Karlsruhe Diaries Chapter 7: Back home Part 2

30^th May,2014

Jawahar Bhawan, IIT Roorkee

9.15 pm

As I write this, I am almost one month away before my two year long vacation ends, whether it’s a happy or a sad ending, only time will tell. But as Sylvia Plath says

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,

I lift my lids and everything is born again”

As I write this, I am bored, of an empty room, and Ms Word -_- , which irritates me to a great extent. Asking a poet to write an analytical report is like asking a Japanese to speak Tamil, both the attempts will be meekly successful, however thanks to Mrs. Sampson and Mrs. Shukrey( My English literature teachers in school), my vocabulary helped me in publishing two papers recently.

The past two years have been a mix of extremes, extreme joy, drunken nights, weed… huge amounts of irritating paperwork and cups of tea, shared cigarettes, empty pockets and an empty wallet. I have been to places, yes, literally and in my dreams, Auroville…Germany…and now back to Ghaziabad and Roorkee. Albeit the mental peace and calm of Germany is missing, there is a certain contentment when you accept the facts of life, as they are. One fact being still jobless after being a masters from an IIT, however, I say IITs are a little much over hyped.

In Germany I learnt how to live alone, how to cook, how to be strong when everyone around is speaking German and you don’t understand a word…Culture shock…literally….!! I have spent cold, wintery nights outside railway stations, sleeping in a café, only to find my phone being stolen the next morning. So far, there have been amazing moments and tales to tell.

But now, there is a strange fear, fear of the outer world, when finally the student life ends, everyone will move on….friends with whom you spend almost 15 hours of your day might never be seen again, and this sucks, literally. So is the feeling when your best friends ignore you after you come back being away and all alone for 7 months. But I have no regrets, no one to blame. For I learned, how to be fake and strong. How to be a nerd and yet trying to fit in with the usual crowd. The mind becomes a palimpsest in such situations, over which layers and layers of thought and reverie has been inscribed and yet the heart remains motionless to convey others what one feels.

Quite often, it’s foolish to expect a moral support from your peers and friends, when all you know is the bitter truth that life is never going to be same again. As they always say “Life is not a bed of roses”. This is brutally true in this professional world, and the sooner one accepts the truth, the better.

Somehow, all the life of Germany, the casual summery days of Auroville, seem like a distant dream lived and achieved now. The only things existing around me nowadays are cigarettes, empty cups of tea and a closed room where nobody enters.

“If only I could ignore, hate and pride and fear,

If only I can keep myself strong….!!”

However, there is a certainty that the coming times will be for eventual betterment of the soul, and it might be God’s another plan to give a surprise after huge shocks. When someone chats with me nowadays, I am brutally sarcastic and I reply to him or her “ I am undergoing a emotional, physical, mental and financial crisis, wanna help ??” .

And the person goes offline…!! Rofl…!!

Anger at times is good and at times it consumes a part of your heart, and makes it bitter. But the poetic blood in me keeps me strong and gives me strength to vent my anger through words.

“ The blood jet is poetry, there is no stopping it…!!”

And there will be no stopping it…!! For the time being…. Maybe I had a premonition of what is coming through when I wrote this:

I am devoid of the worldly dreams;

Of colors red and bright

Of promises like shattered glass

Of the moonlit filled night...

I am devoid of the love...

And its vaccum of pain...

An emotion was so pure..

It sickens and dies...

Trapped in my Poetic world..

The cage closes around my eyes..

I am nocturnal and devoid of slumber..

and its honey heavy dew...

No more chats to be remembered..

No more flickering laughter...

Choking pain has devored the joy..

The beginning of another slaughter..

I am devoid of the lunatic madness..

Immersing myself in "My world"

No papers to write upon..

No ink to stain those whites..

Utterly empty and disguised...

Under a secret cloak it lies...

I am devoid of the cheerful pastels...

That stain my clothes and yet are colorless...

The eerie sounds of the dark

The battling spirits engulf the diaphragm and choke...

Two rubber bags pumping in and out..

