Exam Results, and The Friendship Rant

First, the news: AISSCE 2015 results are out, and I scored 96%. As far as we know as I write this, the highest score in the Science stream from my school is 97.4%, and from the Commerce section, the highest score is 96.2%, from my friend and former colleague Nihal Singh. The newspapers reported today that the highest scorer in the country is a Commerce student from Delhi, with 99.2%; the highest Science scorer is not known to me yet. My congratulations go out to all the toppers as well as everyone else who cleared this very important milestone. The Class of 2015 has come of age, and hopefully we will go far. Now we await the results of our attempts at getting into college. Bystanders and bygones, wish us luck!

Since the last of the competitive exams were done, I have been struck by a crushing sense of emptiness -- though in reality I have plenty to do, especially things that I did less (or none) of in the past few months. I have a pending storybook in my hands; I have a ton of French that I can learn and a ton of Runescape that I can play; and today after a long time I picked up my tanpura. Yet, I feel devoid of a purpose. At the end of Class X, I knew that I was going to spend Class XI in HSMS and Aakash Institute. Now, I have no such certainty. Even if I get a barely decent result in the competitive examinations, I will have a formidable list of colleges to choose from -- and once I get there, I have to take the wobbly first steps towards an adult, independent life. Don't get me wrong -- the prospect of that life does not intimidate me; instead, it excites me that I will have new friends, new knowledge and new experiences. What I do not have is immediate motivation. Sure, career prospects and even the possibility of being able to do some meaningful charity someday is great motivation; but as I leave school life for real, I have no meaningful connections to show for it -- no people whose faces, far away, will give me strength in my future endeavours; no tangible, living representatives of the spirit of youthful idealism that I hope to carry into my life of nascent maturity. To put it simply, leaving school life, I do not have a single friend that I can possibly allow myself to miss.

It is a well-known fact that anything worth doing is faced with stiff opposition, and that anyone worth their salt is never too well liked. A low friend count is a cross I can bear for the path I chose in my school life, because that path was important to me -- and the burden of that cross is much lightened by the few friends I made in passing -- but none to know and trust, none to call at 3 a.m., none that accept me for the exact person that I am and are yet not afraid to be close to me. I revel in solitude, and I've always hated so-called friends who are too clingy, but sometimes I wonder if one absolutely must suffer indignities to one's conscience, privacy and principles to maintain friendships. If it is that way, trust me, I'd rather not have friends -- but sometimes I wonder if that whole 'adjustment' story is bullshit. Adults (technically, I am one now, but bleh) have always told us bluntly that true friends are a near-impossible rarity, and we youngsters grow to believe it. The other day when I visited HSMS and spoke to my class teacher, she agreed with me when I mentioned the improbability of true friendship, and praised my maturity in realizing the truth!

And yes, it is a truth I realized long, long ago. Back in CCHS, I had realized as young as Class II that being betrayed by friends was routine procedure. Right up to Class VIII, each and every year, without fail, I made a new friend in the beginning of the year, who hurt me horribly by the end of it -- with such scathing regularity that I came to expect it in the beginning of every school year. In Class IX, I gave up hope of ever making new friends. In HSMS, I didn't expect a fresh start, at least in this regard, but I was given one nonetheless. I often tell people how, much of HSMS and Aakash was a concise and accelerated version of the CCHS experience for me -- and part of what I mean, is that numerous people flitted in and out of my life in these two years, and bonds were made and broken not in a year, not in a month, but in days, hours and minutes. I made and lost nearly as many friends in HSMS as I had in CCHS. Talk about history repeating itself, and that too six times faster!

No, I wasn't a quiet kid. I wasn't a wallflower, I wasn't timid, I wasn't invisible. I was well known, I was popular among juniors, I held the top posts in the student bodies and everybody knew my name and who I was -- but that was the end of it. Any friendships I had left at the end of my school life died in a series of sad encounters in the days leading up to our Farewell Day, and lastly, crushingly, excruciatingly, on the very day that I bade Farewell to HSMS, and thus my school life. Reconnecting with some of these friends worked out quite well, actually -- but it was never the same. When I look at these people now in photographs, when I hear them now as disembodied voices over telephone, when I run into them at the odd exam centre, I find they've changed, or perhaps revealed some truth about themselves that I had been oblivious to. I find them different -- just like, déjà vu, I found many of my Carmel girls metamorphosing into unrecognizable skeletons of their past selves in post-Carmel meetings. My maturity be praised, I understand all of this as a normal part of adult life -- people can't be forced to like each other, and true friendships don't exist -- and I am ready to accept it if someone can convince me that it is always true: if someone can refute me when I debate that it is still worth my while to try making new friends.

