The Spark has gone from my life

A few years ago, a feeble puppy came to my building and like all appealing cute stray dog puppies, convinced me to feed him some buscuits. Usually these puppies go elsewhere to other unsuspecting and vulnerable dog lovers. This one stuck on. He always wagged his tale, always and was the only one who was hapy to see me. For 4 years he became an integral part of my life. I embraced him whole heartedly and as I did not have a pet, or rather was not allowed to keep one, it was a convenient arragement to keep him in the buliding. My building is so crappy and is a sort of free for all path. So he would protect it thouroughly at night and sleep in the sun the whole day, digging his own cozy hole in the middle of the compound. He had to endure many insults for he refused to move when cars came by. It had its reprecussions once when in Jan 2006, an Innova ran over his leg. For the rest of my life, I will forever hate that Innova model. Its too big for our indian roads. Me and guddu ( his aunt and his mom resp) took him to the hospital where he stayed for a long time and worked up a huge bill. But he came back alright. He went again to the hospital recently for an abdominal swelling. What i loved bout life itself was uninhabited joy-that was sparky when he used to come back from a long stint in the hospital and run around the enitre compound because he felt that the place belonged to him only. He used to always sit over the tank and observe the goings on. And from that vantage point he would bark at unsuspecting strangers. He made so many friends that when i used to walk on the street, and he would follow me, strangers would go ..."sparky sparky come here !"

He was a peaceful dog with adults, but with other dogs he was quite ferocious. He was like one of the gangsters in the goodfellas....family first and would deal with the rest of the dogs in a harsh manner. He would often get into fights with other dogs to prove his strength. I would take him to the vet for his wounds. My aunt would reprimand him for his foolishness but she would get only copper coloured blank eyes...

Those eyes were red today, blood shot red. He had fits and was frothing like an cocaine OD victim. I knew he was gone in the morning but hope floated before the vet came and decided he was good to go. What i never understood was the hastiness in everyone in putting him to sleep. Yes he had rabies, but everyone was like, "did u touch him, did u touch him?" and I would think bout poor sparky following me when i would go outside and beseeching me to buy him some buiscuits. He loved me and I loved him. and in this life we all love so little, that the little we love becomes so precious in our lives. We cant love everyone with the same degree of intensity and with that we cant feel the same intensity of sorrow as we feel for the ones we have truly loved.

I loved him-the real meaning of the word love. Unconditional, perennial, non-questioned, unbridled. I loved him like a human being and I swore to him that i would fetch him from the gallows of death whenever he ventured there. Alas, I couldnt this time. And i feel so guitly because if i had known that he was going to die, I would have fed him his parle G buscuits one last time and I would have ordered tandoori chicken from ROC for him one last time. I was supposed to take him to the vet this evening. He was supposed to be sleeping on the tank sleepy with the medecines that the doctor would have given him.

But sometimes what is supposed to happen doesnt' Its not supposed to be this way. But it is, and the truth hurts and death once again knocks on my door. do i stop to love, do i finally belive in better to have loved and lost blah blah....I do. If sparky wasnt in my life, I would have never gotten to know all his amazing qualities, his regal posture, his ownership of the building compound and his love for me.

I would have gone to the hospital again this time sparky...why didnt u let me save you once again?

That one i have to ask God.

am back to annoy the hell out of myself!

hoestly i think this blog is like the best time-capsule to have! unless the internet suddenly goes bust one day! here i am, listening to "promiscious" by nelly again! i must have heard that song a gazillion times! other songs i kept on hearing alot in a span of few days:

1. all these things that i have done-the killers
2. don't cha-the pussycat dolls
3. seven nation army-the white stripes
4. hips dont lie-shakira

ill add more to the list. spent the whole afternoon uselessly watching the VMAs. it was such a waste of time. now the us awar shows are trying to promote lesser know ppl, cuz the well-known ones have loads of moeny i guess. as a result, shakira's "hips dont lie" didnt win vidoe of the year. some useless band called "panic! at the disco" won. and oh my god, when i saw jared leto, i was shocked. he is like such a rockstar now. i mean i thought where is pretty boy jared leto with his oh so cool blond jock type looks. and when he actually came with amy lee, i was so taken aback. he's not the high school type jock that i thought he was.

neways ill write some more crap later on.

