Did I drive you away?
I know what you’ll say,
You say, “Oh, sing one we know,”
But I promise you this,
I’ll always look out for you,
That’s what I’ll do.

You capture my greys, and put them down in black and white.
I know you think in colour, like I do. I know you dream about the mambo kings, and about their songs of love.

So we're going to go to hell. And we're going to burn there. This I've heard a million times, from the anger and the left shoulder. Somehow, none of it matters anymore to me, because I'm blind to the peripheries.

But this is me, at my purest. This is me with a sackfull of cliches on my back and a blunt knife in my hand, walking towards my crisp paper sunset. Crash and burn, they call it. I say its clarity- because its my own virgin sunset, and it's as pure as I am.

Phoenix from the Flames
We will rise together

This generation is not one of apathy. There are incentives, and their lack. We walk around with necklaces of clouds, and our nostrils getting more than their supply of air. We're kings and queens of convenience, but we do not lie low, nor do we slouch.

I don't believe we are apathetic. Apathy involves detatchment, adn we are not detatched. We are immersed, our wrinkled fingers clamping our noses shut, and our all-seeing eyes stinging from the salt.

When our 14 year olds prance around pompously in cardboard bras too large for their swollen nipples, and our little boys speak of things too big to fit into their little mouths, it sets you thinking. What do we think? What do you think? What do you want us to think? What do we want you to think? There are those who complain about it, and there are those who shrug it off as a 21st century prerogative, and move on.

There are only two types of people in this world. Those who dream in colour, and those who don't.

We're always so full of this dramatic irony. Once we were so used to the spotlight, and we strutted and fretted. It signifies nothing now, all that fury. It takes on a new form, and boldly emblazons itself on our sleeves. It is our creed- this awareness. It is a motto, unspoken of but running through every drop of teenage blood- the heroes, the villains, the ones who light and the ones who are lit. We are martyrs for this cause, all of us. The only thing that can be held against us is our overawareness, but it's killed us anyway.

All we can do before it does, is spray-paint our names on a wall, hoping that someone will see it after we're gone.

It's an odd sunday morning, by nature of the fact that there really isn't any visible sun. The sky is even-coloured, and the light's just diffused through it. There was only one other day like this this year, and the only thing I remember about it was walking towards LT6 and telling cheng about my dad's company's cameras which has a function called cloudy day because the light diffuses exactly the same way the light diffuses on a cloudy day. But thats all I remember about that day.

Maybe I should remember things more. I tend to forget everything but details that strike me. I kind of wander through life, and it's about time I stopped and started taking notice of things and people around me, and not just their faces or the shape of their words and how they strike me. This morning I was in a sort of daze. I woke up, brushed my teeth, got a cup of milk and two bananas with honey, and sat down to read the papers. About an hour later, my mum comes marching up to me to tell me that I left the tap running, the milk open and outside, the banana peels on the table and dollops of honey spilt on the table with the honey bottle open.

The funny thing is, there was nothing on my mind. I was running events through my head, what I did yesterday, What I'm going to do today, What I'm going to do tomorrow, What I did right, What I did wrong- but that's what I do every morning. I've always been like this. Scatter-brained, they call it. I love that word, though. It has a lovely apathetic eccentric undertone.

So I'm going to have to focus. SNAP-focus

On another note, Doubt was great. Oh, the sets were brilliant! A little funny at times, but so incredible. But aside from the sets, I also loved the way it was done, the direction and the movement and the tiny details. I thought the actors were great, but perhaps thats just because I don't really act and I've always been in admiration of those who can. I'm not the best person to critique on acting, anyway. I vote him guilty, because I thought he hesitated too much and changed the topic on one too many occasion. Also, he seemed strangely and artificially nonchalant about the whole affair- and it struck me as being very suspicious.

