Many People

The last post was about just one person; this post is about many. I have always been a person who doesn't need too many friends. A few people are enough for me. But yet, over the years, there have been many, many people who I've known and cared for, been close to and cherished. But some of them are now merely a memory. I don't know what became of them, or where they are, or even whether they remember me or ever think of me. But I do think of them now and then. They have left their footprints in my life, footprints that have been around so long that nothing can wash them away now. I thought it would be like a tribute to them to list them here, even though they are lost and will never read this. I have purposely not included any person who is still in touch with me in any way, even if they are merely a name on my Facebook or MSN list. I have also not included any 'grown-ups' I once knew as that would make the list too long.

1. Shazia
I don't know why I'm including this name here, but something in my head tells me I should. Probably because she is the closest I had to a friend when I was in Kindergarten. We did not 'hang-out' as such, we didn't even talk to each other much. The only memory I have of Shazia is talking to her once while she played in the sand-box. She was everything I was not, and I wanted to be her friend. But I don't think i ever was, because I was too much of a recluse at that time. Shazia is the only classmate I remember talking to in Kindergarten. There might have been others, there might not have, I don't know.

2. Deepa
Deepa was my classmate in the first grade. She moved to the UK before second grade began. And then, she died. I still remember quite clearly that day in second grade when we had a math lesson and suddenly, the Headmistress came in to inform us of how she'd recieved the news that Deepa was gone. I think she had been sick, but I'm not sure. That part of the 'news' has faded, because all i can really remember is Deepa's bright face, her big black eyes that sparkled with warmth and wit, the contrast of the baby-pink frock I remember her wearing against her dark skin. She was one of my first friends. Sadly, she is also the first person I knew who died. The idea of her dying seemed unreal then. In fact, it still seems unreal. She comes into my thoughts randomly, but often. And every time, i think the same thing: I wonder what she would have been like today if she was still alive. What would she be studying? What would have been her dreams? Would we have still been in touch? I wonder why God took her away so young, when her life had hardly begun. I wonder whether I would think about her at all if she hadn't died.

3. Zoheb
Zoheb had been my friend the same time that Deepa had. I have a photo somewhere with all three of us in it, but somehow, I can't seem to find it anywhere. Maybe it's my desperation to find it that makes me overlook it all the time. He was my first friend of the opposite sex. At least, I think he was. I wish I knew his surname, it would help me track him down on Facebook. What i remember most about Zoheb is his face. He had huge twinkling eyes full of mischief and fun, and his hair fell all over his forehead, which even the first-grader me had found cute in an innocent kind of way. If he had remained in my life, I'm sure Zoheb and I would have been best buddies, kind of like Rats and Meow from Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na but without the romantic aspect. But he is gone. Long-gone. I once attended his birthday party, gifting him a box of chocolates selected by my mum, and as a return-gift, I got one of those plastic, Made-in-China digital watches. It was black, with a bit of red, and little yellow buttons. I gave it to my brother to wear, and he wore it for quite a long time before it stopped working and he threw it away. I wish I'd kept it with all the other random stuff i have saved up from my childhood.

4. Anne-Katrine
She was my first best-friend. Yet, I never cared to ask what her last name was. (Last names don't matter when you're five-years-old) That is why I can't know who she is from the hundreds of Anne-Katrines on Facebook. I'm pretty sure she is in Denmark, her home-country. I'm also pretty sure that if I still knew her, our friendship wouldn't be quite as special as it once was, but still, I wish I was in toucb with her. She may have been very different from me, but I loved her for it.

5. The Boy whose name I wish I knew
In second grade, there was this boy in my class: short, skinny, with glasses. (Kind of like Harry Potter, now that I think of it!) His name began with an 'I'. It was either Imran or Irfan, though I'm not sure, considering how I never paid him much attention. For a long time, I've felt ashamed about not knowing his name. Because he was the first - and probably, the ONLY boy so far - who I think fancied me. Yes, we were in second grade, hardly an age when you fancy someone, but I don't know why else he 'left' me a yellow rose and a little note. Actually, he didn't write anything in the 'note'. It was just a piece of notepaper, with a little drawing and a quote printed on it. I don't remember what the quote said but it was something very sweet about love. I know he meant me to know that he had left them both for me, and I did figure it out instantly, but what I did next is just sad. And mean, I suppose. I cringe whenever I think about it. I threw both the rose and the note away, right in front of him. If I'd had my twenty-one-year-old brain then (or even my twelve or thirteen-year-old one) I would have preserved them both with utmost care, felt special about it. Maybe even made an effort to talk to him more. But I was six-years-old, and I was scared of being teased. I was teased enough already without having everyone call him my 'boyfriend' and me his 'girlfriend'. So I decided to ignore the whole incident (and in the process, destroy the evidence that it ever happened) and yet I'm stuck thinking about it over a decade later and wondering whether Imran/Irfan even remembers me now. It's ironic how I crave romance and love in my life today when, years ago, I was so completely terrified by the prospect that I didn't, even for a moment, feel bad about hurting someone who was just being nice to me. But I guess that's how childhood is: you don't really think much before doing things.

