A Swirly Sweet Lollipop

I distinctly remember myself when I came here. Wire rimmed, metal spectacles, anorexic in a bad way, dark circles, sunken cheeks and zero percent of what I am today. For a change, I was a quiet little child who used to sit into her room all day, reading some book, in a dark blue skirt or tunic. Now, I talk so openly its often offensive.
Here is why, I am that way.

I had always longed for a park.

Sweet, fresh air, soft grass, rides and lots and lots of friends. It was a dream. So when Papa got transferred to Kolkata, all my sadness evaporated as soon as I heard there was a park.
I didn't have many friends. I wasn't very social. Lucknow was a crowded, messed up city, where my life solely existed in trips between my grandparent's houses. It was relatives here and there, and none of the fun stuff.

I was in this really weird school, and hell, was it traumatizing. Despite having a large population, mainly consisting of Muslims, Lucknow did a lot to damage my self esteem. These girls, who believed in a different kind of God, kept saying things about what I do dirty and what I do wrong. We were very small then. I'm sure she has grown into a mature, responsible teen with an open mind, and she doesn't go around saying things like that anymore. I hope.

I often look back and regret not retorting, actually telling them how logical my religion was, the way I enlighten all my friends today. CMS Aliganj was definitely a good school in many ways, and will always be an integral part of my grooming, but I sometimes wish they had done more "to educate children and endeavor to unleash their potential" , the way it was so pompously written in the school prospectus. I wish they taught children that every individual is worth attention and thought, and people always believe for a reason, however bizarre it may be. 

When I shifted into Udita, I thought I'd slip away unseen. But someone had seen me.
Anamika and her family stood there, on their doorstep, watching us. Neighbors didn't play much role in my life. They were always too annoying, excessively girly or boyish to a fault. I had no idea how much fun I would be having.

From the first day I came over to her house to the last time recently when I've watched a movie with her, both of us have changed a lot. 
The the sweet little girl who used to twist the chains of a child's swing, and spin around in glee now came over to my house every single year. Now my brother was her brother. I still remember our highly awkward first Rakshabandhan. Silently tying rakhi to Jon, we then stood inches apart from each other in the lobby. Then my mom appeared from somewhere with a bag. My brother ran up to each of us, handing us something.

It was one of those giant, round lollipops. The sticky ones which never seem to end. I recall staring at all the swirly colors in terror. How will I finish that without gaining a calorie or too?
What I hadn't noticed was that Anamika had already hugged her lollipop and Jon, and was dancing with joy. She went home very happy, and I got a hug too. 

She has helped me open up to a degree I would've never been able to reach. She was my first, proper friend who has fought for me, with me, laughed at me, with me, as well as being my only companion who was solemn about the injured butterflies I used to save in the park. ( I think you can guess why this paragraph is buttercup yellow)

 My boldness and all I have today is  because of the endless debates we have. The skill of explaining things to people,which I have been terribly arrogant about lately, is only because its so much fun to teach her things I know, and give her my easier-said-than-done advice. The only difference is that years ago it was about what dress to wear and today its about her love life.

I never thank her. I'm the kind of person who doesn't write her a tbh, or a fill in the blank thingy on Facebook, or a description. She always whines. What she doesn't know is that I'm scared people will block me from their Newsfeed after reading..... Iliad 2, probably.

Our friendship is exactly like that lollipop. That sticky, irritating sweetness keeps us together like glue, and the swirly streams of color are what each one of us has woven within it. You know the best part? Its round. It has no spiteful edges and jealous corners, and let me tell all those people who are envious of our friendship one last thing:

Its going to be a long, long time before we both finish this lollipop. 

Because Doing Random Things Can Just Be Fun.

It was a long, long time ago, when I was living out one of the best days of my school life. It was the last day of Class 7 before the vacations, and there was no better way to end it than by the board decoration competition the season bought.
Class 7B was easily the best class I ever had, and that day we were doing what we did best - Work as a team. From all the nerds to the loafers, the bright to the pretty, were all working together in rhythm. Have you ever visited a craft exhibit?

