Fully appreciating the irony of this statement, I'm fairly certain that there will not be a single experience in life that I will enjoy as much as I relish the feeling of being underwater. Given a bathtub, swimming pool, pond, lake, sea or ocean, all I want to do is swim to the bottom, perch myself there, and let my senses explode. The calm that comes with being surrounded by vast expanses of water and nothing else, is a rare and inexplicable delight. It's not calm bound by limits. It's the calm of being suspended in time, space, gravity and countless dimensions. Not the kind of calm that you touch and draw from, but the one that engulfs you in a cocoon and holds you still. Everything is blue, and green, and it paints you into itself. The muffled sounds, the rays of light barely piercing the water and the glimmering surface seen from below make it seem like a whole different world. A disturbingly beautiful one. So beautiful, that every moment I've spent under water, has haunted the years I've spent above it. Thus, the new blogger template. Because what I truly need at the moment, is something to remind me of the existence of that particular variety of calm. The one that holds you still and pervades the senses. I cannot wait to break the surface and dive right in. 

The First in a Series of Irrelevant, Unnecessary, and Thoroughly Mundane Posts.

1. Torrential rains
2. Google+
3. Being locked up in a room with more books than I can count

As opposed to:

1. Nagging uncertainty
2. Comfort food
3. Getting a job

Hmm...

 "Every night and every morn
  Some to misery are born,
  Every morn and every night
  Some are born to sweet delight.
  Some are born to sweet delight,
  Some are born to endless night."

The end of college has been anticlimactic, at best. A goodbye has no real meaning if you have nothing to say it to. 

Things have not been great. But that's a bit of a secret. A secret, because I'm no longer selfish and self-indulgent enough to not scoff at myself. Not all has changed though. I still grieve the loss of selfishness more than the fact that things have not been great. And then, there's this. There's more of a loss of things than anything else. The occasional presence, and perpetual lack of everything. Except for the writing on the wall, which is clearer than ever. Unfortunately, so are the claw marks. 

So, there's also guilty-pleasure-music. Here's a band called Dark Dark Dark, because I'm that obvious with my tastes. Guilt should be made of sterner stuff. 

And this is rather brilliant. 

Grey Noise.

As much as a double-edged sword aspiration may be, it works well to have a few of those painted on you in indelible ink. But as far as all wonderful things go, we will hit the plateau sooner or later. So what if the stakes are high, and you now have things to lose, and risks to take, and the world to conquer and turn into your own personal TV room. It works well to stand by and reaffirm a love placed only in unattainable things. For all the countless things that you stand to win over, it works well to make note of the ones you lose. The balance tips much too easily, you see. Our beginnings never really know our ends.

This Month's Misadventures, Part 1 - Phuket and Koh Phi Phi.

The much-awaited holiday finally happened. I got to tour the islands and various beaches of Southern Thailand. And since there are a few experiences in life that you just cannot hope to draw into, explicate, or approximate in words, I'll just have to go with "AMAZING", and be done with it. Or, I could try this: 

 

Phi Phi Don

A decision has been made. I was born to live by a beach. No, really. Never am I happier than when I'm either underwater, or over it. And recently, I did both within in a span of 3 hours. More about that later. 

So, fully capitalizing upon a fateful escape from the traps of doom(college) and the supreme awesomeness of my parents, the most blissful, hedonistic, mind-numbingly sensational holiday was had. Braving the edifice that is the T3 terminal, over-familiar immigration officers, and the various aforementioned perils that come with air travel(the least of which is a plane crash), my flight descended on the island of Phuket, in the land of smiles and flagrant transgression. Now, most people who know me, are aware of my obsessive love for the country. What's not to love? The warm tropical weather, the beautiful untouched beaches, the extremely friendly people, the good life. But if I had to put a finger on the one thing I love most about Thailand, it would be that that it feels like the entire country is in a perpetual state of revelry and indulgence- bacchanalian, spiritual or otherwise. Thus, Phuket welcomed with sun, sand, surf, and this:

 

Of course, it was rather amazing that my hotel was a 5-minute walk from Patong beach, which treats ones sore eyes to the sights as refreshing as this:

 

 And this:

Where there were tiny, white crabs darting around everywhere in the sand. Pretty little things, those.

...and nightlife that no pictures will ever do justice to.But any seasoned travel-glutton will vouch for the fact that the best thing about a good hotel is the breakfast buffet. Which I was too busy wolfing down to take pictures of. Just let it be said that danish waffles will be the death of me someday.

Then came the Phi-Phi Islands. But before that, there came the ferry to Phi-Phi Islands. 

  

...and even before that, came the storm. (Notice ominous clouds). 