Four chambered device that once spoke...

I am devoid of the trivial joys...

The buzzing of the night..the shriek of the howlet...

MY WORLD takes me in...i am complete now...

Sinking into the tiny eye of the cyclone...

Swallowing me in ..arbitrarily...

The eyes that shone..now dimmed and gone...

I am devoid of the worldly dreams..

Of colors red and bright

of promises like shattered glass

Of the moonlit filled night...

I am devoid of the love...

And its vaccum of pain...

I am nocturnal and devoid of slumber..

and its honey heavy dew...

I am devoid of the lunatic madness..

Immersing myself in "My world"

From Ghaziabad to Germany Chapter 1

We came back from our office trip to Mukhteshwar quite late in the night, and the next day, we, being a group of rebellious 20 somethings, decided to bunk the office the next day,for which we faced the consequences.

The Boss a.k.a our team leader: “Why were you absent yesterday?” Then the usual reply of “Sir, meri tabiyat kharaab thi” followed …and then he said “Okay ,you can have a permanent leave then. Vineet, tell him to get lost and get all his paperwork done by the evening.”

I stood astounded, shocked and surprised, not that anything new was happening, I had always faced problems in my corporate life. But this was new, being thrown out of the office just when I had bunked the office with another 5 people.

Well, nothing happened of course, because this was just another temporary mood outburst of our team leader Mr.Sachin Madan, who was as broad as he was tall, and who looked like a typical “daftar waale babuji” to me.

But this insult only pushed me one step forward in achieving my goal for the time being. To get into masters, to live my life again as a student. I had cleared GATE examination two years in a row, but always hesitated to get back to college due to financial hustles, but this made me more determinant, when I remembered my life of 2 years , in and out of offices, insulted, sleep deprived, fighting migraines, not to forget the tiresome 2 and a half hours commuting time to Okhla all the way from the Ghaziabad core.

In the meanwhile, I started with my application process for various colleges. I had been very punctual and had hardly taken any leaves from office, so I got the required leaves easily when I had to appear for an interview for the admission process.

I did not make it to School of Planning and Architecture,New Delhi and I didn’t make it to IIT Roorkee’s first counseling either, which shattered my dreams and I accepted my fate, not until I decided to give it a last shot and appeared for the final on the spot counseling at Roorkee, for which I took a 3 day leave which actually turned into a permanent one.

I went for the counseling with a final hope and I got in, which relieved me in an instant, and I was there , at my new abode, ready to embrace a new world.

If the boss can throw you out in a moment, you can very well throw out your so called “office” from your life in less than a moment.As soon as I got in and was packing my things to start on my new endeavor, I decided to write a resignation letter to my so called “Boss”.

Respected Sir,

Sub: Resignation from the post of Architect

This is to inform you with great regret and humble respect that owing to my immediate circumstances, I have to resign from my services to your company with immediate effect. The reason for my resignation is for academic purpose as I have been offered a seat for Masters Programme in Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee and I am required to join the course immediately as the academic session has already started.

Due to lack of time, I am unable to give a notice period prior to my resignation, and moreover, I came to know about my admission just 2 days ago. I am extremely sorry for the same, but at present, and for my betterment, I need to be relieved from office as soon as possible.

I request you for the completion of all the required formalities/procedures soon and I hope that you

understand my situation and relieve me with immediate effect.

That entire urge to actually slap my boss finally came true…although virtually, with this resignation letter, in a matter of 2 days, my life had taken 180 degrees turn.

And now it was time to look forward.

Look forward to Hope and a little Sugar…!! 

Karlsruhe Diaries Chapter 6: Back to Home !!

15^th April,2014

1:41 am

Roorkee

They say that the best feeling is when you return to the place where you belong…call it a Germany hangover or returning to home after 7 months or leaving my home just within a week again to join back IIT Roorkee, but its not a good feeling…! It’s like a partial amnesia, as if I was always here. Among these people, yet I can feel no sense of belonging or nostalgia during my last days here…!!