6. Nayeema
I met Nayeema in the third grade. My best friend had moved to another school and so I was friendless and the new girl in class seemed like she needed friends so I tried. The amazing thing about Nayeema is that I have never met someone as full-of-life as her. She was wonderful: friendly, understanding, caring, loyal, fun. But she was also deaf and mute. But she wore a hearing aid, and she did 'speak', just not the same way and as clearly as you and I. She attended special speech therapy sesssions (the school catered to students with special needs), but most students still found it difficult to communicate with her. Not me. I could understand every word she said, as if by magic, and could almost always make her understand what I said. Maybe it was because of my linguistic aptitude, but I'm sure it was mostly because that's how it was meant to be. Mehak and Nayeema. Nayeema and Mehak. Everyone began referring to us in the same breath; like we belonged together. The best part was how we lived close to each other's houses and could often go over. But then, I moved school. And we gradually lost touch. I don't know why it happened. I know we tried to keep things going, but in the end, we were both lost to each other. I miss Nayeema, I wish there was some way I could find her. She's one person I'm SURE still remembers me.

There are a few more people coming to mind right now, but I don't have much to write about them. Besides, I'm tired of typing. So I'll end by saying that yes, sometimes one person can influence our lives more than any other, but most of the time, it's many people influencing it all at once, and we often don't understand what they meant until it's too late. And they are lost forever.

One Person

There is a person in my life who means everything to me. When i say everything, I really do mean EVERYTHING: happiness, sadness, fun, pain, humor, excitement, a good thing, a bad thing, a friend, a foe, someone i love, someone i hate, everything. He has single-handedly made me experience more emotion than probably the rest of the people I know combined. I mention him here in passing sometimes, but he wouldn't know, because he does not read my blog. He doesn't like reading much, and perhaps that is a good thing. He is the only close guy friend I have; he is also my first serious crush. He knows that he is, and he tries to be understanding, tries to get me to 'snap out of it', to 'move-on', to give up my belief in the 'ridiculous' idea that love happens only once.
But I don't think that it's that simple. I think that if i'm meant to get over him, I will, it will happen in its own time. But until and if it does happen, I will be a good friend to him and not let my feelings come inbetween, just like i have for almost 3 years now. Yes, it will probably hurt when he starts seeing someone, but i'm not afraid of the hurt. That is something I feel used to now, because thinking/talking to him and feeling hurt have become almost synonymous. He does not hurt me on purpose. (He would not hurt anyone on purpose because he is a wonderful person.) But I hate it when he makes me feel like a stranger to his world. It hurts when he doesn't share things with me and says quite clearly to my face that i'm not one of his 'close friends'. If i'm not his close friend, why did I spend hours online during and after my Diwali break last year, patiently listening to him talk about how mixed-up he was after the break-up with his ex-girlfriend? Why did I literally and sincerely pray to God for his happiness, when he is so stingy with sharing that happiness with me when it has at last come?
It hurts when he says how he was up till 3a.m. talking on his cell-phone to 'friends', and yet, he never has enough balance to call ME, except on my birthday. I wish birthdays came more often than once a year.
It hurts when he can save up pocket money to spend with friends visiting him from out of town, but never has enough for so much as a cup of coffee with me. I sound a little weird, I know, but I'm always weird when it comes to him. I'm not myself.
I've tried to tell him that it hurts when he treats me like I'm not important, but he gets angry at me then. He says I should not be so insecure, I should know what i mean to him. But how can I know something he never shows? How can I ever feel important when he repeatedly says how 'very few people' know him, making it clear that I am not one of those people. I would tell him how he is the ONLY person who knows ME, but I'm pretty sure hearing that would make him angry again. And i don't like it when he is angry at me. That hurts too.
But like I said, I'm not afraid of the hurt. There is no happiness without hurt, or rather, there is no hurt without happiness too. He may hurt me unconsciously, but he also makes me happy. A lot. Sometimes he doesn't even have to do anything; just thinking of him makes me smile. Not because I love him, but because he is a nice person. Even if he was not my first crush, thinking of him would make me smile. I'm glad he came into my life, or rather, I went into his, because he made me realise just how much I'm capable of feeling and how amazing that is, and also how just one person can make all the difference.