Yes, I know -- I'm an adult, and I'm supposed to have my life all figured out, including my bunch of age-appropriate, status-appropriate, gender-appropriate, culture-appropriate, brand-appropriate friends to show off to myself on some bloody list that I'm supposed to check off I don't know when. But I have no shame in admitting that I actually don't. I don't know how to make friends, and I don't know if trying is even worth my time. What I do know, however, is that I'll never, ever change myself, never ever remain silent against any injustice, never give up even a single bit of my personality to keep myself glued to some friend. I'll never, ever, do all the things I wrote about in that poem. Silence is not the price I will pay for friends, and silence is not what I will expect of any friend that decides to accept my voice.

I also promise, however, that while I will forever be careful, and never too trusting, and never too easy to make friends with, I will never, ever, stop trying to make friends. Because, you see, every friendship I've ever had was wonderful while it lasted. Even the people who weren't who I thought they were, were a joy to me as my imagined versions of them. So no, oh wise grown-ups, while I won't ever endanger my identity for the sake of a friend, I will always remain on the lookout for one -- even if it is ever reduced to a selfish tool of giving me joy. And while I'm at it, I will remember the principle that has always held together my most treasured friendships -- summarized by this C.S. Lewis quote:

"Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: 'What! You too? I thought that no one but myself...'" 

So, past friends, thank you for having been there. Present friends, if you exist, let me know who you are because I haven't the slightest idea; and, world full of potential future friends, here I come!

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I actually have one friend, just one, outside school, outside the country in fact, who has always been wonderful to me despite having never met me in person. This post being about school friends, I didn't talk about you in it, but thank you, +Paige Marie / +SuperPaigeT .  You're a dear.

Image courtesy: Unknown creator via Google Images

You're Mean

Bookkeepers, bets and gambles, risky investments, desperate choices. I am a statistic. I am someone's project, I am someone's way to live their dream, someone's card out of the rut. I am someone's point to prove or disprove, someone's shortcut to fortune, and the receptacle for someone else's self-loathing.

When I was weak, when I was but a seed, they made me strong, yes? Cold water, stinking animal shit, painful cuts, etcetera? Pruned to help grow, they say-- oh, I see, so that's what it was -- and I must pay. My opinion of their pruning be whatever it may, I must pay -- for being sneered at, for being lied to, for being manipulated and dragged into none-of-my-business feuds, I must pay. I must pay with lifelong thanks, with folded hands. I must pay in infinite gratitude.

Bringing out my inner potential by convincing me that I had none at all? Cool story. I believe you. I am where I am because of you, eh? Well, though I don't know where exactly that is supposed to be, hey, I believe you. If this goes well, it's all you; if it doesn't, it's all me -- per public trend, and per tradition of this here glorious country.

If this goes well the sweets are on me, for you. If this goes well the applause is for me, but I'm supposed to deflect it towards you. Oh, and, the respect is for you, the feather-in-résumé is for you. If this goes well, some four to six years of tolerating more people like you is for me. Still, if this goes well, I stand to gain, you say. Well, by force of habit, I believe you.

I believe you, and I bless you. I bless your automobiles, your smartphones, your children's educations, their new clothes -- all paid for by my willingness to let you, essentially, be paid for being mean to me. No, it's not a sacrifice that you made! It's not a sacrifice if you, well, sacrificed nothing for it, and are working the best-paid job you could get. It's not a noble profession as per tradition if nobleness is no longer considered a requirement before allowing you to get into my head.

Yet, I believe you when you say I must pay, because that's just me -- and pay I will. Whichever way this goes, whether I buy you sweets or not, I bless you and your goddamn life -- and your ugly car, your stupid phone and your children who  you are, probably, already raising badly.

