Change

I will not dwell upon how ephemeral change is...Its' way too overrated. I would rather dwell upon my life because face it I can't help talking about myself, what with being narcisstic and all that. And writing here to get it out of my system is way better than to keep throwing it at my friends day in and out. There's one thing I live by. No one can understand you the way you do and to expect people to do that is plain foolhardy. No gf, parent or even the closest friend can ever really get to you. And to expect such a herculean task from anyone is self-delusional.

I guess I am now afraid to bare my soul to any individual apart from my two-dimensional screen. I can't really expect someone to sit with me 24x7 and take heed of every thought that springs to my mind. That would be selfish on my part and understanding this heralds understanding change...How often have people penned down in your slambook, "Never change - stay the same so that I can always love you like this". People change and they change a lot. An old friend will never get over his image of you when you had good times together. That's the hardest part of moving on as also of meeting the old friend again. Always disappointing for both chaps. Both coming to terms with the stranger standing in front of them, it breaks whatever old memories they shared.

So I went from being a nerdy oversized introverted kid to a hyperactive overdriven stick-thin workaholic to a work-hating alcoholic who would rather sit and dream in all day in a drunken stupor to more recently a cross between all three. I used to come back home and revise whatever I did in school each day. I would stay off all physical activity except for a few rounds of cricket and an occasional game of football. I still remember carrying fiction to the compulsory games break because i wanted to utilise my time. I remember my teens - awkward trying to make friends for the first time in my life; being aware of girls; being mortally terrified of them to the extent of shunning them. I remember my first brush with religion. Finding faith was beautiful. Honestly then, it was better than first love. It was the 90s. Economic growth, booming markets, IT jobs fresh all around - the days of the new Indian nuclear power. I guess that's when Americans started associating India with the still sleepy South Indian city of Bangalore and not the Cherokees and the Inuits. And I was lapping it up. Dreaming big for my country - dreaming big for myself.

I don't know where politics thurst in. But it did. The beginning of terrorism, the BJPs jingoism and the Kargil war had cemented my national pride. I identified with the right wing fundamentalist thought-process. One had to be a capitalist. One had to throw open our economy. One had to be strong against terrorists and to protect our fledgling economic miracle. And one identified with the men at the top. And then Gujarat happened. And I was disillusioned. I had championed faith, discipline and dreams not murder never murder. And how much more I racked my brains I could derive no semblance of reason for such divisive and reckless hate. My brief love affair with right-wing thought was over. I turned my back on public policy, my childhood heroes and my aspirations of a career in civil service, never to return. I would rather be a hypocrite and blame the random politician than join his ranks and taint my hands in blood or corruption. It was time to move on to a scarier place, St. Stephen's.

What happens when you snatch a gawky. awkward 17 year old from his books and push him into a world where glamour meets intellectualism? Either he changes his ways or he breaks and quits. I believed I was smarter than any who crossed my path in college. But I wasn't like most people around me in college. I wasn't used to making and keeping friends, or to co-exist in other people's spaces nor did I care enough to carry on a polite conversation with anyone around me. ...

To be continued