The Prestidigitator

So, that’s that I guess. An end of an era. My rite of passage. Whatever you may want to call it, it’s over and now I’ve got to move on. C’mon we’re not the first batch to pass out of college. I’m betting everything is overrated. Funny how I try to convince myself.

Yes, I did get a little emotional in class today but I think I needed that. You can call it closure or something.

Wow. This is pretty wierd. Not about moving on or anything but realizing that time has sped by so fast and everything on the outside looks pretty intimidating.

Anyhoo, college has been a great ride! So here’s to everyone who I’ve known here. Cheers to the future.

BULLCRAP!!! I”M SO BLOODY GLAD TO BE OUT! YAY!

I think.

Hmm. So we had our farewell today and you could say it was pretty good. Not overly emotional or anything, just the right amount of laughter and a little bit of tears. To top it off, tomorrows the last working day of our college life!

It’s actually been an amazing four years. Amazing. College changes everything I guess. People seldom go out the same way they come in. The hardest part is maybe realizing that you may never be able to be with people who vibe with you so well again. But I guess the fact is however hard it is we have got to move on.

Sure, I’ll look back to everything that’s happened here. There have been rough times and there sure as hell have been great times. And all of us lived in the moment. Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do because in the end, life is definitely the sum total of all its moments no matter whether good or bad.

I still remember the first year vividly. How everybody just wished that everything would get over soon but as we got along, we slowly realized that we were perhaps going through the best phase of our lives.

People have always amazed me here. Selflessness is a trait I can never muster in me but I’ve seen it in so many of my friends here that it’s sometimes hard not to feel bad about ourselves. Sure I’ve met people I cannot stand but I’m betting they think I’m an ass too. So no hard feelings there.

I do want to leave college and start life on the outside but what I dread is being alone in a crowd. The worst part is when you’re stuck in a crowd where everybody is so different that you can relate to no one. I guess at least the next one year is going to be like that for me.

So what can I do? Nothing. Just wait and let life take it’s course.

Later

Listening to Sooner or Later by Breaking Benjamin

PS-Yours truly won Mr. Well-Dressed at our farewell party today. I know I know. How he hell did that happen???

Let me begin by stating that I loathe indian movies. I’m one of those people who truly believe that Bollywood caters to heavily disillusioned teenagers and 45 year old slobs going through mid life crises.

Having said that, let me say that Being Cyrus is different from everything else I’ve seen. For one, it’s entirely in english meaning I needed no transalation. But it is also a concept and a screenplay that is for most part original though various foriegn film influences are evident. Especially, a bit of Kurosawa (the murder scene).

I was totally engrossed throughout the run time of the film and thought it was actually pretty smart, but sometimes too smart for itself. However what stood out was the screenplay which inspite being in english seldom felt forced.

It began as a story where everybody seemed to be going through an existensial crises of sorts and started resorting to desperate measures. However, by the 3rd act, layers came peeling off all characters and it careened towars a murder mystery that had a pretty satisfying and mostly unexpected conclusion. However the editing (done by John Harris of Snatch fame) is a bit tacky and I prefer the steadicam to shaky camera work.

It’s movies like these that inspire me to do something that is totally out of character for me. I really would love to go for a course in filmmaking and direction someday. Mybe after I’ve figured everything else out.

“If you try to grab too much from life, you end up losing pieces of yourself.”-Cyrus Mistri

The great thing about staying in a hostel is that you get to befriend all kinds of people and most of the time you can count on them when your’e going through difficult times, which in my case was being broke and in need of a long overdue (atleast, according to me) haircut.

So, Abel agrees to help me out though it was pretty evident he was experimenting. Joel on the other hand, a professional at this took over and I must say it’s come out pretty well.

I think these are the things I’ll remember most from college.

T minus 2 working days.

For an unadulterated version of the events that went down the previous saturday, check out this post by Johnny a.k.a tux. Camera phones do come in handy!

Click here!

History is indeed written/rewritten by the winners of any conflict. But it doesn’t always mean that the winners were right. Truth is a tricky thing, too many shades of gray to it.