So consider that your payment, you, uh, you... well, ugh. This blog is supposed to be PG. So here:

Of Heights, Quakes, and How Everything is Wrong

We clawed at walls. We smiled at the world till our cheeks hurt and our lips bled. We did everything right -- to what end? Rickety buses filled with sweat, drudgery and depraved machinations; the morbidly obese sweating at the gym after eating far too much; young people dying because someone, somewhere, does not know better -- and what have we accomplished?

Rumbles of suspicion arise somewhere deep in our brains at every kind word, every kind touch, every holy gesture, because somewhere between the Value Education classes and the deadbeat degree our evaluation of kindness quietly shifted -- from the scale of people served, to the adult and practical yardstick of social points accrued -- and by those measures we give and receive what was preached, to the gullible child by the hypocritical adult, as gainful only in the afterlife. And so we were kind and we are kind, because it helps to be kind. Even if the fear of God didn’t convince us as kids, we’re all so kind, now that we’re grown -- for convenience in this here mortal life. Everybody and their mother is kind in adulthood. Everyone. Not just the pious with season tickets to paradise but atheists like me too. Because it's useful. And so we're kind. So, so kind. Parents are so kind to children that kids don't have to take the trouble of dreaming their own dreams -- don't worry, baby! Mum and Dad lived in the 80s and have a lot of dreams left over from that hopeful era! Here, take them. Fulfil them. Parents will pay for whatever you need to get that done. You just do it. How convenient, right, baby? No need to waste your time being yourself! We're doing you a favour. Just like the government is doing us all a favour! No one has to lift a finger to build an identity. It's all encoded for you by our freely and fairly elected masters. Here are the basic rules that define your identity as an Indian:

1. Government decides what you eat. Don't eat a cow, it's your Mom.

2. Government decides who you have sex with. 'Honey, not now' is something that only men can say in a marriage and expect to be respected. A woman's sexuality is an object promised to her husband by her father who similarly ‘received’ her mother once, so married women beware, you can't be raped by your husband. Because in India, marriage is a sacrament which makes marital rape a non-issue.

3. Government decides who you don't have sex with. Because gender is so binary that all hell will break loose if someone explores outside the extremes. On second thought, we don't understand such sophisticated stuff. You want a reason? Well, because, tradition or some vague thing like that.

4. Women, don't be a woman or you will be raped. Men, if you denounce rape, you are not man enough. Children, there is no such thing as rape. You see, ignoring the very dictionary definition of rape, we believe that she was asking for it.

5. If all of that is difficult, just do as you’re told. SURRENDER NOW OR PREPARE FOR A FIGHT! (Meowth, that's right). Because hey, be grateful you don't live in Syria. At least we don't behead you.

Alright, alright. I'm sorry about the ranting and the discombobulated writing and the fact that the lettering above probably gave you a seizure. But hey, I'm right about the routine, muscle-memory survival summarized succinctly by the movements and conversations of commuters on public transport. I’m right about the hypocrisy in pretending that the luxury of affording good food is not a luxury at all since it makes you fat, as well as the homogenous beauty standards associated with ‘fat’. I'm also right about the pointlessness of parents dictating to children and in turn being dictated to by the powers that be. I'm right about the micro-aggressions we face every day for not fitting into the boxes built around us. You know I’m right.

Before you say it: no, I don't know what to do about it. This is a rambling, whining, selfish, elitist, pseudo-activist piece by a tired young adult who has no idea how to fix the dog-eaten world she inhabits. This is an immature outburst in response to frustrations accumulated over many months of walking on the streets feeling unsafe, navigating online and offline interactions with narrow-minded judgmental dimwits, being irrationally mistrustful of new people because of being hurt and disrespected too many times, and reading the newspaper only to be left thanking my dumb luck that I'm still in one piece.

And yes, this is a rant about everything that's wrong around me, and it’s triggered by survivor's guilt – because Anik Mukherjee, my senior by a year from Hem Sheela Model School, a troubled guy, a flawed guy, and an extraordinary aesthetic, comedic and literary talent who I had the privilege to know and watch performing live, recently succumbed to the crisis of dreams versus conventional careers, and committed suicide -- late last week.  Pragmatically speaking, I am saddened, grieved even, and my thoughts are with his family who must be going through hell right now. On a less pragmatic note, however, the only thought running through my mind is what this all is worth. Anik was a rebel; he didn't walk the straight and narrow. But even those of us who did everything right, as I wrote in the beginning -- what do we get? On good days, we get financial security and false bliss, with a faint hint of regret for having never rebelled. On bad days, the pathetic nature of our robotic existence hits us like a block of ice to the face and we fall into a damaging periodicity of low self-worth and bully-like egotism -- essentially either pulling ourselves down, or rising up by pushing down on others – and so on and on it goes. Our consolation is that some unknown heights are reached in the process. Some unreachable correctness is apparently achieved when we let our lives be copies of a set template. Some comfortable predictability, some spinelessness mistaken for likeability, some ingratiation of the world at large -- that's what we get. That, and the fact that young people die.

