The sound of silence

She screamed. The louder she screamed, the more alive she felt. They found her, an hour later, still screaming. She was clutching the body, they said. Her hair clinging in tendrils to her face, dripping with perspiration. She screamed, oblivious of the drops running down her nose, the sweat that drenched the back of her blouse and the unforgiving shameless stares and glares of the crowd that devoured her.
It was a hollow scream that seemed to go on for days or for a second. Desperate. And loud- as though she intended to wake the boy up with it. Wake herself up from this sudden nightmare she had been thrust into.
The people gathered, the crowd grew and still she screamed. She cradled the body, the face which could not be differentiated from the mud and grime that caked it. The boy had been dug out out the manhole five minutes ago. He had fallen in more than an hour ago, when she had started screaming for help. She kept screaming down to him, reassuring him that she was still there. He was afraid of the dark. He was fond of Cadbury. He was clumsy.
She screamed. She screamed till she stopped hearing his little voice from what seemed like miles below. She screamed his name after he stopped replying. She screamed till someone called the police.
Now that he was in her arms she screamed to drown out the silence. She screamed to drown out the piteous cries echoing in her head. The crowd had started to lessen. Already they had lost interest. And still, she screamed.

Slip inside the eye of your mind, don't you know you might find, A better place to play

So I found some of these from a somewhat typically girly emo site online. And emo-ish as some of them are, they do make sense or just randomly struck my fancy. So here they are for you to peruse and make you smile with recognition or make you go "Tch! How pretentious", depending on the kind of person you are. But I have thrown in some Woody Allen to make you laugh =)


1. It's funny how when you finally get over someone, you start seeing them in a whole new perspective. It's like you're looking at them through the eyes of your best friend, and you realize, he's nothing special. He's just another ordinary boy.
(I really like this one, cuz out of experience, I can say it's true. Unless of course the reason you got over them was because, you know, they died or moved away or something.)


2. Someday, someone is going to walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else.
( I really Hope this one is true)


3. "Do you know what happens when you hurt people?" Ammu said. "When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. they make people love you a little less."
(This one's from Arundhati Roy. Smart lady )


4. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. 
(Okay, so this one's from Darwin. But  being the Bio geek I am, I just had to put it in. And it applies!)


5. Nothing has turned out as we expected. It never does. Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.
Gone With The Wind

(This needs no justification for being here. Scarlett O' Hara- One of the most selfish/selfless, hardheaded, obstinate, stubborn, strong, intelligent, flawed, passionate women to be written to life. One that I could not help loving.)

6.I think when you are young, you are hoping that this person will be the right one, the one you are going to be in love with forever. But sometimes you want that so much you create something that isn't really there.
-Johnny Depp
(Again, needs no justification. Johnny Depp= Demigod. Sex, no naked sex! And on the plus side, he hit the nail right on the head)


7. The expected is what we live for. The unexpected is what changes our lives.
(I'm not sure if this is true, but I like the sound of it. Sounds very impressive and momentous. The unexpected!  *flash of lightning and thunder*)

8. "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself. And sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together."
-Audrey Hepburn
(I <3 this woman. In love would be more accurate actually. Roman Holiday. What a woman)


9. What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
(Alright, so the dude is married to his step daughter and all that jazz. Yes, it's a little, alright, Very freaky, but Byron was called Mad Byron and was involved in incest and sodomy, so get over it already. The man makes movies like Matchpoint and comes up with stuff like this. We can overlook all the other stuff, as long as it's not us he's cheating on with the daughter.)


10. Don't chase me, if you're not prepared to catch me when I fall.
(Something that guys definitely Do need to have drilled into their thick heads.)


And with that, I'm done. I know I've been spewing out blog-post with very 'uncool' frequency lately, but I'm on the computer so often these days, I can't seem to help it. But I shall try to keep away for a bit, considering my final end sems start this Monday *interject expression of woe* Right now I'm happy though, cuz I found a sexed up Guns n Roses poster for ze blog, have just brought up 2 bite chocolate brownies to my room and ze bitchy roommate is home for the weekend. What joy =) Now I must utilize this joyousness by studying for the Microbio Lab exam. Oh well.
On a last note, Thanks to Trisha R. for listening to me that day when I first came across said girly quote site and for the long long, and I'm quite sure now, somewhat repetitive conversation. I <3 you SO much baby. Just, in case you DO read this, I thought you should know. Our's shall definitely be the happiest marriage =)

Perfecting the fine art of Pro-crass-tea-nation

Ways in which I idle away hours, minutes at a time. Ways you probably do too. Any other suggestions welcome :)

1. FACEBOOK. Caps is the equivalent of internet shouting and this point can't be emphasised enough. From alluring applications back when we were all in the tenth, and your name showing up in someone's "Top Friends" was a sign of how popular you were; to now when we seem to have fallen back into our second childhood or our first "gaiyyahood" (however you see it) and fill out things like "Who will you get married to" immediately followed up by 41 comments and several hours more spent on Facebook. IT has taken over our lives- if someones was plotting a secret conspiracy to make kids dumber and less productive or something, they couldn't have found a more effective way.

