the first time is always difficult!

Being in love for the first time is difficult. Infact doing anything big or close to your heart for the very first time can be unnerving. You become so involved that you sometimes tend to lose perspective of things. This is kind of true in my case, maybe ,because I am an emotional freak! I guess the problem with me is that I try too hard at times, try to do things when I already have my hands full, think too much abt what I should be doing and what I shouldn’t, when a little less of thinking and imagining doesn’t hurt!
Out of the many lessons that Morrie teaches Mitch Albom in “Tuesdays with Morrie”,
(one of my favourite books) one that has stayed with me is the lesson on detachment- u really gotta be detached to experience something better in life..and this though very effective, is a hard one to implement.
Why is the first time always so difficult? Is it because although we know that the outcome may go either in or against our favour, we really donot consider the latter option. I don’t, and I don’t like to, and I don’t want to… coz maybe I live a lot in my dream utopian world, where nothing generally goes wrong. When you fear losing something very precious, u tend to care a lot for it..but sometimes the protectiveness gets a bit over-bearing, a bit, actually a lot possessive. And then you also fear making mistakes, for not wanting to look stupid and for not wanting to spoil anything. And then u start questioning almost everything you do, everything you say- ‘will this jeopardize anything?’. Almost everything seems like a ladder that you have to climb in order to be able to meet the expectations which are sitting on the last rung.
And then when things start getting really claustrophobic, when u realize you r squeezing the fun out of your lives…u sit and write a blog...to bring a bit of detachment into your life….to set your thoughts in place…you cannot enjoy something if you fear losing it so much...and its okay to make mistakes, especially if it is your first time…you got to have faith that everything will work out fine..and if that doesn’t happen..then like patrick overton said- When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know, And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly”......
You tell yourself all of this and you sign off…..

RHAPSODY

A carnival of life, merriment everywhere,
lights shining bright, lilting melodies in the air.
Like waves, we ebb away from the shores,
of dreary routines, and daily chores,
putting aside a monotonous sepia,
plunging into the depths of psychedelia...

Yet, the dazzling array of lights,
throws upon us a stark reality,
showing us how we live each day,
life's brazen travesty...

The air of festivity beckons us all,
from the isolated islands we have taken refuge in,
And the barrage of hard feelings shall fall,
as we get immersed in this ephemeral revelling...

A time will come, when the music will stop,
and the lights will slowly fade.
Wherever we stand in our journey of life,
we will always reminisce Rhapsody's serenade...

blah blah

this is a blog entry that i donot want my close friends to read...
there is is part of me that dislikes goodlooking people...it is not dislike entirely, it is dislike mixed with envy mixed with a 'grapes are sour' kinda feeling...and somehow life has always presented me with close encounters with people gifted with beauty..some encounters i have cherished and the others have just happened..aneesha, cd, deepshikha, rohini, sneha...and many others who've just been there fleetingly...but irrespective of the relationship i have shared with them, all of them have, at some point or the other, managed to arouse this feeling of deep dislike towards them..well, it is easy to shrug and say, "that's ur big inferiority complex, sweetheart!" ..aah! dont i know that..but living with it is kinda difficult..painful..especially when i so lack the confidence in myself...and what bugs me more is that a couple of the above mentioned ppl,they happen to be my closest friends, have said in an all-knowing nod...'naah! its not the looks...its about loving urself..its about how well u carry urself, it is being a 'beautiful person' that matters the most'...
bloody hell!!! get this and get this straight my dears thats a big big piece of poop! do you want to deny this...that compliments from the opposite sex is what should top the list of 'confidence boosters' for each one of us??? look deep within and u know u cant..its easy to love urself when u are mr./ms. popular..when ur pics on facebook and orkut get flooded with compliments, when u walk into a party and ppl stare at u wide-mouthed and everybody else pales in comparison...when guys/girls hit on u left rt and centre, when u r stalked my msgs, missed calls and proposals...thats when u become so sure of urself that u never fumble with words, u never take a sarcastic comment directed at u to heart..when u can never get possesive abt ur lover...
i dont know why i am saying all this today...piled up angst against many many ppl, i guess...

my mood- for- the day! i want to pack my bags and leave for an unknown destination..far away from familiar faces...