The Little Girl

This post is not a scribble. It's a story. And, like every story, it has a beginning, middle and end, so it is not sempiternal either.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was like almost all other little girls out there: she loved to play with dolls and longed for lots of pretty clothes to dress them up with; she liked to read/listen to 'princess' stories like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty; she was full of innocence and hope and saw the world as a mysterious but wonderful place, with her own perfect 'Prince' hiding somewhere within it, waiting for that perfect moment to 'find' her at last and take her away to live 'happily ever after'. She was confident he would find her, no matter what. Just like 'he' found Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Of course, she knew those were all just stories and not real, but she also knew that all stories started off from some kind of truth. So she waited. Patiently. She knew that whenever she would meet 'him', she would surely know he was The One. And so time passed, the little girl grew up, experience taking the place of her innocence, hard realities taking the place of hope. But her one childhood belief that did not falter, even for a moment, was the one that lots of grown ups seemed to believe in too: love, and it's immense power. A power that would one day surely draw 'him' to 'her' and bless them with so much happiness that every pain would be dealt with, every hardship overcome.
And then he came. Or at least, she thought he did. Because, why else would just a glimpse of him set her heart aflutter in such an alarming way? Why would his smile make her feel like she was in a dream? Why would looking into his eyes make her see her entire world held in them? Why would his voice make her want to listen forever and ever? Why would every moment spent with him seem perfect, and every moment apart be filled with his thoughts? Why would she think of only him every night when sleep refused to come to her? And the first thing every morning, when she woke after dreaming of him? Why would she want to share everything with him, to see him happy always, to do anything for him? And why, oh why, would her heart's greatest desire be to fall into his arms and stay there for eternity? (as impossible an idea as that is.) He was definitely The One. The Only One. But alas, if this was HIM, why didn't he DO something? Why didn't he make any effort to take a step towards their 'happily ever after'?
The Little Girl who had Grown Up pondered and pondered, sighing away the hours, dreaming of the day he would realise she was his princess, and then it hit her.
If HE didn't do something, it didn't mean SHE couldn't! It had been a long time since her favorite stories had been written, and things seemed to have changed. Maybe SHE was supposed to go and profess her devotion, sweep HIM away in a cloud of blissful love, rather than the other way around.
And so, like a modern Cinderella, she set off to tell him how he was the one she'd been looking for, how her world had transformed since he'd arrived in it, how she loved him beyond anything she'd ever felt before or thought she was capable of feeling.
And then the bubble burst. The bubble the Little Girl who had Grown Yp had been living in for far too long, without even realising it. He seemed puzzled about how she felt. He was her friend, nothing more, and he'd never thought she 'felt that way'. She thought it was quite thick-headed of him not to have known, not to mention absurd. Hadn't he EVER felt that crackling energy in the air between them that gave her goosebumps? Hadn't he seen it all in her eyes, like she'd seen it in his? Weren't eyes supposed to be the windows to the soul? Then how come he hadn't seen she was his soulmate? It couldn't be. But it was.
And the Little Girl who had Grown Up wanted to be little again. All the dreaming and the faith and the hopes had been a lot better than her 'prince'. She wished he hadn't come along. At least it hadn't hurt when he had been lost somewhere in the mysterious world. But of course, she knew that time did not turn back, not even in the stories. And so, she was stuck: hopelessly in love with her dashing prince, but forced to keep the love to herself. It was as if he had politely said 'Thanks, but no thanks' to all that she held for him in her burdened heart, and now she didn't know what to do. If he wasn't her's, then who was? Would she ever feel that way about someone ELSE? Would she love like this again? The thought was wrenching. And, even worse was the thought of who his REAL princess would be. Who would be that lucky lass he would hold in his arms and cherish forever? Why couldn't she have been that girl?
Perhaps, she reasoned, it was because she didn't have a fairy godmother like Cinderella, or she hadn't been put to sleep for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty, or, most probably, because she wasn't 'the fairest of them all' like Snow White. He was definitely The Prince in every way, but the Little Girl who had Grown Up was not a princess in any way. And in this sad truth she lived. No, not happily ever after. Because she knew now that 'happily ever afters' didn't exist. She was now just a grown-up, no longer the Little Girl who had Grown Up.

50th Post!

Today, I looked back through this blog, just to see what all it contains and how my moods and writing have varied since December 2007, when I started it. I was left feeling an uncomfortable mixture of surprise, embarassment and amusement, and maybe something else which I can't quite identify. The first thought I had when I finally reached the most recent posts was to access the Settings page and hit the delete button and forget that Sempiternal Scribbles ever existed. But then, I stopped myself. Doing that would have been in line with my old habit of running from the past. Yes, my writing was not the most mature or sensible writing you could expect of a twenty-year-old (which was me when I first started these random typed 'scribbles'). Neither were my grammar - or my way of expressing my sometimes illogical, sometimes childish, sometimes weird thoughts - perfect. But still, as much as it astounds me, every single word here has been typed by the same fingers that are dancing atop the keyboard this very moment. And the brain controlling the fingers had definitely thought it was being quite smart - or witty/talented/profound - each time the 'Publish Post' button had been clicked. Even though a lot of past posts now make me cringe, they still define who I am, or at least who I used to be. I could delete them all and start a new blog, where I could write more sensible stuff, but what's the guarantee that after another year or two, I won't want to repeat the process all over again?
So I've decided to stick with Sempiternal Scribbles. Even if I do start a second blog (which I'm thinking about), this little space of the world wide web will remain mine. Because even with the not-so-great writing and the downright silly things I've said at times, the past 49 posts have helped me grow. They've helped sharpen my writing skills, helped me vent my emotions when I needed to, planted a nice feeling of pride and satisfaction that this is MY blog and, best of all, connect me to a few people who actually take the time to read what I have to say and leave comments or 'post-scribbles' about it. A very warm Thank You to all of you! You guys are amazing writers yourselves and you inspire and motivate me to keep blogging. :)