Perhaps people have changed, or perhaps I have changed…!or perhaps it’s the frustration which results from a bad thesis review or the bloody IIT process of writing too many applications. All the people around are either too busy drinking or smoking “weed”…and perhaps I am the one who is already too high….that I crave for a partner just for a long walk…! :-/

Or Maybe I am too tired after my review on weekend….and living life as a refugee in my friends room…but how can people spend an entire day locked in a smoke filled room…and it’s so difficult to make certain people understand the value of privacy, when pestered by Questions like Where are you going? Whom are you going to meet?? And blah blah blah…!!

I thought I would be happy to see all the people in roorkee…!but I am missing home more than anything else right now and want my own space where I can hide myself just for a few days…away from the scrutiny of the curious.

It’s a terrifying feeling when you realize that your two year vacation is about to end, and you have to be back into the real world…! Which is horrific…in many terms…

I realized after coming back…did the people whom I call my best friends here actually miss me when I was away for 7 months ?For it was me who used to call them from Germany…it was me who used to ping them on facebook chats…!! I know some of these things might be kiddish…but these things do matter…!

The brain right now is fucked up, and the heart too…! The sense of having a friend ..a buddy…is lost now..! and the icing on the cake…The Thesis, which never ends.

I guess I might feel better after a cup of tea, but there are sometimes when even a hot cup of tea is not enough to drain away your frustration, especially if you are not a frequent drinker..! I wished I get back my love for hard liquor or weed(for which I never had any love, but I hated it).

And I wish the old friends realize that their friend is actually back…! I haven’t changed, the campus still looks the same, I still roam in my kurta-jeans and chappals, and I still have the same cup of tea-biscuit when I go to canteen at odd hours, What then is missing ?

Karlsruhe Diaries: Going back home away from a home.. Chapter 5

28^th March,2014

1:08 am

Karlsruhe

Till the Grief subsides and appetite is full...

I drink its ardor and the never ending depths...

Till the happiness ensues the promise of an everlasting mirth...

Dissolved in time...

Meddled with the mind....

Till the Poetry surges in the Poet's mind....

Till everything becomes omnipresent...

And INFINITE....!!

Well…seven months have passed…now its time to go back, as I was packing my things and cleaning my room, because the ‘Hausmeister’ is going to come for inspection, the first thing tomorrow morning. As I was clearing up my things, I felt a bump in my chest and a strange numbness in my heart. It wasn’t anxiety, or fear, or anything else. But it was nostalgia, the strange feeling which strikes you when you leave a place after 7 months.

A piece of my heart will be left here, in this city, among the people I met, the university, my accommodation , and all those exhausting but great Trips to various places all over Germany and Europe.

This is the place which made me stronger as a person and lead me on a road to self-discovery, and I realized that quitting my high-paying corporate job 2 years ago wasn’t such a bad idea at all. For it opened up my mind and made me free from chains of corporate slavery.

This is where I learnt how to be actually independent, how to cook and how to appreciate food and the energy it gives. And how terribly difficult and easy it is…hehe..

This is the room where I worked on my thesis, edited so many beautiful photographs, skyped with people who are far away from me this time, yet those who will be close to me in just 3 days, I have learnt to appreciate friendship and the joy of a cup of coffee with a friend instead of a lavish meal in a restaurant or a great trip to Paris.

I learnt how to say “Danke” and “bitte” for small and trivial things which we do day to day…

This is the bed where I lay helpless after my first migraine attack in Germany, and realized how my mother used to massage my head till 2am in the morning when I used to get terrible headaches, and how I kept myself awake till 4am in the morning, so I can give a call when its morning in India and before my parents leave for work.

And this is the place where I was on my own, to face everything, and to accept whatever comes.

Karlsruhe has given me so many good moments that it is difficult not to feel a heart-ache when I bid goodbye to this place. I am surely going to miss the old world charm of this place.

Its strange, how cities change with seasons, and how the colors transform themselves into a pool of memories.

When I left Auroville,last summer,  I had the same stinging feeling in my heart,and it had been just 2 months, because the truth is, you never know if you will be visiting that city or that place again in your life and this might be the last time you actually see this place.

