Quicksand.

Drops of rain in paths of sand
Wind and tears, hand in hand
Whispering trees by the rippling lake
Telling me the same things again.

Rocky roads that twist and turn
Too much inside left to burn
Darkness where I look for light
I'm too tired to go on.

Walking along, blank and cold
Walls everywhere, nowhere to go
Stuck again, the same old way
I'm going back inside.

Overdue

The time has gone but the moments still wait.

For some day, one day.

Till there it is, just like you thought, except the time to think is long past.

The songs have waited too, long overdue.

It's time to finish.

And now, it makes sense. 

Restart.

I wish I could just restart. Do things all over again, differently. Change what decisions I took. It's too much damage to reverse and get on with. But probably I have no choice. It's been a struggle all along and it's only getting worse, never better. All the excitement, self-esteem, motivation has just been completely shattered in one year. It's nothing like I had envisioned, nothing at all. So? I bit off more than I could chew. Rather I ate too much of the wrong thing, it looks like. And it is mostly my fault. On the bright side, you never know until you've tried. You never know what you want to do till you're doing something you thought you wanted and then realizing this is not it. I want to go back to being who I was. That's what I'm better at and that's what I want to do.

This is not what I thought research would be like. Atleast this is not what I thought I would end up like. I'm at a point where every damn experiment I do is conspiring against me to not work no matter what. Maybe I'm just too lazy for research. I want to live a balanced, peaceful life where I'm happy, even if it's 'average'. I want to do other things. Not just think about problems all the time. 'Success' at the end of the day depends on you, and whether you're happy and it makes absolutely no sense to live in any other way.

Well, I need to get on with it. I need a break. Because most of the time I wake up wishing the earth would swallow me up and at the end of the day I feel like I should just go jump into the ocean. I need massive re-motivation, re-inspiration which realistically looks unlikely but I'm hoping something will strike. It's like waiting for a miracle to drop on my head.

Surrender

Sometimes you need to stop thinking, and let go. Let life take you where it wants. Blank out for a while, and surrender.
 Do things you never thought you would be doing. Maybe its true, there is a reason for everything that happens.
Because sometimes, you can feel what is just right and what isn't, though you can't figure out why. You need to know where to start and where to stop, and that's something you find out along the way.

The stories will unfold as you watch, and you're in the middle of it before you know it.

Monday blues

The monday blues. When you don't feel like dragging yourself out of bed and going to work. Especially after a particularly good weekend. I get homesick on and off. I miss going to weddings. All the dressing up and the food.
Life is a strange river, you never know where it's taking you. You never know what to think, what will happen and what you will do. You know what you don't want but you don't know what you want. It's always so crazy. There is constant change, you constantly need to adapt. It is after all, survival of the fittest.
I'm not so much of a fool anymore. I hope.

The weekend is almost here. And yes, for a change, something called a weekend does exist now and even though we usually have to work on saturdays, its more casual and relaxed, not like weekday pressure. I haven't had a good week but I'm hoping it will end well. Last weekend too was great, just like it should be. Saturday was off because of an institute power shutdown, thank god. Eating home-cooked bengali food, playing with adorable kids, sleeping and watching sunset at the sea. How much more could you want?

Walking along Colaba causeway, buying really pretty things(most of which turned out to be purple, predictably) for really cheap at street shops and walking into a random bakery we happen to cross and eating huge chunks of red velvet cake with the most buttery icing is an unbelievable pick-me-up.

If I'd read Feynman earlier, I'm pretty sure I would have become a physicist. Well, atleast tried to become a physicist. Sometimes I think that's what I should have done. It's just that I didn't find physics all that exciting in school. I probably just didn't look at it right. I think in the end, all scientists look for origins. Where we came from and where things came from and how things came to be the way they are is the ultimate question. And physics is at the root of it all.

Another 'growing up' post.

There are too many 'growing up' posts in this blog already. But the thing is, I don't think you can ever really grow up completely. You 'grow up' in different ways at different times.

You accept that the world isn't perfect.

That no one is perfect. Nothing is perfect. 

What is perfect is a mishmash of many separate things that don't come together.

People come and go. Some stay a little longer. Some are people you meet along your own journey - with each of your lives going different ways but crossing for an instant. But some become more than that - they become part of your journey, part of your life. They are friends. You need them. But you also need the other kind, for diversity. For moments. And being able to separate them is important too and its something that comes in one of the later phases of 'growing up'.

Streaming thoughts

Always keep chocolate handy for dementor attacks.

Rains will be here soon. Sometimes when it rained heavily and the city got flooded, everyone would stay at home and not go to school/college/office. I would curl up in bed with coffee and hot chocolate and wrap myself up in blankets and read. Or just sleep blissfully in the dark room with the soothing sound of rain pattering against the window. Or sit at my table by the window and watch the trees getting washed, greener and greener.
Rainy days meant being lazy, eating khichuri, aloo bhaja and omlettes for lunch. The ultimate comfort I wish I could sink into.
Enjoying a day off with family. I miss home.

But I guess at some time or the other, we have to get used to it. You need to find a way.

The Sunday mood.

