Better days- Goo goo dolls.

And you asked me what I want this year
and I'll try to make this kind and clear
just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
'cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
and designer love and empty things
just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words and sing out loud
'cause everyone's forgiven now
'cause tonight's the night the world begins again

I need some place simple where we could live
and something only you could give
and that's faith and trust and peace while we're alive
and the one poor child who saved this world
and there's ten million more who probably could
if we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

So take these words and sing out loud
'cause everyone's forgiven now
'cause tonight's the night the world begins again

I wish everyone was loved tonight
and somehow stop this endless fight
just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words and sing out loud
'cause everyone's forgiven now
'cause tonight's the night the world begins again

'cause tonight's the night the world begins again

Psst!

Darn people!
Mumbai under terrorist attacks. I hate this.
I hope everyone I know, and everyone they know is safe.
At home, mum's getting better. The previous post was written when she was on her way to Rajasthan and had to turn back halfway because of medical emergency. She's the type who'll act normal to get back to normal- one of the very few things I inherited from her.
Dad and Rahul are at Rajasthan, probably sighting tigers. Good for them.
People in the building, the Lambodar- Dostini lot are actually meeting up everyday. They play cards like gamblers!
At college, everything's going fine and slow. Not complaining.
Big mess at SNIFF. do visit www.16isto9.org.
signing out,
Peace- even to you, violent gumbugs at the Taj and Trident and Nariman House, holding people up like that. Seriously, didn't your mum tell you how to play fair?

Aai


The scariest thought is losing my mom.
To Death, insanity, life, family, my brother, some job, college.
Was watching The Namesake a few minutes back. I don't know, but losing a parent is one thought I get very often. See, i like both of them, equally, I guess. But comes the question of attachments, and I swear there's no one in the scene but my mother.
I'll say, it's like that song from Taare Zameen Par, Maa.
I guess I relate to it the most.


Main Kabhi Batlata Nahin
Par Andhere Se Darta Hoon Main Maa

Yeah, Aai. I'm all ready to face the world most of the time. Mostly all of the time. I've had fights with the best of my friends, with drunkards trying to act weird, with people who push their way into the line, guys who don't do their part of projects.
But I'm scared of darkness. Not knowing what's coming ahead. More like, not being certain. You've always made me so confident, I'm sorry to let you down on this. I can't take one step ahead without knowing where it's going.

Yun To Main,Dikhlata Nahin
Teri Parwaah Karta Hoon Main Maa

I do speak crap to you, specially when it comes to my brother. I like him too, I'm just trying to protect both of you. He's not going the right way, mum, and though I know he's got a future ahead where he can make amends- I also know you won't be able to bear him getting into trouble or hurt. Don't get me wrong, but I have to be downright cruel to him, and hence to you. This may not be the best way to get him ok, but I'm still trying.
Tujhe Sab Hain Pata, Hain Na Maa
Tujhe Sab Hain Pata,,Meri Maa



Bheed Mein Yun Na Chodo Mujhe
Ghar Laut Ke Bhi Aa Naa Paoon Maa

You say I'm prepared to take my own decisions, but I need you to decide everything for me. When I'm ready to get up to when I should get married. To what I should wear to college today. Or to which sum I should solve first. It's crazy, I know. You've been around all this time to make me steady on my own. I am steady (or so I think), but you're the base I stand on. How am I to live alone for a week? A lifetime? Damn, away from you?

Bhej Na Itna Door Mujkko Tu
Yaad Bhi Tujhko Aa Naa Paoon Maa

You've made up your mind to let us grow on our own. Yes we will. But in case I make mistakes tomorrow, will you be there for me? Just to hear me out, and then follow with your 'I-told-you-so' lecture? It gets repetitive and predictable, but I still love hearing it. It gives me the feeling of being a 6 year old, or 10 year old or a 14 year old or even an 18 year old all at once. That you see no difference and that you'll still hit me on my backside for spilling water over the dining table or wasting time on the PC. It's the feeling I love the most, you're still around to pinch me when I'm talking nonsense.