Because someone, somewhere, prefers that one or two youngsters die if only to reinforce in the minds of the others that they are being so very strong by doing exactly what is told instead of giving in to weaknesses such as dreams and individuality -- and thus a generation is born who make fun of two friends for discussing the loss of someone they knew (yes, that happened) because it's so funny and so stupid and EHMAHGERD TOO LOL that the idiot killed himself, ROTFL such a wuss. "Oh, look at me, I've never dreamt, never built anything beautiful. Look at me, because it took me such strength to conform and never say enough. I'm gonna be an engineer and my Momma will love me more and cook me bigger pieces of chicken..!" Well guess what, strong-man dear -- Anik lost a battle. You never fought. I wish he were alive, because he was nice to me while you are horrid to me. I’d have him alive and you dead any day.

Sounds harsh, I know, but those are my words for those who ridicule suicide victims. It's a lapse of judgement -- a fatal lapse of judgement -- but it means that the person did something, be it good or bad, to land themselves in deep enough trouble, so there. The strongest are the ones who came back from the brink. The weakest are those who don't know what it's like to be criticized and made to feel worthless. Those who, unfortunately, tip over the edge are somewhere in between. Because:

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.” -- Terry Pratchett

So yes, with many apologies to my readers, I will be irrational today. I will be a pseudo-activist today and you can judge me all you want from the great heights you've reached in your quest towards homogeneity. Speaking of those heights, Congratu-fricking-lations to you.

Don't get me wrong. I am probably on the way to a deadbeat degree -- fortunately, for the better part, not because of external pressure but because my academic tastes happen to be conventional. But at least I know that it's much, much harder, and not weak or lesser at all, to be doing something different. As for the non-academic stuff, I know exactly what it's like not to fit in -- and as I said, it's my dumb luck that I'm in one piece. No pedestal here for me to stand on!

Today there was an earthquake here, again – thankfully yet again non-fatal. Now, as anyone with half a brain would, I'm not partial to earthquakes. However, I wouldn't mind a non-fatal earthquake once in a while, especially of the metaphorical kind -- because we as a society, we as a country, we as a species, need a mad shaking up from time to time. Our fake heights need to crumble, our veneers need to be rudely torn, our sense of mortality needs to be reinforced, if we are ever going to get real about how pathetic all of this is getting.

Ergo, we need a quake. A significant one.

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For the sake of preservation, here is a link to my original Google+ post reacting to Anik's death. Feel free to talk about these posts, or not. Thank you for putting up with me.

Farewell Jottings -- Part Five (The End)

Today Hem Sheela Model School bade farewell to the Class XII batch of 2015. With Head Boy Nihal Singh, I, as the Head Girl, had to deliver a speech at the event. The speech was about leaving HSMS and being grateful and the like; but if I had to deliver a speech where I could say anything, the following would probably be it.

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The End

The lost designs of my youth,
The fairy stories electric blue,
The proud crusades to find the truth,
The dreams of lives built anew --

Insane dreams of evermore!

Dreams of luxuries and love,

Dreams, that for every chore,

Divine Grace awaits above.

Something awaits, we still believe;

What it is, we know not still,

But someday it will come for me..

Or perhaps it never will.

There she goes, that girl who wrote
Joyous songs for feasting nuns,
Who woke at six to rush to school,
And cared after the little ones.
Went she away to new green fields --
New children, new dreams and hopes:
On her way to the world beyond,
Stopped she awhile to learn the ropes,
But not for long -- two years, they fly,
Up and out, hair streams behind,
Run, run, girl, for time is nigh:
Visions of expectant mankind --
Imagine them! With bated breath,
Waiting and watching for something new --
Something great, something fresh,
Something rare, in a million, few...!

