There are very few things that feel ethereal for me. Being agnostic in nature, that’s saying something. There is only one thing that even remotely makes me feel there’s something ‘godly’ of sorts - the vast ocean. The one place that I find this feeling to be most is at Pondicherry. I first visited the place when I was nine or ten of age. I fell in love with the place. I felt something that I’d never felt before. I was literally in awe of the sea. I’d been to various beaches before, yes. But there was something about this small town with French elements scattered here and there that grabbed the attention of my ever wandering mind.
The charm of the place lies in its plainness. The French part of the town is much different from the other parts. The roads here are narrow, short and tiled. The houses are structured differently. The smell of the sea in the air can’t be missed. The humidity, the sun, the wind - all of it just right. The seashore is barricaded by large, black boulders. Sitting on one of those and staring out at the sea all day is what I went for the last time. I took time off from work, from my family, from everything. The waves hitting the lower rocks, the white frothy water receding just as the next wave comes in... The best part is the sound of the sea. The morning blue-green waters to the dark ones during the night, the sound of the waves as they come crashing on the rocks, the wind bellowing, everything is just enthralling. No other place with the sea brings out such a feeling in me. There's something about Pondicherry...
To travel by oneself is something that everyone must do. It is a truly amazing and fulfilling experience. You are at peace with yourself. For me, Pondicherry is the getaway place.
My sister’s school exhibition was held today. Just a little after noon, I took her to the school. It had rained in the late morning, so we couldn’t leave earlier. Unfortunately for us, the exhibits were dismantled and the classrooms closed by the time we arrived there. My sister didn’t mind it. Now, my pre-university college is in the same campus as her school. Same building if you want me to be more specific.
Sis : Lets go upstairs. I’ll show you my computer classroom!
Me : I know where it is.
‘Course I knew. It’s on the same floor as my classroom in 2nd PU. As I climbed the stairs behind the stage, I had a rush of mixed emotions. I expected them. But I still didn’t know how to deal with them.
At the landing of the third floor, straight ahead of me was, well, the loo. But just before that is the staff room. (It’s not as bad as you think.) To my immediate left is my classroom for the 2nd year. One of the non-teaching staff was cleaning out the staff room. She comes out.
Me : Isn’t anyone here?
The cleaner : None right now. They just left.
Me : Oh. Ok. Anyone in the labs? SumanaMam?
The cleaner : Ah.. She must be there. Not sure.
I look at the newly fitted notice board on the wall. It’s filled with notices on the cricket team. Mostly. I smile.
I enter my classroom. The computer lab attendant is writing down the register numbers on the desks. I look around at the empty room. To me, it seems as if I’m actually IN it. At the moment, I’m in THAT moment. I smile again. I withdraw myself from the room.
Me : Come on. Lets go to the 4th floor.
Sis : I’ll show you my yoga class.
She runs up the stairs. I take my own time. I take the immediate right at the 4th floor landing.
Sis : Here. Come on.
She opens the second door on the right cautiously.
Sis : This is my yoga classroom!
Me : Hmmm.
I walk a few steps ahead. The most secluded spot in the college, just near my 1st year classroom. It was huge.That brought back many memories. We’d put up a bench-desk there outside. Or maybe it was already there. Saturday mornings were the best. We had classes from 12 then. Physics class. We used to arrive leisurely... sit there on that bench. Gossip. Talk. That corner was the best.
I stand there and text everyone telling them about my location. Mixed types of replies I got.
One even asked if I was pms-ing when I said I got nostalgic. :D
I walk towards the physics and chemistry lab. I stand at the center of the corridor and look ahead. Below me I can see the ground. In front of me on the third floor I can see the classrooms. Directly in my line of sight, on the other side, I can see indoor games room. I slightly look up.
The grey clouds. The wind. The light rain. JUST like how it was in those days, standing there outside our classroom.
The physics lab had a few students inside. I walk past it without looking in. My sister peeps.
Me : Don’t look inside like that!
Sis : You were asking about some teacher!
Me : Not HER!
