Cracked

It's been almost a year I think. Yep. Didn't feel like blogging. Didn't bother to. And so much has happened. Despite wanting to do engineering, I end up at law school, which I really do love. Oh and fair warning. This piece isn't as much for you as it is for me. To his post is for me to pour out all that I am facing. A confession of sorts. Because I know I have done wrong, and you all out there who care to judge me do so. I really couldn't care less. It'd be a relief for someone to know how truly a pathetic excuse for a human being I am. Despite what I may show you to be.
So, back to the topic. What is it so terrible that I did? Let's go at it from the top. The little things first. I've smoked my first cigarette today. I felt the dizziness of nicotine hit me at 6 in the morning, 'cause I didn't sleep last night, and neither have I eaten properly in the last few weeks. Needless to say, my fat has indeed come down.
Now. I see this girl my first day in class. Yes, oh yes, I am another lovesick idiot. But this is me confessing, so this shall be as true from the heart as it gets. Back to the topic. Let's call her Kati (I am NOT about to reveal her real name here). Kati was sitting in the second row, and when I saw her, I whisper to my friend next to me, "She is so pretty dude! Dibbs." And, after class, I see her in the library which I had gone to check out. We sit together, talk, and the click for me is instantaneous. I was head over heels. I fell hard. I still remember her long black hair tied in a ponytail. She wore a white top with thin horizontal red stripes, and it was full sleeved. The next time, we exchange numbers, and that night, talk on the phone for around 2 hours. And the next night. She admits she really likes me. And my heart explodes with happiness.
All good. The time after that, we go for a movie, talk throughout it. She even held my arm when I told her I would get freaked out at a particular scene of India Pakistan partition.
We meet in the library Sunday morning, hold hands. I could have kissed her there. I so wanted to. See, she is the girl I am in love with. I will never love anyone again. And I told my friends, against her express orders, not to tell them. And like an idiot, I add that we are dating, which she didn't want. I hear that she kissed a batch mate, I confront her over the phone. She cries and tells me it never happened. The truth comes out. She hates me now.
You're up to speed. I love her. My being shakes with guilt. The pain I put her through. I want her, but I want her happy. Sadly, I cannot let go. I've tried, but I can't. I'm not myself anymore. I'm not happy. I love her. She, or no one else. I'll edit this later. I broke her trust.

Which is what she wanted me to think.
 She is the liar here, the user of men. I refrain from using the word at all times, but she is a whore. I feel irritated when I see her happy, blissful in her ignorance and lack of empathy at what she did to me. My blood boils when she gets drunk and tries to converse with me. I shake my head at the little boy who came fresh into college, not knowing what his foolish innocence would get him into. Then, in those first few days, all I wanted was a good academic life, and the perfect woman. Or what I deemed to be the perfect woman. I have changed so much, and I don't think its for the better. Has it helped me carve out a survival in the jungle of law school? Yes. But I survive, I do not thrive. A pesky substance abuse problem, and lord knows what other baggage I've picked up along the way.
This place is a stagnant lake. I want a river. A place where I can wade in, and let the currents carry away everything I want to let go. Take me down to the Paradise City. Where the grass is green and the rivers plenty.

Someone Worth Looking Up To

Been a while since my last post! Hope you lot enjoyed it, and maybe looked over your shoulders in a dark room. Anyway, this post is a sort of tribute to my guitar teacher in Bangalore, Mr. Lewis, who's first name, I am ashamed to say, I've forgotten. But the memories of his classes are still fresh, and I hope that this little article does him justice. Moving on with the post...
It was while we were in Bangalore that I was gripped by the sudden urge to become a guitar player. I'd seen a classmate of mine, Karan Something (there were 5 Karans in my class) play a Pink Floyd song. Being one of his most earnest haters and a Floyd fan, I couldn't just let these two coexist. After seriously considering chopping the guy's fingers off, I requested my mum to find a guitar class for me. She found a highly-recommended music class close by in Benson Town, and it was there that I met one of the greatest people I have ever known.
 Lewis sir turned out to be a brilliant teacher. He was also a great friend, and someone who know pretty well what I was capable of achieving. Like my Dad, he settled for nothing less than perfection. He also was pretty well-known for his sense of humour, and had a nickname for every one of his 500 or so students. Understandably, mine was Fat Boy (anyone who knows me won't find this surprising). On one particularly memorable afternoon after a really good jam session, he joined in with our bassist's plot to assassinate him with a pineapple (yes, that girl was weird).
But each and every one of us knew what pissed him off big time. I learned the hard way that if you don't practice, you're screwed. I remember his look of cold disappointment, and how he marched down with me to have a "chat" with my mum, during which he stressed on how brilliant I could be at the guitar, provided I practice. I made it a point to stay in practice from then on, but that didn't stop him from taking me off his line-up for 2 months. He was an incredibly nice man too, and most students with troubled families or personal lives came to him for advice, which he never hesitated to provide.
Lewis sir also made it a point to make friends with his students' parents. In my case, he became a great friend to my Grandfather, who usually came by to pick me up so he could admire the instruments on display in their shop downstairs. I would reach home at least 45 minutes after the lessons were over, as he and my Grandad had a habit of discussing politics for 20 minutes at minimum, and then go on about cricket, during which Lewis sir would never fail to reminisce about Rahul Dravid, who had been a classmate of his. He greatly admired my Grandfather's sincerity and honesty, and wouldn't hesitate to tell him so almost every time they met.
I was sad to leave his classes when it was time for us to move. He asked me to keep in touch, and for a while I did. But sometime during my first year in Pune, when I had stopped playing for lack of a teacher,  his oft-repeated phrase was my incentive to pick up the old six string. "If you love making music, you don't need me to take you further than the basics." The basics he managed to teach me helped a lot, and the need to make music, learn more, and of course, the desire to prove myself worthy of an electric guitar were reason enough to learn more on my own, and stay in touch with the guitar.
 My Grandad's been to Bangalore thrice since we moved, and visited him each time. I guess it's time to pick up that phone again, and remind him of the continuing existence of the still Fat Boy.

