The First Homecoming

 

After my failed attempts at studying for my imminent exams, I’ve concluded that the apparent abatement of guilt in daydreaming with a book on my lap as compared to daydreaming without one, is just that : apparent. So, I’ve given up trying to cheat my conscience. Instead I’m completely disregarding it. As my conscience glares at me, teeth grinding, I’m going to write about the most exciting event that has happened to me in the past three months.

It has been more than three months since I left home for college. Save for the first weekend that I mentioned in my previous post, I barely felt any homesickness in the following days. But how much I actually missed home dawned on me when the time came to go back. I was going back at a time of festive cheer and rejoicing. Diwali. Every Diwali has been a special one and I remember each for the maniacal joy that each has brought but this was a very different one, a Diwali of many firsts.

I’ve always been awed by the nomadic lifestyle with so many places, people, languages and cultures to get to know. But I’ve never experienced it myself. To me, home has always been the same place, the same house, the same neighbours, the same potholed roads, the same auto drivers, the same traffic signals and the same routes. All my friends, memories, encounters, experiences and events are tied to one place. So, I had never looked back at how much the place has given me in making me the person I am until recently.

The blissful anticipation of embracing the familiar sights and sounds of home heightening with each station the train passed, taking me closer and closer to home, and finally seeing family through the grills of the train windows are feelings of intense and ineffable ecstasy.

Now, home to me doesn’t just mean the house where I live. It’s the people, the familiarity, the sense of belonging. The same place wouldn’t be a welcome abode if the people in my life didn’t live there anymore. Now I understand why there is a craving in people to know their history. It tells you who you are and it gives you ground to stand on in the world, proud and unshakeable. It makes you possessive of your land and devoted to it. It gives you something solid to hold on to in an ever-changing world.

There will be many more homecomings in the future, but this will always be the dearest to me, the picture it first conjures in my mind being the smiles on those people’s faces that I had only seen in my mind for the last three months.

More Snaps!

A morning stroll with a fellow photography enthusiast in a place like the west coast is incomparable to anything else. So here are a few more clicks, the products of that particular stroll.

And I saved my most favourite for the last!

 

Through glass pieces

The west coast is sheer beauty! Coconut trees, ponds, the sea, mountains, every appealing object of nature is here. And there occur those moments during the day that the beauty is so capturing that you simply can't pass without in turn capturing it... through glass pieces. In my case, my mobile phone camera.

Today I saw an ad for a resort that read "Views that say Dubai, Singapore. But the prices don't"
It's a shame that the beauty here has to be compared to that of other places, which are beautiful too, to attract tourists. Dude, if I wanted a view that says Dubai, I would go to Dubai! ~rolls eyes~ Where's our pride? I'd seriously like to give these advertising guys a few lessons.

Coming back to topic, here are a few moments of beauty I've captured.
Warning : Amateur here. Keep expectations really low.. I'm talking below ground level.

 

Vicious arts and basic lessons

Long breaks from blogging are becoming something of a routine now, one that I don't really pride myself on. It's a clear and rather shameful representation of my inability to juggle time and passions deftly. Though I can hide behind the excuse of a new lifestyle, the idle hours will be a nagging reminder of my indolence.

It's been a month to the day since I began college. So many emotions have passed through me, quite a large number actually, in this time frame. Thanks to my fear of my formidable conscience, I jotted down a significant portion of them to remind me, for I seem to have forgotten that those emotions took residence in me in those first few days of newness; such is the degree to which they have changed. A single month seems to have imparted wisdom that maybe slumbered in the deep recesses of my mind, not finding the need to be disturbed just yet.

My feelings as of 3rd August, 2013 :

Why. The inquisitive, puzzling, formidable and at times scary three-letter word that so unyieldingly latches onto the mind like a leech that has found an unsuspecting body of flesh and blood. A delight to the questioner during the inevitable awkward silences of conversation, the word is an unwelcome guest when you find yourself on both sides of the conversation and realize you're talking to yourself.

