where are we heading?

Its 2010, and there is so much change around. Though i don't care a bit about the changes i am gonna talk about but it does in a way affect me very indirectly. The change is for the worse, ofcourse. I still live in the times where I feel that giving 10 rupees is too much for anything. If a rickshaw guy asks for 10 bucks for a 2 kilometer ride, I still have my eyes wide and jaw dropped and I think that I'd rather walk.

This is what I truly am. I am still in the early 2000's probably, where I was a school going kid and didn't have any expenses whatsoever. I was reluctant to buy anything costing over 10 rupees (except for kites) and still thought that I wanted to become Bill Gates. Given my poor spontaneity and an inability to come up with relative examples, the changes I am talking about have nothing to do with the inflation or with anything dealing with money. The changes I am talking about are not personal. They aren't related to my friends or people close to me. I am here talking about what this country watches, talks about, hears and enjoys doing now-a-days. I have been shocked to see so much bullshit around me in the past 2 weeks I have been in India so much so that it has compelled me to blog this. I still live in the times when an on screen kiss was considered to make me close my eyes and people would say "haw" and turn their heads. You may call me backward or whatever you wish but just to let you know for the sake of the remaining of the post, I just dont care what you call me.

The incidences which have left me totally surprised are some "reality" T.V. shows, some radio shows and the stuff that people talk about on the most common of all medium - facebook. First of all the T.V. shows. I saw an episode of "Emotional Atyachaar". A couple being in a live-in relationship were being doubtful and the boyfriend sent a guy(apparently attractive) to approach the girl and hit on her. The girl flirts back and in some time, she is seen making out with him. This was not enough. The guy takes the girl to his appartment to test her limits. Now on this, our boyfriend tells this guy to go ahead and give her hints but the girl doesn't cross any further lines. Now comes the best part - when this girl comes to know about the whole setup, she gets upset on her boyfriend for doing all this. The boyfriend replies that what happened was 'normal' and he would have done the 'same' thing if put in such a situation. He was 'okay' with what happened as she did 'not' cross the lines her boyfriend has set. He thinks it was okay for her to just have made out with him. How pathetic. Now what disturbs me is not the fact that all this is being shown on T.V.. Its not even about that such bullshit is being shown on T.V.. What disturbs me is that such shows gain the highest TRPs and everybody seems to just love it. They find this entertaining and amusing. I just have one question - What the fuck is wrong with everyone? What are you watching? I cannot answer that, neither can you. Move on.

Another thing which comes up is this stupid late night radio show called "Naughty Nights" where people apparently call in to share their naughty stuff. Amazing. Just for an example, this girl was sharing this thing on the radio so merrily that it seemed scripted. So anyway, she said that she came to know "from someone" that her boyfriend was sleeping with another girl while in a relationship with her. Now, as a revenge (or just for fun maybe), even she slept with a friend of hers (male of course). This is unbelievable. Its just leaves me speechless to see how people can at the first place say all this on the radio to the unknown people listening to them and that how on hearing "from someone" about something like this they can actually believe without referring to the person directly. Its amazing, just beats me. Oh, and yea, they were in a relationship from the past 2 years.

The last of all is the recent trend on facebook for girls to put up the color of their brassiere for everyone to see and to see how much time it takes the guys to realize why the colour thing is happening. :| . Please do not try to justify this act for god's sake. I know you would say it was for cancer awareness but please, it just was a stupid joke for you. You don't give a fuck about cancer awareness, atleast you didn't while putting up the colors. Didn't you for a second think that the people reading that can be your dad, mom, brother, teacher, or anyone! What shocked me more were the comments and discussions on them. An example - Guy: "Thats a good color, wish I could see some time", Girl: "hehe..lol". Come on! Either you are hippocrates or just too ignorant.

After all this, I am just left with few questions. Where's the shame? Where's the definition of a relationship gone?(or have I been too disconnected to be updated enough). Where the fuck are your brains?