The chemistry lab. MeeraMam is inside. So are a few students. I see that there’s no other lecturer. I walk a little ahead and stop. I can see inside of the lab. Students are working. I tuck my hands inside my jackets’ pockets and stand. The chem lab attendant comes from behind me. He recognizes me.
Him : How are you?
Me : Namskara Sir. Fine. Yourself?
*Tilts his head to his left and slightly closes his eyes. A gesture to be taken as “Everything fine here too”.
Him : How are things going for you?
Me : Great.
Him : You had come to the exhibition?
Me : Yes.
Him : Do have relatives studying here?
*I put my hand over my sisters’ shoulder and say,*
Me : Yes. My sister.
Him : Your sister? Own?
*I nod my head*
Him : Which standard?
Sis : I’m in third.
Him : Ok.
Me : Ok bye Sir.
I turn around.
*My sis spots an open door.*
Sis : That’s the terrace!
Me : Hmmm.
We climb down the stairs and reach the ground floor. I look around. I miss the place. It wasn’t much. But then again, maybe it was.
Memories. Lots of them.
The girls, the guys, the crushes, the tears, the bunking, the classes, the lecturers, the crushes again, all that. I miss it. A lot.
:)
One of my friends said, “I swear that place still haunts me in my dreams”. I second his statement.
Picture courtesy : Another blog I’ve always had a split mind on fortune telling. Like, take the daily horoscopes in the newspapers or on your TataSky. If you read them at the end of the day, you tend to relate to it, irrespective of the fact that it might NOT actually be so. On the contrary, if you read it before your day starts, you will not think twice about it. Rest assured, I read the horoscopes myself.
It so happened that today after college one of my friends spotted a parrot fortune teller and brought him over to his place. The fortune teller charged 21 INR per person. My friend went ahead first. The fortune teller took the cash and coaxed the bird out of its cage. The parrot trotted over to the set of cards, kept inside open booklets, placed before him and while the teller chanted something, it took off the cards one by one and laid them down, before taking one booklet aside and going back inside the cage. As the fortune teller spoke in the local language, I had to translate it. I don’t know if what he told about my friend was completely true or otherwise, but it was quite fascinating to listen to him. One of the girls went next. The parrot picked up a card like last time. The teller informed that her fortune was so huge that he would have to use shells (kinda like the conch, I have no idea what you call it in English) and then would have to read her palm to tell her fortune. And of course, that it would cost 250 INR. My friend refused to go ahead with it.
Next went another guy. Done with translating his, I too took out the cash from my wallet thinking, ‘What the heck! Lets give it a shot.’
Now, would you know! The parrot selected a booklet with NO cards in it. The guy was like, “Your fortune is too big and complicated to tell just by this. You too have to do it with the shells.”
I, being the ever suspicious girl that I am, say “What? You said the same thing to the other girl!”. He replies, “She got a pack with full God cards. You have NO card in yours. The fortune telling will cost you 250 Rupees. It is a good day today. Try it out”. I refuse. “250 Rupees is too much. “ “How much are you willing to pay?”.
He sees my hesitation. He coaxes the parrot out again, shuffles the booklets and asks it pick one up again. Surprisingly, it AGAIN picked up the same one with no cards. “You have the look and the glow of Goddess Lakshmi in your face. (Which, I think, he said just because of my complexion.) I can see that you are interested. You want to know. You have questions you need answers for. I can see things in your left eye. Don’t say no.”
Yeah right. Play around with my psyche and expect me NOT to go ahead with it? So, there I went. Shelling out 200 INR. I took the 9 shells he offered and threw them down three times. He then took a look at my hand and started talking fortune. I got down to listening it, while translating snippets of it to my friend who was with me.
Now, even though most of it was general, I was mighty surprised about some of the stuff he said. They were entirely true, I tell you. If you know me well, you’d know that I am NOT a girl to be fooled easily... True, he might have just asked the parrot using a code word or something to pick a booklet with no cards so that he could draw easy cash from me, but then, what he actually told me, made me think twice about the fortune telling stuff. Certain things he said were so damn true. He spoke for about 20-30 minutes. I was listening with deliberation.