random thoughts

Is it very wrong to have expectations from a person close to you, from a relationship you have nurtured?
1. I showed my dad the first poem that was not one of those school-poem-writing-competitions sorts..like those ‘my country, my pet’ kinds…this poem was one that potrayed my adolescent feelings…some sort of emotional turmoil I was going through..this happened long back..i expected him to appreciate it, to understand me..n not look at it from the ‘english’ aspect..which is precisely what he did..and I haven’t ever shown him any of my other poems..
2. I told my mum that I had fallen in love..i had expected her to trust me as wholeheartedly as I wanted to trust her..i expected her to see me as a friend, as someone who needed her guidance…and she chose to completely alienate herself from this facet of my life…
3. There was a guy in college who had said something back in first year that had nearly broken my trust in a friend I had then- priyankar…our friendship was in the nascent stage and dunno why I had given him one chance to explain himself…thank god that I had kept the channels of communication open coz all of it turned out to be one big confusion..our friendship was saved and I had expected that he would do the same if ever our relationship faced such a crisis..trust me and talk to me and sort out stuff..but one fine day he simply stopped talking…
4. Ashmi..the first girlfriend I had in college…I knew we were absolutely different from each other..but I enjoyed the relationship we shared..at some basic level we connected really well..i had accepted her the way she was..and I had expected her to do the same…but one day somewhere that connection broke…I was miserable at the way we were growing distant, but after many many months I decided to talk to her..was I expecting too much when I wanted her to do the same…to let bygone be bygones..fine, we would never reach the point where we were at one pnt of time..but would a little more effort hurt?
5. Soham…a weird relationship…coz however weird things got between us we had promised to remain friends forever..he was a friend I could share all my feelings with and expect the reaction that I would be looking for…I had shared with him my greatest fear on the back page of his neuroanat book..two years back I guess..the fear of losing friends..the fear of asscaps falling apart…I had expected him to take care of my life in such a way that I never have to encounter this fear of mine..yet now we behave as we had never known each other…
6. Shirsha…the craziest friend I have…yeah well thank god I can use present tense for her…we shared a room in the hostel for over a year…had crazy fun filled moments, girly chats..shared our secrets…yet on a day when I was vulnerable as hell, before the MB, I hd expected that she would understand why I was being so paranoid..she left me alone..and that hurt!
7. Chandradeep…a person for whom the term ‘boyfriend’ sounds so trivial..he’s all relationships put into one..my part time best friend, part time counselor, part time lover..we generally take turns to handle each others mood swings..today I had expected him to handle my anger…yet his reaction completely left me numb…I had never expected him to be so cold..
Today was one bad day at college…everything suddenly felt so out-of-control..is it so very wrong to have expectations out of life..?? before coming here I had a different picture of how I would want to lead life in college…suddenly everything seems to be a bad nightmare…
All the people whom I have mentioned above are the ones I really really care for or had really really cared for at one point of time..i know I am not a perfect person…its just that I had strived to make my life a lil close to perfection..and that’s how I have messed up things so much!

medicine and growing up...

....orthopaedic ward..we were a group of 25 students surrounding a patient....a 60 year old lady...she complained of severe pain in her hip joint...we were over with the preliminary examinations..and even the over-enthusiastic lot in our batch were done with exhibiting their special clinical skills..we were getting bored, waiting for our professor to come and elaborate on the case..meanwhile i was loitering around in the ward...and i overheard this conversation which took place between the doctor who was treating 'our' patient and her son..
doc- her condition needs an immediate surgery..u'l be explained everything completely and there's no cause for concern...
son- umm...doctor..how much money..i mean could u give me an estimate..i'll have to arrange for it...
doc- the most minimum estimate wont be less than 20,000 rs...
and then that look on the guys face..blank..then a shadow of despair..and he silently nodded..it stabbed at my heart...money cant buy love...really???

pancoast tumor...a less occurring variant of lung cancer...lung cancer...what's it that comes to ur mind first wen u hear the words..death..loss of a near one..our professor told us to visit the wards and study a patient with the typical presentations of horner's syndrome ( a consequence of pancoast tumor)..i went after college, donning my labcoat..i asked the patient's wife to show me the reports and the x-rays..she thought i was a doc..and said..'doctor saheb, hospital se kab chodenge, pata hai?'..i mumbled..'main toh student hoon, jo doctor inhe dekh rahein hain unse poochiye'...and she said..'didi, aap toh samjhiye, hum garib log hain..doctor ko boliye na jaldi chod de..bahut dino se yahan hain...'
i stared at her...lung cancer..did anyone say death was the first thing on their mind...? ground reality surpasses every emotion...

