R2020

It is the first ever book that I gave up on the 58th page, not because I was bored but I thought I could not take the suffering of Gopal anymore...

It is a flesh and blood story of 3 lives. It is not an "out-of-the-world" experience, but a very "present-right-inside-your-body" feeling that you will get as you read on. I bet everybody has seen glimpses of these characters in themselves and in some people around them. So have I. THAT is the very uniqueness of the book: we know it all, we have heard it all but we love to commemorate our very own simple lives through the pain-ride of these 3 people.

As I read on, there were multitudes of feelings and judgments racing through my mind. There was "guilt" as I recognized myself with Aarti in few places and few people with Gopal and Raghav("girls feel guilty about everything"!), "reparations" for damages already caused, lots of "nostalgia" on wasted days and feelings, "pain" from the memories of the lost innocence and childhood, "disturbance" from the amount of similarity with my own life. I was in an indecisive state throughout the period of my read as I was at one moment getting angry over one character and realising that it is not really her/his fault in the next. It is amazing how often we ourselves do such things without giving a second thought about how others might be affected by it. And now that we read it from a "4th person's" view, it becomes clear how naively CRUEL we are to some people, and how we don't even know it! "THAT" is the beauty of Chetan Bhagat's writing: you will see yourself in the book, you will grieve over your similar mistakes, you will feel you could not go on and live another moment if you were there, you will share the pain of Gopal at every step to the point of desperately wanting to reach out and rescue him if possible(at first) and despise him(later) for what he makes out of himself, you will have an uncontrolled urge of beating the shit out of Aarti for so sweetly and innocently killing a life, then realise that "there is no hero or villain in his book" just like your own life, and at last all your judgements will tumble down as each of the characters will finally reveal themselves. And you will be left awake at nights thinking over how are those characters feeling right now and what would you have done if in their shoes... ???

In support of Chetan Bhagat's own words and marvellous writing skills, and observing many people's opinions on the story, I would like to clarify an idea to most of his readers who even after finishing the book could not reach the right conclusion.

A special feature of the book is that Chetan Bhagat has clearly qualified the character of Gopal and Raghav by the end of the story but cleverly left out the part of Aarti for the reader to decide:

What was she thinking for so many years as she willingly befriended Gopal, knowing well that he was helplessly and emotionally dependent on her, and how could she suddenly hook up with Raghav knowing how it would crush Gopal's heart especiall when he was struggling alone for survival at such a far off place??? Then again when she noticed that Gopal was clearly avoiding her, trying to gather up his lonely life and forget her, she again pushed Gopal to be friends and meet up and seeped back into his life, knowing that Gopal would always love her and never be able to accept her as "just friends"??? So why did she act so kind when she knew she would finally hurt him??? Although at last CB showed how cutely she made up the birthday gift for Gopal, blinded by our judgements about her from the earlier part of the story we might be inclined to consider even that as tactics to make Gopal surrender himself to her- hook, line and sinker.

Though Gopal is the narrator, the key character is Aarti. But I find most people have labelled Aarti as "manipulative and selfish" even after finishing the book. Firstly I would give this disclaimer that do not be prejudiced against my opinion because I too am a girl. In fact wherever Aarti's behaviour has been mentioned as "confusing", in "Girlese", "irrelevant", "girls are the biggest topic changers in the world", "missed calls should have an user manual of its own", "boys have been born on earth only to listen to girls" and " why does she always say thighs like that ?", I simply found it so CUTE !!! :) I was not at all offended or disagreeing with the generalisation done on women because they are all so TRUE!! And if men on reading this despise Aarti because they have always known girls to be like this, women can start hating Gopal(for wasting what he got) or Raghav(for being cruel, selfish and immature) too. In fact I was really repulsed by Gopal due to his nagging and clingy nature which was very unmanly. All 3 characters threw away what they had at one point of their lives ; luckiest was Raghav who never regretted it, Aarti wanted to get it back but had to let it go as Gopal made his choice.