2. YOUTUBE. Again cannot be emphasised enough. Since University, when the maximum amount of my work, assignments and quizzes happen to be on the computer, somehow inexplicably i find this force taking over my fingers and sliding over to the tab marked youtube on my laptop! Amazing, but there it is. IT just bypasses the university webpage and double clicks on Youtube. And then there goes an hour or so watching Adam Lambert's latest, rediscovering Tubthumping by Chumbawumba and getting teary eyed- yes teary eyed, over Freaky Friday.

3. Sleeping. Now these days I don't actually do this a lot but when I do, I drop off in the late afternoon lying to myself that it will only be for an hour, put multiple alarms and calmly and a trifle irritatedly switch them off when they Do ring. Poor things, they try their best to rouse me through their snooze feature. But nothing really deters me from this uneccessary quota of sleep which then messes up my sleep cycle. And i wake groggily sometime around 7, feeling highly unproductive and still drowsy.

4. Making lists. Lists of shopping, to-do lists, lists of exams, lists of things i like, favourite people (and yes i actually Have done that), lists of good songs. Just lists. They're fun to do and give you all the satisfaction of having been organized and productive without actually having been either.

5. Downloading songs. Once I get started, I can't seem to resist checking out other interesting songs, artists, lyrics and while I Have discovered a whole lot of interesting music in these past few months, it hasn't exactly helped my grade point average.

6. Talking on the phone. To my mum, for a good quarter of an hour, to my wife for even longer. To left behind friends. To lots of people. And essentially spending hours and minutes (in phone currency) when I should Really be typing out that dratted Lab report.

7. Staring at the new wrinkles on your face in the mirror. Examining that line on your forehead- surely it was't there a month ago! Admiring the length of your hair, observing in horror the split ends- is hair even supposed to split into three?? Is that even Allowed?!

8. Reading. Reading Plath and Hughes instead of Brock and Madigan. Reading The Inscrutable Americans or The Little Prince for the 500th time instead of Cellular and Molecular Biology or Early Transcendentals.

9. Daydreaming. Daydreaming about Xs- real and fictional. Daydreaming about better times, built up times. Daydreaming about May. Living stories in my head. Flashforwarding to when I'm twenty five and living in New York City *I wish*.

10. Foodie dreams. Wondering what surprises the caf is going to throw up for dinner. Wondering if there's going to be lime roasted chicken. Salivating over memories of kosha mangsho and luchi, phoolkophi bhaaja, beguni, telebhaaja, dal makhani, paalak paneer, kakra, paneer chop *See , I'm doing it again*

11. Blogging. Read above. 'Nuff said. I've spent the last quarter of an hour writing this entry, interrupted by chatting with a guy I didn't really know all that well from school on Facebook, a phone call from my mum and one from my dad.

HA!

I just discovered six months too late that I had topped Biology in my 12th CBSE Boards in M.B.G. As cool as it is to google urself and find results popping up, confirming your existence on the internet, it is also a little disconcerting to find these random surprises thrown at you.
I never knew. So, right now I'm not sure what to feel- the time to make a hullabaloo about boards is long gone. Well, anyway, very belatedly- Ha! MBG- here's to the principal who referred to me as "girl with long nails", here's to the miserable periods in class I spent trying to figure out how to fit in with a crowd that spoke Hindi for 99.99% of the time, here's to the struggle and to all the times I felt stupid. Here's to Soumya- my angel that year, here's to the wooden desks and chairs that looked like they belonged in a an antiquarium or toystore and hurt my butt. Here's to the snotty principle who refused to give me a transcript containing predicted scores and cuz she didn't know what it was, here's to the last year of school life spent being the new girl. Here's to sticky tangy icy orange stick ice creams on sweaty blistering summer drenched days, here's to squashy puddles and splashy mud, here's to the ancient photocopy machine at the sweetshop, here's to the annoying 50 children in the van meant to seat 25. Here's to the Biology teacher Ms. Srivastav who made me feel a little less like an alien from outer space and actually found me endearing. Here's to finally sort of fitting and and struggling always against the other two Riddhi's to prove my worth.
Yes, this is incredibly late, and yes, I am now sitting in Canada, freezing my butt off with low blood pressure and a thousand deadlines looming up, a room change coming up cuz I'm 'girl who couldn't adjust with her roomie", but you know waht I'll say it anyway. Cuz it makes me feel like ultimately, I AM in control. And things will work out. 
So I'll say it MBG, loud and clear. Can you hear me?
HA!
HAhahaha!