 I soaked in as much possible in my mind. Karlsruhe will always be etched in my mind and heart, and I have two more days to soak in as much as I can.

“And here you come with a cup of tea,

Wreathed in steam, the blood jet is poetry,

There is no stopping it.”

I will always have mixed feelings for Karlsruhe, but surely I will miss it.

As I look around myself now,all I can see is a spotless room and my packed luggage, and I am all ready to leave on a new journey… back to my homeland, to my people, to my friends.

It was true when they said that “All good things come to an end”  !!

Only to give way for new good things which are coming on the way….!!

“The woods are lovely dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep…and miles to go before I sleep.” 

Danke schön! ! tschüss :) :)

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 4

8^th March, 2014

Well, it feels good to write after so many months, I was brainstorming in ArcGIS when I came across a song on youtube, which goes something like this:

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

The original video was by Pharell Williams and this Karlsruhe version shows people dancing at various spots in Karlsruhe.

As I am counting my days for my departure from Germany to India, I am falling in love more and more with Karlsruhe, with all its trams, old Gothic buildings and amazing, fascinating Architecture.

When I arrived here 7 months earlier, I was all excited, and nervous, and ready to take on the world in my own hands, I sensed a freedom, freedom to be myself. Germany has been educating in more than one ways, one of the added skills being “cooking, before coming here, I hardly knew how to prepare a spicy Indian curry, but thanks to days of practice, I have finally mastered the art of feeding myself.(Though at times, it’s a disaster.)

Living alone all these months has made me strong, strong enough to face the world, and it has given me a new spirit. Though I miss India terribly, Karlsruhe is rewarding and welcoming. The last two years have been a blessing, after being a corporate slave for 2 years before that, coming into IIT was refreshing, a break from the monotonous and dull routine of a office life. I call it my 2 year vacation from life, and I am embracing it fully to the core.

As I go around and see the places, meet new people, I feel more and more enchanted by the mystery of the city. The same enchantment which I had felt when I was in Auroville. A new found independence, a strong will power and a never ending zeal to perform. I learnt how to cope with the loneliness, and to rediscover myself and my interests. The old houses, the Marktplatz, the colorful Kaiserstrasee, and the sprawling campus, at times this place is full of life, and at times, it seems empty…dull and blank. But I think all depends on the state of mind and how I perceive things.

22 days and I will be flying back to India, but a part of my heart will stay at this place.As much as I have missed India, I will miss being in Karlsruhe and exploring new things.

But, needless to say, a strange fear is engulfing me these days, the fear that my two year long vacation is going to end, and I wonder how the real world treats me when I am out of IIT. Meanwhile, I have errands on my mind, a never ending thesis , a pile of dishes to clean, and some more food to cook….!!

Till then :

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I'm happy

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 3

19^th November,2013

Karlsruhe

Till the Grief subsides and appetite is full...

I drink its ardor and the never ending depths...

Till the happiness ensues the promise of an everlasting mirth...

Dissolved in time...

Meddled with the mind....

Till the Poetry surges in the Poet's mind....

Till everything becomes omnipresent...

And INFINITE....!!

This is the Promise of a never ending Verse...!!

People tell me very often that my poetry is sort of dark, depressing and what not… but at times, that’s what everything seems to be…doesn’t it ?

Too much of everything is bad, they say, but I never thought that too much of aesthetics can be suffocating, at times , so much that you can’t do anything but blame the weather for your own weariness, and for your own inability and the incapability of your own mettle, no one is to be blamed, but perhaps a strange land teaches you a lot, to be stronger, to keep your emotions under control, and yet, be sensitive.

