The Athenian: Where I Belong

It's official, the nostalgia is finally starting to kick in, my (or rather our) farewell is in another 6 hours and I can't quite get myself to capture the memories of a span of 12 friggin years in just one post.

It's true that I hate my school for what it has done to me time and again but I'm going to miss hating my school so much once I'm out of it (which in a way, I am already). There are so many memories that I associate with Osoka Hell as some of us would rather sardonically would call it.

Amidst the rubbish, the politics and the murk, there were a few beautiful people and a few beautiful things about my school. Once such was my baby, The Athenian, the quiz club of Ashok Hall. Priyanka and Annesha Didi (who later just became Priyanka and Annesha) were two seniors who I had always been in awe of. Not because they were so smart and witty and brilliant but because they made me feel like I was not the only one in school who thought that it was a perfectly good thing to know stuff and be well read, not restricting one's knowledge only to one's text books. Mind you, this may seem very obvious to you, but you have to take into consideration that I went/go to a school where the majority think that it's cool to be ignorant.

So anyway, when Annesha announced the introduction of a quiz club in school, I was shit scared to join but I finally mustered the courage and attended a meeting. The first meeting that I went to broke all my notions about quizzing. Nobody followed any quiz books. Nobody bossed over another and everybody was equally interested in learning new things from one another. That is one thing that immediately made me fall in love with the way the unofficial quiz club worked in our school-everybody taught something or the other and everybody learnt someting or the other.

A year went by quickly, Alokita Di, who was the senior most passed out and priyanka and Annesha became the senior most. Though they got caught up with their exams and all that, they managed to keep the ball rolling. We even had Mr. CP Singh help us out during a few sessions and well I only have one word for that great man-RESPECT! We started going for the quizzes, random ones as well as major ones. We won some and lost most, but that didn't matter. We quizzed to enlighten ourselves, not to win.

But the year that followed is probably the most special for me. The quiz club was now Gayatri's and my baby (not literally, of course!). Since she was more of a friend and never much of a senior to me, we had the most kickass meetings in the computer labs ever!! Now this next bit is going to be very hard for me, but I think I'll give it a shot: (The Athenians as I know, in random order:)

• Monishita->Moni-> Okay, so I am officially at a loss of words for this girl. I met her on the first day of my induction into the quiz club and I was completely BLOWN AWAY by the amount of stuff that she knew for someone of her age. Initially dismissing her to be of the serious kind, boy did she prove me wrong and how. Moni, I love you so much that it hurts and also you have no idea the amount of respect that I have for you. I'm starting to get all nostalgic by thinking of some of the things that we did, that'll be forever etched in my memory. From making pornographic jokes in the computer lab so loudly that the teachers could hear to bitching about Uncle Fester and his mean ways to cribbing about the lack of support from school to plotting against but secretly ogling at a certain somebody to being scolded by the guards at BCL for being loud and obnoxious, you and I have come a long way. You were just a junior in the team, but you became a very close friend of mine..all because of the Athenian. Please don't stop quizzing, ever. Even when you're 40 years old (that'd make me 41, ewww), we'll still reunite as a quiz team like the good old days and kick some serious butt at those goddamn open quizzes. Whokkay?
• Shreya Vohra ->Vohra-> Unlike Moni, I had actually known Vohra from junior school where we paired up during those Maggi quizzes but remained distant from each other throughout the rest of the year. Class 9 happened (to me), we were regularly having those sessions and that was the time that brought her close to me. We share some special memories too but I don't know why but the first thing that pops into my head is that of Vidjanjali quiz which Gayatri, you and I went for and there was a creepy retarded lecher staring at my legs. Nevermind. But that apart, you'll forever be special to me as the kid who grew up in front of my eyes. From the geek who blushed at the mere mention of something adult to the sassy teenager whose confidence was something to die for. No matter how sad it may have been for us, but you did a really good thing by leaving, unlike some stubborn people (re: the person above) who choose to stay back in this hell-hole. Vohra, please be the way you are and DON'T ever settle for mediocrity, up and above-that is where you belong, not with the average Janes around you. I love you also, soo soo much!!
• Debajanjali-> Deba (I REFUSE to call you "Debbie" and all those cheesy Americanized names!)-> The only one in the lot who I could actually call a proper junior just so that I could exert my authority on her. Hehhehe. From being the wonder eyed and confused with the camaraderie, you too have come a long way and trust me, you tend to underestimate your own capabilities at times, I'm not asking you to change that bit about you, I'm just asking you to figure out a way to turn that into as asset. I remember how you fell in love (and consequently out of) with a certain somebody from a certain team and then cried your heart out and even decided to quit quizzing because you'd have to see his face. THANK GOD you didn't, what on earth would be do without you?! Please keep quizzing and whatever you do, please don't come back in 11, you belong somewhere better.
• Sudarshana->Sud-> the ONLY member in the club who I can say is thinner than me. woohoo! I'm not going to say anything about you as a batch-mate cause it'd take up a whole lotta space. But as far as the quiz club is concerned, I wish you'd join sooner, it would have been more fun to have somebody from my batch with me to share the camaraderie with.
• Alokita Di, Annesha, Priyanka and the other seniors-> well I know you won't kill me simply cause you can't so I'll just go ahead and say those words...as a junior, I have always been in awe of you people and back in class 6/7, I wanted to be just like you one day when I grew up (!) and it was because of all of you that I started to love quizzing but more importantly, grew an interest for knowing and discovering and exploring and sometimes making porno jokes. When my juniors tell me how cool I am and how they want to be like me when they grow up etc etc, I secretly smile and thank my lucky starts, THANK GOD they haven't seen you people like I have, I would have been dismissed as a complete jackass then!
• Vidisha, Suchetana, Nilofer, Manvi, Sonal, Shreya, Ritika, Mayurakshi, Anwesha and any other junior who I'm so sorry to have missed out ->you guys ARE the future and I have immense faith in you to keep the legacy going. Please kick butt and make me proud!!