I want to do too many things. I want to eat chocolate and cheesecake. Watch a ton of movies. Read something nice. Sleep. Lie on the grass all night and watch the sky. Smell lemons. Paint something with watercolours, a lot of light green and yellow. Write. Watch sunset, though I have the fortune of doing that every day. Meet old friends. Take photos. Travel, go away somewhere. Where its very green. 

Like a dream

The faint sound of temple bells, somewhere

Shadowy corners tucked away in the trees.

The pale sea reflecting the sky of a thousand colours,

still as glass except for the low murmur of ripples on the rocks.

The vast sea whispering her secrets.

Ship lights line the horizon

The sky darkens as stars rise

While the city on the other side glitters.

The calm wind

and silence. Solitude.

Like a dream.

Some days are just bad. True, chocolate helps. Specially if its crunchy.
Its nice to play trippy trance-like music in the evening or late at night when the lab is empty.
Porcupine tree, all time favourite.

If you fall asleep with me
You can dream and drowse
The miuntes turn to hours

We could climb a tree or two
And watch the sun go down
Upon our sleepy town

Reminds me childhood and the innocence. When we really did climb trees. Ran around outside, broke numerous windows playing cricket or football. When all we had to worry about was how to retrieve the ball that fell into the neighbour's terrace.

We've come a long way, yeah.

Rise

Fires left burning. Lapping up everything.

Too many things, just gone.
I am unforgivable.

Charred shadows follow, haunting me wherever I go.

Catching me when I try to run.

Destroying, when I try to build again.

Drowning me in ashes when I try to bury them.

Again, and again.

I may be a darker shade of grey
but I never wanted to be this.
What I have been.
The destroyer.

How long will these ghosts possess me,
my thoughts, my life
Maybe its time to exorcise.
To rise.

To make my way out of the ashes I created.
Dust them off.
Unchain the shadows tied to me
 And let myself  live again.

The life.

We do science because we want to find things out. We want to know what, why and how. We demystify.

Life is like science. We demystify too. We want to know.
 Except sometimes it takes courage to know.
Sometimes you want the mystery to stay unsolved, just for the excitement of there being a mystery. 

Life is like an experiment. Sometimes you need to carefully think about what you want and design your actions that way. Or sometimes you just do it for the heck of it, to see what happens. Without thinking about what the end could be. 

But either way its all a mess. We have our good days and our bad days.
Times we think and think and can't find an answer.
Where is this going, what am I doing, what do I want, and what will I find at the end of it all?

Rush

Doing something new. Being out there again after ages of hibernating. Opening up to let yourself free.

That feeling in your stomach, of insane fear mingled with excitement. Feeling your heart pumping away while you try to breathe. Blood throbbing through every vein. Feeling crazier and dizzier. Forcing yourself to not topple over as your feet try to take the next step, one closer, as your head gets fuzzier and you think you're going to black out.

Being alive, not just existing. Listening to the waves crashing against the rocks you're sitting on. Stars scattered over the sky. The cold night wind that makes you shiver. Rediscovering what you love.
And the rush.

One of those days.

There are some days I'm in such a bad mood, I don't want to talk to anyone or do anything. After days of experiments screwing up repeatedly for some reason or the other and too much to do. All I feel like doing is crawling up in some dark corner listening to Opeth or some of the death metal I used to listen to years ago and just drowning in it because I don't want to get back to the world. And downloading strange wallpapers, the sort of stuff on Porcupine Tree album covers. I find them beautiful and unsettling at the same time and they fit well with my mood.

This one is my current favourite.

My lab has just been built so there's a lot of floor space and under the work tables is a pretty nice place to sit. You can even sleep there. Which I do sometimes. Dark and cosy and people won't disturb you and mostly they cant see you when they come in through the door. Suits me just fine. It's just for a few more days though. After a couple of days I won't be able to do this so I'll just have to walk around looking grumpy.

Settling in.

Its actually ironical how being yourself is the hardest thing to do sometimes. 

I've been in Mumbai a little more than a month and I've pretty much settled in and gotten used to the place. I turned 21, had celebrations stretched out over a week but I still feel like a teenager. 21 is hard to believe. This place is beautiful and most of the time we are extremely busy and right now I have been super busy. I'm still excited about learning new things and I hope things stay that way no matter how difficult it gets. 

I want a camera, I feel almost handicapped without one. So much to click. 

New Starts.

So I am in Mumbai. Still a few days before starting off at TIFR. Apprehensive about not knowing any biology but very excited about learning what I love and finally working.

Right now I am back in this Porcupine Tree obsession phase, and I am totally tripping on the stuff. If this sin't the most beautiful music I've ever listened to I don't know what is. Its repetitive and dark and trippy but strangely energizing. It makes you escape reality, you go into this altered state.
Dark tunnels and alternate universes. Never ending dark streets with dim orange streetlights. Ruins of ancient houses, with crumbling walls, empty except for an old piano. A walk along high cliffs at night, overlooking the sea. Music has this strange ability to construct scenes in your head, and you visualize yourself as if it were a music video in which you're there. Some are almost happy. Perfect if you want to write poetry or something. I would but I'm lazy.

For now I will continue to sink into music. Its something I haven't actually done in a while.

And this is a photo I took from the train on the way here.

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