mirror or your own journal or looking at your pictures and telling yourself your stories.
Feeling lost and depressed and sitting alone among people, with nothing to do at night, just as Holden goes to Ernie's.
Don't want to go back to my room but feeling lonesome among familiar faces; yet wanting to be alone.
"Yellow"
Don't actually mind being "depressed".
Feeling contained yet intruded. Feeling awkward, but this is the most comfortable I can get for now. Being in a submarine, watching the world from a safe window. Soundproofing myself, but can't thoughtproof... The mind has no cover....
This is a very uncomfortable way of making myself feel comfortable....

14/7/7 12:20am nightmess book,music,chai

List of lists...

List of incomplete work
List of CDs to write
List of things to sort out on the comp
List of things to take home
List of things to buy
List of things to get from home
List of things to eat when I get home
List of people to call up
List of places to visit, people to meet
List of things to do
Mostly I'll be lazing around with ice filled Rasna... :)

5 days to go for the jury... Going home on 18th.. :)

Jury Stress

I somehow feel sad about losing motivation to "work"; to do something great... I don't know who I am working or, them or myself?

I take a deep breath, close my eyes and drag myself into the killing heat of the studio. Work drags and everything is in slow motion.
I am not even worried about not finishing my garments; just spend each day doing something to fill the entire day, adding on slowly; painfully gradually.
I wait for the day to get over, at the same time fearing that time is slipping.

I can't figure out if I have risen above all this and become stoical, or whether my state of mind is a dormant volcano. It is the latter I fear.

Somehow, in all the heat and fatigue, it is easier to push the thoughts far back. Being a zombie is quite comfortable.

A new song fallen in love with. Learnt it by heart. Crackling sounds from damaged earphones. Damaged from rolling over while half-asleep, from being crushed in denim pockets..

Music is what's keeping me alive... sane...

Chai note

Discovered during the night mess - chai routine with Dawa: Why do the best works appear on "worst" places like tissues or the back of notebooks..? Because the mind is free, not under an obligation to make the paper look "good".

There is a book I have been reading - The Art of Looking Sideways. Kind of a mind refresher. Will talk about that sometime.. and will add more of the "chai" observations and discoveries...

Light

Someday I'll write about my experience at NID.. there's so much to it... But for now.. something I wrote for an assignment where we were expected to represent Light through probably a picture.... I couldnt get any picture, just ideas.. so this is it....

Particle or wave
Just pure energy
…Positivity.

What if the big bang was dark?
… the sun were a rock?
No seven horses; no chariots
No positive and negative
No yin and yang
Black wouldn’t be a colour
Everything would be nothing
And nothing would be everything

You bend and you dance
You bounce and shoot
You burst and spark
And break into colours

You heal and burn away
The wounds of surface and beyond

I know the world
Through the eyes that you see through
I know who I am
When I play to and fro with you

Life is
Because You are.

Who are you to the night?
Enemy or saviour…
Who are you to the shadow?
An elusive goddess…
Who are you to a blind man?
Nothing…?

My favourite time of the year

Puja evenings and Garba nights. A hundred and eight diyas followed by countless more. Never before have I seen such an amazing mix of cultures where East meets West so beautifully, the way incense smoke dissolves in the air with the ascending dance. An absolute mismatch like the idol of Durga being taken on a camel cart reinforces the fact that different cultures can welcome each other when there is a common connecting link.

My favourite time of the year was the best this time.

I saw how it is possible to keep traditions alive… and how the passion to keep it alive and to celebrate grows when one is away from the roots. I saw that it is not necessary to believe, in order to feel part of the belief and to fall in love again with the beauty and grace of it.

Durga Puja at Navrangpura felt like home… it was just like what I grew up watching; the same idol ,the same drum beats and smoky scent, the same stalls, the same stage with little confused kids dancing while their parents prompt them….

Visarjan Night. Bid goodbye at Navrangpura and came to college for our own representation on cane. Fireworks on one side and drum beats on another. Faces coloured red with “sindoor”. I am surrounded by celebration. It’s amazing to be surrounded by the little divinity that we have created ourselves… Celebration on all sides, it’s like we are not celebrating, but it is happening and we are in the middle of it.

The “dhak” got spoilt so we couldn’t take it to the “visarjan”, but people in the slums at Sabarmati banks were playing drums and it was like Gujratis paying tribute to a Bengali ritual in their own way.

Celebration does not see you as an individual, but as a part of itself. It does not see who you are; it embraces you for being there. We can create our own divinity.