Last, but definitely not the least is my partner in crime-cum senior-cum worst nightmare,

• Gayatri->Gay and other such abbreviations-> Okay, so you're probably the most annoying, retarded and foul tempered girl that I have come across in my 18 years of existence, but you know what, at the end of the day, I love you for who (or rather 'what'!) you are, from those juvenile TCS IT Whiz quizzes to Puffin, you've been the best team mate one could ask for. Moni, you and I were probably the greatest team ever-I mean c'mon, WHO CAN BEAT THE RAPPORT THAT WE SHARED?!?! I'm so sorry that you didn't get to be the Quiz Club Captain, when in reality, it was you who deserved it a lot more than me. But I'm so thankful to you for not letting that get in the way of our 'fraandsheep'. Gayatri Kaul, you are one helluva quizzer and I cannot think of any other person topping your randomness. (for example that 'cursor' during Puffin) Thank you for nagging me to join the quiz club and so in a way changing my life. The meetings weren't the same without you, really...

So I think I'll end my post here...I'm very VERY emotional right now. But to sum this up, I'll forever be an Athenian-till the day i die...

You look at me.
Your eyes seem to have a story to tell.
What's it going to be about this time,
My ignorance or my insecurities?

Pick a Label, Whadja Get? I Got Punk Slut!

I don't like labels. I dislike it even more when I get labelled. I don't approve of the whole concept of stereotyping someone because of their appearance.

Just because I have ''emo'' hair (woohoo!) again, does that mean that I'm emo, the way I was once upon a time when "the hair" was becoming a fad? What is emo anyway?! I've been called goth just because I usually wear dark clothes and have raccoon eyes most of the time cause I'm too lazy to pimp myself up. People have called me boho at times just because I've chosen to pull stuff out of my closet and just wear them without keeping colour coordination in mind. I've even been called punk because of the tattoos and the piercings. Seriously, what's the logic behind the conclusion?!

But to look at it with a lighter perspective, if I really had to pick a label for myself, I think I'd pick that of a geek. I am not the textbook-mugging up kind, mind you....I am worse, I am the random geek who wants to know it all and believes that learning is a process that lives on till the day we die. There is nothing wrong with being a geek-there's so many things to know, so many wondrous things to read, to hear, to smell, to taste, to feel, to touch...to experience. Everyday is like a lesson in the book of life. Yes, I KNOW how gay the last sentence was, but that is the truth, isn't it?

Suyasha Sen is a geek and is proud to be one. All geeks unite!

*makes spastic face*

Finding Another Me

It is time.

I must go. Away some place.

Past the barren streets.

Past the meadows of shame

I must go. Away some place

where no one knows my name...

And you'll never see the tears that swell in my eyes.

You'll never hold me in your arms again.

But just for tonight,

will you lie next to me and watch the stars above us?