Tired Girl

I found this lovely new template on Btemplates.com and loved it instantly. Part of its appeal lies in it's name - 'Tired Girl'. I think that quite describes me at the moment - and I don't mean physical tiredness. I mean that deep sense of fatigue that seeps every one of from time to time, or probably resides inside most of us all the time even if we don't accept it's existence. I know I'm tired of a lot of things, and sometimes all i really want to do is scream and shout and kick and cry, until God gives me some good answers to the umpteen questions i have which only He can answer. But of course, such behaviour would be fairly pointless and only result in, perhaps yet another never-ending rant from my mum about how ungrateful I am for all the things I have and how I'm always moaning about my problems. It's the defense mechanism of projection - project your own limitations on others so you don't have to accept what you're truly like. But I don't blame her - I know she's changed ever since she lost her mother, and, like a good daughter and an even better psychology student, I try to understand and empathize with her. So what if that just adds one more thing to the list of things I'm oh so TIRED of.
I'm tired of always being the one who understands - the one who accepts everything with a smile for the sake of everyone else's happiness.
I'm tired of being nagged to learn how to cook, when there is nothing under the sun I'm less interested in.
I'm tired of not being accepted for who I am - for being told to be more social, more talkative, more obedient, more homely.
I'm tired of being told what to wear and what not to wear, what's 'decent' and what's not.
I'm tired of being twenty-one and yet being treated like a ten-year-old.
I'm tired of being lectured for little insignificant things.
I'm tired of all the negativity and pessimism in the world.
I'm tired of disappointment, and responsibility, and limitations and boundaries.
I'm tired of being told what's right and what's wrong, which God to worship and how to worship Him, what the future has in store for me, and how I should live my life.
I'm tired of it all. Just so tired.
Yet, I, like every other tired soul out there, somehow finds the strength to continue. To keep believing that a day will dawn when things will finally be my way, to keep faith in God and his strange ways, to keep trying, to keep fighting for all that I am and all that I believe in and all that I dream of.
And i think that strength comes from love - that power beyond all other that surrounds us, even when we are in the depths of despair. It's comforting to know deep down that, however much your parents may irritate you, they still love you more than any other person can. That no matter how many gruelling tests God puts you through, he loves you most unconditionally, most sempiternally.
Yes, I may be a very tired girl, but I'm also a loved girl, a cherished girl. And so is every other tired person in the world. :)

Just Some Random Ranting

It's weird. I used to think that once the summer holidays started i'd be blogging lots and lots, but somehow, I never seem to find the time or the muse these days. That's ironic, given that i'm usually complaining of nothing to do. Ah, well, maybe it's the scorching Ahmedabad heat - that makes my head ache and my hair stink of sweat and grime in just a day of washing it and my skin dry up and erupt in angry rashes - that puts me in too much of a foul mood to park my backside in my desk chair and type. I'd rather just laze around, watching way too much MTV than can be good for anyone. And the cherry on my cake is the stupid fall-out between the producers of my beloved bollywood movies and the multiplex owners. Ahem, if anyone is listening, I'm practically PINING to watch Kaminey and New York so could the dispute be put to an end, please? Pretty please? I can't live without hindi mvoies. And i'm not about to go to a single screen theatre to watch one. For God's sake, i don't even know WHERE i can find a single-screen theatre here. Phew. Ok, i guess all that was begging to be out of my system, so now on to more interesting things.
But alas, there are none. My life - or lack of it, perhaps - actually gets a bit embarassing. I sign onto msn and chat with a few friends and everytime they say 'what's up?' or 'what's happening?' or 'so update me...', I have absolutely ZILCH to say. It results in long conversations of absolute pointlessness. Ah well, that's cool in it's own way too. I just wish the heat would cool off a bit, as well as the avalanche of extended family that visits me or tells me to visit them. I'm so not in the mood for socializing when my hair stinks and my clothes are all sticky with sweat and my skin itches no matter how many showers i have in a day or how many antibacterial neem facewashes and facepacks and soaps i use. Ughh, so not a summer girl.