Not scoring "brownie" points

hmmm....tremendous sense of relief i feel now after giving my gre and toefl. i dont know if neone has neidea how tough giving these two exams are...tho the toefl is easy, being tied to a chair for 4 hrs is not my cup of tea. and the mere ceremony and formality of it all is finally over! and now i am sorta free! but going thru the whole process of apps is still left. but i have to now enjoy this year.

also smthing new is that i am on a tight budget. and i was short of cash and literally from the heavens, my cousin pavi, sent me money...i think she must have seen me go to the church on tuesday at Stanisclaus, Bandra. i resolve to go to that church more often. i wish that siddhivinayak was not so crowded. in these times of uncertainty in my life, these places of worship are seen as such a refuge for me. i wish i could go to sm lonely country-side and reflect, but in bom, rubbing shoulders with 15 million ppl aint cutting it. and so i went to the Sundernagar temple for a while and that was nice. now its good to go to this church. the sense of serenity and calmness that ehcoes from the walls is smthing that i need. and its not bout which god that u pray to that matters. i guess i felt this sense of gulit ...like i was being unfaithful to my beloved Tirupathi Balaji, but the more i get older, the more i relaize that its all the same.

and smhow, spirituality didnt seem to cut it. i remember watching the bizzare video of Martymandir, Aurovilee and thinking to myself..what baloney. and seriously, i mean i guess i am a religious person, because i acknowledge that not everything is in my hands and spirituality seems to suggest. and the best part is..i get to drink coke!!!

i was in the bus the other day ( man i take the bus now!), and thinking bout how patriotic i feel when i listen to "rang de basanti" and i started missing India like nething already. i was very apprehensive at the sense of insecurity that a brown person now has to face in the world. but i keep remembering the quality of eductaion that i am recieving here...and i quickly begin to relaize that it is a price worth paying for my dreams and aspirations...guiding some countries ( not mine..cuz my natiion is filled with pompous economists from delhi who wont give me the time of day...unless i knew smone who knew smone who mite be vaguly related to the janitor of the prime miniters driver...you get it)

so well, pompous economists, bad undergrad eco syllabus for bom univ, no Ir due to reservation and scrwe up in international relations paper, non-recognition of my drive and enthusiasm...

i need to leave...if i stay here in this system ne longer, my brain will rot...

bring on the racism....its the price i have to pay for being unwanted in my own country.

its been a while

in order to report some progress on this blog of mine, must note that have:

1. Successfully stopped watching E! news
2. Give a GRE exam-a torturous experience i would not bestow on my worst enemy
3. Gotten 10 more paranoid about my life
4. Came to the conclusion that i need therapy

part of the fun of writing in this blog is that no one really reads it. and its a good thing because i can ramble on and on and no one cares except for me. thats the beauty of writing-its a v.selfish act because you are just putting your feelings and emotions out there and you know what-no one really cares about ur piddly-diddly probs except yourself. and thats a good realization.

Its been exaclty one year since i started my blog. and it has turned out to be quite tumultuous. the summarize the year, it has undoubtedly been the worst year of my life, professionaly, v.confusing personally but v.v.v.v.rewarding from an "aunt" point of view. couldnt get more direct than admiring my newphew who seems to get cuter by the day. but the more i love him, the more i am scared. i dont know ...i guess because i am overflowing with love.