Where are we heading?

-Ankit

yaari. dosti.

'yaari. dosti.' as Sahil puts it while having a conversation with him about how incomplete i feel here at Purdue. The difference is just visible. I can so easily feel it. No matter how many people are here, how great a university it is, how excellent the teachers and the coursework is, its always a mix of things which would complete you in totality. I dont know if this applies in the 'general' sense but for me, I just cant be at a place even as good as say MIT or Harvard and be all alone. The incompleteness, the so much inside me wanting to come out in form of words, the heaviness that I feel cannot be completed with anything else than being actually shared.

There are random times at which I so feel like getting out of here and going back to either Jaipur or to Dubai to my previous college. While leaving from Dubai, I had always thought that its a part of life and I would somehow be okay with it. I would surely miss it but then it would be okay. I guess I was wrong on the time it is taking and for that matter, i was mistaken if it would ever go. I do have people back home whom I keep talking to, people I talk to here but then that feeling is always missing. Always. Manytimes while looking back or talking to anyone, I am reminded of my 2 years at Dubai. They were amazing. I don't think that I would ever have such an experience anywhere at anytime in my life.

Anyway, when i told Sahil (one of the many times i have told him the same things), his reply was "yaari. dosti.". I had known it in some sense but this time, i think it got in my head in a slightly different way. I did realize one of the major reasons of the way I feel here.

The portion of our chat is here:

me: you know, how much ever it goes here, kinda feels incomplete always

jitna bhi dedo, jitna bhi ho jae

never feels the same

as it used to in dubai, or as it does in india

Sahil: dost!!

dosti!!

yaari..!!

me: yea

i wish i could have realised the value of it over other things

anyway, i know its been like 4 months i have written anything on the blog and i guess i have lost the readers i had (though there were like just 2-3).

-thanks for reading.
-ankit

r a n d o m

Well, lets see. Its been around 45 days i have blogged. Not that I didnt have enough to write about, but just the lack of push to do anything worthwhile than surfing youtube or just pointlessly wasting time. Had a lot to write about, like the ATB and Infected Mushroom concert in Chicago and the overwhelming frustration burst in which I banged my fist on my laptop which made some keys pop out and they still are out. Doing a little bad in my exams (not just a little, but pretty bad) and since I have come here as a transfer with a decision of my own, it really is shameful to even stand up eye to eye with the people I know. People with whom I debated about coming here and leaving my previous college. I know my dad reads this too. Don't worry dad, i havent done so bad. Nothing to worry about.

I wont dissapoint you guys (if there are any readers) and would like to tell you that this post, like the earlier ones, is gonna be very random. I'm already down 3 beers and I dont feel a thing. I dont feel the swing or anything. I can move my head from side to side without even the slightest blurr. Feels like I have just been drinking too much of malts and hops minus the alcohol. I never drink more than 3 at a time (3 means, 355 ml each). Anyway, the past some days have been so wierd and such a mix of everything. I am totally aware of how I am behaving, how I am reacting, why I am reacting and I can really feel my thoughts coming into play when they just strike me for that nanosecond. I am able to look at them and feel them happening. The sad part is, that I cannot do a thing about it. I still end up acting stupid/rude/wierd and etc etc. Its just getting a little uncomfortable with myself these days. When I am totally down and out, when everything just seems too bad here, I miss home. Not that I dont miss home otherwise but this is the time when I miss it the most. Its a place of peace and no headaches. I am totally fine there and everything just falls to place. I am looking forward to the summers of 2009 after having the best span of 3 months of my life last year (the summer of 2008).