Kya Itna Bura Hoon Main Maa
Kya Itna Bura Meri Maa

I never want to hurt you, I'm too much of a coward to do that.


Jab Bhi Kabhi Papa Mujhe
Jo Zor Se Jhoola Jhulate Hain Maa
Meri Nazar Dhoondhe Tujhe
Sochu Yahi Tu Aa Ke Thaamegi Maa

Dad wants me to be like him, fearless, strong, steady, brave, outspoken, adventurous. I am trying to be that, because he's not wrong. To survive, I'll probably have to trample over a few people. I will do that. I am ambitious.
But I'll still want to come home to you and tell you how my day was, how I cracked some really good comment, or how my article was accepted without a correction. I'm still a kid, really. I hate admitting it, but there's nothing I haven't admitted to you yet. I need you to be my landing cushion.

Unse Main Yeh Kehta Nahin
Par Main Seham Jaata Hoon Maa
Chehre Pe Aana Deta Nahin
Dil Hi Dil Mein Ghabraata Hoon Maa

Everyone has their own expectations from me. Dad wants me (or rather every person in the world) to be a wise, financially secure investor in life and mutual funds. The family wants me to be a good journalist. I have no clue what my eldest brothers expect of me. My sister wants me to be her rock when she falls. My brother wants me to allow him to go around making a worldly fool of himself. You want me to be healthy and happy (Maa di laadli).
I'm going to be all of this. Succeeded in quite a few.
I just want you to stroke my hair at least once when you talk to me. Specially when I weep about not having friends who like me and tolerate me, like Manasi, Myron and Hormazd do. When I'm just tired, and characteristically can't get sleep. I need you to be the mom you weren't to me because my brother took up your time, patience, stamina, love.


Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Hai Naa Maa
Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Meri Maa

Chapped lips

Try drinking orange juice with those; it burns through the delicate skin on the lips. Try eating anything with lemon.
It's a subtle feeling of prickle, but it goes away. The next time you have chapped lips and eat anything citric, however, you remind yourself of how it had prickled you the last time. And then you give it no thought till the next time you do the same thing.
I saw Dostana today, and like every other movie, I caught myself fantasizing about being someone in there. Just made me wish a hundred people I hardly think of these days would call me. Hypocrite? Sure.
What happens to all those people who write in that ridiculous slam book and say stuff like 'friends forever'?
I got upset because a friend of mine wrote on the first page of my slam book, the page I'd reserved for my then reigning crush. This friend however is the only one I still look forward to seeing.
What happened to those girls who all the guys I drooled over drooled over?
They're probably repeating their 12th. Bimbos.
The girls who pronounced 'and' as 'end'?
They probably still do.
The guys I used to swear by?
I know they're alive, but that's about it.
They could be on the moon I'd never know.
The girls I called my best friends?
Probably embarrassed of me, and have boyfriends of their own to make up for the inconspicuous loss of a shoulder to cry on when their parents yell.
They probably don't think they'd be able to stand me if we met again, what with all that blabbering I do.
Those kids who I never spoke to, without noticing that I didn't.
They probably had something to say, what would our conversations be like?
Those people who felt I wasn't existent enough?
They may be thinking I don't exist at all.
The girls who thought me irritating.
And the boys who had crushes on them.
The girls who helped their best friends get over those crushes.
The boys who felt tingles for them.
The girls who whoopee'd when these guys played.
The guys who wished they could play that well.
the girls who wished that didn't matter.
The guys who wished they did.
And me.