Dissonance

moments, they come.

moments, they go.

moments that make me wish they'd never pass.

moments that make me die a thousand deaths.

moments, taking you away from me.

moments, bringing me back to life.

i lived on, just to see your face.

i lived on, just to kiss your lips.

i lived on, just to be held in your arms.

but you killed me in the end.

how can i come back now?

Sometimes you have to break everything down and start again from scratch. Starting with the same old thing is not the bit that's the hardest, letting it go and watching it disintegrate into a million little pieces is.

I'm starting to wonder if it's just me or if everything really does come with an expiry date-love, friendship, interests, fame, fortune and even sanity.

"In the someday, what's the sound?"

I feel a teeny weeny bit flattered. A lot of people have been reading my blog. Yes I know, all comments have been disabled. I have done that because a blog is essentially like a journal, or a diary. You read a diary, but keep your opinions to yourself. Similarly, my blog is a random collection of rather personal thoughts. I write because I feel like it. Thanks a whole bunch for reading it. But that's where it ends. I can be really mean at times, he he he, I know!

But jokes apart, I think it's time for me to move on. I have been updating this blog for nearly two years now and like most things, this is where it ends. My first post was sometime in July 2008 and my last post shall be sometime in July 2010, I'm so sorry, but this is something that I just have to do...

The Perils Of Being Mary Sunshine

When it comes to piercings, needles work wayyyy better than piercing guns. I would know about it, I have 18 of them so far, out of which 5 were pierced with needles/silver and the rest were pierced with guns.

I am an absolute sucker for body art and body modifications, it drives my parents up the wall, but I have always been somewhat of a fetishist when it came to body art. It's a lot better than stoning or causing yourself pain atleast. I got my first set of piercings on the lobe like a good little girl when I was barely a couple of months old. The thought of a whole bunch of accessories never really fascinated me as a child but as I grew, I had this desire to wear a nose stud and a navel ring. Not because of anything else, but because it'd make me feel good.

So I think I was about 14 years old when I woke up one morning and said to myself, "Fuck it, no more contemplating, I will get my navel pierced today!" and so I called up my friend, convinced him to take me and just went ahead and did it. That was what I was like as a kid-wild, impulsive, random and crazy. Be it stoning in school, dying my hair blue, randomly collecting money on the road by ambushing strangers to feed street dogs or trying to jump off from the terrace etc-that was who I was.Three years back, I was wild and carefree and I was myself. I'm just like a domesticated housewife now. This has nothing to do with my guy though, he's not the one binding me to a seemingly average lifestyle, au contraire, he likes the wild streak that I have in me. It's me who is doing this to myself.

I don't think this is about growing up, it's more of making compromises for society. But I have compromised to the point where I am starting to not recognize who I am.

This was never me. This is NOT me. I am not this weak and fragile. I didn't cry the day my favourite kitten died, that too in my arms. I didn't cry when my aunt passed away because of cancer. I didn't cry when my very best friends in school ditched me just because I got nominated as School Captain and they didn't.Heck, I didn't cry the day he raped me. So why now?

It makes me feel so stupid when I even think about it. Here I am, taking pride in being so strong mentally, but breaking down because of such incredibly foolish reasons.

But anyway, this post was not meant to be one where I wallow in self-pity. So I'd better put a lid on it. The primary reason why I started to get piercings was because I promised myself that I'd never cut myself again. Though I have failed to live up to it at times, I have kept my promise more or less.

If you're in pain, take up an instrument, join an activity club, write, paint, tell people about it, blog, take a walk, get a tattoo if it's that bad (though I wouldn't quite recommend it cause the shit is permanent and it's not very wise to get a tattoo just for the sake of it, without it being of any significance to you!). If the pain really gets to you, then seek help. Therapy really does help. But cutting yourself is just useless. You think it'd make you feel better, but honey it doesn't. It never can. It just makes you feel worse at the end of the day.

If you're a cutter, then don't be ashamed to admit it. Seek help, either from someone else or from within. If you want, you can come out of it completely, if I can..I think you can too. After all, we're just average human beings, none of us are superheroes!

Open your eyes.

Cleanse your soul.

Wipe those tears.

Fill up that hole.

Not with lies,

Not with pain,

But the purity

Of the pouring rain.

The rain of tears.

Tears for blood.

Just look, how a tiny drop

Turned into a flood.

Now I watch you drown,

while acting like an imbecile.

I watch as you sink,

and it makes me smile...