Fragrance of that land

I sit here on the 50 cm high stool, standing every other minute to make sure the lines of unimportance and disinterest reach closest to their accurate measurements on the paper. My parallel bar, the one which I would have lost by the next exam, and my hands help me decide that the cabinet in kitchen should be placed 1.5 m above the ground. With the much fancied red earphones plugged in and the latest rhymes of drama, I am still in a world where everything is not so boring as described earlier. So what if it all is just a part of my imagination, the only thing I have experienced for myself, to have a speed competent with the speed of light.

No part of me is paying attention to anything going around me. I do not know the girl sitting diagonally opposite to me is crying over her lost circle master, or the one beside her just threw a banana peel outside the classroom window, there is no one singing out loud, so loud that I hear it despite the drums being played literally within my ears. They call it cherry on the top and I, a sweater in the class when sunlight falls on you like a fat lady, slid in her evening gown, sitting elegantly on the dining table full of everything she could think of. No, gluttony is not her sin, its now her character.

I am trying to regain my calmness, the one which would take me back to the illusionary but loved world of day-dreams. My eyes close, I breathe in, as if to breathe in the loved fragrance. This loved fragrance of the classroom, which is brightly lit with fine white drawing boards, the conditioned air to give me just the cool I need, the glass windows which never open and still let the sunlight it. The class where they don't wear bright colours but the whites within the indigos. The classroom where I met the Hs and 2Bs. The place where I discovered that those set squares from primary school geometry boxes indeed have a purpose to serve. The place where I first used the Rotring. Not only did I unlock my brain's side meant to imagine the orthographic but also met the cycloid, the helix and  thin as it is, the washer between nut and bolt too!
But how much does it all matter today, now? Tiny bit. Enough to be remembered and written of here. But what still calls for is the fragrance. A fragrance which I know, I remember existed. But also the fragrance I am now devoid of. Its no metaphor but a true play of psyche. The one existing is memory and the one no more is a part of yearning. Yearning for the fragrant land, the whole of it, every moment been there, every breeze breath in, every stroll, every ride, every dream seen there whose becoming true has made this a mere memoir.

HAPPY Summer Vacations?

Exactly two days since I am home for the two month long summer vacations. The terrifying dream, I tried my best to keep away is one I am living now! Even as I write this, I am wondering why don't I just write every bit of anxiety as it comes in my mind and why wait or think of suitable words or place in this piece. I think I am gonna do what I thought why I am not doing. Here it goes...

• Being a student of architecture for two years now, has made me, willing and unwillingly, love working! Tens of sheets to be submitted in a night (not to consider the fact that 'a' night is a self chosen way, a week provided is always too much for any submission, we prefer doing it the leisure way), actually being awake and completing the work a few minutes before the submission time (the time for getting ready and walking all the way to college has to be previously kept in account). Don't know if it is actually the work, or the night time silence, the delicious coffee I make, which has made me fall for the one everyone else seems to curse around me. Coming to the conclusion of it, I have been loving working, and its terrifying that in vacations I will have officially no work! What I am gonna do? :O Obviously a lot has been planned, but will it be the same with no compulsion as before?

•  Every single thing is going to change for the next two months.
• The food: How much ever bad it is from the home heaven's food, I still had the choice whether to have it or not, when to have it when not. And now, all of a sudden those strict schedules!
• Friends: Tonnes of gossips everyday, from classroom to department, hostel, room, before and after viva (not to forget during exams), SAC, nescafe, 10 No., DB, these friends are omnipresent like none else! Now, these friends whom you never needed to text, will have to be *kept in touch* through FB, whatsApp and if you are rich enough for a message pack, through texts!
• The strolls: Your partner for the evening stroll. Who is, in turn, your partner for everything else... the crime, new market ka barf gola, rice bowl and every possible place except your hostel. He/She shall never cross your hostel's threshold. The one around whom every day and night revolves, from the good morning to the good night texts, reaching college early only to spend some time together before the classes start, skipping even the Wednesday's kadi-chawal only to have lunch together, CADing together before submissions, walking miles in the campus and losing kilos, entering hostel not before 10pm, for you don't want to miss even a single available minute TOGETHER!
  And then comes the monster called VaCaTiOnS... Its taking you miles and miles, farrrrrr away every hour. Don't we just hate state boundaries! If only this world was literally a small place. Perhaps as tiny as the campus. And you hate the change, even it is for just two months. JUST? So that's just two months? *If only I could punch that part of myself which came up with this one just!*
  Moral of the story: Not even a single day is *just* when... well, above is your story. Sigh!

• Weird as it may sound... all those status and pictures by the final years has made it even worse for the anxious me! Its going to happen to me in 3 years :O Like really? I will have to let every secret, grudge out, the black, the blue, and the white-signature day too? Will actually have to pack everything up from my room, am I going to cry like some? No, I am not! But then why I am beginning to, now?          ...Now vacations are a time you waste doing nothing at home, while you should be back at college adding some extra days to your college life, which you are surely going to beg for at the end of next three years! If only...
  
  Just hoping it is still enough of a Happy Summer vacations.

Of Bits & Pieces

Something from drafts, written months ago. Great to see now how life has taken the good turn :)

"Ever felt that feeling of saturation when it feels as if you are the happiest person on earth, as if there is nothing more left to accomplish, as if you have it all even without asking for it? And all this without one particular reason to go with! Keep wondering the reason and the next moment you would be stuck up with the feeling that this is nothing but a trap, a trap of uncertainties, of illusions.

