This author is unable to update as she is too busy having fun.

This Be The Verse. By Philip Larkin.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.





I wonder why they didnt include this in our elective english curriculum.

Confessions.

It's taken me four days to watch Gone With the Wind. Even then, I still have the last ten minutes to watch. I don't care. I know what happens. I know, I just know with all my heart, that the last ten minutes of the movie will take me another two days. So I can't be bothered, historical moments be damned.

I really haven't been doing all that much. Just sleeping. I thought the two weeks in Madras would last forever and ever, but time's been slipping by very quickly. Will it always be like this? I meant to do lots of wonderful things- draw and read and study some art history and watch classic films. All I've done is sleep. And watch Gone With the Wind. Its all been very unfulfilling.

I need a life. The thought of living in Calcutta for the next three years, under my mother's roof, makes me feel ill. Not that she's a bad mother. She's quite good actually, as mothers go. But still. It's the principle of the thing.

Also college. College is a problem. Where to go. What to do. How to do it. Joey's been preparing interviews for Stephens and JU. This is freaking me out. I never thought about preparing for interviews. I sort of thought I'd just go there and wing it. Turn on the charm and babble about nonsensical things in a very serious way. Might not work in this case though. Scary thought.

And why am I doing Literature? Thinking of doing it. What the hell am I going to do with it after? Write a book? Haha. Fat chance. And I don't want to be a journalist. I found this article on war correspondence though, and I loved it. I wouldn't mind giving that a try. Trouble is, apparently, as a war correspondent you have to share your bed with scorpions. Check your boots for them. I freak out if I see a cockroach so I don't know if this is the career for me. Cockroaches and scorpions scare me more than bombs and machine guns. But maybe I just say that because I've never been exposed to a bomb/machine gun.

I have been exposed to a sword. I found it hidden behind my grandmother's cupboard. It was a proper sword and I took it out and tried lifting it and then nearly dropped it on my foot. A bit like Tom Tulliver. I put it back very sadly. I don't know where it is anymore.

Chennai is very hot. But Calcutta, apparently, is hotter. I don't want to be anywhere. I just want to crawl into a dark corner and stay there. Which is stupid, because this month was supposed to be a month of Adventure. Discovery. Learning.

Plans never work out.

I'm going to watch Dial M for Murder. Grace Kelly is depressingly beautiful. A while ago, I was watching Vivien Leigh. It's a good thing I have good self esteem. This may sound a bit cliche, but somehow, most actresses today- even though they're very attractive- seem slightly cheap by comparision.

Nick was telling me about his dog yesterday. The dog's name is Gus. As in after Fat Mouse Gus in Cinderella. Gus is also on facebook. I find this hilariously cute. Also, I didn't tell him I cried while watching PS I Love You. And Little Women. And basically every movie I've ever seen that has just a little bit of sadness in it. I cry a lot.

It is extremely aggravating.

Gone With the Wind.

Scarlett O' Hara is trollop enough to put the girls of LMG to shame.
And that's saying something.

PS

I was lying about the spiritually fulfilled thing.
Really.

Chennai.

This is what I've done in the past 24 hours.

1) Slept for 14 hours.

2) Eaten:
a. Four bowls of spaghetti and meatballs.
b. Two hotcross buns.
c. Three wedges of cheddar cheese.

3) Watched:
a. The first Lord of the Rings
b. Half of the second LotR.

4) Read:
a. The first three pages of Kashmir by MJ Akbar.
b. One Peoples Magazine
c. One Harper's Bazaar Magazine.



And the tragedy is, this is the most spiritually fulfilled I've ever felt.

What is happiness?

Happiness is waking up in the morning, pillow feeling cold under your head from the delicious cool air of the AC, the room dark because the curtains are drawn with no glimmer of sun to hurt your eyes, and closing them again to wake up in the afternoon.

Happiness is having three friends over to spend the night, ticking off movie lists one by one, no one really watching the screen because it is so much more thrilling to discuss who so-and-so is now dating and why so-and-so slept with the ugly boy.

Happiness is going out with your friends at night and drinking, drinking, drinking and laughing, laughing, laughing and stumbling home at one in the morning, proudly announcing to your mother that you're drunk.

Happiness is having piles and piles of books, biographies and fantasy and fiction, that can now be read, cover to cover but even though you dont because you're never at home, it's nice to know you can.

Happiness is watching your mother go upstairs at eleven pm because she has work the next day and you dont.

Happiness is burning your KK Ghai Pol Science book in your bathroom at 2 am and having your maid wake up, smell the smoke and start screaming because she thinks the house is on fire.

=)

out with the old.

Freedom. Exhilaration.

Finally. I never thought it would come.

I finished the exam, in the nick of time, and I didn't care about the paper, I didn't care that my poetry analysis sucked or that my Mill answer was bad. All I cared about was giving into that free and wild whirwind inside me, that's been struggling, struggling, struggling the past week.

Sneha dampened the mood a bit when she sadly said we'd never see each other again probably- all of us- and when I walked down the stairs, alone and I'm glad it was alone, I stopped in the corridor, the Class 9 corridor, and tried to feel sad that I'd never walk down it as a student again.

And when I walked out that gate, I tried walking slowly, because it was the last time I was walking out as a student. As a Martinian. Fifteen years of walking in and out that gate and now it was over. And the wind was blowing softly and school was calm and beautiful.

But I couldn't feel any sadness. All I felt was the wild wild freedom and joy that comes when you finally turn the page and see the rest of your life slowly unfolding ahead of you.

Why be sad when I've got that?