I was fortunate enough to visit one, actually. I'm not a huge fan of art, but the moment I entered the place, I was mesmerized. Tiny little children were running around carrying dozens of papier mache masks, the aroma of fresh acrylic paint, sawdust changed to fairy dust as it floated around in the sunlight, and above all, the busy and animated atmosphere.No one was bothered what the other was doing, as if clones dazzled by their hobby's charisma. 

My class was somewhat like that, today. People running around and talking to someone they never had before, yelling, screaming, joy and happiness. And of course, the omnipresent, I-don't-care-as-long-as-I'm-not-in-trouble, teacher. It was a Sir in my case.
He was getting incredibly restless. I think he was developing a complex about how well our class was doing or something, because that minute he called me and told me to go check on his class, 8J, who was also supposed to be doing the board. 
I left with a heavy heart, weighed down with reluctance. But now when I think of it, It lights up with happiness.
It was as if 8J existed in a parallel universe from 7B. It was empty, with exception of two guys and a girl.

Pinaki!

Pinaki, that Narmada house prefect whose name I had heard so many times during Investiture practice.
Then the comedy of the situation I couldn't hold within me any longer. I spilled my guts on why I was really here.
They laughed when they heard that their poor class teacher was having a mini heart attack worrying about his board. I left with a broad smile on my face.

Somewhere later on in life, I came across Pinaki again, on somebody's status update on Facebook. I sent a friend request. She accepted. It was then that I realized from my Newsfeed that she had actually left the school.
After maybe an year, I complimented her One Tree Hill Ask.fm cover. She did the same, though I bet it wasn't politeness because mine was a hot guy's. No one hates Nathan Fillion.

This whole thing. Sending her a request when I didn't even know her, something my mom might kill me for, the compliment, laughing at our mutual teacher, was so completely random. If I had wanted, I could have turned away from 8J, mumbling some excuse. I could have ignored Pinaki on that update. I might have just mentally saluted that OTH cover. But I did what I did. And here's what happened.
In a few months, she got a willing biography writer and I got one of the most wonderful friends I have ever befriended. Pinaki is a lot of things, and a great conversationalist is one of them.
If people read this sometime, which I doubt they would, please don't bombard her Fb box with friend requests. She isn't very kind to anonymous people.
Don't take her case. Because only I can do that. Same applies for writing a sappy blog post on her.
She absolutely ADORES Little Mix...and me. :P, So don't insult us unless you want some broken bones.

And above all don't be afraid to do unfamiliar, strange stuff. Because doing random things can get you a lot of places.  Because doing random things can just be fun.

Making Everyone A Bibliophile.

2009. Class 4. First Day.

Yay. A whole new class! I finally got a chance to make an impression. You see, when you haven't been in school since LKG like all your cool friends, it gets kinda difficult. Especially when you come from this really conservative and decent place, and here the 4th graders have already started talking about crushes and dating.
In class 4, we didn't really have the liberty of choosing our interest, as in ADMS. Art, Dance and Music. Yes, I have no idea what that S stands for.
We had one class every week of each of the things, excluding Art , that was double period. So while my young mind and bright eyes were devouring each and every space of my new school, I got to taste the best of all worlds before I finally made a choice in Class 6.
Yes, my heart leaped at the fact that we were allowed to issue and take our library books home. I had already started Blyton when I was in Class 3, you know, had visited a finer world than Ladybird.
Mary and the Lamb wasn't really much to survive on when I longed to read about Buster and Scamper.
Library sessions were quiet and boring, and I've always found that to be a mistake. The fun part about books is that its such a substantial and prodigious topic to speak about. Sharing your favorite bits with a wide eyed friend,  arguing on the protagonist's perfect love interest. Sitting quietly in the library, hiding all your smiles and snorts at the funny Asterix jokes, being constantly reprimanded, and the posters, did I mention the posters? All those sinister soft board posters, showing pictures of an angry book with a mean look, scaring you.
When I was a child, I, like many other children, had always wanted to grow up. Put on Mom's makeup, walk down the streets with a sparkling new purse and buying my favorite candies. I managed to fulfill that desire too, because you don't have to be a 40-year old to enjoy beautiful pieces of literature. You are always admired when you're well read. And as for those who call book readers nerds or geeks, I feel just sad for them.

