subway ride on a hot day

i understand that people are quite literally hot headed in this weather. and it doesn't help when the train is 30 mins late, and a HUGE impatient, office crowd has consistently formed by now to board the next subway. and of course everybody is late. so when the train finally comes, i enter without getting stampeded. now, normally i avoid sitting close to anybody because like any other need-my-own-space healthy-phobia driven American populace, i have acclimated to this way of life. very much unlike the Calcutta subway riders where people could kill each other for a seat! my intention of taking the seat next to this woman in this two seater was purely to make room for another person to stand. and there was no amount of bodily attachment at the arms or wherever! we were both not quite all that fat. but my neighbor took it upon herself to educate me on mannerisms, "you know you should have at least had the manners to say excuse me can I take the seat"! so in response i had to say, "i'm sorry i did not realize you could be that selfish and unaccommodating. i was making room for someone to stand because it's so crowded." of course she decided that i was a "bitch." so i rose to the occasion of pointing her the anomaly in her observation, "clearly you are. you are the one barking for no reason." the logic of which, she did not appreciate. nice start to the day, i say! clearly however, we have developed a curious sense of personal space.

social networks

so i don't usually socialize at the bars with the law school colleagues mainly because i find myself neither here nor there; one group is the singles group ready to soak up their law school stress with alcohol and amore, and the other group is the married persons/couples --they are there with their partner, possibly the only time in the week when they are hanging out with each other or they are together with other couples. so when people ask me if i made "many" friends in Indiana, i say some yes, but not many. in response they gasp and retort "but you used to be so good at it!" as if something rather terrible transpired. which is rather amusing, and besides there is plenty of loop holes in that thesis anyway. but here's why: one of the foundations of good, sound friendship is to witness each other making raving total mistakes after gulping down ounces of alcohol, and doing the most inappropriate of things that should not be remembered, and pulling back your hair while you throw up and call yourself a fool, and then taking you home. thus, keeping each other's embarrassing, black-eyed secrets cements lasting friendship. since bars near college campuses are the places to be where you can depend on such crucial social developments, indeed i have missed out on opportunities. but hey! one of these days i might find myself my niche-- unavailable single, who mentally mingles, and takes pictures of all the giant torts taking place all around ;) ah! my evil mind, you warm my heart!


disclaimer: lot of what is written is for purposes of entertainment. and not to be misunderstood as defamation or libel on any people or groups of people. (damn! i'm getting good at this :P )

besides the point

I seem to recall every now and then these days what J told me some years back, when we talked for the last time (for different reasons)... he had said what I consider today as the most poignant and astute observation, "no one is put out there to love you." While that statement couldn't be any truer in it's generic sense, it also is just as true in it's specificity...

I had sometimes wished that one day in this long stretch of life, these long hours, long days, long months, and long years, there will be at least one day when I'd be in that sort of sunset when the sky is just as much resplendent as the blazing sun, sharing an equal embrace of warmth. I guess what I am trying to say is that just for one day I wished I had been in a perfect love-equilibrium. 

once more unto the breach

disclaimer for my detractors: this is gonna be a long, sappy one. don't read it if you sniff unchartered affectations.

going thru internal debates provoked by personal revelations, to take a logical, well-reasoned decision which will generally affect an emotional standing, many thots come to mind at this juncture. my dada's encouragement to inspire me towards the contribution of a greater good, how he always says "you are acquiring skills to be useful in society, do and be there where you will be most productive for others," both my dads' (the in-law and the out-law) exemplary conduct thruout their lives in the service of others, and education in general which has  inculcated in me a strong realization that much is beyond the self; and thinking about my family and myself, in terms of being happy and conventional and hence accepted, is essentially selfishness. I have always managed to aim for lofty ideals, even at the danger of being patented as "idealistic" (i HATE that term), because I have always deeply felt that I need to do everything that I am inspired to do. My one chance to life. Yes, logic dictates that when such is the case one should discipline emotional sensations strictly at the precision of mathematical detachment, and not commit to long relationships.  I made decisions that were made in the reassurance of others, at least that's what I was made to understand at the time. And then life happened, and resounding accusations that "you made a bad decision" and that I should not have nuptialized seemed to be a general point of consensus leading to bonding among many bystanders.  But I never did keep my aspirations a secret! where was the advise when I needed? I was then, so young and so untainted.

It's ironical tho that whereas I have practiced encouragement unto others for whatever anybody wanted to do in their life, I am however greeted with obstructions and discouragement by people perhaps I most needed to acquiesce with me. and their continued resignation to regret, hurts. let me, at least,  leave the room, will you? it was perhaps in the hope of being expunged of people's preconceived conception of the type they thot that I belonged to, that I have painstakingly, and sometimes breathlessly, aimed to do everything single-handedly. I wanted to reply in action that no, I can take care of everything, "see you were wrong... and are you assured, now?" but that was not to be. of course this led to many physical debilitations and a general medicinal approach to life, convened. there were also the mandatory threats and declaration of expulsion, the dramatics and histrionics that go with it, the continued reassessment and readjustment of my designation and my gradual making peace with it, all this. while sometimes it was the people, sometimes it was the untimely vicissitudes of fate that brought new challenges to test the strengths. each time i wanted to display greatness (yes i have this obnoxious detestation towards the ordinary or the mediocre- which is not recommendable), undermining myself; not to take myself seriously, seemed the right thing to do. "because I understand the parameters of the universe," i would tell myself in these deliberations, "i am to be slighted." after a while, that of course becomes a trend; and for everybody else too.

it might have worked had there been between the two essential people in this otherwise large familial congregation of peoples, the stalwarts that aid a successful consummation. but life comes in many shades of gray, and I, I took the one less towards the white.

new york state of mind

streets of new york: so I am walking down the street super fast, drinking coffee at the same time, also super fast, when I get elbowed by this person really hard. so my immediate Pavlovian response to him is "o i'm so sorry" (being the clumsy walker that i am and being aware of that). but then I realize this time it's not my fault, so I say to him "actually you should be sorry." he looks at me like i am a raving total lunatic and walks away just the way he was.
my epiphany however is this: both of us embodied traits, albeit different, of a typical new yorker :D

yeah new yorkers are rude but on the other hand generally pretty awesome. so am not complaining ;) just making observations of roads with all its makings, the human drama being one-- similar yet different in different cities even if perhaps the same people were to inhabit them

just so you know

there are no dreams and no fantasies; just the stark reality and the unbridled cruelty of an evolutionarily selfish, survival-of the-fittest kind of loveless world. yes, we might as well teach this to our children from an early age, before they learn it thru the hard way :D

the classics

Had the most inspiring and uplifting experience listening to Beethoven's symphony no. 4 in B flat major, live in concert by the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony. At the interval an acute sense of the self engulfed as I sat alone watching the crowd break into their private groups in animated expressions. But post interval, the rendition of Mahler's Symphony no. 1 in D major, in the midst of streaming twilight through the tall glasses of the beautiful church , dissipated any shred of lonesome. In isolation to be moved, thus.