Welcome Home

This story is a recurring nightmare I've had thrice in the last two months. Thought it'd be best if I penned it down.
He felt someone tapping him on the shoulder. His eyes fly open, he turns to his side, and receives a sickening jolt in his stomach. Fear.
A girl in a filthy pinafore, bedraggled and matted hair, stands near the door. Her body has the look of a corpse left to rot in a swamp. The skin seems diseased, translucent, torn, rotten. The hair covers her face entirely. He blinks, and dares to look up again. But the girl is gone. He calls for his mother in the most even voice possible. She replies that she is in the kitchen.  The boy tries to yank his covers up to his head. They aren't there. Strange. His mother never takes the covers off. A childish unease grips him. To him, the safety of the covers is gone. The teenager replaces the child, and the fear turns into an annoyed scowl. He turns around, and look outside the window. Strangely, and for the first time in his life, he finds it difficult to place the time. The light seems diluted, no, polluted. Corrupted. Like something is prevented it from releasing any warmth into the air. The air feels muggy and humid. The room is partially dark, thanks to that weird sunlight.
He tries to look for his slippers, but they too, aren't there. The girl seems to have taken away anything that gave him comfort or a feeling of safety as a child. She is playing on his childhood fears. Fears which even his mother does not completely know about. He steels himself, and walks through the door of his room. Everything seems unnatural. His home is bigger in size. He feels small, and unprotected.
His thirst is great. He walks to the water bottle usually near his room. He takes a sip. The water tastes normal, yet somehow dry. He glances in the mirror in front of him, and sees the reflection of the girl in it. He spins around in alarm, but she's gone. It dawns on him that she is playing with him, getting her own sadistic joy out of it. His mother shouts from the kitchen, telling him his breakfast is getting cold. At any other time, he would assess the situation, and think that this would be a bait, so he could come nearer to some other unknown horror.
But the warmth of his mother's voice, the thought that she was waiting for him, that she could protect him, is too great. His mother is the one thing familiar, and the one thing that isn't altered in this crazed world. He holds onto the thread of her protection, and needs to go on. He walks on, and the girl makes no appearance. When he is at the kitchen door, he sees his mother cooking, and relief floods his body. Before he can shout for joy, an arm fastens around his neck, dragging him back. A slimy, wet, stinking and wizened arm, with pale blue, translucent skin. He panics. But he uses the last vestiges of sense to propel his back into the wall, and hears a sickening crunch. He opens his eyes, turns around, and sees that the girl has vanished yet again. What's worse, he realizes that he is somehow in his living room. Heads hang from the ceiling instead of the masks his father fastened to the walls. They are still dripping blood. Bits of flesh fall, and veins and arteries hang from their lower end. Some bear an expression of fear, others leer at him with evil grins. Are the walls now portals? No, that cannot be. He felt the girl's skull shatter under the force of his tackle. She seems to be evil, sadistic, and enjoys his fear and confusion. The air is difficult to breathe. The light filtering through the windows doesn't seem to be any kind of light he has ever felt. It's cold, indifferent. He begins his journey again, and looks over his shoulder.
There she is! Almost laughing at his fear. He is paralyzed, he cannot move, and she runs at him, making guttural growls and shrieks. He covers his head in his hands, wondering what fresh horrors she wills subject him to, and he is in front of the kitchen again. Relief fills him, and he walks through the kitchen door. As he chats with his mother, he is relieved. He feels weakened, physically. His mother knows nothing of what has transpired. She comments about the weird light, and continues to cook. He turns around, and there is no one.
 He walks the threshold of the kitchen, and feels that evil breath on his neck. He is yanked back, and thrown on the floor. His fists curl up, and he gives as powerful a punch as he can muster. The girl's jaw has been broken, and it hangs grotesquely from her scarred and rotted face. She grins at him, and fixes it back. Pinning his arms to the floor, she gives another inhuman shriek of joy, and begins to rip his flesh off with her teeth, as the sickening sound of flesh being torn fills the muggy air, and the smell of blood fills all corners of this strange, dark world.