 Over the years I have come across such wonders, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, Ostinato, 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher,The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Divine Comedy by Dante. They have changed the way I live my life, my priorities, my perspective. Yes, most of them are philosophical, but imagine the beauty when you realize they speak in your language. Things you understand and greatly admire. We all have lovely parents who can climb mountains of thorns probably to make us happy. They try to warn us, about the deceptively thrilling things in life. More then often I have found that even though I am against my mother when she tries to speak to me, when the same incidents and reasons are portrayed through a more fictitious yet real character in a book, I find myself nodding my head. Its something strange, the way books can be your best friend. 

They say your life isn't complete if you haven't completely and madly fallen in love with someone. I was lucky enough to experience that, too. I slowly found myself falling for Four's enigma, Jace's charisma and the dramatic flair in all the Agatha Christie villains.

Yes, it hurt when they met their "one true love".

I have been lucky enough to live in a world where books speak out to me, each and every redundant syllable. I have been lucky enough to have my heart race and feel adrenaline down my spine when an antagonist appears. I have been lucky enough to have found a perfectly enjoyable excuse to stay up late at night. I have been lucky enough to know the true meaning of the statement "Time flies". This was just my little attempt to share some of my luck with you.

"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book"
 -John Green, TFIOS

The Water's Always Changing....

"The water's always changing, always flowing, but people, I guess, can't live like that"
-Pocahontas, yet another Disney wonder.

Your life starts as a patch of mud, rocky, uneven, impure, unsure. Time, acting upon it as a  flowing river, softens it, breaks it down, into a smooth, level land, where you and all the people you care about can build happiness together. 

Wounds do go away. Time heals them, but like everything life does for you, it doesn't leave you with any promise or reassurance. Nope. That's something which tests your heart and its power, to trust and forget. Most of us aren't really strong enough to do that.

When something, hell, add any noun in front of "some", which you hold dear to you is taken away from you, or worse still, you are the one responsible for all the destruction you've bought upon them, it takes way more than " Its okay, nothing you can do" to help creep out of the corner you've hidden yourself in. So to all my dear friends, I know you do it out of the purity of your heart, but don't try to console anyone when they let out a torrent of tears on a torrid day. Believe me, sympathy is the worse thing you can offer.

In my opinion, which I was free to express when I last checked, Walt Disney has been THE greatest creator of fiction ever born. Every character that takes shape from the folds of his imagination entraps a portion of his soul, his emotions in it. Be it Aurora longing for freedom, Belle's defiance to protect someone you love, or even Anna, being repeatedly shut out. It was he, who gave every little princess a Charming to dream about, even if girls have started seeing Charmings in every tramp they come across, but that's really not the point. 
The human who inspired setting your mind free, belief in yourself, individuality.

So when someone asked me to abandon all that i'm good at to concentrate on something I'm not, I decided to say no, because you'll always see people that are better than you at things you aren't, you'll just never realize all the things you can do best. Even if there is enough on my CV already. 

Times have already leaped ahead, but alas, (if people even use that anymore), we haven't. We still live in that century where doctor or engineer is everything, artist, musician is fail, A girl with short hair and T-shirt and jeans is a GUY, and you just aren't meant to be who you are anymore. Shape yourself according to the family friend's children. Because even though there is a 90% chance you might turn out to be a prodigy, an enigma, you shouldn't care, because the society is going to brainwash you to just consider the 10% chance of failure.

The water's always changing, always flowing, but I guess people can't live that way.

Untitled.

One of the hardest jobs in the world, is giving names.

Naming a newborn baby, your blog post, your "scariest" teacher, your "coolest" classmate. Wouldn't you rather hang dumbbells from your eyelids?
(India's Got Talent. Don't ask how gruesome that was.)
Who, named the feeling of love, love, for the first time?
I decided to do my last minute panic research on Google. I was absolutely amazed to find, that while Google usually detects what you want to search, it was completely clueless about the name giver of love.

