Home Sweet Home Sour

I was home.
That is my excuse.
I know I was ‘planning’ on blogging daily.
But I went home.
I think it is a very excusable excuse.

I had to ‘renew’ my visa.
For those who do not know, I am an NRI (Non Resident Indian – for the ones who have always had trouble with abbreviations). Well I am not exactly an NRI because I am residing in India currently but technically I am not.
I was born and brought up in a country were being born and brought up in the country does not make you a citizen. That is pretty weird according to me.
I was in this country for 16 years of my life. This country is still what I ‘significantly’ refer to as home. And sometimes I feel foreign in both India AND this country. I guess that is what qualifies you as an NRI – feel foreign everywhere.

Well the point is not that.
The point is that the point is actually forgotten.

Let me try beginning again.
I have a residence visa of this country and had to have it renewed so that I can continue to be an NRI.
I took a ticket home.
I got a health check up done to rule out infection by a particular ‘notorious’ virus – which is apparently mandatory for a residence visa (I wonder why!).
I got a passport size photo taken.
I got my visa renewed.
I took a ticket back to India (which is also home, I guess).

So now after a week at home I have learnt that:
I am still an NRI residing in India – which is still confusing.
I am not infected – yet. (applause please)
I still have the skill to look like a stranger in my passport size photos.
Food is all I need to be happy.
I can gain the weight I lost in five years in five days.
People change.
Cities change faster than people.
And most importantly:
Home is sweet when you arrive and sour when you depart – still.

Next time I am home I’ll be a doctor – I think that is cool and more importantly… scary.

Face lift

If you have not noticed the obvious as yet – I have changed my blog template.
Please notice.
And now is when you will be filled with immense emotion at the thought provoking and breath taking template I have chosen for this enlightening, awesome and truly ineffable blog of mine.
(applause standing ovation please)
Thank you.

If you have failed to follow the basic steps of admiration described above – try again.
If you still fail – keep trying.
If you think this template is mediocre – do not comment.
If you think this template is breath-taking – do not leave without commenting else I will track you down and hack you to death!

Frankly, I think the template is not that splendid.
It is morose and I do not like my blog to look so gloomy.
But I love the rain and hence think it is appropriate.
Also there is just too much space on the right side. I keep wondering if something is going to pop up and surprise me – so far nothing has.
You have to agree it is better than the boring black template I had previously!

I spend quite a lot of time on this last night and hence was able to sit a night-out due to the guilt-trip associated with wasting time not slogging two days before an exam. Wish me luck for my exam tomorrow!

I happened to stumble upon this picture.
It brought back a lot of exhausting emotions against babies.
For those of you, who do not know my perspective as far as little human beings are concerned, please refer to my exclusive post on ‘Babies’.

All I could think of after seeing this picture was –
Nobody wants the irritating baby.

Dumb courage

I like the idea of blogging daily.
But not everything we like is likely to work out.
From my 22 years of life I have figured out that very few things that we like actually work out.
So I do not think I can blog daily – but I will try.
I have an important exam coming up on Monday.
I have started slogging but I do not think my usual 12 hour cramming routine will help this time – it is too late already.
Wish me luck!

This post is about fear, courage and intellect.
Most people consider fear a negative emotion.
It is drilled into minds of the youth that being fearless is rewarding.
I completely disagree.

So many people take things worth wondering about very lightly. They do not spend any time pondering about things that are waiting to be pondered about.
Fear is one among them.
I fear a lot of things in life – some worth fearing and some foolish.
I do not think being fearful is cowardly.
In fact, I am of the opinion that being fearless is plain dumb.

Fear is absolutely necessary for survival.
If I were fearless, I would be jumping off cliffs into roaring seas at the slightest excuse. The result of which is very obvious – death.
Fear is a feeling of impending doom and if it were not present we would be wiped out from this planet.