What happened to my friends?My family?My school?My home?My life?
I've seemed to forget them by every passing day. All those promises to check in every week, evaporated.The 'I'll call you' were fake, weren't they? 13 years of my life were a superficial love for something I'd been brainwashed to adore with every part of my existence.
Vissanji Academy is just another building I glimpse from the bus. No more the stop where I'd grin to myself. There are ghosts of memories which I thought I'd carry forever, but things don't work that way. The people inside the white and brick walls are just another young bunch of kids marooned on board. It's not a promise of belonging anymore, it's just a sentence every student clings to.
Someone on my farewell day told us, 'wherever you go, whatever you do, all you life- you will always be a Vissanji child'.
Promises promises.
This was the same man who was around for 5 months in the school who asked us, who spent 13 years of our then 15 year old lives in that place, to stop dashing around as if the place belonged to us. Yes, Mr.Pereira, it does, it still does.
Yet I can't wake up completely a single morning and wish I hadn't grown up, that college was still a long time, and that the bus with those bent seats and vandalized backs would stop at my gate.I can't seem to believe that it isn't a passing dream anymore, just a fact. People grow up, they have to move on.
And every time I see, that I have, I feel guilty.
Like I've had chicken tandoori with squeezed lemon. On chapped lips.

In my head

"Up yet?"
"You woke me"
"Hmmm...should I call later?"
"No, it's fine. What happened? Wassup?"
"It's gonna take some time, you free for a while?"
"Yeah yeah, tell"
"I thought about it"
"Wait, I'm talking to you after a week, you thought about what?"
"Our conversation a few months back"

"I think I know what you're talking about. I'm just surprised you should bring it up. I thought we finished with it"
"I know, that was what I thought too. Like that was long ago"
"Ohk. Well?"

"So how's Anvit?" "Yeah he's good. Out for the vacation" "Hmmm, and Mohit?"
"Haven't spoken to him since ages. Why you asking?"

"So you like Anvit?"
"No re, nothing serious. He was something like an overblown infatuation."

"Was I one?"
"Do we have to talk about this?"
"Just curious. Sorry"
"No it's fine. If you must know, you were more than infatuation"
"Hmmm"


"Okay, so tell me, how's Priyal?"
"I don't know"
"Haven't met in a while or what?"
"We split"

"Oh gosh.I'm so sorry to hear that"
"Yeah she decided I was getting too serious"
"Oh"

"This happened a month back. Or wait, 2 months back"

"It'll be ok. If you really like her she'll come back to you"
"You think so?"
"I don't know. I hope so"

"Did you really like me that much?"

"How much?"
"You know, that I'd come back, or something"
"I did like you a lot, I don't know how much though"

"'I did'? You've moved on well na?"
"Pretty much. See even you'll get over her. It's just a matter of time. She'll come back to you if this has to happen. It's a-"
"Did you wish I'd come back to you if we were to happen?"

"This is about you, not me. Let's not mix the two"
"Answer me"
"Chaitanya-"
"Answer me"
"Well, to an extent I did"
"You still think so?"
"Where's this going?"
"She decided I was getting too serious about you"


"Did you remind her we weren't ever together?"
"No"
"Then you should have. Do it now"
"What'll happen then?"
"Then she'll understand and you guys'll be together again"
"What if I don't want that?"

"Chaitanya, what's the matter?"
"I couldn't stop think about what you said"
"What did I say?"
"The part that you couldn't figure what you liked about me, but you did"
"What about it?"
"I think I'm seeing sense for the first time in months"

"You've stopped making any to me for the past 5 minutes"
"Reva, I haven't stopped thinking about you for the past 4 months"

"So you think Priyal's right?"
"I know she is"

"Chaitanya, I got over you 4 weeks after our conversation"
"So I don't stand a chance?"
"What do you want me to say?"

"Don't you feel even a fraction the same about me?"
"I moved on"

"Are you with someone?"
"Yes"
"Do I know him?"
"It's Deep"
"Oh, ok"
"Yeah"

"I'm, well, I'm sorry to have hurt you"
"Oh it's no big deal"
"I hope you guys do well"
"Now you're sounding like an obituary"
"I guess. Just that, I'll always be around for you, okay?"

"Thanks"
"I guess, bye, then"
"Hmmm, yeah. And Chaitanya..."
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Deep"
"Aah that's ok. I kept Priyal a secret too, remember?"
"It wasn't to get even"
"I know. Well, bye"
"You'll be therein the evening?"

"I'll be in class. I'll be back, by say, 9.15"