After Doubt we stayed back to discuss the play, and talk about it, which always raises new perspectives. I love these things, and I always leave feeling so enriched. Then I went out for dinner with Kartik, Janessa, Shawn and Cheng at Cafe Cartel. I really like Cartel- i feel so extremely comfortable, and so at ease, and so happy. Perhaps its the memories of last december and how much all of that meant to me, and how happy it made me. Or perhaps its just the decor. the Cartel at city hall is beautiful, because of the whole city feeling. I love the city, and i love it more at night than during the day- but it was great nonetheless. I had to leave unfortunately early, and I went home in impossible fear, but once I got home it was alright. I had a really nice talk with my mother on school and friends and everything, and it only got me thinking even more about how fortunate I am to have the people I do around me. My mother, my father, my brother, my chechi, my classmates, the blaekes, everone. I use the word fortunate with reason. Because there is nothing I have done to deserve it. It isn't karma, it's luck.

This year is shaping up to be fantabulous. I think I've mentioned that before, anyhow. I'm so glad I grew up.

Something 'bout the way your hair falls in your face
I love the shape you take when crawling towards the pillowcase
You tell me where to go and
Though I might leave to find it
I'll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it

This week has been awesome. Its been the best week i've had in a long long time, and I'm so glad to have the people in my life right now, because I could have never asked for better friends. I'm enormously fortunate, I don't know why I whine as much as I do.

I handed in my portfolio, after much fretting. Now we'll see how it goes. :/

On Thursday we spontaneously decided to go watch V for Vendetta, which was so fabulous because i'm far from spontaneous and it thrills me to no end when I do spontaneous things. Also, the movie itself was good. Before the movie was good, because company was great and aside from running all the way there and removing my sweater in the middle of the road (which i absolutely hate doing. its so unglam. and so ungraceful. but thats just because its me doing it.), and having to pick up dropped bags WHILE running across the road, and sweating and going to J8 and finding out it started 35 minutes later than we thought it would (of no fault of anyone, of course, and not at all roy's fault, it was fantastic. The movie itself was beyond fantastic- the script was brilliant, and the dialogue delivery was great. Except for the whole emo prison scene, which I really didn't see the point of. But the hot lesbians made up for it, so i'm not complaining.

Friday was great too. I'm so glad I'm in the class that I am, because the company is so fantastic and every single person is so special. I sound like Barney. No, but really. I lovelovelove 1A, and I'm looking forward to everything that is to come. More versions of the man game, with more additions, more loud recesses, more being told to shut up by neighbours, more nice heartwarming conversations, more sitting around laughing, more being made fun of, more everything. I really am looking forward to it.

Thanks to Reshma and Crunch and Shrew for J8, and the plan, and having the plan executed, and I think its going to be great. I hope so. Sorry to Jheeva and Prhabu for shutting you up repeatedly. But aaah so exciting.
Thanks especially to Crunch. For everything. I dont know why but I feel obliged to thank you, again and again. You're amazing.

I hope everyone who isn't feeling so good feels better soon. Especially people who are usually much happier. Its quite upsetting to see happy people upset, because you know something really is wrong, and there's nothing that you can do about it, or say, without sounding like a right little ray of sunshine. I just hope that you feel better, because that's all I seem to be able to say, but I do mean it.

Happy Birthday Aditi Shivaramakrishnan aka Dee SRK my buddy for almost my entire life, or whatever parts of it mattered anyway! I hope 17 is a great year for you, and I hope that everything to come is fantastic. I'm so glad that you've found this year good so far. It will get better, if I can help it.



Stay Clean
Don't smoke.

You hear me.
DON'T SMOKE, CHILDREN.
NO MATTER WHAT THEY TELL YOU.

Ebb

Scarlet Shivers
in your speech and in my breath
the rhythm of the days,
the rhythm of your ways,
form the beat of the blood inside me.

Flow

Watery Whispers
in wisps of thought that weave and wind
through every night’s dreams
in conscious narrow streams
that mean the world to us combined.