What I felt about Aarti is that she did what all people, irrespective of sex, would do! There are ample evidence in the story where you would realise that she didn't jump ships because of money or sex. She morally supported Rahgav even during his harder times knowing that he was giving up his lucrative job offer as an engineer and was excited for his victories even when he became destitute. Also she honestly loved Raghav as he asked Gopal to be kind to him even as she was breaking up with Raghav. I understand that these are the parts where boys find girls manipulative for keeping both options open (and also when Aarti forced Gopla to sit down at the Assi ghat and when she tried to brush up her old friendship at Rahgav's graduation party -- i found her manipulative and acting idiot too). But there are 2 things :

1. men in general have portrayed themselves so cheap in the context of love and sex that girls often don't expect men to hang on to them much after a rejection. The similar generalisation that "men are shallow" lead them to think that that is the very reason why a boy can propose to his female best friend and that men can easily fall in and out of love and not think over it twice.

2. when the person you love the most and want to marry puts his work on higher priority than you, to the extent of not calling and understanding his lover's problems as a girl and not even discussing marriage after about 5 years of affair, any girl's faith on her love is bound to quiver. And then any human would automatically look for someone else to harbour himself/herself after a setback, esp. when someone who loves you deeply is waiting right in front of you.

....And the victim remains a minute handful of boys who do not resemble the rest of their league from inside but have to carry the others' consequences throughout their lives, like Gopal.

My adjectives for the book:

Chetan Bhagat's power to narrate a full story with every minute detail included, creating a vivid picture story in the readers mind, the ability to engross the reader so much that he/she will forget food and sleep till it is finished( I stayed awake till 5 am to read it in 23 hrs span), maintain the same pace through every chapter not letting the story sag in between to keep you glued to every word of every page is just PRODIGIOUS, MARVELOUS, PHENOMENAL. His clever quips with words are so hilarious and touchy that the word that comes to my mind is EXCEEDING !!! And finally the way a story can touch your life is simply - "Chetan Bhagat Style".

It is by far the best book by CB. You will find blood, tears, agony, crushed feelings and mangled hearts strewn throughout the pages of the book. But you will not find anybody to blame, after all. The experience is just another step towards "Acceptance". It is the only book in my 22 years of live which made me cry at the end...

If I Met Myself...

"And so i send some men to fight
And one came back at dead of night-
Said he'd seen my enemy,
Said he looked just like me...
...I look out at the stars
And wonder where did i go wrong..."

There's nothing more touching than a soft music dear to your heart,when you feel blue. I've been having my "blue" period for quite sometime now - about four years. But it doesn't mean I didn't have my happy moments in it. Its just that,i think I've been literally "growing up" now...! Yeah,you could call it my deluded "bluish" phase of transition from teenage to adulthood. Through a lot of nasty experiences I've learnt some things about life and myself: I think, and sink IN BLUE !!!

Finding no real companion to whom i could read out my mind loud,I sat to search for quotes, to check how many people before me have felt exactly what I feel now, and how precisely and beautifully they've framed it in words.I've been scared of writing this piece because i knew my troubled state of mind would produce only a chain of unrelated and irrelevant sentences,making no sense at all(like all my previous writings!).... But I finally found the courage from a piece of writing i read recently- a letter by Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter Indira Gandhi,prior to his release from 2 years' imprisonment.There too he tried to jot down everything that crossed his mind,and even admitted the irrelevance that it created.... So these are some of the quotes that caught my eye:

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth";

"If we never get lost in our lives,there's a chance we may never be found";

"If you haven't rejected any major opinion or acquired new ones in the past 3 or 4 years of your life, check your pulse. You may be dead.";

"Tears come out when words cant express your feelings";

"Compromise is often the result of indecision";

"The love that lasts the longest is the one not returned"...

But i guess the quotation on which i have mostly based my recent ideologies is: "When you feel that nobody in the world understands you, it is because you dont understand yourself".

And from it i derive the infinitely self-destructive will-power of findig faults with my own self, which often tires me out so much that I wish to stop the wheels of my racing mind... but cant....hence grows my inconfidence.