"girl who came in with long fingernails . a.k.a girl who got called to the principal's office within a week of joining a.k.a biology topper.

Dear X

Dear X,
I'm done. I'm done running. And done wishing. I wish you well. I wish you'd had more faith. Or stupidity. Or courage. Or all three. I wish I'd had less. I wish I could take back everything. Or go back and hit the repeat button. But life doesn't come with a repeat button does it- a rewind button, that is? The only repeats it does seem to have are the infinitely foolish mistakes that we promise ourselves shall never be repeated again. What a fucking joke.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I'm done. I'm done with butterflies. Butterflies, that are so breathtakingly beautiful, intoxicating. Exciting. But they leave too much pollen dust behind. Sweet and bitter with an aftertaste that doesn't leave you. Stays behind for days, gets into your mouth, into the recesses of your mind, into the crevices of your neck and the smooth curves of your body. Very inconvenient. So now I'm trying to brush it off, dust off my shoulder and breathe in, ignoring the sweet remains that linger on my breath.
I wish, I wish that I had more time, I wish you could be mine, I wish there were lyrics that didn't sound sappy, I wish I could be happy. I wish Cobain was alive, and that I had more drive. Ah, well.
This isn't really a note to you of course; it isn't even one to myself. I'm not really sure why I'm writing it, except that I guess I need to get it out. Purge, purify. And then forget, or dullen. I know that given time it will happen. I know that at some point, maybe even very soon, I will genuinely be happy again and move ahead. And for some reason the thought makes me even sadder. Melancholic , if you will. I feel then, like nothing matters. And things move on anyway. All the things that we hold important, or the stupid mundane little trials of our life that seem to consume us, are after all, then just bits of stuff and fluff. And fluff never had any importance. The very thought that I shall move on, makes me lose faith in the magic, the sanctity of things. I feel like whatever happens, everyone winds up fine anyway- jigsaw pieces, that somehow fit. This will not make sense to most people, most normal people who don't over analyse and scrutinize and melodramatise. But if life really does move on, despite everything and everyone, where's the magic? Where's the unique pattern? Where's the "how it's supposed to be, meant to be", where's the fucking Beauty?
I suppose this is stupid. I've fallen into the rut of those typical novel heroines who sit and moan and write letters to their long lost lovers that they never send. Phssht. I console myself with the thought that this isn't one of those letters and that it isn't to a long lost lover. Sadly, never-found seems to be nearer the mark. Either way, point is, I've definitely done stupider things.
Point is, there is no point. X, *sigh* there's so much we aren't allowed to say. It's kind of tiring trying to keep up facades of normalcy- even facades which probably aren't facades. It's harder 'cuz there really isn't anyone to blame. It's hard to know what I'm missing out on, 'cuz it never happened. All that I've got to hold on to is a feeling of wistfulness and an unfair longing for something that isn't real. I think indifference scares me more than anything else. Indifference and normalcy.
It's kind of funny X, but you make even Enrique bearable. I'm done, X. And I really would be,
But do you have to let it linger?

Contrast

" Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believe in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
And even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel alone
Oh, let go home
Oh, I miss you, you know" 

                                                        - Home, Micheal Buble

This is an excerpt from a conversation I had with a friend from back home.

arunavab: hm

its sunday here

lazy one

week before kalipujo.

streets are lined with baji sellers

and its a mellow autumn sun

with kashphool around

Riddhi: bah...ki shundor

i miss the smell

arunavab: what is it like in the cold country?

Riddhi: it is fall...

the trees vary from bare bodied and scraggly

with branches that lean out and stretch towards u,looking somehow naked and pathetic

to overbearing hues of golden

red

yellow

and a green that is slowly transforming into yellow.

wherever you step, there are leaves cushioning the floor, and twigs.

the sky is generally clear blue with a mass of very white clouds on the horizon

the grass is lush green, well tended and wet with dew which dampens my sneakers as i walk trhough them carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and my satchel in the other.

the weather is temperamental,

ranging from pleasant breeze and sunshine today morning

to gloomy desolate skies with gray rain and purple clouds

to freezing wet dead siletn cold that drills into your bones

to the wind

which doesn't stop

and leaves you breathless.

the canadian geese are always found on the lake, sometimes carelessly blocking your path back to your residence.

and sometimes just occasionally as i come out of my residence

towards the right where the canal is,

a hawk occasionally sits and pins you with a fierce glare.