Years ago I had a friend telling me that I tend to take the easy way out, I was quiet then knowing all the reasons for my so called 'easy' choice, but today when I look back on the 5 years that have passed since that comment I know I haven't taken the easy way out. And I guess it was because of that I managed to achieve all that I had set out to conquer, but today Im left with what I could give a fancy name of 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' and I know it was because for the first time I chose to take the easy way out for I didn't have the confidence of taking the normal course even tough I know Im good.

This goes down as another lesson learnt and there are more to be learnt as I venture out to conquer my fears and get what ever my heart desires with the hope in my heart, that whatever happens, happens for the best...

Lessons learnt earlier, reinforced again today:

• Hope is one of my biggest delusions
• Some things aren't just meant to be and I have to learn to leave them at that
• Not hope against hope that things will turn out to be for the better, for they never do
• I will always remain misunderstood

My sincere apologies to those I have ignored over the last few months, I would not be honest if I said that I did not keep in touch for lack of time. I did not keep in touch for my priorities lay some where else and as the irony of my life would have it, those very same priorities now say I never gave them importance.

Why is it that some some people are always right and some emotions & feelings always wrong? Why is it that still I yearn for something which I get but never remains mine? Why does it always show me its fleeting self and the moment I start to take comfort in it, it disappears in the wake of the harsh daylight of the morning? One follows the other, how history in its notoriety always manages to repeat itself.

I thought I would learn from my mistakes, be the type who 'once bitten' would be 'twice shy'; but no I lived in a fool's paradise hoping against hope that the bad days were behind me and there was only good in store for me now. Who was I to judge, who was I to decide and finally I should have known that I was someone who could never expect. I was always told 'good things come to an end' and I believed that 'there is always an inevitability to certain things and so is the decadence' but what went wrong this time? Why did I falter again only to be led through the illusion that things were finally falling into place? Illusion, my that was beautiful, something close to Utopia and I know that there were also times of absolute nirvana. Love, joy and laughter flowed in the alleys of my Utopia, something which nearly a year back I had lovingly called my El Dorado. I was delirious with joy, with love and laughter that flowed around me letting myself for once flow unabashed and uninhibited. Little did I know it was such an illusion which when it would shatter would be like a shattered mirror leaving the shards of glass for me to pick and prick myself with. Consoling myself in the physical pain rather than ruing over the heartache caused.

I thought I had steel armored myself against the fingers raised at the integrity and honesty of my feelings, love and affection that I showered on my near and dear; but this turned out to be another illusion. Now I wonder if life itself at every step is a smokescreen hiding in its bosom an arsenal of reality-checks to shatter everything we have ever managed to build. My answer to all this is simply my silence. No one gets in, nothing gets out. Staid, simple silence is what I have for you...

Musings

Stuck in traffic today I started to muse at how Hyderabad has changed in a matter of few years or rather has become the part of a flat world. The very road on which I was stuck in traffic could be driven through at the speed of nothing less than 80 km/hr, and this situation existed not more than 6 years ago. I have seen branded outlets mushrooming in my neighbourhood, which not so long ago used to a heaven of greenery nestled in the middle of a peaceful cantonment area.

‘Thoughts are like runaway horses’, someone had rightly said. Having long accepted that I usually give myself up to a train of thoughts which have often surprised me at how much of finer details I can remember about many experiences. So today my train of thoughts led me to think about my last trip to Calcutta about which I have written here. As I have said before I was both shocked and amused at how little globalization has managed to touch Calcutta, which seems to have blissfully remained in its ivory tower of isolation resisting the onslaught of modernization. This led to me reminiscence about Burdwan in which I have spent a good chunk of 4 years.

Those days, Im talking about the early 90’s when the Indian Economy had just begun its laborious process of opening up, people in Burdwan hadn’t quite heard of a Mercedes and literally gawked at the car. I wonder today what would be their reaction if they saw a spanking new BMW let alone a Mercedes, along with the whole plethora of auto companies which have flooded the market. Has it still remained that quaint little town which I had left 11 years ago? On impulse I Googled it, and to my utter surprise I found that modernization has indeed made its way to Burdwan which now even vaunts of an IT park. But like Calcutta it has still retained its charm of the old world, the days in which life wasn’t so complicated. Curzon Gate, BC Road, the lakes, near one of which I used to stay; have all remained the same and some day like the true wanderer that I am, I hope to pass this quaint town taking in the slow and peaceful life which I have so come to miss.

Bedlam

Life, my mind and most of all my heart has managed to surprise me, I've never been so taken aback by my own reactions in the past. All these days I thought I was above such feelings and certain situations could not affect me let alone un-nerve me completely. Probably it is because all these days I had a habit of locking up emotions which were disturbing, in a part of my head which was safely pad-locked; but now I find the that the lock has long been broken, the doors refuse to close and Im flooded by a plethora of emotions. Im left wondering if this recent development is good or bad, because all this while I felt quite numb or rather I chose to think so, as it now turns out to be.
Slowly Im beginning to miss the comfort of the pseudo numbness and one thing that I know for sure is that, it is going to take quite some time before I get back to that comfort zone. By the time that happens I hope Im not hurting more than I already am.