I'm About To Come Alive- Train

I can hear you downstairs crying on the phone
Telling someone that I'm here but you still feel all alone
Maybe we were too young
Goodbye, I've gotta go
I can hear the baby waking up
Got to get back to the life I know

I should have never believed him
Maybe I should just leave him

Maybe I'm not but you're all I got left to believe in
Don't give up on me
I'm about to come alive
And I know that it's been hard
And it's been a long time coming
Don't give up on me
I'm about to come alive

No one thought I was good enough for you
Except for you
Don't let them be right
After all that we've been through
'Cause somewhere over that rainbow
There's a place for me
A place with you

In every frame upon our wall
Lies a face that's seen it all
Through ups and downs and then more downs
We helped each other off of the ground
No one knows what we've been through
Making it ain't making it without you

Maybe I'm not but you're all I got left to believe in
Don't give up on me
I'm about to come alive
And I know that it's been hard
And it's been a long time coming
Don't give up on me
I'm about to come alive

Sympathy is not the same as empathy. And if you sympathise, you must not know what heartbreak is like because that's empathy. They're two different things, and its about time we learnt the difference. The difference makes all the difference, as they say. Do they? They should.

Its like in the movies when a kid drops his ice cream cone just before his first lick, and the entire cinema heaves this collective sigh. Thats sympathy, baby, at its purest and most innocent.

Give me back my words. I don't feel anger, or remorse or regret. But give them back to me anyway, because I could use them again someday. And I don't feel safe when they're with you. Now there's doubt dwelling in my mouth, indistinguishable from the aftertaste of a fever, and of disappointment. Run of the mill? I think not. Your cup runneth over (and into mine, empty till now.)

So rock and roll so corporate suit
So damn ugly, so damn cute
So well trained, so animal
So need your love, so fuck you all

My cuckoo cries for me.
Lally Lally Lally.

2000 miles is very far through the snow
I think of you wherever you go

She's gone 2000 miles, it's very far
The snow came falling now
Get's colder day by day, I miss you

I hear people singin'
It felt like Christmas time

SiMUN says more.

ok i dont think i did anything justice with my last SiMUN post, and i've decided to do a better post out of it.

I didn't think debates were fantastic- nowhere as good as RMUN was. The quality of some of the arguments were appallingly bad, but there were also some very well thought out, well articulated ones. Surprisingly few though, and mostly in GA. Environmental council was alright. I thought it was very real, and I didn't feel like i was making things up, or speaking about something I didn't quite understand. Not to say I understand everything about the environment. I mean to say that I didn't feel out of place, like I thought i would.

General Assembly, on the other hand, was a whole different issue. I paid attention where I could, and tried so hard to keep up with everything that was going on. I have a not-quite-so-rare talent for zoning out, and I must admit I did that quite a bit. But I made a concerted effort on the third day to focus. And I leant a lot more on the third day than I did on the second. I wish I had participated a bit more, you always get more out of things when you're directly involved in it.

But, having said that, navjote is goooooood. Spot on target. And it was hilarious- all the concealed note passing and the puns and the language. And we never got warned- not once. WOohoO! NAd Navjote got what he wanted, yay! You so owe me man. But i won't harp on it. Because it was your effort. I was merely doing my duty, as an obedient islamic sister.

Kudos to Alya for going up to speak despite being so jittery, and for doing a great job out of it. To Ragavi of Algeria for being such a sport, and for handling things so well despite the pressure. To Teddy and Wei Lip for being so alert and on task and everything. To Xue Yang, and congratulations on his wedding! To Sam Jo for being such a riot, for the impersonations and the laughs. To Navjote for providing comic relief, and for being such an inspiration in terms of goal setting and achieving. haha. To Sam and his happy house of fun, because he deserves to be mentioned for going up to speak so many times and making sense all of those times. and for demanding Panama's deflowerment. I thought everyone did such a fantastic job, and I had such a great time on hindsight, even if there were times where i didn't enjoy it during the conference itself.

There you go.
A Proper Entry. :)

Cheers, and yay school begins tomorrow!

We wait for the sky to fall on our heads, and do whatever we can until it happens, to seek redemption and salvage our losses and (eventually) ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less. No love, no hate, no emotion. And most of all, no romance.

No time for holding hands, or making plans; for laughing in your face, or letting you rest on my shoulder. None of that fuck. Because we run too fast, and the rush of the wind on our faces in incomparably satisfying.

