Sunday, August 10, 2008

Rain in XL

How I shall miss Jamshedpur weather. I must have said this many times on this blog before, but I just can't get over it, so I'll just say it again - it rains in Jamshedpur all the freakin' time! It's amazing. And it makes for excellent moods, despite quizzes and submissions.

Yesterday, for example. I came out of the hostel in the morning, on my way to class. The wind riffled through my salwar-kameez and tried to steal my dupatta. I had to shield my face and my hair against the leaves flying about. But soon enough, I gave up and just raised my face to the wind, enjoying the way it tickled my face.

Then, in the afternoon, the sky was overcast again. The mess was giving out samosas with tea, and Anu and I brought our plates out and sat on the hostel steps. The trees were waving, and there was a wind ruffling our hair. We discussed our Kerala plans for September, and talked about everything we wanted to do. It was brilliant.

And then it started raining. We moved off the steps and onto the veranda, and sat there and watched the rain. It was more of a downpour than a drizzle - something that you rarely see in Jamshedpur. People were running to and fro, shielding themselves with books. The sports guys coming back from the field were the only exceptions. It was nice sitting there in the protection of the veranda, hugging our knees, eating our hot samosas and being sprinkled with cool water droplets.

And then, today. I spent a couple of hours in the library in the afternoon, studying. And then came out at 4:55 exactly, because I had a meeting at five. And oh, the weather - it was gorgeous. The thing about the XL campus, you see, is its trees. Other campuses may have more trees and more greenery, but there is this.. quality about the very trees in XL. They are simply gorgeous. You walk through the campus, and you'll be dazzled by their beauty.

There is a path leading from the acad building to Bodhi Tree. It borders JLT and the admin building, and is lined by trees on both sides. And whenever I walk this path in the daylight, on my way to the library or the sports field or outside campus, I get amazed by the sheer beauty of the trees - every single time. There is this sparkly green-ness to them that is so breathtaking. They wave in the wind, and the colours change, a thousand shades of green, all around me.

At around dusk, I was sitting with V on JLT. Again, under an overcast sky, with a bit of a drizzle. The drizzle suddenly became stronger for a while, and then dwindled down again. It left the whole of the lawn full of water drops, which caught the fluorescent light from the big lamp on top of the hostel, and sparkled like a carpet made of a million diamonds.

And I looked at the sight, and wished I could take mental pictures, and sighed, and got frustrated, and burst out with, "V! Do you realize that we won't be here this time next year?" V got shocked by my sudden outburst, I think, and he said, "Arre.. That's a long time away, baba.." "No, you don't get it!" I said, even more frustrated. I didn't bother to explain more, but I had suddenly realized that I would see no more June's or July's here. It made me profoundly sad in a way I can't explain.

"You know," V said after a while, "We think that we'll never have as much fun during the rest of our lives as we had here, and that way, the rest of our lives actually does get ruined." Or, well, words to that effect.

So yes, the profoundest statement of the evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is all about the self-fulfilling prophecy. I shall now look forward to years of being bound to the desk, and of office politics, and loving Fridays and hating Mondays. Yay.

I can feel the time slipping through my fingers. Less than seven months now.
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Sunday, August 03, 2008

My Room

Red curtains. A red lamp casting yellow light. A red chair. Bedsheets with red design on them. A laptop that has forgotten the last time it was shut down. A teddy bear that is slowly asphyxiating inside its cover because its owner thinks it would be too girly to take it out. A white piece of thermocol with some twenty pairs of earrings hung on it. A cupboard containing way too many clothes. A basketball in the corner. Clothes chucked here and there. Course books that have clearly never been opened. A folded up rajai and two red cushions pretending that they form a cool floor-seating-type thing.

The view outside is of the ugly, lichen-laden back of the cafeteria - which is why she never opens her curtains. But sometimes, when it's just about to rain, she opens the curtains and sits at the corner of the bed. She loves the sight of the buildings framed in black clouds. She wishes she could burn that picture onto her mind - try as she might, she can't take a photo that quite captures the magic of that moment.

There's music perpetually on - music that none of her neighbours appreciate. English music - Coldplay, Blue October, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, Fleetwood Mac - Hindi music, Malayalam music, Tamil music. Eclectic? Nope - 'wannabe' is more like it.

I like this room - it's my sanctuary.
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