Home.

I'm at that point after every exam when you slowly and delightedly get used to the fact that you don't have to procrastinate anymore. There's nothing hanging over your head, nothing that you have to desperately forget for a few more hours until the last minute panic guides you through the day before the exam.

There's still packing to be done, mess bills to be paid and other minor stuff to do before I finally get on the train. The train will take 15 hours chugging up the coast while I very obviously avoid catching the eye of a co-passenger, because I hate the awkward, stumbling conversation that happens in trains. But I will stare at them later, thinking about their lives making up their background stories, not because it's fun, but because I'll be really really bored.

And then I'll be home, free for almost two months, to be able to wake up at noon everyday. And patiently listening to Parents, Relatives, Neighbours and Hangers-Ons exclaim how thin I've become. They will then ignore me and debate amongst themselves ,in the tones of ones who have seen the ways of the world, about food and illnesses and children not eating. And I will contentedly, for a while atleast, feel like I'm three again. And then I will go back to sleep again.

For weeks, I'll be able to lord it around, doing the "tired-child-returned-from-college" bit, till my dad starts vaguely telling me to go do work. And I will promptly move out of his sight so that he doesn't figure out that I have absolutely no work to do, and decide to give me some. While I eat all the food in the house and subtly let the parents arrive at the conclusion that life is hell in college, my sisters will start whining and start pointedly asking me when I go back to college. And then I will sit back and watch happily while the parents shush and hiss at them.

Then I'll walk the streets of Mumbai feeling like I own them again, while I eat at every sev puri wallah. They will ask me, concernedly, where I've been. And I will explain to them how difficult it was surviving without chaat food in college. And I will feel the pulse of the big city, the noise, the constant movement, the people.

And then I'll meet the friends I haven't seen for months and check whether they've changed at all. And if they have, I'll change them back and keep them that way for the weeks I'm at home. And there will be lot of pretending to be interested in their "my college sucks" stories or "my college's freaking awesome" stories. Then there will be nostalgia, school memories, teacher-bashing sessions.

And then I'll travel in Mumbai trains and feel the dirt slowly seeping back into my body. And it won't bother me. Actually it will, but not very much. And then I will whine because the route of some bus changed. And then I will scoff at another friend who whines about it because I knew before him. I will lecture to him about how in the big city you must get used to change.

Then when the holidays are about to end, I will talk philosophically about the meaning of life and perspective and all that. And then I will start procrastinating again.

Hunger. And General Contemplation.

When you're really really hungry, you get the almost the same sort of feeling as the start of a high. Just the start, the buzz, when you're beginning to feel it. When you're all in your head suddenly and you just keep thinking of some incredibly stupid thing like its critically important. Both times you're light in the head. Both times, you're distracted by this one really really strong feeling. One time its the hunger and the other its the intoxication.
I'd gotten up at 2 in the afternoon, missing both breakfast and lunch. At the canteen, while I ate my body weight, and since I was incredibly bored, I tried to guess which part of India each person in the canteen came from. Which was pretty entertaining. And unexpectedly easy. Bengalis and South Indians were by far the easiest. South Indians probably because I'm one myself. We're not very varied people. Theres always the same look in the eye of the average South Indian. The knowledgeable, maths and science geek kinda look. I would be pretty offended if any non-South Indian had said that,though. Its weird how much stereotyping goes on unconsciously in my head.
And I hate people who expect me to conform to a stereotype. When I see masses of humanity, especially when I'm traveling somewhere, theres the urge to prove I'm different from what people think of me. And different from people around me. And when I feel like I'm this little rat, in this huge maze of cages that is my hostel. I have this healthy exaggerated sense of self-importance and its irritating when I feel it corrode away.
And its almost sad how much my outlook on life and mood changes because of food. Its sad because I wish I wasn't so motivated and satisfied by food. Theres not much else that pushes me on then.
But my exaggerated sense of self-importance somehow convinces me that this a good thing too. I'm lucky I still have that. :).

Puke.

Arsenal lost 4-2 in a thrilling contest at Anfield. As an Arsenal fan, the defeat is hard to swallow, even more so because they were(to a neutral fan) the better team over the two games. But this just makes me want to puke.
'When the noise had subsided, the victors and vanquished departed, when Anfield was at last silent, empty and still, the question remained: why? What was it that possessed a defender as experienced as Kolo Touré to take fright, to be so terrified at the prospect of lasting just six minutes at this remarkable arena that he should give away the penalty that cost his team the game and the dream of a first Champions League crown?
'And the answer will come back: it was Liverpool. It was this club, this particular team, and what they have come to represent in Europe. Touré was disturbed by the legend of a Liverpool who will not lie down, who return from the dead like The Shape in John Carpenter's Halloween films. Remember that scene in the pitch-black bedroom when the monster rises again, his white mask all that is visible in the darkness? On nights such as this, Liverpool are like that: unstoppable, remorseless, their power inexplicable' - Martin Samuel, The Times.
Reminds me a little bit of the Fountainhead.
More on shit journalism here.