Still havent recieved my international economics paper. i dotn really consider myself part of the university system. i dont know why, i have stopped caring about alot of things. and a huge part of my apathy stems from just being emotionally exhausting. no one told me the whole "relaize your dreams" scenario was fruaght with so much exhaustion, so much uncertainty. i am emotionally drained from the gre itself, and i am not even half way there. everyone also always told you that hey follow your dreams, you can do it. part of my raving and ranting from last years JNU debacle is due to the fact that i dont think i can afford a IR degree elsewhere. i just cant see myself speding 10-15 lakhs of my Dads hard earned money on the desire to be like Lyce Ducet. thats why it hurt me so much, it was my last chance an doing IR. but never say never right. i am so disgusted with everyone telling you that al you need to do is dream, the rest will follow...how?

i am extremely practical now. i have been burnt too many times before. i fear that to an extent i have become dead inside. i dont feel hurt, pain, agony, joy, pure, unmitigated joy. i will only feel a sense of disappointement, for this sentiment has plagued me for the last 4 years. alot of my apathy also stems from alot of unvented anger. i need to vent and have a fight or smthing i guess.. i actually need to get out of the city. will be going to ponicherry soon. c'est bein parce que je pouvais y pratiquer mon francaise.

well, its good to know that after one year, im still where i started-angry, depressed, sad and pissed off that i cant get on that flight sooner and it feels even longer now than it did last year.

how bizzare...

I Dont Wanna be a Stupid Girl

i have no fucking clue why i watch E! news. i cant stand the show, even "fabulous life" and the ALL access VH1 shows all the time. but i still watch it. and for some reason, in the middle of my so boring and inconsequential life, i was worried for Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan, i really felt bad that they felt the pressures of Hollywood were getting too much and they had to diet. i felt bad oh so bad for poor Jennifer Aniston, who i must ( honestly) admit has brought me so much delight everynite at 7 pm on Star world. and i wonder also if Charlie Sheen ever cheated on Denise richards, i mean why else would she leave him while she was 8 months pregrant! and the list goes on. i have lived through two Bennifers, Tomkat, Brangelina, Vaughniston and dont know how many more are yet to come. and i seriously wonder, how much can i take. that i am sitting with my family watching a news channel, Headlines today and the bar goes like " Eva Longoria doesnt mind playing revealing characters because she wants to do it before she loses her sex appeal" or that " Madonna had a lesiban relationship with the same woman that Angelina had"

For crying out loud.....really loud....

and honestly, i have been sapping it up-every word, every trend, every beak-up, every on-again, off-again relationship, baby names, ridiculous baby names, which i think is just to put the world off. i think that gweneth paltrow and her hubby chris martin ( i loved u man before u went to the other side, what happened to protecting subsidies of vulnerable african economies mate!) call their children like sarah and john in real life, instead of apple and moses. and that stupid Kat Jiantis, she just keeps on feeding me with more gossip that i can handle. more designer bags, more luxury houses, more more more....and its all so bloody rich. there is this layer of rich and vacant people the world over who seem to be just 1% of the population and occupy almost 20% of news space. even this has seeped into the Indian media where now our Bollywood stars have just become out of control. their every move is beging tracked, when they broke a finger nail, who is Ash dating, who is sleeping with who and not to mention which model is Abhishek Bachchan seeing. and if neone wrongfully accuses me of plagarism, i get all this information from Bombay Times, Mumbai Mirror, Midday etc-the Kings of Convenience of both sides, id like to call them. while its celebrities on one side and media on the other, normal life is being pulled in the middle.

what is normal life?

1. normal life is not going to the gym
2. normal life is not getting your hair fried and dried every six months
3. normal life is not owning most of Oprah's Favourite things
4. normal life is not having aspirations to be like paris and nicole
5. normal life is having a pimple on your face and still going out
6. normal life is wearing boot-cuts even though Milan Fashion Week said they are so-yesterday
7. normal life is reading books-losta losta books-and just not because you can give some interview in some stupid supplement blabbering bout all the books you read
8. normal life is not hoping that someday you will own a pair of jimmy choos
9. normal life is cramming before finals
10. normal life is making mistakes and not being perfect
11. normal life is BBC not E!news. if you want fiction, Star World, Star Movies, HBO are always there
12. normal life is not always looking your best 24/7
13. normal life is definately not make-up
14. normal life is not about spending money, getting an ipod is not gonna make me happy. am miserable and i love it

and if neone seems to belive that what i have said above is totally fasle, they belong to a demographic that i dont and hence will not be affected by my views. why cant we all stop pretending to want to live these celebrity LA lives. especially living in India, its hard to talk on the new Nokia N-series in a ric with a 4 year old selling u a Midday.