Day before was another of the days when I felt confused and out of sync with everything. Out of sync in terms of the inability to realise what is going on with me, them and us. After the knowledge about how thoughts trigger my brain into this quicksand of negativity and after tries to fix it and just stop the thoughts, I find myself standing at another of the same situations as before. I have no clue how this life is proceeding. One second I feel good, the other second I feel miserable. I have complicated lots of things. I do take the responsibility. But then, its about "results". Nothing is happening. I am unable to do anything even after knowing my mistakes and after knowing where I am going wrong. I am just stuck. I am just unable to take a step towards solving it. The next thing I do just makes it more complex than simple. It makes it go worse than better. The difference I feel in myself from before and now is that now, I know that its just in my head and this prevents me from going totally bonkers. But this, is not a good thing. I just get stuck. I can't lose it, neither can I stay sane. It just gets on me. I don't know what to do.

Talking about the "Spring Awakening 2009" concert at the Congress Theater in Chicago, it was awesome. ATB was playing some gay vocal techno bullshit and I was literally showing the middle finger to him, that SHUT UP. Its not music. I agree that I have liked his music but that day, it was a pain to listen to. He was playing some bullshit which you cant enjoy unless you are drunk! Now that, is not what I call music. All the songs he was playing were sounding like some lusty female voice with a background techno score. The show began for me when Infected Mushroom came on. If you would have seen them on stage, you probably wouldn't have been able to name their genre. They had drums, guitars, electronica and vocals. It was amazing. They played all the great ones - I wish, Deeply Disturbed, Suliman and Becoming Insane. I somehow managed to push my way to the 2nd row(practically) but couldnt still get up till the fence. It was great to hear them live.

Any way, its just a week and a month to go till I go back home. Looking forward to the time ahead but in a very weird way. I cannot define weird coz I feel so weird at the moment and probably that is why the whole post was so weird!

-ankit

days go by ~

I am someone who doesnt remember shit. What may happen seconds back just flows off my mind. I do not know why and neither do I want to. When it comes to remembering situations, remembering times and instances, I totally suck at it. I just cannot remember anything when asked.

The way I remember things is completely different than most of you might think or know about as to how things are remembered. There are moments which just come and its the feeling I had at that moment which comes up. Its not the instance. I cannot remember completely or even half-way how it happened but I do remember how it felt. I spent an amazing time of 2 years at BITS, Dubai. Made friends (without having a motive to do that), laughed, cried, got beaten, fasted for a month, initiated somethings, became the best at something (as they say, "andhon mein kaana raja"), walked through a dust storm (feels awesome when it blows through your hair with all the dust hitting against you so hard that you start wondering what a small piece of dust can do), worked for setting number-of-days-without-a-shower record, had the worst food ever, slept nights with guy(s) (oh come on, i was in a hostel and it was fun 0_O), spent hours and hours quietly on the terrace with thumps up and ice-creams, had redbulls and slept off, drew shit on my hand and jeans and possibly everywhere and the list goes on. Moreover, I was a part of a team which was built up so naturally and aimlessly that it had the magic of spontaenity. A team which beared with my screaming, shouting and literally bursting out on them whenever they did something crazily wierd or something i didnt like. We came up with probably a very wierdly funny/sarcastically dangerous name for the team too. You'll know what its called.

And now when I hear about them carrying on after me (without me), there is this sense of sadness with completness and incompleteness both existing in such a perfect mix that it makes just makes me feel good that there is something i created and bad as i couldnt stay longer to complete it or take it higher and go higher along with it. I miss it. I simply miss being a part of it. Though you might console me that I still am but I know I am not. There are a very few things one is good at even though among a small number of people and you can also put it like it is among people who are not so good at it. There are somethings which I could do which no one else around me could do as good. And once you have that feeling, its just too tough to go away and this is where 'Goo Goo Dolls' make sense when they say "Nothings real till its gone". Though the "nothing" doesnt fit in this case but i was just aiming the feel behind this line.

Anyways, all i would say is that when I didnt have a reason to stay, i was there and now when I have reasons to be there, I am gone. You might consider me an "emotional fool" and i leave it totally to your perspective.




-ankit

ps: btw, would like to quote a totally irrelevant quote from the above post but this is probably the best quote i have heard/read lately. "A man without a woman is like a fish without a bicycle".