I've successfully braved a week in college. It feels like it has been months since I came here. Regular phone calls to home, a long one with best friend, late night with roommates, staying behind in class to finish work, a million hello's, hi's and bye's have already happened.

I look around and see groups already forming. Pairs or gangs of  people almost constantly together in less than a week of acquaintance. Character sketches are being created thanks to the judgemental part of our mind (or is it just mine?)

Having always strutted around school with my own clique and always having fit in with any group of people I was in the company of, finding myself sitting alone in my room on a Saturday evening, I must confess is giving me my first bout of homesickness. I don't play basketball so I can't hang out at the court. The library timings are depressingly less. The few people I've gotten to know till now are tucked in in their rooms in the cozy comfort of sleep. Restrictions all around. Are these ones I'm creating or ones that are situational? And here is where the dreaded three-letter word comes in : Why am I not able to make the kind of friends I did in school? Why does it seem like suddenly the avenues of friendship have very tight security at their rather narrow gates? Maybe it is so because in school we are at a very impressionable age and making friends for life is no trigonometry test. We're still in the process of forming our identities, developing our interests and discovering new ones. But we come out of school with friends, interests, knowledge and heightened self-consciousness.

~I had paused writing and continued the next day. Read on for a drastic change~

It is quite surprising how much my outlook on college friendship has changed in a day. The best way to explain would be by starting here : my dependency on technology. It really is true that things are appreciated more in their absence. I'm not going to feign complete shock in reaction to the realization of how dependent I am on the internet. During the past year, I spent many of my productive hours of a day on the internet (which sadly speaks nothing of my productivity). It's been my most trusted, dependable and of course, entertaining connection to the world. So, yes, I'm dependent on the internet to an extent. But.... maybe a little more than I imagined. The last ten days I haven't had access to facebook, no blogging, no quora, no youtube and on and on. Thankfully, I had internet on my phone that I could use to message my friends if the network was gracious enough to grant me a signal at that golden hour.

I have a new place and new people to get to know but there is a constant yearning and an ache of separation that wants to see something familiar to assure my senses that the world I know still exists. In that way, I'm immensely grateful to technology. The cradle of connection does a lot to the psyche.

But I'm still sane, still smiling, still relishing the newness of a new phase. And this is where the reason for change comes in. Time. Yes, it's wise old time. The answer to every "why" comes with time and every "why" turns into a beautiful realization that comes like the glowing sun on a foggy morning.

Barriers are broken. New identities are formed. Common grounds are discovered. Friendships are forged. It all just takes time. Things are of course not the same as they are in school. But they get better with time.

Of all the lessons college has taught me in a week (the number is astounding), this could be the most important. It has taught me that I won't always go alone for lunch but neither will I lose my precious solitude.

~Returning to present day~

Rereading this has left me surprised. Time indeed does a lot. I look at my very recent experiences as if at a younger person's. Maybe it's just an illusion of maturity or I have actually gained some.

Weeks don't seem like months anymore. There is plenty of work to do and I find myself hearteningly enthusiastic and eager to learn though I was mildly terrified of my subjects at the beginning. But that doesn't mean my old friend laziness has abandoned me. He does chip in now and then to remind me of what a deceivingly lovely friend he is.

About friendships, I see myself patting the back of the 3 weeks younger me. And the younger me responds with a pleasantly surprised look as she sees the future. That makes it pretty clear, doesn't it?

Right now, the only negative feeling is that of worthlessness as I see and hear about great minds accomplishing astonishing things. And I hope this feeling of worthlessness gives me the push to be the person I want to be. Pure unadulterated me!
 

A Familiar Face

After a hiatus of sorts, it's good to be back and typing. As for the reason for my break, it would be that the creativity fairy has been eluding me painfully and I decided to finally sit down today and summon her no matter what. So today, I'm feeling myself after a long time and being grateful to every person and thing that helped me get here. ~A big smile~

In one of my surprisingly often epiphanies (three or four a year is often, right?), I realised people are always trying to win the approval of others for an unstated reason. I believe the reason, wherever it exists, would be to feel a sense of pride from being adored or praised. But when all you seek is another's approval, you start losing out the satisfaction and other finer things you get from doing things for yourself. That joy is simply unparalleled. Today, having experienced that pleasure after a long time, I'm truly relishing it. And here, the product:

A FAMILIAR FACE

On an island unknown
Beneath a starless sky
Blind, alone
And lost, stood I.