Romance, my friend, exists only if you want it to. When you see the world through naked eyes, you only see the lack of heartbeats, the pushing and shoving, and the only thing you feel is the exhaustion from the race to get there.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Simun Says

Today was the last day of SiMUN, which is quite a pity really because I enjoyed myself quite a bit. More than I would have sitting at home, anyway.
The debates themselves were quite terrible, especially those in the environmental committee 2 (considering I don't know what went on in the rest anyway), and General Assembly proved to be a lot more interesting, for all the wrong reasons.

Viva la Revolution!

While on the way to the bus stop, I had a conversation that sparked off a series of rather Garpian thoughts in my head. The rest of my life is really only going to get worse. I'm going to have to face more and more responsibility with every year of my life, and am not going to be able to do stupid things and get away with it for much longer than I already have. Its a troubling thought, and one that I always put away to the back of my mind because i don't have the guts to stare it in the face.

I don't feel like writing about it much further.
I don't feel like doing anything these days. I don't feel anything. I'm just dragging myself forth into a new day, hoping that something more exciting will come my way. Maybe i'm just hoping for too much. My life has got to be quite exciting, by someone's standards. Maybe I should just change my standards.

Grak. If only things were that simple, Sneha Raghavan.

I've got to stop talking to myself.
Its a sign of lunacy.

But John Irving said it best.
In the world of Garp, we are all terminal cases.

i just ate some papaya.
it tasted like seal.

i am ruined.

I had a strange dream last night.
It involved me and sruthy in russia, consuming muesli bars to keep alive.
they tasted excellent, like no muesli bar i'd ever tasted before.

after eating our first bar, and shivering slightly less than we were before, shrew turns around sharply to ask me-
"sneha? is this vegetarian?"
and i (quite obligatorily) checked the ingredients on the packaging, and found that it was made out of seals, dolphins and whales. cut up, packed tightly together, and (shudder) raw.

its a nasty idea, and almost made me want to quit eating meat altogether. maybe i will. maybe i wont.
maybe you should stop sighing and shaking your head and get back to reading the rest of this entry.

so the whole morning i had the imagined taste of marine mammals in my mouth, and couldn't really focus on much else. i could feel the fluids in my stomach turn over and do some strange calisthenics inside of me.

it was with this taste that i left for violin class in the mornings.

at this juncture it would only be right to tell you that my violin classes have not been going very productively as of late, due to the frequent admonishing and the long periods of silence (where i dont know what to play and my teacher doesnt know what to say, and just sits there shaking his head and mumbling.) and this is when i have no tastes in my mouth. so when i have a very distracting taste in my mouth, it only gets worse.

so i sat there playing whatever i could, and not playing whatever i couldn't, and fidgetting everytime i got scolded (at rather regular intervals, mind you.) and kept thinking of the poor seals that got killed to make my muesli bar. and i could almost hear them call to me- "garp garp garp". and THEN i understood the origins of my strange dream. last night, before going to bed, i was reading the world according to garp, and it struck me that Garp's name (which is Garp, of course), sounds awfully like the sound a sealion makes.

and once this dawned upon me, the taste suddenly disappeared.
and the stomach churning was gone.

this, however, was no sign of a possible improvement of my violin playing. and the remaining one hour and forty five minutes of my lesson was equally bad. because i had mental images of potatoes and hillbillies, and they didn't let me focus very much on anything else.
i have yet to find out the origins of this one.

reliving this entire morning is giving me the heebie jeebies, and the churning is coming back to my stomach. and its all your fault, you lonely blog reader you. such efforts i take to please you. you have my soul! i have nothing left to offer, now leave me alone!

someday im going to look at this and cringe.

My media player is a fucking prophet, i tell you.

i didn't know what i was thinking, and i didn't know what to think and i was consciously hoping that someone would come up to me and hit me twice (very hard) on the head and tell me what i should be thinking.

And it played me this song.

***

Walk On- U2

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring
Love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind...