For the uninitiated:

Storm + Sea = Rough Sea

      Rough Sea + Ferry = Not-a-good-idea

Also, owing to the peculiar strain of irrational bravado that runs in my family, I found myself on the unsheltered top deck. Hanging on for dear life(literally). Without a life-jacket. The waves hitting the ship were so high, that they crashed ON us. On the 3rd deck. Now as exciting and once-in-a-lifetime an experience that may be, yours truly did little more with it than puke her way to glory, all the way to Phi Phi Don. I'll leave out the gory details. But on arriving, it was clear that it was well worth it. I'd do it a thousand times over. Why? 

Here's why:

Blue-green water. White sand. And because of the peculiar alignment on the hills and the island, the waves never reach the beach. All you have are soft ripples on the surface of what looks like a crystal-clear lagoon. Imagine that!

 

I may have known beauty of several kinds, but it's hard to beat one that you can dive headfirst into. 

Then there was Phuket again. And the Chalong temple. And Patong by night. Not to mention, the photogenic cat!

 

Chalong Temple, Phuket

With that ended, the first leg of the tour. Coming soon: Pattaya and Koh Lam.

Exam-Day Blah.

Every time I'm on an airplane, I pray to the forces that be, not to be seated anywhere close to any tiny human below the age of 10. Also, I try to understand why kids aren't sedated and shipped in cages, like pets are. I fail every time. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, and it taxis on the tarmac, I feel like I'm sitting on the back of an ostrich. An ostrich that just keeps running around, refusing to accept the fact that it would never take flight. And then, it does. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, I look out the window and stare at the ground below, and make special note of the moment when I can no longer spot vehicles moving on highways. In that moment, I feel very tiny indeed.

Every time I'm on an airplane, I imagine what it would be like if all the engines fail and the plane crashes. Which one of the people sitting around me would be the first to lose it, the ensuing chaos. And who looks like they're most likely to live, who look like they're most likely to die. Then I start thinking about karma, and thoughts like those are always interrupted by things of greater importance. Like crappy airline food, refreshment towels, and the stewardess with over-tweezed, painful-looking eyebrows. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, I make it a point to browse through every mode of in-flight entertainment, scroll through every movie available, pick the one that interests me most, and then proceed to not watch it. 

Every time I'm on an airplane, and am about to deboard, I am overcome with a very pleasant feeling that I don't really care to describe in words. It makes me want to never go back to where I came from, because I want nothing more than to fly so fast, that I can leave this life behind.

A Little Bit of India. Everywhere.

Batu Caves, Malaysia

February 2010

The Current.

Bach. Wodehouse. Suspension in time.
Also, 8 days to Phuket. 

Disconnected inferences are back.

Ever-mundane urban life lulls us into a false sense of security, where we never expect much to ever happen. So complete is the illusion in its surreptitiousness, that one fine day we're all just walking around with blind spots the size of football stadiums. And then we blame the butterfly for the hurricane.

Clarity.

Having spent most days of the past raised to eternity fumbling around for probable cause, or hoping to accidentally chance upon sporadic reasons to justify that which is bound by four cycles of the clock, it feels like a brand new set of your senses have been awakened when dreams are separated by dreams alone, and reality isn't just a desperate attempt to imitate imagination. Reality, after all this time, is imagination. Not through the blurring of lines that separate the two, but as a consequence of absolute clarity. When you view the world through a microscope, everything begins to look like everything else. In the end, it is only when you look very closely that you start to lose your differences.

Few things in life disappoint more than a drizzle, when what you really need is for the heavens to pour forth and wash everything familiar away.

The Unbearable Vexation of Being.

A day in this city means running into about 5 complete strangers that I want to yell at for their appalling behavior, utter lack of common sense, and/or general misconduct. It takes a lot of restraint and a good portion of one's strength to suppress that urge, because it is irrational to complain about such things in this country. When being unreasonable, ignorant, and ill-behaved is socially acceptable, what can one do? And the suppression is exhausting. One must not have to live like this. A life of being in a constant state of anger and the need to scream one's lungs out. Delhi, I love you. But you're wearing me down.

On Reality.

"What is meant by 'reality'? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable - now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech - and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in the shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. This is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates."

-Virginia Woolf

(A Room of One's Own)

Guilt.

Possibly the only distressing emotion that doesn't leave me feeling hollow. Definitely the only one that has me wishing that it did.

Dear Yesterday,

I will forever thank the universe for the fact that you went exactly the way you did. 

Dear Today, 

I wish I had been more considerate, more prudent, and less given to base self-indulgence(the crazy, demented, destructive, sick-and-twisted kind). 

Dear Tomorrow,

Be kind. Guilt alone is excruciating.