Musings.

I spent a half hour in Chem Lab today, yawning away, as I shook a stoppered conical flask filled with diluted lime solution. Chemistry used to be so interesting, with colourful salts, exploding reactions, and subtle frothing and boiling solutions. Salt analysis was a load of fun. Funner by far was mixing every substance you got your hands on to see what colour it would turn. Titration is a pain in the ass. Being that careful with anything at all isn't fun. What definitely isn't fun is swirling around lime solution diluted with hot water for 30 whole minutes while you waited for it to dissolve completely.

I got my cycle repaired, finally. Had to wheel it all the way to college in the afternoon heat. It gets really hot here in afternoon and pretty cold at night, which is weird because we're close to the sea. Heat never affects me much, though. Plus, now I got my cycle back and can wake up 5 whole minutes later than I used to.

I have just realised that I spend a huge load of time cribbing in general, and being sloth-like specifically. I keep thinking about food and sleep and all those seemingly important things all the time that I hardly have the time for much else. Ofcourse the rest of the time when I'm contemplating the universe and thinking about other complexities,I astound myself with my own brilliance. :)


College cultural fest just got over. It was not as freaking-awesome as I'd thought it'd be. Mainly because most of Battle Of The Bands bands murdered all the songs they played. It's torture, listening to a Stairway To Heaven solo which suddenly sounds oddly like hold music. Plus no famous band performed this time, because the powers that be, in one of their random sadistic moods, decided not to have one.

I have a French exam in two weeks. Must pass it to get my French level 1 certificate-thingy. The written part has got more marks than the oral stuff so I'm hoping I'll sneak through. My French pronunciation is not something I'm proud of. Words are never, ever, pronounced the way they are written.

I'm actually very satisfied and quietly happy now, in a very sloth-like way. It's fun.

Food

I was going to write a philosophical post, all about the meaning of existence and the point of life. Its sessional time, and that means its time to denounce the materialistic world and embrace the spiritual one, while silently laughing at all those who are still in pursuit of materialistic pleasure (such as not failing the tests). But somehow, the post isn’t going the way I want it to. Maybe because the sessionals are a whole week away. Maybe because the hypocrite in me is still asleep. But mostly because I’m hungry. You can’t see through the illusions of this deceiving world when there’s a very real void in your stomach.

I’m not even actually hungry. There’s just this huge hole in my stomach. See, you can’t be properly hungry unless you’re hungry for something. And I’m not hungry for mess food. These are the times that I miss Mumbai the most. The mess food isn’t very very bad, it’s just tasteless. What I want now is some chaat with obscene amounts of masala sprinkled all over it.

I have this unexplained craving for pav bhaji. I mean, I never really liked it much anyway. But you don’t get decent pav bhaji anywhere in Manipal. Everything you get here is very very bland. I have this picture in my mind of pav bhaji, with butter slowly melting on the bhaji and the onion, lemon and the oily fingers.

The grilled sandwiches. The dahi puri. The sev puri. Everything and anything which has huge amounts of chaat masala.

I hate my life.

Robots.

There are robots outside my window. Giant, metallic, gleaming, with-a-thousand-glowing-lights robots. One male, one female. They help with construction work. And keep pretty much to themselves.
And, very obviously, love blossomed between the two robots. In between planning for the great big robotic wedding bash which is a year and a half away, they get very little work done. And these robots, in contrast to robotic tradition, are strongly in favour of premarital sex. And robots, unlike humans (this human in particular), are mostly morning creatures.
Robots are also, apparently, passionate creatures. At 7 in the morning (which is exactly twenty whole minutes before I’m supposed to get up), they indulge in wild, loud, metallic, clanging, squealing, grunting, and very very passionate robotic sex. I hate having to get up a little before I’m supposed to. Because then by the time I get back to sleep, it’s time to get up. And going to sleep in the middle of loud robotic sex, not to mention the stares and silent disapproval of my already half-ready roommate, is practically impossible.
Maybe I should complain. Or sue. There must be laws against early morning, loud, public robotic fornication.

Calvin & Hobbes.

The Story of My Life.