A familiar face,
I kept looking at,
Through a dreamy haze
In my clouded head.

The face lingered.
In surreality I remained. 
And when it did blur,
I struggled, cried and pained. 

The lapping waves gently
Pulled me back to reality
Though I fought obstinately
Wanting to live in fantasy.

Gathering strength,
Myself I braced
And opened my eyes 
To see a familiar face.

Not the one on my mind
But ever more welcoming
A forgotten visage, still kind,
Knowing and forgiving.

I reached out,
I stepped forward
And I found
My acts mirrored.

When hand met hand
The answer occurred.
For I had touched glass
And with myself I reunited.

ROADBLOCKS TO EXPRESSION

A heated debate on a news channel today about the opposition to portrayal of anything that even slightly brushed existing religious sentiments in movies drove me to infer the following points:

• Such oppositions occur where the religious community in question constitutes a minority of the total population of the state.

         It started off with one movie. Vishwaroopam. Though the censor board cleared it for release, a religious community protested. The release date in Tamil Nadu was pushed further and further away as the problem dragged on until the filmmaker agreed to remove certain scenes from the movie. The movie with the enormous amount of hype that preceded it has been cut, disfigured, and been stolen of its entirety. All the eager fans, waiting through all the exhausting drama, are now left disappointed. The important questions here are : Does the government have the power to exert its authority on a movie that the censor board has already  approved? And why is the movie hurtful to the said community of this state alone while their counterparts in the other states don't have a problem with it? After all, religions don't alter with boundaries. A retired censor board member said during the debate that in his years on the board he had seen no protests to movies that even questioned the fundamentals of a religion in the neighbouring state Kerala. He attributed it to their progressive thinking. This made me think that the reason why the minority communities protest so vigorously in our state is not just because their thinking is backward but mainly because of their fear. Their fear of something in a movie causing people to forge a bad impression of the religion in their minds, their fear of the followers losing faith because of the views of a filmmaker, their fear that their dignity will be beaten. Yes, ours is a country that assures the fraternity of an individual. But the movie doesn't wound their dignity. If that were taken as reason, fiction couldn't exist for there are many ways for people to take offense. Cinema or any other mass media is not a tool to propagate any religion or faith. And as long as people don't look at it objectively, they're going to find reasons to protest.

This is not the first time an opposition has occurred and this won't be the last but what concerns me is that this will motivate more such oppositions. One has already sparked off 3 others. How long before one can actually make a movie at peace? 

• Religious groups take every mention personally, be it in a book, movie, painting or any other expression of thought. 

         What is the meaning of freedom of expression when an artist cannot express himself/herself without his work being trampled with by others to suit them? The first step to creating art is not to create something that would be okay with the prospective audience. The first step is to put the thought from the artist's mind to paper. After that comes tweaking it to suit the audience so that they're unhurt by it. But there's a bar on it. The artist can't go on tweaking it until it is something that he barely identifies with. If we want artists, we need to appreciate them for what they produce for that is the reason we respect them. Subjecting them to stress and insecurity is not respect. There are objections to everything. An all-girl band? Fatwa. A painting a political party thinks hurts culture? Tear it down. And soon... freedom of expression? Second only to religious groups' approval.

All day and night

I labor

With all my might

To savor

With satisfaction
And elation

The appreciation

With much anticipation.

But I am left here

After all the wear

With an insult and a tear.

Dedicated to all artists. 

To Enjoyment and Robert Brault

Robert Brault's quotes are witty, delightful and truthful in a way that makes you wonder how you hadn't realized a specific thing about life until you read it in his words. Today, his new set of brainchildren brightened up my day. One in particular has been absolutely endearing. So, I made a little collage with the quote for all to enjoy!