At the end of the day, do I regret spending that cash? I was saving it for something, but no. I don’t entirely regret it. It was worth it. It could be my once in a life thing with a fortune teller. You never know!
I use the FM feature in my cell phone to the fullest extent at night. Songs from the available stations continue to play right from around 2200 hours to 0700 hours the next morning. Till 0000 hours I keep changing stations. 0000 hours till 0100 hours I listen to 94.3. I later switch over to Indigo.
The night before last at around 0257 hours, I was woken up by the song ‘I still’ by BSB being played on Indigo. It had been a really long time since I’d actually heard that track from BSB’s previous album. It reminded me of my first year in college. My 1st PU. BSB songs, the ones from the album ‘Never gone’ specifically, evoke one picture in my mind. The dark grey skies as seen from the 4th floor where our classroom back then was located. And the rain and wind too. It also brings back a kind of mood that I’ll try my best to describe here. Its something like a ‘mazed’ mind. I really am not able to elucidate it well. More like, a mystified yet at peace state of mind. Heck! I was barely 17 then! Those songs ALWAYS do bring that feeling in me. And that scene from outside our classroom. Lovely location that, you know? It was the airiest room ever. High above the rest. I miss that place.
But I still am not able to get over that response I get from myself whenever I listen to BSB.
Grey clouds roofed the vast sky. Winds at high speeds were directed in one course by the angry heavens above. The vicinity looked deserted till the horizon. No birds flew. The little vegetation present swayed silently as though there was a kind of absolute stillness in the chaotic atmosphere. The dark waters of the raging sea drew a contrast in color to the shimmering sand that bordered it. The blowing winds carried the whiff of the saline water.
The nymph stood in a graceful poise by the water such that the gushing waves thinned out at her feet. She held her hands against her chest with her fingers interlocked. Her long white gown rippled to the strong breeze, her dark hair not framing her delicate features. With her neck arched at an angle of self repose, she gazed at the thin horizon beyond the turbulent sea.
The heavy winds threatened to quaver her. The streaks of lightning and the claps of thunder fiercely promised to let the dark clouds open up. Specks of the frosty sea water cooled her fevered skin. Her brown eyes sparkled with an unusual fervor at the contemplation of what lay ahead.
She took her gaze off the waters and looked at the clouds above. The skies lit up with the increasingly continuous flashes of lightning. The winds billowed and howled. Yet she stood still, never altering her stance. Thick drops of rain water splattered on her face. The water washed away her silent tears, while a smile played on her lips.
The vicious weather swore to never cease, the sea to never let her down. And the nymph stood there for eternity.
What does one make of them? Pick on any one for that matter. The bond that you have with your parents. This one’s a pretty easy one. Its not that hard. Though its upto you to maintain it well, mostly. It doesn’t require much effort. It comes naturally.
What about the relationships that you share with a person/persons outside your family members? Be it your classmates or colleagues. THIS aint easy, is it now? Compromise, adaptation, acceptance and yes, endurance is required to sustain it and keep it from crumbling.
Thanks to that very good friend of mine, I’ve been listening to this far too many times. The video is lame. It’s a rip off of an AmrDiab number.
But it holds a special place for me.
(I’m not going to say “It holds a special place in my heart” and make it sound all corny. But then again, maybe I just did.)
My parents made me listen to a track on the thinking patterns of the human mind. Mostly to do with positive thinking. Just like that. It was really good.
That brought back two memories.
One, when my Mamma had commented that I am a positive person a few years ago. I don’t think she’d agree with her previous statement now. Two, where one of my previously good friends kept urging me to read the book titled “The power of positive thinking”, which I still haven’t.
A few things have come out. And here I was thinking a confrontation was needed.
Have you ever felt like this? Even though you expect something, when that eventually comes/occurs, you cant take it in you. Its JUST way too hard. You expect something to happen, you know it will, but when it does, you are "torn". Now that reminds me of Natalie Imbruglia's song Torn.
