I should be jumping up and down in joy now that I’ve got admission in NIFT for post graduation. And also for getting the 15th RANK! This is something that was beyond my dreams! It never even crossed my mind to try NIFT last year when I thought I’d settle for Pearl Academy of Fashion(PAF), the second best institute. When I changed my decision in the last minute to not go to PAF, many reasons were there, out of which, “I should try NIFT next year” was only one that I made up to convince my angry and desperate parents (read Mom!). Dad always let me live my life the way I pleased, though sometimes, especially when I refused to write the State Bank of India (SBI) exam, he talked about the “sacrilege” I had committed once by not joining PAF. After around one year of multi-colored neon arrows building up around me and pointing at me saying “FAILURE” (contributed by me and lots of others), I finally plucked up the courage to write NIFT this year. I don’t think anyone understands why I needed courage there. Many were already judging me saying, “Why are you even bothering to write? To screw it up again by discontinuing at the last minute?”. I did not react to any of it. Maybe they were joking. But it’s true that I did nothing to prepare myself for the test or interview. I had a feeling of Fate from the beginning itself, that it will work this time (or not! :D).. The first tests, General Aptitude Test(GAT) and Managerial Ability Test(MAT), were actually easy for me, and for that I thank Mom, Dad, Bro and Brilliance College at Thampanoor(Trivandrum) for their vigorous SBI clerical examination training!! hehe!!!

The second exam was in Delhi and it consisted of Group Discussion(GD) and Interview. GD was awesome for me. It was a case study and the topic was “Levi’s jeans came up with a plan to sell merchandise offering monthly EMI’s to customers during recession. Is this idea good or bad?” Well, if I were allowed, I would have fallen off the chair laughing after reading it!! But I had to maintain decorum, so I didn’t :D Monthly EMI to buy clothes and shoes? Well, Levi’s or not.. :-|

There were 10 of us (5 girls and 5 guys) in the group and 5 people in the NIFT Board that was watching us. 3 out of 10, including me, were against the idea. All the guys were coming up with good points and I remember only one girl besides me who cared to say something. A feisty one she was, but as she was brilliantly supporting Levi’s’s idea, it meant that I had to counter her! Too bad she wasn’t on my side! :P It was fun in the beginning to argue, but she kept bringing hypothetical situations in and I was losing my interest and also getting irritated when she kept beginning every sentence with “Quite contrary to what Ms. 10 (my number was 10) said, …”! It was very difficult to convince the Board, until I said something “nasty” that changed the whole situation :D I told them that if Levi’s offered me a one year EMI plan to buy a costly pair of jeans, I’m sure that even before I finish paying the EMI, the fashion would change and I can only drool at the new trendy pair of jeans in the shop, while I’ll be considered a dork if I’m still wearing the jeans that I still haven’t finished paying for :D The Board laughed! The two others who were against the idea were beaming! Ms. Feisty was rolling her eyes at me! I think I was smirking! :P And she suddenly said, “What Ms. 10 said is true, but still, maybe *insert weak comeback*”

;-)

Well, I’m not bragging! I have no idea how I managed to even breathe while 15 people listened carefully to every word that I was saying. I was inaudible in the beginning and the Board asked me to speak up! I stammered on every word later and some guy asked me to repeat what I just said (AKA talk in ‘human’, please!). And I couldn’t believe that I conjured up a big sentence like that, of which, I had only planned the first few beginning words, while the rest of the words came out of my mouth in the correct order, very audible, very clear, very ‘human’, and sensible enough to make an impact! It even had detail, coz I had emphasized the words ‘drool’ and ‘dork’ and also added a sarcastic laugh while saying ‘paying for’ in the end! :P The Board asked us one by one to say our concluding words and some guy mentioned ‘Ms. 10’s point’; such mentioning considered as self-proclaimed plus point during GD. Outside the GD room, most of them came and congratulated Ms. Feisty and Ms. 10 (er.. that’s me :D), and said that we’ll both get selected for sure, which boosted my confidence :) I congratulated Ms. Feisty too, and although I don’t remember her name now, I too think that she must have got selected too for her sheer confidence! :)

I have almost chosen Delhi as my preferred center for studying in. Until counseling is over, I can’t say anything, because, only they can tell me which center will be the best for my course, Masters in Fashion Management. But anyway, I’m not all that excited about it or feeling happy about it as much I am supposed to be now. NIFT, 15th rank.. Everyone I tell this to is actually talking about it as if it is the big deal that it actually is! But for me, something’s missing..