12.30 pm in Germany, 5.00 pm in India, I call my mom, she is as usual, busy in the daily stuff, routine chores of an Indian household, at times, I admire the ability of a female, that too of a mother, how she controls her emotions, and yet, can do all and everything by herself, hats off to the spirit…

At times she messages me, even though she recently taught herself how to write an sms, “Miss you a lot” , and I can just wonder that this too shall pass..and everything has to come to an end, and eventually, we have to move far away from our own houses, our people, the warmth, our own language of spices. It’s quite strange how I can fake to be happy and smiling all the time, despite the turnmoil going on in my mind, the frustration over a “not going anywhere” thesis work, the annoyance over my professor not responding to my emails, and the daily tiresome routine of preparing food, perhaps I have turned too mature for my age, as almost all the people I look around are still under 25, and at times it feels I am ageing, the only consolation is that I have experience, more than any others, to tackle situations.

After all, now I can say, that I have been to places… and that too… too many at an exhausting pace, burning a hole in my pocket. Recently I spent a full night outside a Paris metro station, hopeless, cold, shivering and sleeping in a café next morning only to find that my mobile has been stolen. It pisses me off like hell, but anyway… I am here, In an alien land, where no one can help me but Myself, the process of making oneself strong is always the hardest, as it is full of pain.

At times, I have moments filled with happiness too, like making brownies for someone’s birthday till 1a.m in night, or just ditching everyone and going to Munich all alone, travelling aimlessly, but not all wanderers are aimless, as said in “Mona Lisa Smile”. But what’s hard is figuring out at times why I am here, and why I need to fake a laugh when on the inside, all I want is to scream and vent out my frustration endlessly….

The promise of a never ending verse ? or perhaps just the suffocation of the Aesthetics. Oh..and I remember someone telling me, it’s just the weather…u will feel good once u have sunny days…

Karlsruhe Diaries...!! Chapter 2

4^th November,2013

Karlsruhe,Germany

The reason perhaps why I am writing a blog after one and a half month is perhaps I am missing myself , and my writings, in all this hustle-bustle, the trips, the planning… and the group splits…ughhh…There is a saying in Hindi that when 4 utensils are kept together…there will be noise, but here we are…15 utensils..Oops 15 people together…so the fights.. And the so called split in the group is bound to happen.

Well..But instead of noise, all I have around me is deafening silence, for which the group split is only partially a reason; here I am, in this alien land, fighting with migraines and the bitter cold. Maybe the weather is so depressing that it has imbibed in me its gloominess. Beautiful cities, scenic surroundings, new friends, but a silence. Silence around me prevails.

At times, a foreign land is so full of hope, and at times, all you can see around you is misery. Misery exaggerated through the rain, the fog and the cold, and when you taste your own cooked food. And when your mother messages you on Diwali “Miss you beta”. The land of new opportunities, but not that easy to live in, if you don’t have that surviving spirit, at times I remember that quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar “ I was supposed to be having the time of my life”

So what went wrong? Nothing. It can be just a perspective, a temporary, floating phase of time, an empty mind is a devil’s workshop, at times I feel the urgent need to break open that double window in my room. Anger..maybe… it works in mysterious ways.

Everything, each damn thing has got its own darker side. The darker side of living in a foreign land is its strangeness and silence. At times, one is bound to feel stuck inside, but unless and until one gets up and fights, this will happen.

The fall is finally here, and 5 months to go before I will be back to my country, where atleast I have got friends who miss me, and who are there for me, unlike some people over here, whose only objective is to make sarcastic remarks at other people, and to book tickets for every damn place in Europe( at the risk of wiping off the current bank balance and keeping no emergency money), as if there is a world tour competition going on. It’s a foreign land where I strive to be listened, to talk to someone, not to see famous places, but to just have a good and relaxing time.

Here I close this blog, hoping that there will be actually some “sunny days” ahead.

With dark and deepest despairs..

Comes the mettle to fight..

When this alien land beckons me again ...

Feeling like a tree which bends but never breaks...

The Silent Symphonies to be sung...

At times...deafening lullabies to be heard...

And NO Words to be spoken...

The fear of loss and the fear of defeat...

When this alien land beckons me again....

Expecting to be a Seraphic...

When i am just a Human and a Poet...!!

Writing my verses i looked upon to see:

Even he who stands

on the other side of the Mirror...

Seems a stranger in this Alien land...!!