Flash Blacks and Exam Blues

Its 3am and i'm notepadding away in my cell-phone. For sleep just doesn't seem to come to me these nights. Daytime is another name for drugged existance. Books (read: textbooks), a pretty sight, neatly stacked in my rack. Neat, for their only worldly contact is the rag used to dust them. Me? Touch,pick and read them?No no!

All semester, it has been a whacko ride rushing with assignments, seminars and submissions. A perfect schedule with perfect deadline meets and a prim know-all demeanour. Such a pride of a long awaited Renaissance! Come viva-voce, and its all smiles. Another ride with a heady start! With the same confidence that streamed all semester.

And then the post intermission blues enter the movie. Dwindling efforts in last few vivas, with a steady hattrick of them respected Profs shooing me off with a 'you-know-nothing' remark! Sigh!
Left all that to the grace of my beaming Attendance Record (Renaissance,see?) and braced the almost-much awaited PL! (Prep Leave for the uninformed.Study leave for noobs.) Awaited,yes. For the countless hours of slumber it always promises.

A week and a chapter later, i meet few classmates and proudly relate to them the 'big-chapter' i did. Swift comes the reply - "That is it??" Here shatters all that jazz.
Another week down and i groped few notes here and there. The magic 'Dwindle!' spell shoots. I decelerate and halt.

Its another week gone by and i'm still at halt. Exams a week away. My WMP plays more tracks than before. My VLC plays more SouthPark. The TV plays more cartoons et shows. All senses fixed. Books? Er, sorry?

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Now playing: Opeth - Heir Apparent

Passion 1: Reading!!

It all started for me in the moonsoons of 1997,when we 5th graders were issued with library cards and were granted access to two cabinets- one with shelves holding short-stories' collections and the other with 'novels' - in our school library. We were to line up in front of either of the two in our weekly 'library period' and pick one book each,if at all. The line was longer in front of the former compared to a bare-minimum of 4-5 students queuing up for novels. Which normal 10 yr. old read 'novels' anyway?

So there it was, short-stories, ghost-stories, Chicken Soups, abridged compositions et al..with of course, Enid Blytons predominating the lot! My eyes devoured as much as they could gather. Only after a good amount of 'short-story' foraying, did I finally deem myself capable of handling the Shelves de les novellas! And whom might I find there? Carolyn Keene and her protégé-Nancy Drew! Then again, there still featured Enid Blytons- Famous Five,Secret Seven,Hardy Boys....scoured them all!

Come 6th Grade and I decided them 2 cabinets weren't enough to keep me satiated. Joined a municipal library near home (BrihanMumbai Mahanagarpalika Corp.'s 'Chembur Sarvajanik Vachanalay'..short name indeed). Here I carried on with more Nancy Drews till I stumbled upon Francine Pascal's 'Sweet Valley' series..'Twins and Friends' to start with. Hooked and booked. Or vice-versa. These were succeeded with the rest of the series- ' Sweet Valley Jr. High' , 'Sweet Valley High' and ultimately 'Sweet Valley University'. (psst..I mention every little detail here for these really pushed me deeper into discovering the one hobby I'd stick to for years to come.. Yeah, OK, would stop when I'm 90..n hey,Sweet Valley ruled!Them Wakefields and it juvenile romance). And oh! R.L. Stine and his 'Goosebumps' and 'Fear Street' series!

Moving onto 'real' novels,(talking 7th grade) there were Mark Twain (dear dear Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Shakespeare (The Lord Playwright) and Sidney Sheldon (hey, he appealed to me. the crush of the 13 yr. old in me). Down the years, these were later followed by H.G.Wells (1st- The Invisible Man), Robin Cook (1st- Mutation), Stephen King (1st- The Green Mile), Jeffery Archer(1st- Not a Penny more, Not a Penny less), Dan Brown (1st- tch, needs no mention) and the Harry Potter series (:P). There were many others far and in between a zillion times better than those I've mentioned here (again, I grew up with these, so they feature :D)

Favourites so far.. 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand would always remain a top-notch fav. Closely followed by Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Currently reading- J.R.R. Tolkein's 'The Lord of The Rings' (All hails, c'est brilliante!!)

Lotsa blabbing done, reading was, is and will remain a passion for as long as my brain is where it should be. Cheerio! Happy Reading!

"Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man."
Sir Francis Bacon

What maketh a Friend?

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-Voltaire (1694 - 1778),

(Attributed); originated in "The Friends of Voltaire", 1906, by S. G. Tallentyre (Evelyn Beatrice Hall)

This blog comes a little after my best friend (He-Knows-Who) casually asked me to relate to him a little construction..A Pyramid comprising the people that meant the most to me..holding rungs accordingly. What I came up with though, was more like a plateau..:D On my way back home (a long walk,soaking in a heavy shower,which helped induce the 'silent comtemplation' mode in me :P) I recalled the most immediate of 'good times spent with friends' that surfaced in my mind..n voila! the plateau started writhing to shape. N how? The unpretentious ones were all that were left on the ladder..

I've assumed, in the past, some of my school pals to be my best friends,that i wouldn't ever let go of them no matter what..but time showed that friends grow n move on..the only thing common between ourselves n our school pals is just that-our school. Though a select few still stick on..:) Jr. Colg., Degree Colg. n the years, have introduced me to more friends, more gems who've made it easy for me to define what friends really are. It ain't about being there, being fair or taking sides, its about defending them in front of the world n condemning them to the core after shutting the world out. Here's to al those gems, A Million Thank Yous!

On a parting note,here's a poem composed by my beshtest friend(SHE-knows-who :P)

Fervently supporting me throughout
Reinforcing my self belief without doubt
Intransigent I may have been still
Embracing my faults n strengthening my will
Never can I thank you enough for always being there for me
Do the initial letters spell a word for you to see?

Happy Friendship Day All!!