Usually, I keep the things I need ready in my bag before the exam-night, like the hall ticket, the pencil-eraser-pen etc etc, so that I can avoid a frantic search for all these things in the morning! Yesterday was no different, even though I couldn’t care any lesser about this exam. After the bath, the things I had to do were pretty simple – 1. Dress up, 2. Drink Coffee, 3. Pick up the bag, 4. Leave… After step 3, I remembered that I had to take my pencil bag. It is a small, blue and silver colored purse in which I keep my pencils and stuff. I checked my office bag for it, but couldn’t find it. That’s when the panic bell rang. I ran around the whole house to find the bag, but couldn’t get it. I must have left it at the office. Dad said that we can buy a pencil from the store, but it’s a Sunday and most shops will be closed. There was plenty of time, but seeing all those closed shops, my heart sank!

I don’t like dramatic moments in real life, but today morning couldn’t help being a little dramatic!! As soon as I prayed to God while I passed a temple that I frequent, Dad stopped the scooter in front of a shop situated right next to the temple. I went and asked the very old shopkeeper whether he had a pencil and eraser, and the man gave me an eraser, but he said that he had ran out of pencils. I paid for the eraser. He somehow sensed that I’m in dire need of a pencil right then and gave me a small, old one and said, “ഇതാ ഇതെടുത്തോളൂ.. എന്‍റെ പെന്‍സില്‍ ആണ്, പുതിയതൊന്നുമല്ല.. പക്ഷെ ഇതെടുത്തോളൂ, ഇപ്പൊ ആവശ്യം നടക്കട്ടെ..” ["Here, take this. This is my pencil and it's not a new one. But you can take it, let your need be met.."] I also saw a humane, warm smile hiding behind his white beard and mustache. That act, a help when it was most needed, that was all I could think of on the way to the exam hall. I couldn’t help connecting my prayers and it’s immediate answering! Do people still care for each other here? I was in awe.

Here I am, least interested to write an exam that my parents want me to write, and moved by an act of kindness by a stranger. It got me all confused. Doesn’t my parents deserve an act of selfless kindness too? Or am I wrong? Should I continue sticking to my principles that we should not let others live our lives for us? Or am I wrong?

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Frankly speaking, I’d rather die.

I am done living. And I’m sure that it can’t get any better. I have lived the best years of my life, and did everything good and interesting that I could possibly do and lived as happily as it can get in my whole life.

All these years have been wasted when I look back now.

I have never been a good daughter, sister, friend or girlfiend.

I have destroyed my parents’ dream of me being successful.

I have never done anything thoughtful for my brother or never appreciated his immense love for me.

I have never had a good friend, and never gave a chance to many good people who came my way, simply because I didn’t care enough and went after people who didn’t care about me.

I have let down my boyfriend many a time, not being able to give him peace.

And now, after this confession, I’d rather take a blade and cut deep into my vein and let my disgraceful blood flow and hide itself beneath the sod, and my body buried deep close to hell itself.

But I am afraid to die. Not that I don’t wanna die. But scared to do it. Therefore, I still live.

This time, not even hoping to be a better person.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dedicated to everyone who has set themselves free from the grip of anything that had been holding you back, or seemingly made you happy for a while.. God bless y’all!

I don’t remember why I was living a sad life. Right from the first day that I can trace back to, I’ve been a person who have always been thinking about ways to jazz up my sad old life. I have tried a lot and cried a lot too. It is probably because I let small things affect my life. Tired of being unwanted all the time, I decided to run away. And I did. I came to this place, got a job, got a place to live in, and has been, sort of, surviving life’s cruelty day after day. I was alone. I became a loner. And I don’t know whether anyone I know ever tried to reach me. They must have. They ‘needed’ a few things from me, so I think they might have. It just disgusts me how relationships started becoming so meaningless and materialistic. What happened to loyalty all of a sudden? How come there are so many relationships that are only seemingly strong and genuine? These questions never ceased to drill through my mind every night. There came a day when I didn’t cry pondering over these questions. And I haven’t, ever since that day. But those questions still continue to scavenge my idle time whenever it can.