What is all this? A time when you are asked how's life and you say 'nothing much.' While actually you have so many things going on that instead of explaining the haphazard around you choose to present as if nothing's  happening, as if nothing is important enough.

A time when you fool yourself to be busy with priorities in life while actually the precious ones are ignored.

A time which you spend ignoring the best in you only because it is not in demand... while embracing those things which are well followed by the herd.

A time when you smile all through, you have people to be with, you have festivals to celebrate and you do it all.... but only to discover one night how you have no one to speak to about the thrills of the day... no one to cry in front of, cry for no good reason or cry for that one reason you are writing this for..."

A recent picture which goes by the feel of this piece :P

...of glowing beads and stones.

The Camera's Tale of Love

It was not until I was batteried-in and switched on to open my lens that I came to know what the real world looks like. No, for me, unlike most of my fellow beings, they were not the colorful objects, moving bodies which grabbed my attention but that beautiful girl! It was the very first time I saw any human being and it was her! That very moment I knew she is to be my world forever… You humans have perhaps named this very phenomenon as “Love at first sight!” There she smiled and I couldn’t help but click, thanks to my ‘Smile Shutter’ mode which was on then. All surprised by this she went on to explore all my possible settings as her fingers caressed me. To be in her soft hands made me feel more secure and comfortable than being packed in that dark case!

Our first date was on her school trip to the amusement park. The rate at which she kept clicking was something I couldn’t have imagined of! I tell you, it was one tiring day but all worth it… Not only did I see a swarm of human beings but also got enveloped deep into their happening lives. To see their smiling faces, funny poses, scary expression while on a ride was a new experience and a treat indeed. But most of all I loved clicking her…mahn! She is so beautiful!

I could see my existence giving her a relief even in the boundaries of her room. Be it her pen, that notebook containing most unromantic of chemical equations, every corner of her room, the laptop, the balcony, plants in it, the narrow streets seen from it, the unending skies… she was falling for the beauty of these ordinaries and I, for her!

One fine night she told me how she wishes to go to places all around the world only to click endlessly. I was so overwhelmed, for now I knew she wants to be with me for a lifetime. She kissed me goodnight and went to sleep, with me sitting right by her side…. In the darkness I could not see her but feel her fragrance, her every serene breath… it was a sense of sheer contentment to know that I am one reason for all the happiness she gets by capturing pictures.

Our days were going great together exploring every little place of the town she lived in… through me she had captured her memories of school. Even when carrying me along to her school was only a venture full of risk, she took the chances. That was her last day in school and she clicked every special corner of it and all her dear friends… With memories of many such incidents life moved on and soon she began her new college life! It was there I realized how possessive she could get about me. She never gave me to somebody else’s hands only because of the fear that I might be mishandled! They were such little things which gave me all the little pleasures I needed from my life.

Gradually as she tasted freedom in the new city and explored the place, I could feel we both getting into a matured relationship. Now, it was not a matter of a bunch of random clicks out of which some turned out to be good. But now, together did we feel awestruck at the heights of hills, the depth of lakes, the azure sky, the vastness of the greenery around… at the whole amazing range of awesomeness nature provides to the human beings and their mates, like me! Apart from an almost spiritual experience with the nature, it was fascinating to frame some of very thoughtfully designed buildings. And then yet another part of her life made both of us have fun together: clicks during the bunks, at the canteen, on getting dressed up for a party, while the evening or a morning walk. She perhaps doubted if her own memory would be able to keep so many lively moments to its own record, so wished to preserve every moment through me.

Things were going cool between us, only till one day when I had to capture a few lines written by her:

"To capture the moment, the beauty of moment,
the ecstasy of moment, the rarity of moment;
you saved the moment as a still moment...
But here, now, at this moment you do realize
How unworthy it all is when you lose catch of the real moment..."

Had I been a human, I could have said that I was almost in tears reading this. But I was a camera… a camera of strong spirits and I did understand it was only natural for her, being a human, to face a moment when she would question if my existence in her life was reducing the significance of times spent with fellow human beings or at times, alone in the lap of introspection.

That feeling with a touch of melancholy was short lived as her behavior with me never changed but only became better. I must take this chance to thank our mutual and dear friend Facebook, who helped a great deal in strengthening our bond at a time when our relation, like any others, could have faced a downfall of emotions. It not only helped her glorify me but also find meaning to all the time spent with me. She now knew that clicking is not something she does just to pass time or simply as a hobby… rather it is something which helps her open pores of creativeness and induces her to come up with an amalgam of her life experiences and my clicks only to express her inner being to the world.






"I had learnt a lot from her and loved her even more… But call it the unfair part of destiny that I was never made capable enough to express wholly what I felt for her. If some fine day I get a chance to tell it to her I would do ahead with this…

“I really don’t know why or how but I get pure happiness when I play the role of your picture-clicking device, and be with you or even think about you even when I am switched off… I could say you are my love of life, but girl you are what the whole of my life could ever be! I feel honored when it is me with whom you share your thoughts upon a click.

There is a secret I want to reveal today… every time I am in somebody else’s hands to click a picture solely of you, I skip a heartbeat. I stay awestruck, staring at you…you, a person of extreme beauty, so pure and mild… and it is perhaps this feeling which helps me click the best of your DPs. I just wish this goes on for our forever.

Love you much,
Your Cam <3 "

Years passed with it, thousands of thoughts 'bout it everyday, hundreds of quotes read till date, so many people with it around and still the idea of it never seems old... Love ♥♥

Blue Sky High! :D

"No, a pictures is not good only because it was clicked by a good photographer, but because he has been to an awesome place with some awesome people."

#29Aug'09

"Let the eyes romance the blue sky high."