Saturday

A borrowed experience

It may be attributed to my own lack of creativity lately but this piece is encouraged by one of my friend's experiences.

The whole point in question is to pause for a second and analyze the hell out of the latest embarassing situation which your ingenuity has pushed you into. The situation does not need to be described in detail to you as it should be as familiar as your right hand and as unpleasently yellow as the stinking piece of vegetable which finds itself drenched in the light of the day after 3 months of neglected solitude in the lower most part of your refrigerator basket.

The situation rears its ugly head when you innocently remark over your hatred towards fatty foods in front of an especially portly person, when you ask a disabled subject, why the hell is he hobbling like that or when you start sermonizing over the utter futility of a particular academic field to your uncle whose dear toddler happens to have just started his career in the very same field.

The point of this post is not to summarize the various situations pertinent to the present discussion, for there are infinite, but to analyze the exact emotions which rush through the already cluttered mind during such circumstances.

The first thought which comes to mind in these cases is an unconscious realization that einstien's special relativity is flawed as without any apparent relative velocity between me and the subject of my comments (which by the way has become the most appealing aspect of all of physics at this moment) my clock has somehow become unbearably slow. The expressions on his face, which till now were as innocuous as the next person's, now stand out distinct, deprecating and deploring. He is trying hard to camouflage his embarassment with that forced and laborious streching of the left corner of his lip but reality is frustatingly being bombarded upon me by those wretched eyes which have blinked twice the normal number of times in the last 10 seconds. As I realize that probably history had just been witness to the longest period of speechlesness, my faculties go into an overdrive with the aim of salvaging whatever is possible in this hopelessly lost situation. What should I say next?

1. Well, I am sorry but somehow, inexplicably, inscrutably, I happened to overlook your enormous East-West expanse (a reply, sure to make the situation worse).
2. (matter of factly): by the way, did you happen to watch the finals of the french open? (how will I ever face myself in the mirror)
3. Shit!!! (most honest but honesty doesn't always make a digestible meal to everyone)

As I am ruminating over these possibilities, I again realize that 46 more seconds have been spent and now the probability of saving my face is lesser than my being hit by a lightning right at this very moment (a much pleasanter state) and I, in a rare display of callousness and daredevilry turn my face away as if nothing ever happened.

Sunday

Sporty Nerves

Its 5:31 in the morning and I am sitting in front of the TV having just woken up after an extremely intermittent sleep waiting for the french open final between federer and nadal which is slated to begin in another 30 minutes.

I don't remember the last time when I woke up at 5:00 in the morning. Neither do I remember the last time I experienced such jittery nerves regarding a sport match. What I do remember is the fact that it used to be sometime about 8 years ago when a cricket match between India and Pakistan used to trespass my dreams in the night often culminating in my getting up just on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Those were the days when taking the next breath often took a lesser priority than the next ball and when the departure of Tendulkar often meant a fresh hole in the emotional fabric of my life. It is sad that I have not felt like this since a long time now. That is till now.

For the last few years, I have gotten so ennamoured by the genius of Federer that his victories have become my own and his losses, sad heart wrenching experiences. Since it is foolish to dissect emotion with something as crass as logic, I won't go into the reasons of my feeling this. I would only go as far as saying that I love this. It makes my life complete. To feel that gut wrenching nervousness, that rush of adrenaline over a brilliant passing shot, an almost unannounced shriek accompanied with that raised fist at another victory, is as innocent and raw as emotions get.

If only I could feel like this for another India-Pakistan slugfest.

About Me

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Like a particularly notorious child's tantrums, a mountaneous river's intemperance, a volcano's reckless carelessness and the dreamy eyes of a caged bird, imagination tries to fly unfettered. Hesitant as she takes those first steps, she sculpts those ambitious yet half baked earthen pots.