The day came when he came into the city, purposefully, for finding me. He made a few enquiries(probably rung up at my home and convinced my parents into bringing me back, which should have been easy!) and found the place, the room, the shack sort of thing, that I’m living in. He was looking at my shelter on the terrace in horror and disbelief and then at me with relief because I had survived all this without getting into any harm. The crude single-roomed shelter on the terrace had a bed, a small table, a chair and a cupboard. There was hardly any space to move about with all this taking up all the space. I had a small stove, a bathroom and a bench outside my room, on the terrace. All this was enough for me. I still don’t know from where I gathered up the courage to live alone in a place like this! The ground floor was occupied by a family and they had a dog, a rottweiler named Becky, which was probably the reason why I didn’t find it so scary to live there alone. Becky comes up sometimes for a treat or for simply lying down beside my feet. The family downstairs is a quiet one, a married couple, just married I guess, and the guy’s parents. I was occasionally invited for dinner downstairs, and sometimes sent up food.

Unable to believe the way that my life had transformed, he stood there, gazing at me. And I pinched myself for the third time to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. No, I wasn’t. It hurt a bit, my hand, that is. I hadn’t expected this. I wasn’t prepared to confront him or his questions, if there’ll be any. I didn’t know whether I should have gone and hugged him and I didn’t know whether I was allowed to do that. But anything would have been better than the awkward silence that had spread around us. Breaking it, he said, “Hey….”. ‘Hey’?? How do I respond to ‘hey’? “Hi”, I said, moving my fingers to feebly imitate a wave. “Do you mind if I stay with you tonight?” he asked. Does it matter if I say ‘no’? How would he react if I say ‘no’? Did I want to say ‘no’? No!! Then why am I asking these questions to myself! I said, “No.. No.. Not..Not at all…(shaking my head) umm.. The..The thing is.. You’ll.. have to sleep outside.. I have only… one bed.. And.. But I’ve got extra sheets.. And.. umm.. So if you don’t mind that… then…” “Nope. That’s ok with me. Thanks a lot”, he said and smiled at me. I smiled back, a faint one though.

I thanked the family downstairs for sending that sumptuous meal to me, seeing that I have a friend too, probably because they had seen me spent half a year without bringing back any guys(or even girls) with me. While having dinner, he asked me why I chose to live here instead of staying in some good hostel or as a paying guest somewhere. For this, I had an answer. I simply wanted to be not ‘disturbed’ by people, not be dependent on people, not be influenced by people and not to rely on people. Not even the family living downstairs. They do not expect anything back from me when they invite me for dinner, except, I don’t wanna say ‘the pleasure’ of my company, but maybe just my company! Night had set in. We washed our plates in the small sink beside the stove, where the small CFL lamp threw a decent amount of light on the “kitchen” area and the door to my room. He asked me several other questions regarding my job, my mode of transport, my current hobbies, friends, etc etc.. I didn’t know what he was up to either, so I asked him to fill me in too. His eyes gleamed like I had asked him the much expected question! When he started telling me about how he traced me, I listened to it with a smile inside me!

“It is a very starry night”, he said, rolling out the mat which the girl from downstairs had given. I was sitting on the parapet wall, gazing at the sky. “I don’t sleep inside all days. It’s much better to sleep outside. Becky will guard me too!”, I grinned on the last line, thinking why I hadn’t seen Becky all evening. “Who is Becky?”, he asked. “Their dog, a rottweiler, a real sweet-heart!”, I said, pointing downstairs, “It’s a bit cold, isn’t it? Are you gonna be ok out here all night?”. “Actually, no”, he said. Huh?? What? But there’s only… “I feel like talking to you. Can you do that?”, he asked. Glad that I didn’t ask it out loud, I said, “hmm.. Ok.. I would have spent this night out anyway I guess”. “Then grab a sheet, coz you’re gonna be cold”, he said, covering his feet. I smiled as I walked inside, since he always wanted his feet to be covered more than any other part of his body when he’s cold!

I lay there on the terrace with the starry sky above me. And he lay just beside me. We both were looking at the stars, though quite visibly, neither of us were aware of anything else around us, other than ourselves. He avoided looking at me, while I was constantly checking his face for a smile or any other sign that he’s thinking about me. But somehow, I didn’t need that to realize that he, in fact, is! We were talking for the last two hours, about common friends, about places that changed in our hometown, about cousins who got married, about everything.. except us. I didn’t ask him why he came. I didn’t ask him whether he intended to take back anything with him. And now, I am a bit confused. All that confusion when I had him, it’s coming back to me! Did he come all this way to talk for two hours under a starry sky?

I calmed myself down saying what I’ve been saying to myself everyday for 6 months. To never expect anything from anyone. To stay happy and calm. To not be dependent on people. To not be influenced by people. To not to rely on people. The sky looked awesome! I remembered a scene from ‘Wall-E’!