According to legend, there were plenty of such fearless sects in this world many of which we have read about in books and remained in complete awe of.
One among them would be the very popular Spartans.
Spartans claim to fame was their fearless nature – for those who have never heard of the Spartans, I strongly recommend reading Greek history or maybe even watching the movie 300 starring Gerard Butler (drool!). Even though the movie is a bit overdone on the ‘fearless’ bit I think Gerard Butler is totally worth watching it for!!
I am terribly sorry; my line of thought is fleeing from fearlessness into the strong arms of the sultry Gerard Butler (sigh!)
Well, the point is that Spartans died young.
It is sad but they did.
Their courage was their curse.
They almost always died young – the one thing to blame being their almost inhuman fearlessness.
I am sure most of you think living life to the fullest means you face your fears and come to terms with it.
But there certainly should be a limit.
A completely fearless person would unfortunately be dumb.

We fear so that we can survive.
We live in a big bad world and if we did not fear, survival would be out of the question. And courage is not something that should be completely awed.
A moron would be courageous because he would not think of the repercussions of his courageous actions! A fearless person, accept it or not, when risking his life, is momentarily acting against basic animal instinct – which is to survive. And hence he can very well be branded as being momentarily insane.
Courage is wonderful to read about.
Fearlessness is definitely inspiring.
But there is one thing that fearlessness and courage requires – that is the status of ‘nothing to lose’.
Unfortunately, life is something that is at stake.
So if you think life is worth putting at stake and that life is not something that will be ‘missed’ when lost, go ahead and be fearless.

I do not think we must live in fear of everything. If that was the case we would not live at all, but certain amount of fear is necessary to save our lives.
Being smart is being fearful at the right time and of the right things. By being smart you fear what you should fear and survive.
After all life is the ultimate sacrifice.

It would be awe-inspiring to hear someone say ‘I live life in the edge today because that way I would never regret not living my life to the fullest 20 years from now.’
But the question is if you live life on the edge today and just stumble over would you not regret not having a life to live 20 years from now?

I am not a coward.
I am not dumb either.
I fear. I live.

Emotional Sex

This is one of my recent conversations with somebody worth having a conversation with. Feel free to comment on the weird nature of my conversations.

Conversationalist: Hey!
Me: (indifferent voice) Hello.
C: (ignoring my indifference) Guess what?
Me: (very indifferent) I don’t know and I don’t care.
C: (unable to ignore my indifference any longer) What happened?
Me: (making things difficult for everybody) Nothing.
C: (playing it safe) Okay.
Me: (frustrated at my inability to make things difficult) Okay? Okay? Did you just say Okay? What is okay? (My voice is turning shrilly)
C: (confused) I don’t know. What do you want?
Me: (need to make things more difficult) YOU call ME up and ask ME what I want! As if you are ready to give me anything I want. You’re so full of shit.
C: (accepting defeat) No, really. What is it that you want?
Me: (marginally satisfied) I don’t really know.
C: (trying to sound comforting) What happened?
Me: (satisfied) Nothing. I am just feeling horrible. I wish I could just cry and cry till my tears ran out.
C: (utterly confused) Why?
Me: (likes the attention) I just want to get rid of this multitude of emotions within me. I need to get rid of it all. I just want to weep my heart out.
C: (tinge of fear) Are you okay? Do you need help?
Me: (anger rising) WTF?!
C: (foot in mouth) I mean do you need my help.
Me: (satisfied) Yes and that is why I am talking to you!
C: (happy with his presence of mind) Okay. So you want to cry?
Me: (can’t make it so easy) No. You are not even listening to me.
C: (confused) Huh? I thought you told me you want to weep till your tears ran out!
Me: (improvising) Not exactly. I just need to vent my emotions. I think even laughing would help. I wish I could laugh till I grew breathless and my cheeks hurt. I wish I could laugh so hard I have tears streaming down my face.
C: (wants to kill himself) So basically you just want tears?
Me: (decides to act as if I did not hear that!) WHAT?
C: (foot in mouth) Nothing. I have the perfect solution for you!
Me: (baffled) You do?!
C: (proudly) I sure as hell do!
Me: (confused. This is new!) Did you become a genius in a minute? How can you know what I want? Even I don’t know what I want!
C: (incomprehensible tone) You need sex. Screw you!
BEEP.

He hung up.
It took me a minute to realise and come to terms with it.
He hung up telling me to go have sex.

I think it is a very enlightening conversation.

I deserve this – I am loving it!