Legend says that demons live
In human form, with us they walk;
With sweet voices, Grandma said,
Demons, in our ears, they talk.
Songs they sing, said the book
That steal innocent souls away --
Uncle Tiger said, if it's true,
Your mission is to find and slay
The demons that in humans live --
If you don't, who else will?
And so I learnt of my place --
The empty space for me to fill.

So hearken all my Farewell Song,

For today I sing sincere.

Today I bring a message true

To all my people gathered here:

You were born to fill a need,

Because no one else would do;

You were born because the world

Was waiting, eagerly, for you.

Don't let the world tell you now

That it's done and there's no more --

Tell the world, and tell yourself

Of all the promises made before,

Of proud crusades to find the truth,

And dreams of lives built anew,

Of grace, and love, and glories great--

A dream designed just for you.
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We returned the badges at the end of the event, by the way. Officially done with the Council, now to trust next year's Council to keep up the (hopefully!) good work.

Farewell Jottings -- Part Four (Journey To The Promised Land)

Of the games we play: be it exam games, ball games, or life itself.
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Journey To The Promised Land

Never knew the word no, never learnt to say it.
One body, one mind, tugged and pushed every which way,
Battling shame and pride
To make it through the night
To the promised land, far away, far beyond the moon:
The promised land, we're promised, we're getting there soon!
So lock your feet in, Sheamus;
And steel your nerves, Daveed;
Don your mail, Henrietta mine;
Mirriam, rouse your steeds.

Gather your wits, my comrades, say prayers if you will,
Call upon your guardian angels -- this would be the hour,
'Cause we're trading all our coal
For worthless lumps of gold
To pay our way to the promised land, beyond the lands unclaimed;
The promised land, to us promised (yes, it's aptly named).
So Rover, Rocky, Rivierra,
Kraus, Nick, Leyland Brown:
Draw your scythes -- our paths ahead
Lie thickly overgrown.

Promises have the fastest legs of all the kin of Hope;
They have eyes behind their heads to know when we're getting close;
They can smell the grime and wet
Of our blood, tears and sweat;
They can hear our stumbling hearts dripping life with every beat;
And they feel our cornered minds, still in denial of defeat.
So Constance, Edward, Henry B.,
Ring out our battle cry;
Let them hear, loud and clear:
We chase them, or we die.
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Farewell Jottings -- Part Three

Assortment of tiny flowers in the grass. Maroon multitudes sandwiched between green and blue never notice, but I do. Funny thing is, these probably existed back when the place was a forest.

Tall, bare concrete wall arches beautifully across the field. At partings we are promised completion -- it will be painted when I return. Supposed to feel good at the time but probably won't: will not laud progress, will selfishly feel outdated.

Little girl will tumble on without me. Will win things I never knew existed, fight wars I never heard of. A host of fifty seven will rise where there was a gaggle of fifteen; seventy three on seventy three will rise like never before -- new beginnings. Perhaps catalysed by recent past, oh praise oh applause! No comfort. Success no use in absentia despite gratitudes abundant.

Feel like a mushroom cloud, waning wake of potent impact: witness to noise, clamour, opinion, long after said event. Wane, however, non-negotiable. Can be extended by aftershocks as encouraged, to fade again alongside noisier clamour. Photographs and sundry evidence archived far from the sun. Radio silence that follows nearly undisturbed by few starry eyes.

Walls will be painted and repainted. Field flowers will live and die every season, as wild flowers must. Touch-me-nots will bow to different feet -- soles of shoes only they recognize: wonderful equalizer. Today's gritty new sport will be worn smooth, will be less desirable ancestors to sprightly young bouncers. As promised, flawed lines on concrete will be accurate soon. In future play if ever, will err on correct lines: blame old adjustments to the wrong. Games metaphorical and actual will have different players, all too short-lived to change the way they're played.
Hopeless hope to inspire the next wave of dreamers, to impact memory sufficiently to remain at the least a voice of conscience from days long gone (can you hear me?) Meanwhile, own memories to grow overgrown as is wont -- voices first to go; then faces and entire identities sequestered from the perpetual struggle to be relevant.