I think im petty and insignificant enough to not ask the devout question :"What is the Truth?", but what really haunts me is: "What am I ?".... Like a biologist who studies a certain species for days and notes its characteristics by observing its behaviour under different situations, i have tried to observe myself in several circumstances and draw inferences about my own nature, my own mind, my own heart. But everytime i do this, i fall into the crevice of a bottomless hole, a redundant cycle of never-ending questions; its like a dog chasing his own tail...!!!

On a similar day, after being similarly hurt, I was lying down and wastefully brooding; thinking how lonely i was, how nobody and absolutely nobody understands the way i feel, when it sudddenly occured to me- what if i could meet myself and be my friend?

It seemed such a fascinating idea! the picture that ran through my mind was that of my dear old school - Carmel, its vast playgrounds beside the buildings, the scorching sun above, the hot summer blowing its breath on our faces, some distant birds calling out, and nobody else in sight but me and myself, face to face. I must have been still crying then, when I could see thesilent, all-understanding and caring look in her eyes- the look that i had been searching in all those faces from which i had sought help before, but failed. When I ran to her in tears, she gave me a big hug- the kind that seemed to absorb all my pain in her chest, the kind that made me feel that my feelings resonate in her heart too: the reassuring touch I had searched for so long. I didnt have to tell her, because obviously, she knows it all. She would be my mother, my father, my lover. I rested my head on her shoulder and wept as much as I wanted to, without having to think what the person in front is thinking. Then she dried my tears and gave me strength to live again. On this entire planet, she would be the one who understands me prefectly and would never leave my side...

As soon as my fantasy touched the ground of reality, i switched my role from subject to observer, AGAIN, And tried to analyse why I had this dream and what message it brought? I took it from the beginning and started scrutinizing. Why did I imagine my rescuer as another person, who was actually me? Why did i choose to personify my own soul? ... I inferred, it is the human nature to seek a savior in others first than finding it in ourselves. We read thousands of sermons about self-help and inner-power but when we really feel helpless, we search for it in another person, another heart which will testify to its scars from wounds like ours. A protective embrace, a living body of flesh and blood with a heart beating like our own, few kind words... are enough to bring us back, to give us the hope that if another person can survive with the regular sorrows of human life, why cant we? It helped me more than brooding alone in my dark bedroom.

On the other hand, i'm not very sure if boys feel like this, but i've observed a similar trend in most women from conservative Indian families- so dependant, so emotionally deprived since childhood that we waste most of our lifetime in search of that reflection of "Myself" in someone else. I'm unsure if that would mean supporting the sexist view that women are the weaker sex.... But maybe we are forced to lead such insulated lives that deep inside the emptiness has filled us to our throats, stops our breath and makes us cry out loud at the dead of night..... for we need someone to share our grief , our pain, our happiness with.

My dream made it clear to me that in future whenever i'll fall into a whirlwind and find myself alone, it is ME that i'll always have to bank on, no matter what. Eventually my dream showed me that to find the solution to your problem you have to come home- its nowhere else in the world but within yourself. You are your own Messiah!

And finally it taught me not to expect too much of anyone.

" Love leads to expectations and expectations lead to mangled hearts."

Come back ....

When You're Gone

O'How I had spent those sleepless nights

When the city jostled under relentless lights;

My tears could get no time to dry,

No sooner was another challenge to try-

Hurt before healed and dead before killed,

Lost before found and condemned before redeemed.

My love was soon losing its charm

With nothing more potent of doing me harm.

I'm tired of riding this ferris-wheel;

Forced from a dream like a morning drill-

This to and fro journey between hell and heaven

Is far too much from keeping me sane.

Reasons are different but results are the same:

For me, there is always a grief to your name.

It is not that I still search for a reason

To wipe off someone from my fond vision,

But only that I have brought more pain

By listening to the love's sweet old twaine.

You said you care-so did I believe,

But my feelings- you just couldn’t receive!

