The Third One- Of the Winds of Change

Transitions are never easy. They might leave you insanely happy, or might leave you frightened and broken. Or they just leave you feeling strange.



There's so much change in the world today. People are changing, lives are changing, social structure, mentalities, in fact everything is so different today than it was, say, ten years ago. Quoting friend and very talented writer Ritika, " It seems strange, but the word that is here to stay is Change." Obama was just the tip of the iceberg.

Why am I writing about change? I don't know myself, but somehow Facebook pictures are to blame. It's been four years since I walked out of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Public School, leaving a lot of good people and good memories. I don't forget people easily, and now when I look at facebook profile pictures, I sometimes am left shocked. A plump, very tomboyish girl (and by very tomboyish, I mean very- she used to think boys were better than girls) has become a slim and sexy siren. A very naughty kid in his younger years who used to play ball with my father before class (and once broke a window, I think :P) is now a cute young man doing his CA. Two troublemakers who used to get on the nerves of teachers at school and mine too at times :), got into Law School and Engineering (with pretty good ranks) and are doing very well.

A guy who used to call me ahem...names on the bus back home, is now a mature and intelligent guy, and an avid blogger with 24x7 opinions about the world. Another junior of mine, who is one of my closest friends, was a reed thin guy, half-my height, who would always hang out with girls (we called him a gynomaniac :), is now very tall, and still reed thin (and still poses like a girl).

In short, do people change that much? Does everyone turn into a new leaf in a few years? The change leaves me bewildered at times. In retrospect however, they might not have changed at all. They might have just shown their true colours (and I mean this in a good way) later. I guess we never know who we really are, when we're in school. As kids, we don't have opinions, or rather, we never think about having opinions. Everything is decided for us. It's only when we are teenagers, that we change. It's only when we grow up, and are free (or at least, partially free) to make our own decisions or to explore the world on our own that we change.

This led me to ask one more question- Have I changed? I didn't think I did. Or at least when I began the whole self-evaluation thingy.

Have I changed? Oh god, so much. When I was in 3rd class, I used to feel scared that 1st and 2nd classes had already gone by, so fast. When I was in 10th, I was scared that my whole school life had passed me by in a flash, in a whisper and I didn't realize it. Now I'm nineteen, in 2nd year, wondering where the previous semester of college has gone. Okay, coming back to the point... I've changed.

I used to hate the idea of disco. I never wanted to be a teenager. I thought having boyfriends was disgusting. My aim in life was to work at the NASA. I used to think rock music was just plates being thrown together. I was the perfect teacher's pet. And oh, I was domineering and short-tempered.

Now, I want to go to the Disco (stupid timings at BPGC). I want to fall in love (read my earlier post talking about stupid lou). My aim right now is to finish college with a good CGPA, NASA baad mein. I love rock and metal, Guns' n' Roses, Queen and Floyd literally saved my life. I don't know any teachers here, but I wouldn't mind being a certain one's pet. And now, people say I'm too compromising, a doormat, and sickly sweet.

I don't understand how we change, so suddenly. How one day, we wake up and decide, I'm not going to look like that anymore. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to be different. I'm going to be much better than before. Maybe I'll never understand it. Maybe people will also never understand how and why they have changed. Because it's a long, slow process. Becaus eit comes upon us when we least expect it. Change and Transition, we're your pawns, dancing to your silly tunes, are we not?

Now I have to go and change.Literally. :P Dinner awaits, and today, i'm eating out-for a change.

The Second One-For Shwet Di and Ashu Jiju

There's a big space between November 20 and January 2. Big. It incorporates angry rants, attempts to understand the obfuscating ES1 portion, exams and marriages and PR work. You wonder how it all connects together, don't you? Well, a lot has happened between this post and the last.

Now, about marriages. Marriages are meant to be happy times when you spend time with family, spend a few days running around, party like hell at Sangeets, and look through a zillion mehendi designs before you finally pick one. Oh the hustle and bustle of the Great Indian Wedding!

I've never been to a wedding before (well, because most of my family consists of either jerks or they live in Kolkata, which is too far) and when my dear Didi's wedding was round the corner, I all but ran out of the gate at BITS-Goa. This is the girl who saw me the very day I was born. This was the didi who's old books I used at times. No, wait, the books were her brother's, my bhaiya's. And I was hardly able to make it to her wedding because of my exams.

Well, I did rush home on the 12th of December, and I was dressed in an hour, decked in my mum's gaudy jewelry, and a dear old sari that I wore on my Teacher's Day four years ago. We sped to the venue at the Taj, and barely made it in time.

My didi was a perfectly beautiful, gorgeous and elegant bride that day. She had never looked so wonderful as I saw her that day. And the whole thing about the shy, demure bride waiting to get married was thrown out of the window. When I went to visit her in the room, she came skipping to the door, and hugged me. She made one of her usual dry jokes, and we both started giggling. Yep, this was one very normal bride. Definitely not the ones you see on the K-serials, spouting fountains of tears during their Vidaai.

My Jiju is- there's no other word for it...awesome. I had never met him before, only seen pictures of him, yet at the wedding, he completely blew me away. He was warm, smart and funny, just perfect for my Didi. And they had such great chemistry together, laughing, smiling, looking great as the cute young couple in love.

And for the first time in my life, I had seen a proper wedding. And it was beautiful.

Talking about weddings always makes me think of love. There are so many kinds of it. You have old love, when you see a sweet old man still smiling at his wife of many years. That's the most beautiful kind of love, because it has sustained many years of hardships and happiness. Then you have the love-hate relationship, where people fight a lot, but ultimately can't do without each other (and the gang up on their children together :P- yep, you guessed who I'm referring to).

And you also have that intense, wild kind of love where one cannot live without the other. You know, the one typically shown in movies where the guy battles the girl's father till he gets the girl. And then you have what I call, friendship love, where the couple is great friends, they understand each other, they get along great and do fun things together (and no, it doesn't mean what you all are thinking :D).

And how can I forget crushes? The weirdest part is, you get crushes when you're not old enough to know that the word 'crush' even exists. And they're quite silly, often involving hot British Royals or hot Physics Teachers or just a fat guy six years your senior who joins the US Military.

Oh god, this is one disjointed post. :) Anywho, getting back to my sad descriptions of love, as I spent a lot of time at home, alone and bored, I kept contemplating on these things. I think I even left a comment on a friend's blog saying one of my New Year Resolutions is to fall in love. Hah, if falling in love were that easy. I kind of sound desperate, but there are times I wish I had fallen in love. Hard. Maybe I'd have gotten hurt, maybe it could have gone great, but instead of a silly crush, I'd have atleast something or someone concrete, to hold on to.

Okay, maybe it's getting too mushy. This is a girl's blog after all. Next time, I promise a sensible post. No more rants about the elusive 'lou'.

This post is dedicated to Shweta Di and Ashu Jiju, with my best wishes. I love you guys!