Successive visits will see diminishing recognition. Indomitable, the flux will carry away the familiar. Onus of excellence will pass to those irreplaceable to new and alien to old. Reminiscences will go from three a year to one, to none; greetings, reduced to transparent stares, will become colder and colder and emptier and emptier: at length will be a ghost of Hem Sheela past.

The stray cat will have kittens, maybe. Will she tell them about me?

Farewell Jottings -- Part Two

Tumultuous times lie ahead. The young are on their way to become the youth! Fires will be lit and cleansing floods will bring sweeping changes across hearts that will survive the first rite of passage to adulthood that is finishing school and getting into college. At the very cusp of this change, there are two things on my mind -- regrets and fears.

Unlike many of my peers, regrets I have none -- and that worries me because I fear that perhaps no regrets means not enough staked in the first place: that, maybe, I played safe.

Maybe in my fear of losing myself I lost you; maybe in my fear of never knowing myself, I never knew you; maybe in my haste to find myself I never bothered to find you.

You, my lost friend. You, the friend I could have made but didn't. You, the friend I made and then drove away. You, the smile; you, the light; you, the opportunity -- bypassed, perhaps, I fear, for the sake of me: me the brave who was not brave enough to save you, me the compassionate who was never kind to you, me the tolerant who took pride in looking down on you.

So, while regrets I have none because I never met you, fears I have in abundance that, somewhere, you exist, and in that somewhere beyond my reach you live, knowing me to be the person who could have been there for you, but didn't. Despite my confidence in my own assertions, I fear that somewhere there is someone who is a victim of hypocrisy on my part, even if that hypocrisy exists only in that someone's perception. (Or my own. Reality matters very less, dear unknown friend -- me thinking ill of me and you thinking ill of me are equally ill fates!)

The projector will drone on. Reel after grainy reel will flit away on the screen. Regrets and fears will change shape but will always remain. Laughably, shadowed one, these regrets and fears provide some of the best creative inspiration, some of the best screenplay for the dramedy of our lives. So if you think me a hypocrite (or if you think yourself a hypocrite -- one can always come to one's senses), fear not and regret not your past actions. Let it fuel you to greater heights, where your movie will be a blockbuster, where people will applaud you and chant your name. Believe, that despite all hypocrisy, despite the missed chances and swallowed smiles, your movie will get made. It will break the box office and get awards of the red carpet sort -- it'll even get ninety percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Believe, I say, because self-belief has served me well, and because, if I had known you, I would have believed in you as well.

When you do become a celebrity, friend, give me a call. I'd like to know if and when our dance of hypocrisy pays off. Adios!

Farewell Jottings -- Part One

Emotional mush is always difficult to handle, but it feels warranted in this case, so please hear me out.

Your journey henceforth won't be easy. The world's general muck and your difficult personality are not a good match, and you are hellishly hard to like. So before we part, I'm going to pretend that the 246 days between our births were actually 246 months, and give you some advice.

You see, friend, growing up means that the ground beneath your feet will shift. It's only normal. You will learn that the world is unfair, and that foes always outnumber friends. You will learn that envy is a stronger emotion than gratitude. You will learn to suspect -- because people will have betrayed you. As I said -- it's only normal. But hopefully, you will also learn courage, grace and strength; hopefully you will find your voice, and you will love and be loved. Underneath the greys of essential suspicion, hopefully, you will see the sparkle of those rare few who will, in turn, see you for the sparkler that you are. Hopefully, my friend, you will not lose hope.

To put it simply, it's normal, and desirable, for you to learn two things -- one, that all the world's light cannot kill darkness; and two, that all the world's darkness cannot put out the light inside you if you decide to let it shine.
Now, you ask, all this while, what will I do for you? Where will I be when you go about this difficult journey? Maybe in a fit of indignation you will even question the kind of friend I am, to give so much advice and then disappear when our time here is done. You will say that you want to know more, to talk more; you will say that it only makes sense, and that we are not done -- if we want to talk, there's always WhatsApp! But you see, I will have a life and so will you. Talking so much works for carefree youngsters studying and working in the same place -- not for adult individuals responsible for feeding themselves and, in time, others. So, buddy mine, what can I do for you? Will I be physically absent when the going gets tough? Perhaps. But whether I know you in the future or not, remember that friendship means that I am with you in spirit, and in spirit, you have my otherwise unconditional support on one condition. The condition being, you ask?

