SPARTAAANSS...

When leonidas was a boy, he was sent away into the wilderness.(I suggest you watch 300 before reading further.)
"Go face the world", the spartan elders said. "Battle the deadly beasts, creatures of the dark... ones which crawl and sting, ones which fly and claw. Defeat them. Above all, defeat your own inner demons. Emerge victorious and come back. Only then shall you be worthy of being the king of spartans."

Times have changed. Modern day elders don't speak in such an elegant fashion. My dad mincing words, merely said, "It's time you stood on your own two feet. Go crack the GATE exam. You will be welcomed home like our champion.(actually, he didnt say this last sentence out loud. I added it to try and give my dad a spartan image)" And then he sent me to hyderabad(ACE Academy).
And here I am, like poor little leonidas... in this big scary city all by myself.(sigh)

I've been here one day and I've already found things to hate about this city. First things first,

The traffic. The pace of life in this city is pretty hectic but I can't go as far as to say the city never halts. There are numerous junctions where traffic signals act as bottlenecks, and in the mini jams caused in this manner autos and two wheelers would do just about anything to get in front of the vehicles ahead. These daredevils jump kerbs onto the already narrow footpaths and then snake through between the trees and streetvendors to get ahead. In one such signal, the moment it turned green an auto took off and turned left, grazed a bike in the process. The bike tumbled over and the rider fell. The auto stopped to a screech, its driver cocked his neck out and looked back. The fallen man was glaring at him. Then the autowallah said something in telugu which to me sounded something of the effect, 'Oh, you're not dead...? well then fuck off!!', and then he sped away.

Of the autowallahs, I've one more story. (Alert!, potty jokes ahead) I'd been sitting in a bus for close to 17 hours. I have what my mother calls a hyperactive-bowel, punctual as clockwork. It was 7.45 in the morning when I got off the bus and nature's miscalls had already been coming for half-an-hour. I got in an auto and asked the nice looking bhaisahab, 'kisi cheap lodge ke aage utaar do. Fresh hona hain. Room sirf ek ghante ke liye chahiye bas.'
The SOB then drove me around for 20 minutes, took Rs150 and left me outside a lodge where they said they didnt rent rooms for less than 24 hours and that the rent would be Rs 600. By this time my internal turmoil had heightened to a ' either you do it now, or it does itself' situation. With the alternative being unthinkable, I paid the 600, took the key and ran to the room. Most expensive shit of my life!!!

Iske aage life main ab jab bhi main toilet jaoonga, us haram khor autowalleh ko yaad karoonga. Kameenay, tujhe main shraap deta hoon... is ek saal ke andar aise kahin mauke aaenge jab tujhe halka hona ho aur door door tak koi toilet nazar nahin aaega.

posted from Bloggeroid

Reinventing

These two months were tough, with the 8^th semester university examinations and the prospect of having to go home after four years at college. It scared me. Though I was happy that I’d gotten through such a strenuous task as B.Tech, I wasn’t yet prepared to face the eventuality that I’d have to leave behind everything I’d learned to love and step into the unknown. To give up the place and the people among which you thought you belonged, to go home and move back into your old room which your brother has customized to his tastes, to be under your parents’ radar 24*7, to be asked to do household chores once again…. all this was very much disconcerting. Meanwhile facebook served as a constant reminder of how happy you were at college. With all this happening I had neither time nor inspiration to blog. I felt empty. No new stories to share, no lame jokes to tell. For a while, I’d become totally disillusioned with the whole idea of writing. I started asking myself, “who reads this stuff anyway..?”

Whenever I start having doubts about something, I do away with it. It’s one of the components of my protocol stack(yes I have one and this was not meant to make myself sound tech savvy). I call it the OSOM(out of sight, out of mind) protocol. So, I deleted the blog. I even deleted all the unfinished drafts, and then I slept relieved. For a week I didn’t even think about it.

Then slowly, the itch returned… of wanting to write down the things I think about, and then it grew into the familiar obsession… of wanting to think about something new so that I could write about it. More importantly, friends started asking what happened to the blog. I was told that even if I don’t write anything new, I should leave the blog up there for the people who might want to reread the posts(If I ever happen to write a book or something, I’m dedicating it to you… you know who you are). It was so flattering I couldn’t stop myself from blushing, but I got the reassurance I needed.

So, the blog is back up even though I have no idea if I have it in me to write again. Thank you, all you wonderful people who love me enough to tell me ‘keep writing’. I’ll try.

Ciao.