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Oh, oh
Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No, they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed, to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly, for freedom

Oh, oh
Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't deny it
Can't sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
You stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart, it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on...
Walk on...

Home...
Hard to know what it is, if you never had one
Home...
I can't say where it is, but I know I'm going
Home...
That's where the hurt is...

And I know it aches
And your heart, it breaks
And you can only take so much

Walk on...
(Hooo)

Leave it behind
You got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel

All this you can leave behind

All that you reason, (it's only time)
(Love is a feeling on my mind)
All that you sense
All that you scheme
All you dress-up
All that you've seen
All you create
All that you wreck
All that you hate

***

thanks to Shawnmugam Chua for sending it to me because it made my day. and for all the other great songs too.

i feel like a truck ran over me.
make that two trucks.
and they took a turn and came back to do it again.

and then bono popped out of the second one and sang me that song, and somehow it offered momentary relief. but then bono hopped right back in and drove away.

and when you talk about bono and trucks you know its time to end your entry, Sneha Raghavan.

ugh.

Its been a strange week.

Strange is the word i use when i can't find any other word to describe something.
Its made me realise a lot of things about myself, and about the people around me. About how much i need to change, and how much trouble i've been asking for. Thats a euphemism for what a bitch i've been, if you didn't get that. And about relationships, and that the only thing definite about any relationship is its transcience.

Not that thats a bad thing. It just feels like a boulder got thrown on my head, and now i have to deal with it.

I went shopping on saturday which made me less confused because, well, goodies make me happy and take my mind of things. Not to say I'm confused now. No sirree. I'm still quite happy. Either goodie-happiness takes a while to wear off, or I really do feel better.

This is going to a tumultous week. I've got history readings to finish (and thoughts to organise), math to catch up on (and lots of it), economics to read (ditto), gp to organise, and violin to practice. so much violin to practice. and all this in three days. and then there is the horror that is simun. i don't know what to expect, so im not going to expect anything. call me an old paranoid penguin but i think it will be a frightening pee in your pants experience.

anyhow. i think i will go now. the mother says that i need to be awake at 7 tomorrow, and she didn't look like she wanted to be contradicted. and so i didn't.

hope the rest of you have holidays that you can speak better about.
over and out.

There is too much significance in all of this. Too much want, too much thirst. There are too many stars in the sky, and there's too much light in all of them. We attach ourselves too strongly to the ebb and flow of time and its consequences, and we harbour too much hope to be healthy.

We think in terms of absolutes, and the sharpness of the blacks and the whites skew the way we think. They push us around, and topple us over. There are many things that have been left to us, to our own decisions- but we take it too lightly. We fight and tackle the storms that rage against us, and more often than not, we emerge holding the flag of victory. Strangely enough, its white and wordless.

You reduce me to poetry, my friend.
You break me into tiny little pieces, each piece weighing down on the others, and all of them drops in the tides of time.
That's all we are, and that's all we're worth anymore. We're born, we leave your clumsy footsteps wherever we can, in soil and water and hearts, and then we carelessly fall over to our death. And then there are tears for us, from our birds and our trees and our clouds. And of course, we get washed away in the grand scheme of things. Because we're just not grand enough.

So we cry. Tears do not hurt, its only their reasons that do. Deal with it, baby.

Tears do not speak enough words to justify thoughts, even to myself. You asked me questions, and I asked you mine. You answered, and I answered. You told me things and I didn't respond.

We walk along dusty roads, up stairs and feel the walls along the way, in the hope that they'll show us where we're headed. We look for clues in speech, and think through touch. And soon we'll know we've had enough. Soon we're bored, and we try to find other ways to live our lives, perhaps with more fullness.

This is beautiful to someone as blind as I am.
So are you, even to pieces.

Every once in a while you put on your earphones, and you listen to a song that pretty much sums up everything you're feeling. You take out a notebook and try writing something, but there are no words for a lack of words, so nothing of great significance comes out of your head.

So you just use someone else's words to convey it, and it does perfect justice to you, and is better than anything you could have probably written. Minus that fact that you didn't.

This is one of those songs.
There lies so much truth in these words that its painful.