I wasn’t looking at him anymore, or thinking about him. Neither was my heart beating so hard. Just then, I remembered! And just then I felt his breath. And saw his eyes looking into mine. Yes, there he is, as I thought! With the same old “You think I let you down?” expression on his face! The same old person I craved for! The same old person who loved me like no one could. Always making my heart skip a beat and then sweeping me off my feet! And while his lips met mine, I delved deep into that familiar sea of happiness.

Neways, leaving the miseries aside, let me see whether I can come up with something cheerful. Using the blog, only whenever I’m miserable, has put a sad image to the blog in my own mind! So this time, nope, I’m not gonna come up with any of that :P

The best thing that happened to me in November was getting a new haircut! My hair had been long for two long years! I made a mistake of gettin it straightened once. It didn’t seem like a mistake then, but after a year, when my naturally wavy hair grew till my neck level, and the straight hair fell from neck to waist, it began to look bad! Or so I thought. Anyway, I got it all chopped off, so it’s back to how it looked three years back :-) I love my hair now!

Oh no! Did I say that the best thing that happened to me in November was the haircut? :-| Right!!! I forgot.. I got a new scooter, a Kinetic Mahindra Sym Flyte, of which I’m a proud owner :-) There was a lot of confusion over which scooter I should be getting.. I almost bought a 150cc scooter named UFO by Global Motors, but couldn’t even give it a chance since I was too short to ride it. :-( Even if I could manage it with one leg touching on the floor, I was worried how I’ll be handling it in traffic blocks, with a pillion rider, etc etc.. If the seat had been a tad less higher than how it is now, I’d have definitely bought it. Then, my choices were Honda Activa, Mahindra Rodeo and Mahindra Flyte. Honda was out of question once we learned that it’ll take more than four months to get the scooter delivered!! :-O Rodeo and Flyte(both 125cc) were equally good, except that, Rodeo had more features like side stand beep, backlit digital meters, mobile charger, front mudguard and finally, more colors to choose from. But it’d have taken more than a month to get it delivered, and I wasn’t sure whether I could wait that long! Since performance wise, they were the same, I went for Flyte! :P Black was the best color out of the lot, since I didn’t want the matte black panel to stand out in contrast. They said that the scooter can be delivered by evening ‘only’. I was too excited to wait till evening! :P Dad suggested that we could see a movie to kill time! And I agreed. So we went to see ‘Pazhassiraja’, while my bro backed out and said that he’ll wait at the dealership in the evening.

Tragedy struck at the movie theater! The movie was around three and a half hours long!! :-O What I hoped to end by 5 o’ clock continued till 6pm… Grr… My patience was almost lost and I was jumpy, seated as if on a trampoline, with my bro calling me every 5 min after 5:30pm, like an alarm kept on ’snooze’! :P Once we reached the dealership, I filled out the necessary forms, looked at my registration number and smiled, since it came to 13 when the digits were added!! :P BTW, my Dad also smiled, since the regn. number of the first scooter he owned also came to 13!! :P Like father, like daughter!! :P And weirdly, Mom’s first vehicle and Bro’s first vehicle have numbers, whose digits when added equals 12!! :D So we are one weird family, I guess!!! hehe!! :P Anyway, I didn’t know the customs of buying new vehicle, but bro did. He had bought two lemons and Vettila(a leaf which is chewed, out of addiction most times! Also bought in during auspicious ceremonies) I kept both lemons on the leaves, one in front of each wheel. When we ride the vehicle for the first time, it’s supposed to squeeze the lemons flat and go. Don’t ask me why!! :P Popular opinion was that I wouldn’t squeeze the lemons, but both would go either way! :-| And bro kept saying that, the vehicles that he rode for the first time has never hit anyone or anything or got hit by the same. Since he has only his bike in this so called record of unhit vehicles, I didn’t really know whether it was because he was a good rider or whether it was the ‘divinity’ crap! :-| But it’s amusing how superstitious a person can be during times like this!! :D I let him do it, though I donno whether it was actually because I didn’t want to take the risk of the shame that will come upon me for not being able to squeeze the lemons like everyone said!! :D *pishk!*The lemons lay flat on the ground, and I regained control of the scooter. My first official ride on my new Flyte followed! :-)

The odometer now shows 460km, mainly because of my daily commute to my office, which is around 13km away from home. And so far, so good :-) My only problem is that I can’t go beyond 50kmph until the scooter covers at least 2000km!!! 22 days to cover 460, which means around 25 days to cover 500km. So, another two months of dragging it around, being really patient, only cursing many morons who try to corner me or make me go off-road!