Well, my friend -- it is simple. In spirit and, if possible, in flesh and blood, I will hold your hand when it's dark outside and it's difficult to see. I will grab your shoulders and pull you to safety when it is dark beneath you and above you and all around you. But I will run -- in selfish and mad disappointment I will run, miles away from you I will run even if it kills me -- if I ever find you inviting the darkness in and letting it invade your sparkling soul -- because I will not sit tight and watch while yet another light goes out. I simply won't. So promise me -- promise me you will shine.

Now, buddy, that's enough of all that. Steel your nerves, and best of luck. Gimme a fist-bump before we go.

The Spirit of New Year's

Image Courtesy: globzer.com via Google

When the sun rises this morning, the birds won't know the difference. Neither will the trees, insects, cats and dogs, or for that matter the rivers, streams and rocks. Even the sun and the earth won't know the difference, which is ironic because all the hullabaloo is because of the earth completing a full revolution around the sun -- they won't know the significance of the specific point on the earth's orbit which we pick as a cut-off for our calendar years. In fact, if we look at it, that point varies across cultures, and many New Year celebrations exist outside the dominant Gregorian calendar system. Even within it, time zone differences mean that the same moment is not shared as the defining one between revellers across the globe. Sad, isn't it? It can almost make one feel that this entire New Year ruckus means nothing. Yet, New Year's festivities constitute one of the earliest kinds of celebrations in the history of human civilization. This tells us that, aside from noticing the repetitive nature of season cycles and using it as a measure of time, humans have felt the need to document and commemorate their entire lives in terms of this cycle: appraising their lives in terms of tasks accomplished in one such cycle, and treating each one as a new chance at the same seasons and the same conditions, providing ample scope for alteration and improvement based on lessons learnt from the bygones. The reason we love New Year's Day so much is that it represents fresh chances -- which, while invigorating, is not entirely true, because in our complex lives, not everything comes back every year.

No one knows who first decided to celebrate the periodic repetition of weather conditions. I like to think that someone sitting in a prehistoric cave felt cold, or hot, and started counting days until the same feeling returned after an intervening period of different weather of all kinds, and then noticed that it is regular. I like to think that this realization of regularity was quickly followed by a realization of the finality of hope -- a realization that no matter what, favourable times and weather conditions will return, and that long winters and long summers are actually never longer than stipulated, and that the worst will always pass -- and thus New Year's Day was born. The flip side, though, is that the same person probably also realized that just like the worst, the best will also not stay for long.

Amidst this New Year revelry, I would like to be the voice of reason, and point out that while motivating oneself using New Year's hope, and pledging to make changes, and of course having fun, are all very well, one must recognize that changes are never made abruptly at the stroke of midnight, opportunities do not replicate themselves year after year, and that New Year's actually signifies time passed -- time lost, not time gained. So, while it is wonderful that we are the only species on this planet hopeful (and intelligent) enough to celebrate New Year's Day, it is perhaps prudent to understand that the exact day does not matter as much as the idea of it does. We could pick any random day in the year for this. In multicultural India, we already have a bunch of different New Year celebrations. What they all have in common is the human intention of appraisal and improvement -- an idea that, while reinforced on this festival day, should permeate our lives every day.

To put it differently, we don't know at which point the earth started revolving around the sun. We don't know at which point our planet was when the first life form or the first human was born. We have no decisive zero from which to start measuring our years. Which means that, if we want it to, every day marks the beginning of a new year in some sense: maybe not as 'Happy' a new year, but a new year nonetheless! So I say, let New Years' Day be less about the day itself, and more about the spirit of human hope and our constant efforts not just to survive, but to live and live well, as individuals and as a species. Let 1st January be a day to honour Time, the only resource beyond our control -- let it be about making fruitful negotiations with Time to make the best of its fleeting nature.

In short, we can't party every night, but let tonight's party be an expression of a yearlong drive to make Time give us all it can, preferably make it suffer for all the limitations it places on us -- because we humans are boss like that! So do keep smiling, keep working for the better, and be grateful for the opportunity to understand New Year's -- unlike the birds, the animals and the trees, who will never know why none of us are sleeping tonight. Happy 2015!

A short update

I played around with stock photos and Pokemon on Photoshop for Christmas -- thought I should share it with you all. 

Keep well!