Eternity
Written by: Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers

Close your eyes so you dont feel them,
They dont need to see you cry
I cant promise I will heal you,
But if you want to I will try.

I sing the summer serenade
The past is done, we've been betrayed, its true.
Someone said the truth will out
I believe without a doubt, in you

You were there for summer dreamin',
And you gave me what I need.
And I hope you'll find your freedom,
For eternity, for eternity.

Yesterday when you were walking,
You talked about your Mom and Dad.
What they did that made you happy,
What they did that made you sad.

We sat and watched the sun go down,
Picked a star before we lost the moon.
Youth is wasted on the young,
Before you know its come and gone too soon.

You were there for summer dreaming,
And you gave me what I need.
And I hope you'll find your freedom,
For eternity, for eternity.

I sing the summer serenade,
The past is done, we've been betrayed, its true.
Youth is wasted on the young,
Before you know its come and gone, too soon.

You were there for summer dreamin',
And you are a friend indeed.
And I hope you'll find your freedom,
For eternity.

You were there for summer dreamin',
And you are a friend indeed.
And I know you'll find your freedom,
Eventually, for eternity, for eternity.

City Lights

City lights, lead me home.
past the pleasing poverty, for I will not mourn.
Give me your beams, and your beams I will bend,
package them in parcels and away I will send.

In his eyes a compass rose,
yet in his words no poem or prose.
A map on his palm, such plains it shows.
I feel it- it flows, it flows, it goes.

City lights, show me the way,
beyond these prophets of a dusty day
These roads of bleak, you know where they take me.
Be my neon nightingale, cry if he breaks me.

A song of words that are not his own,
he'll sing to the rhythm of fibreglass bones.
Beside me he will cling onto my words
When the bow breaks, he'll sing with the birds.

City lights, lend me your wings.
Let me know of the turns and the bends.
Let me feel your greens and your blues
For my nirvana lies in your hues.

And please forgive us, we know not what we say.
These are but musings of a dilattante, inside we pray
for truth and the meaning of a joyous cement dawn
where your light caresses us, your young pleading fawn.

hiatus

on hiatus.
for as long as i see a need to sustain it.

You've stopped writing letters to people you don't know or can't name, and you've stopped expecting replies that you'llnever know if you've gotten. There are some things you can't touch but you can feel. You can't hold it in your hands but you can hold it in other places.

I sit on a train and try to decipher what my center says to me. It must not appear like I am swaying, though I must. It must not appear like I'm calling out, and answering to things that were never asked of me. It must not be noticed, this call that causes you to lean towards me. Consciousness will only disrupt our dance, and I intend on finishing it with all the right steps.

Questions you asked me a long time ago appear in shadows, and echo in songs. Questions I would answer differently, if you asked me again. Questions that mean slightly more than my answers, but slightly less than they're worth. In the syllables they speak, i hear your sounds. In murmurs, I hear your words. They come alive, and perform for me, with rigour, and the anticipation of applause.

I wonder if you've noticed, my dear, the irony of what it means to be consciously unaware? You can't hold my hand on your right and speak to the clouds on your left. It just don't work that way. When i sit down and trace the lines on your palm with my finger, its not just my finger speaking to you. Its me, in my entirety. The sweat that runs from the end of my finger to your palm, it carries a charge that you feel. I feel you feeling it. Yet I feel your grip on yourself, and i wonder if you know what i'm thinking.

You're consciously unaware, and I'm just conscious. That's the difference between us.

Its all a race, do you realise? Are you with me, or against me? By me or behind me? I could go on forever with these questions, but it takes time, and my rabbit awaits my arrival with his tick-tock clock. If my every step doesnt synchronise with his every second, he will make sure i trip. That would waste even more time, and I intend on winning.

I'll hold all your thoughts, dreams, feelings, words; all your murmurs, sounds, movements, sweat; all your questions, all my answers, and all these voices- wherever i can hold them, and run. I'll run with the wind in my hair, and pray that you make it there soon.


Its been a long time coming, and I'm about to come alive.