So that’s about two new things that are happening in my life :-) And the post has become even more ‘long’ that I expected :D Plus, I’m really really sleepy :D :D So this is all for now, will be back later with more.. ;

I have searched all my life…

Thought many a time that I got it..

Still, life’s playing games with me and I’ve never really got it. Have I almost got it and let it go without realizing that, that was “it”? Nope, never. If I’d know, I’ll know.

What is “it”? I can’t describe what it is… It is a state of mind, probably. Have you ever been figured out completely by some person? Has someone behaved exacly the way you want someone to behave? For me, I’d like to know what it’d be like. To feel the bliss or whatever that comes out of it.

What is my problem? Well… Why is it that nobody gets me? Everybody takes me up to the crest then at some point of time, pushes me back down. I’ve never crossed over(not that way!) to see the other side. Means, they’ll do all the right things at first, and then shatters all the (mis)conceptions that you had of them!

Still, there are people who’re lucky enough to find other people who can read their minds like an open book! If I am jealous of anyone in the world, it is them! I am on a crusade to find that person(s) , whoever he/she is and I’m gonna get that “it” too, though the journey is tiresome!

P.S: I thought that I was a practical person, who lived by what my mind told me. But this proves that I’m not one, at least not all the time…

Well… My life is certainly a mess right now. Especially my career. I deviated into the area of my choice and still ended up with a job that sucks! LOL!! How in the world did I manage to do that???

My job sucks. Really.

Is it too hard to find the right job? Or atleast something that’s just not vaguely related to the field I want? Am I asking for too much here?

I send my resume to every part of the country and still do not get a single reply from anyone. I am tired, fed up and unhappy all the time.

I don’t think that I have been this unhappy for this long ever! Been five months of toil now and I feel as unsure of this job as I was on the day I joined.

Post graduation is another option for me. But I don’t know what I wanna post-graduate in, so I am giving myself some time to figure that out before making wrong choices.

I just wonder how much longer I have to put up with this before I flip out completely or get a good job! I mean, I spoke angrily to my manager the other day. Maybe I’ll get fired before I flip out! LOL!!!

The lawns and the sand were almost clean. In my opinion, Veli was comparatively cleaner than the dirty museum premises. Most of the litter was near the food vendors and the deserted construction areas. The waste bins, although very aesthetically made, was rather useless since most people wouldn’t understand that it is, in fact, a waste-bin.

There were people from the public who inquired about our activities. We dumped the waste that was collected from the premises into the misleadingly-shaped waste-bins each time the sacks got full. We used gloves and tongs this time, which made the work easier. But the gloves needed to be removed and worn in intervals since our hands were perspiring like anything inside them. The plastic covers which we used last time, though messy, were better compared to gloves because of this one drawback.

By 4:30, we completed a great deal of the cleaning process by cleaning up to the park area. We needed some rest since there has been a lot of waste to collect and a lot of area to cover for 7 people. While we were taking rest, we discussed the next steps to take and the feedback from today’s work. Cris noted down everything that we were discussing. The discussion ended with some good suggestions for our next day’s activities, and Bindu had to go in order to attend a seminar on POTA [I presume..] as we had almost finished our day’s work. But soon, Anoop, Hari and Joshua joined us. They were in full vigor to contribute their share to TIDYCITY’s tidying efforts of the day!

The 9 of us dispersed inside the park area, which was apparently the dirtiest place inside Veli. There were ice-cream cups and covers and sticks everywhere. It needed some serious cleaning. There was a small hill which was covered with soft-drink bottles and ice-cream covers and cups. We cleaned up the whole mess while people were watching.

The beach area was the ugliest! It was pointless cleaning it up. We picked up the ice-cream covers and the big pieces of paper ad plastic waste. But what are we supposed to do about small bits of paper and wrappers that, sort of, covered the whole sand layer? Like Sreenath said, this place couldn’t be cleaned even if you used a strainer!

I don’t know much about the shopkeepers’ opinions on this. Srijith can definitely throw some light on that, so find it out in his post. All I know is that, they were unaware of the fact that plastic shouldn’t be burned and that it creates toxic matter that pollutes air when burned. But I still don’t think that they have any other solution to avoid burning plastic material or that they’ll stop burning it from today onwards. Nevertheless, the message has been spread to them, and we’ll keep doing that.

So we’ve said the magic words again today and are just waiting for the magic to begin.