Once I found so much peace in your words,

And then you pushed me away from your arms.

I have long forgotten to trust my sense,

I need something, you give something else.

Those sweet anxieties now trigger terror,

Those beautiful memories-now a nightmare!

Every time I tried to stand back upon my feet

Those foolish hopes gave me nothing but deceit.

Tell me how I may ever trust you again-

Our first token of love in the rain?

Kotha chilo hete jabo chhaya poth.....

An inspiration to the soul

As a way of passing the early lazy days of a new academic session and being unable to quit the habit from the last holidays, I have been watching a lot of english movies these days. Some are action movies while some are fiction. But the kind that are mostly made and are hard to get are the good "romantic" ones. I wish i could be a child once more to enjoy movies like i did while watching the legendary "Titanic" - I simply soaked up every bit of the movie with all my mind and body, and remember it till date. Its only with an uncomplicated and curious mind of a child that you can get lost in a good movie! We like them so much because they not only give us dreams to live for but also they touch a special cord in our hearts which we never disclose or share, because it is so vulnerable- "melancholy". These movies do not just portray a mythical yet extremely desirable situation when you get all that you ever wanted from your lover, but it gives us hopes: something that we desperately search all our lives at every step. They hold up a mirror infront of our face when we secretly admit to being what we see in it.
Above all, you have to lay your hats off to the Hollywood people because they have the talent and the creativity to dig out classical novels and quality actors and directors to make up a good picture. The movie that i particulary wnat to dicuss is from 1999, named "At First Sight". An upclass urbane architecture,Amy, who also happens to be a 1 year divorcee, falls in love with a "blind" country masseur, Virgil, who lives with his elder sister Jennie. She experiances a whole new perspective to life through his mind's vision; she feels important, she feels complete, and she feels happy! He listens to the rain by hearing it pattering on the glass roof, dropping in the puddle and gurgling through the rain-pipes. His sesitivity touches her.
She finds out that recent development in catract surgery can offer a possibility of restoring Virgil's eyesight through an experimental operation. She asks him if he wanted to go ahead with the doctors, but he is turned off at the idea, thinking that she didn't like him for what he was. Virgil's very caring sister explains to her that since thier father left him Virgil secretly blames himself for being the reason to it; beacuse he let his father down and could not live up to his expectations after much trying. He finally agrees to get the sugery, only to not let go of Amy, and his sight is regained, but very little. After a brief period of being able to see, when he sees alot of things- including some very beautiful and nasty things of life, he falls back into darkness agian. He gets angry at being put through so much and not being able to make Amy happy. This whole time she kept saying that come what may but she will never give up on him, but when they could see that all their efforts were going down the drain, she was heart-wrenched. That made it clear to him that she could not accept him as a blind person that he was, and so he left. Later, being alone for a long time, she realised that she needed him and so came back to him to take life as it was.
This movie talks about faith- in believeing in something even if you cannot see it, like the horizon; you can see it from far but you cannot touch it. It shows that if we used our senses the right way, we can feel how beautiful the nature around us is. Being disabled with with one sense organ actually makes us more sensible and open to our surroundings. The story tells us to be brave enough to listen to our heart; it may apparently seem difficult but may have what we desperately seeked hidden as a prize to be discovered within the challenge. Its about feeling others' emotions, especially disabled people, for whom its embarassing if you try to change them as it actually makes them feel inferior. Actually its not just about handicapped people, its that there are flaws in all of us, some permanent, but we can still enjoy life fully if we utilised what we already have! Its also about knowing our own selves- what we really want, like Amy wanted love, attention, importance, affection, sensitivity in her companion, but she also wanted Virgil to not be blind; there was something in him that she did not like. And how much we are ready to sacrifice for what we want.We try to snatch a bit of joy, realxation and comfort in our very busy and strangling life through expensive means, but the thing that can calm our senses and rejuvinate our minds with gentle happiness is what we already have- the gift of this beautiful world, and its free of cost too; all you need is the mind's eye !