I know it sounds like something straight out of The Da Vinci code but I think it sometimes holds true even when it comes to everyday life.

Later

I actually completed my project and boy, does it feel good or what! I think it’s the single most coolest thing we’ve accomplished ever because we had to work on the coding from scratch and it turned out to be pretty neat. Thanks go to all those people who took time to figure out what was wrong. Vivek, Bharti, Ajay sir….thankyou!

Now, we’ve got exactly 4 more working days and passing out looks more real than ever. I actually remember the first day of college. Coming to class, sitting somewhere in the first 2 rows and forming opinions of teachers and classmates which eventually changed over the course of 4 years. I guess that’s what college teaches you. Instinct is not all that reliable always and there are times when you actually have to take the time to know people.

I like that statement on Johnny’s blog that goes something like “We live alone, we die alone but it is love and friendships that give as the illusion that we’re not alone.” Everything is overrated, but I guess during every phase in our lives, we all need people to get through it.

I’ve also decided to write more. I think I’ve come up with an idea for another little (pointless) screenplay. Funny that everything I write has a semi autobiographical touch to it. Hmmm.

Later

Listening to I aint saying my goodbyes by Tom Vek
Homesick by The Vines

Rahul was restless. It had nothing to do with the weather or the fact that there was a black Labrador near the park bench he was sitting on. It was time. How he hated time. Time changed everything and everybody and he held time responsible for many of the ills of the world.

It had been 6 years since college and he wondered how much he’d changed. Had he become more uptight? Had he lost that innate sense of curiosity people always seemed to like him for? Had he become less fun? But, he knew that even if he were the same, she would have surely changed. For better or for worse, he couldn’t tell but he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to talk to her the same way he used to back in college.

She had called him the previous Sunday out of the blue claiming to have gotten his number from a common acquaintance of theirs and after a few minutes of awkward conversation, she suggested a rendezvous at the local park. He was amazed that they had been living in the same city for the past 4 years and had never even passed by each other.

He began to reminiscence about the best years of his life. How things had changed. He always believed that time was a luxury but now at 28, he couldn’t believe that nothing in his life had turned out the way he wanted to. He had planned so many things carefully and as time flew past, priorities changed and everything fell apart. Had he become another slave to the system? Had he become what he had campaigned against during the more youthful years of his life? If there was one thing Rahul hated, it was hypocrisy. But now, he realized he had become the very hypocrite that he had claimed to abhor.

She had always told him that life was all about living in the moment. How he disagreed with her. He always thought that to be happy, you needed to look both backward and forward. Learn from your mistakes and take precautions for the future so that you don’t make any new ones. He envied as much as he hated her total obliviousness to the ugliness of the world. To her, everything seemed beautiful. It really wasn’t. All it took one was a few minutes to realize that the world wasn’t as beautiful as some people claimed. People weren’t as lovely as they thought. Rape, murder, pillage…they were all real. But she always stuck to her point. She could be stubborn sometimes. He tried to convince her that quest for happiness was a pointless farce played out over and over again. She smiled and told him that he was an idiot. It was easy for her to say that. She didn’t know what pain was. She had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. She wouldn’t understand.

All these thoughts running through his mind, Rahul realized he had actually changed little. He was still the same old kid. Pessimistic, narcissistic and perpetually depressed. He thought of her smile. She had the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. There were times it actually made him feel hopeful.

He got up from the bench and walked to the gate. She was late, as usual. Suddenly he heard the familiar tingle of the voice he had missed for so long, “Still restless as ever, huh Rahul?”

He spun back and there she was, on a wheelchair, one of her legs missing. At her side, stood a little girl of 5 and a man who must have been her husband. Rahul was shocked. He didn’t know what to say. She, on the other hand, had the same beautiful smile as ever.

She hadn’t changed a bit.

Listen to Joshua Radin!

Here’s why.

Here are the links Thanks to myexbestfriend, who I’m not sure knows that I’m routing traffic her way.

1.Star Mile
2.Today
3.Only you

I’m shocked that this guy isn’t already famous.

Later