my first visit to the diabetes clinic..community medicine project, part of the curriculum...before attending the clinic we had a class on how to communicate with the patients we would be interviewing...put them at ease, an instant rapport building is important, listen to them patiently, tactfully handle the questions on 'addiction' and similar seemingly embarrassing topics, hear them and try not to miss any point..so on and so forth..the teacher kept blabbering and we kept yawning..duhh! who cares..we have to go there..get some facts..manipulate sum other data..and write the project...10 marks..thats it..
and then the first patient..a 58 year old retired teacher living in the outskirts of kolkata..waiting in a queue, the weather was hot and all of us were sweating profusely..i spoke to the guy and convinced him to answer my queries till his turn came to visit the doc..
he began quite well, helpful and attentive to the questions, answering them to our satisfaction...in the middle of the questionnaire, his name was called and he had to go for his treatment...i waited for him outside, all the while grumbling about the heat, my parched throat, the stupid com med department and their dumb project ideas...then he came out..and i had to follow him and remind him that he had to complete the questionnaire..
and this time he angrily turned to me and said..' what do u want to know? the doctor didnot have time to hear what i had to say...do u know how far i come from?..how long i waited in that queue today?..and then wen my turn came, he scratched down something on the prescription and said 'thats it'..come for a chk up after a month...is it really so difficult for them to show some amount of concern and empathy...'
i didnot feel like pursuing him anymore..i let him give vent to his anger and saw him trudging out of the building in the sweltering heat...nurturing the doctor patient relationship...shouldnot that be in our curriculum as well..?

Sex and the City

there was something i wanted to write abt which thanks to my procrastination, i've not bin able to write as yet...i saw 'juno' on television..it is a movie about a teenager, a 16 yr old, faced with an unplanned pregnancy, who decides not to go through an abortion, and instead gives the baby to a childless couple..
it is quite a sweet movie..and apart from the character 'juno', essayed by ellen page, and the song 'anyone else but you', what i really really liked was the 'sexual liberation' in the soceity potrayed by the movie...where sex is not unholy and it doesnt merit the soceity's deprecation... yes..teenage pregnanacy is looked down upon..but not coz premarital sex is a sin but because it is imperative to play it safe..and all this when compared to the claustrophobic soceity we live in is utopia...

juno’s parents freaked out when she confided in them…true..but at least she could think of talking to them…if faced with a similar situation, I would have preferred to run away if I had the money or better still put the noose around my neck…than…oh gosh..even writing it here gives me the creeps…and juno’s parents, her mum esp saw it coming when she saw her in such great consternation…that’s coz I guess she knew what it is like to be a 16yr ol…when there’s so much to discover about urself..body and soul..
she could put herself in the shoes of sumone who was not just her daughter but also an adolescent…for that u have to know ur kids not just academically but also emotionally…


this incident happened a year ago...i was walking on the streets with CD (my boyfriend..and i'll write a lot more abt him in the forthcoming blogs..)..i dun remember clearly but probably we were holding hands...and this old lady comes up to us from nowhere..an absolute stranger to both of us..and shrieks aloud..'do ur parents know abt this..??? bunking classes...nothing better to do...blah blah'...and before we could even think of reacting she huffed puffed away...a person who doesnt know us at all has an opinion as to how i should be leading my life...!

another incident... this happened about 6 months back..i was returning to college in the evening and the metro was crowded like hell..there was a young couple waiting near the doors..and as the crowd at 'chandni chowk' station tumbled in all together.. jostling and pushing...the guy put his arm around the girl trying to protect her from the crowd..and this middle aged guy started muttering loudly- ei shob korar jonne victoria aache...('they can do all this at victoria'.... victoria memorial which is calcutta heritage and also a favourite hangout area for couples)...

so gist of the story is that the freakingly narrow minded attitude of the soceity bugs me like crazy...u r looked down upon if u hold the hands of sumone u love and u are considered characterless if u are unmarried and u have physical desires…what I donot understand is why is the whole ‘sati savitri’ image put on such a pedestal…for women that is..guys have always done what they have wanted to…why aren’t the physiological processes of the body given their due importance…I mean there is something called hormones…and its perfectly all right to be governed by their rise and fall! Umm…okay..this is medical shit that I am typing..guess that’s the cue to get back to my books….