It kept giving me results for "Find your true love" or "True love meter", and after changing keywords for twenty times at least, I finally ended up with an answer on Ask.
The answer started with " Dear friend, after loads of research and checking up almost a hundred atlases...."
THAT, was what it took to find the person who coined the phrase "love." 

Even though it is said it was a Roman dude, people are chiming in, by saying it was Adam and Eve. Then again, someone actually took offense that people were looking for the discovery and origin of the word. According to them "Luv iss juts not a wrd, it iss a felling tht cant b exprssd in wrds." 

This is copy paste, I swear.
Not only "love". I just did that to catch your attention. I know some people were thinking this might be such a romantic post, yay. Sorry to disappoint you.
Not only love, take time out and search for other emotions and who named them. You'll see that the search engine which provides us with a myriad of links for all other topics, will have limited answers for something. You must admit, though. It does feel good to let Google down, sometimes. Don't tell Google. They may, dunno, cancel my account or something.
Worse still, block me from searching stuff.
I'm so flunking Class 9.

Moreover, I have even seen this, that people absolutely love...no pun intended, to alter, the given names. I have been Jafari, Zufur, Juffar, forget it. This is getting too damn painful. I take this opportunity to tell you how to pronounce my last name. (It's spelt as Jaffar, but you say it like Jaafur, "a" as in America.) But its a fact, and the most annoying thing on the planet (Except for maybe Candy Crush game requests.)
 
Then again, names are an art. How many of us don't marvel at one of our friend's name extraordinaire?
It strikes a feeling of unfamiliarity in you. Unfamiliarity comes with an air of mystery. And everyone loves mysteries. Not just the now-very-predictable-sadly Christie ones.

Everything you do, ignites some kind of feeling in you. You must be feeling something right now as well. You might be thinking "Her first one was better", "Is it over yet?" "What a lovely power nap". You might have blown more air out of your nose than usual when you read the lame attempts to make you laugh.
More than anything, you must be laughing at me. Yes.

Because I am the one who is coming over here and giving you this ginormous lecture about names, when the stark reality is I'm the last person to come to for naming suggestions EVER . This was the first time I wanted to write without wondering about a name for the post.
This is a tip for those who get stuck on titles, like me. It has bailed me out countless number of times. Never try to fixate upon trying to name your pieces based on what they are about. Try naming them on what stands out more in it, what do people feel when they read it.

Dissing all the tips right now, I cannot help but feel, that after reading this, you may not be satisfied with whatever title I give this post.
So let's stick to my computer teacher's least favorite word. We're learning about HTML web pages, and  she made the piggiest face when we asked her about what  happens when we don't want to give our web page a title.
I'll just leave this Untitled. 

Foreword

Its very rare, when a hobby becomes a career.

Some dream big, while others daren't dream.
But in the end, ''The road not taken'' becomes the main subject of repentance. However, I have learnt one thing in 13 years of age- life's choices are always risky. There is no guarantee that you'll become the next Warren Buffet if you give up painting.There is always a chance of failure, which, I am afraid, is forever greater than success.

If you want to pursue a hobby, better be amazing at it. Love it to the point of madness, like you've never loved anything before, and let people marvel at the results. 

When one of the greatest authors of all time, Roald Dahl, shared his story of how he became a writer (Lucky Break), he narrated an account of him meeting CS Forester, another magician with words. He himself claimed Mr. Forester to be a man in a wizard's attire, with a green, magical halo around him, or something to make him stand out from the rest of the crowd. A writer's got to be special. I mean, that's how he weaves such spells of delight.

Right?

But no. CS Forester was as ordinary as all of us, but he did have magic. He had magic in his fingers, in his mind, which took him to a parallel universe when he wrote. Sounds fell silent. Lights shone like pixie dust and your face heats up in exhilaration. And when you come back from your Planet Pandora? Your sheaf of paper would be filled with the next bestseller. 

You never know who you are when you love your hobby. Your persona is altered, and you become Peter Pan in your own Neverland  Your eyes shut and you disappear into the darkness, and you never want to come back.

Then nothing else matters.