kinda puts things into prespective doesnt it?

so please enough is enough. i am not some LA celebrity highroller who gets a massage for $2000 dollars at some "trendy" spa, or gets a table at the new "hotspot" sporting Balenciaga bag, big sunglasses and ponchos. i agree with Pink, i dont wanna be a stupid girl. so i am now gonna do something useful...

switch the channel...

juliana dippandi..i have had enough of you!

what if i dont get to go

what if...all my dreams and aspirations and all what i have worked so bloody hard for go up in smoke. someone mitght as well beat me to pulp and leave me for dead. two hours of sleep and i get the most horrible exam. yeas i dotn expect them to hand me down a degree like candy. but i didnt expect them to just spew venom. and its like a challenge...its us v/s them. no scope for actually learning aobut the practical applications of our subject. where is the small class of ten discussin current topics with the professor over cups of coffee and weekly multiple choice tests that test our ability to understand rather than our ability to mug.

yet....

what if i dont get thru..and have to give it all over again. where did i go wrong? did i go wrong? is economics even the right subject for me? am i not the intelligent person that i thought i once was?what happened to me? and if they are trying to break our spirit, what do they hope to achieve from all of this? to prove a point? that they are not that predictable after all? then why be predictable for ten years and change now? am i just unlucky?

will i actually be leaving on a jet plane?

Aretha rules

i simply lurve aretha franklin...her voice has the power to heal. i will always remember her song 'i say a lil prayer for u' i heard it when i went to the library to study. it was fun, i met some new people from the university. which i am now beginning to suspect may not be all that bad, considering i have to grit my teeth and go thru for just one more year. i dont have much confidence in a place where they are already convinced that we are a dumb lot. but the stuyding was fun, infact it was the long lunch and coffee/tea breaks that i took that were fun. it was with some people who were actually interesting and had some sort of substance to their personality. theres this one guy who looks totally lazy, but yeah apparently he likes to travel alot and be by himself. so that automatically qualifies him as an interesting person. the other one wore a t-shirt that said...the more i know bout men...the more i love my dog...hahahahaha! was thinking botu how sparky would def bite my hypothetical bf's toes off if i was caught not petting sparky. i mean this mutt almost bites my toes off for not petting him! he is such a sweetheart. years from now, i will be reading this blog with tears in my eyes thinking bout how much i miss sparky, and the way he was, at one point of time in my life. the only thing happy to see me and have me in his life. maybe he does that to everyone, but the fact remains, i clean his ticks and have saved his leg, he owes me his allegiance!

these four days were so much fun, i hope that i remember the feeling...it was a very warm feeling. like spring weather that we had for two weeks in march this year. just perfect. and i havent become a total non-social person, i actually like this whole thing about hanging out with random people (hahaha thinking bout Swingers club when wrote last sentence) but yeah and im sure they must think that i am the most bizzare person in the world hanging out with starngers. and taking them up on their offers of movies, treks, etc. frankly i am so bored ...i sang aretha franklin to a puppy yest..i have reached a new low.

reading english august and i know something for sure- i can never be like augustya, i can appreciate what he is talking bout. but unfortunately i recognize that agustya would in real life hate me. i am verbose, yelly, hopelessly curious and have trouble shutting-up. the funny thing is that i recognize it and realize that its ok that he would hate me. but i just cant kick my personality in the gutt. i decided a long time ago to accepy my annoyances which are numerous and embraced the yelly, overbearingness that i have. i am sure that some agustya-type people must have already laughed at me. but hey...

now i have to get bakc to my boring life which now, after reading english august, seems not as boring as it could have been. technology has been helping me along. even if there is no human contact.

but serioulsy... aretha does rule....