After 'The End'

It took me three and a half years, but I'm finally at that point where TUCS is actually complete. I finished the book.

Yes there's around seven years of editing, renaming, rephrasing and adding 'intensity' that I have to get through, but that's another thing. As a story, and as a story that satisfies me, its done.

I can't believe I actually got to this point, and the funny thing is it's not scary anymore.

No, nothing excites me in this moment to write the way TUCS did, but I still do write a page or two on random topics.

Will I ever write a book that's at least 147 pages of a Word Document in size 12 font - I don't know.
Does that worry me - No.

And that's all that matters right?

Love and the Magnitude of Human Stupidity

The thing with love is you can’t ignore it.

You can’t push it to the back of your mind, like just another trivial thing on your never ending to-do list. It occupies the front row- inflicts blunt force trauma to your head, takes over your brain and ensures that you are incapable of thinking of anything else.

Love isn't convenient. It isn't supposed to be. It isn't easy. And it honestly isn't supposed to be. And saying that over and over again doesn't make it any easier. Take Love Aaj Kal for example- and most relationships today are like that. No wonder then that they don’t end happily. You can’t be practical about love; you can’t write the pros and cons and do a SWOT analysis irrespective of how good at strategy planning or disaster management or conflict resolution you are.

I love the movie for what it says about our generation and its immense and infinite stupidity. We don’t even know what love means and we go around pretending to be these experts, counseling every soul and then some, on what they should do to be happy.

I love the older generation- their simplicity when it came to relationships and the way they were willing to compromise and the way they didn’t care about the ‘distance’. We crib about long distance relationships and ironically today is an era of communication where everything and everyone is only trying to bridge the gap, shrink the distance between two continents, two countries, and most importantly two people- two hearts.

So why, why can’t we accept that love isn’t trouble-free, or undemanding. It can’t be, it never can be. 

Simply because it’s everything. It’s all consuming, overwhelming and devastating. It’s heartbreaking and it can’t not be.

And sometimes irrespective of everything I've said here, you need to let go - you need to move on.

Maddening Mondays

Anger is never really a good emotion - or a good state of being. It's just so unsettling.

I know I've said before that I need to be mad, annoyed, upset - heartbroken to write but maybe I've changed. I can't write despite the fact that I'm so emotionally overwhelmed right now that I need to write.

Or maybe its because, finally my characters have gotten over their stupidity and their emotional tragedies so they need me to be sane when I'm writing. They've grown up. (I feel like such a parent now)

I don't know, I really don't know what it is. But I know that I can't write TUCS right now and that just somehow makes things worse.

*need windy terrace and peace of mind now*

On a different note, its been an interesting week. (day?) Maybe it was a bad dream that led to it, but I've realised (at least for now) that happiness matters more than what you want and where you want to be.

If you're happy now, how does anything else matter?

Miles to Go, Before I Sleep

I've been seriously writing for a while now - because I think I can't breathe or read anything else, until I get TUCS out of me. At this point in my life, somehow everything is about Karan-Zoya.

Would Karan wear this shirt? Would Zoya actually say this? Would they watch this movie on their second date?

Its exhausting. And its also annoying because no matter where I go or what I'm doing - I'm living their life and not mine.

At work (yes, its been a year of that which is why I really don't write anymore), there are moments when I just stop and think of what Zoya would do if she was here. And that's proof of how insane I'm becoming because Zoya isn't even in this profession.

Anyway, so I am at an interesting point right now because the next ten pages I write will basically take the biggest decision there is - Does this book have a happy ending or a sad one?

Its a question that has haunted me since I wrote the first page in February 2010, and tragically enough I still don't have an answer.

I don't know if I should just leave it to "Fate", where I just write and see where the story takes me, or if I should actively take this decision and then choose to go down a particular path.

Mind over Matter, Heart vs. Brain?

It seems weak and silly to leave it to Fate when I've invested so much in TUCS but I don't think I have the strength in me to choose.

Hopefully, by September 30th, 2013 - we'll know :) 

Attraversiamo

Its been a while. 

That's an understatement, I know. I've never gone so long without writing, and so much has changed in the past 11 months. 

I'm wiser, and stupider, and as always as much a worrier. What's strange and funny though is that today, I knew I had to write, and there wasn't even a moment's hesitation.

It's the one thing that comes naturally to me, like swimming for a fish or chasing frogs for a dog. (It's a whole different thing that its too rare!)

Its a start, to something different, something new, and I'm hoping that with it, it's going to bring some fresh thinking, and the completion of TUCS. 

Feels good to be back. :) 

I'll Be There For You*

*Terms and Conditions apply.
Offer valid only if I'm in the mood to be there for you and if I have the time, which I never will. But anyway.

More often than not, when people say this line, they forget to include the asterisk and the attached terms and conditions. And we, stupidly enough believe them.

And even when its staring at us right in the face, for reasons best known to us, we choose to ignore the sign. And that's absurd really.

My point today is this- Nothing in life is unconditional anymore is it? We promise to be there for our best friends, we promise to love people forever, we promise to never give up.
But all of that is valid only when the world isn't being a bitch to you, and that is what maybe once a week, twice possibly if the gods are being kind?

Now I'm not just bitching about the world here like I normally do. Its me too. I'm selfish. More than I ought to be, and more than I want to be.

I want to be there for people, and I want to care. But I can't quite bring myself to. I don't know if its the heat, or the fact that life is annoying, but something has changed. And I think they call it growing up.

And that's just it. Life was simpler back then. And happier. And there were no implied asterisks that you had to watch out for.

Three Years and A Lifetime of Memories

I have no words, and that's a first because I generally don't shut up.
Three years of college have gone by, with the best year obviously slipping away so quickly, that I never got to just sit in class. I still keep thinking that it's July. Except it's not, and March is coming to an end.
When I first joined Francis, I never quite thought I'd feel this way, I never ever thought I'd miss this place, or cry over the fact that it's all coming to an end. But that's just the thing.
It's the people I met here that have changed it all and made college so brilliant.
Whether its sitting outside the language staff room and eating the canteen food with two of my best friends, or bunking class on 'work' with the COFEE gang, or meeting my Gemini 'twin' for a hurried stupid crisis, or studying in the car at 8 am for the exams with my marketing partner, I'm actually going to really miss this place. I'm even going to miss the green classrooms, and the stupid exam forms, the annoying certificates and the bad-vibes library. Third year especially has been absolutely brilliant with the best lecturers, so much work, so much bitching, a little studying, a fantastic organisation that can just about make anything happen, a Kotler seminar, a management fest, two marketing orientations and two absolutely epic farewells.
If I had to live it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing!
Because in the end, it all turned out okay. More than okay.