Phoenix

I’m back.

After almost (or, I think, ‘exactly’) 2 months.

Some of you might actually wanna know where I have been (or you might not, but I like to think that I’ve some fan-following you know, my very own La-La Land).

I can’t really put my finger on anything in particular, but I’ve been kinda busy all these weeks, plus I was going through some kinda writer’s block, as they call it. But my break from Blogger was mainly because of not having enough time. You see, now that it’s my last semester, I wanna make sure that I don’t do anything stupid and get stuck here forever.

I endured some frustrating midsems, practical exams and major project presentations, which collectively sucked all the energy outta me. Add to that my last semester majors, 2 of which I still have to take (and I’m still not sure whether I’ll pass those that I’ve already taken). Not to forget all these assholes I keep running into, I mean it’s like either God loves assholes too much or he hates non-assholes too much, that’s the only explanation for there being so many of them.

And last but not the least (not even ‘lesser’ or even ‘less’), I faced my death (no details in this post, if you really wanna know, just CLICK HERE).

Anyways, fact of the matter is that I’m back and hopefully here to stay. Now, the thing is that I really didn’t know what to write in my comeback post. Somebody suggested I should write about “61 things I learnt while I was away” (‘1 thing for each day you’ve been away!’ he said).

Now I really liked the idea, but frankly 61 is too much. Not for me, I mean writing 61 witty one-liners is a piece of cake for me. It’s just that I don’t think that I’ve learnt 61 things while I was away (in fact, I haven’t learnt 61 things in my whole life). Plus, I never write such long posts, I know people hate ‘em. People don’t ever read long posts; they just read first 2 paragraphs and then scroll to the bottom and comment something like “That was awesome” or “Keep writing. Cheers! :)”. I really didn’t wanna force somebody to be phony...

So I settled for 5.

Here are the 5 things (of the top of my head) that I think I learnt in the past couple of months:

Lesson Learnt #1 - I’m an unsociable man.

It’s really hard for me to admit, but during last couple of months, when everyone else in college was running around celebrating “last days of college” and cribbing about how they’ll always miss their “friends”, I was actually feeling relieved that all this was finally getting over.

All this fake love and fake tears smelled like bullshit to me.

‘Amity’ was just a word, ‘Camaraderie’ my ass!

Lesson Learnt #2 – People actually hate Muslims.

I still find it hard to believe. I never thought that in today’s world I’d hear something like this, and that too coming from someone who’s “educated” in the sense that this term is misused. At first I thought it was an exception but as I dug in deeper it turned out to be the general rule. Simple fact, many (or maybe most of the) people in India (and of course, around the world) think that terrorism is due to Islam, and all terrorists are Muslim. Plain sad.

Lesson Learnt #3 – I love F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Okay, now this is not news and I know most of you hate me for repeating this again and again, but I really can’t help it. I know all the jokes, almost all the dialogs and whole script by heart by now. And I still can’t get enough of them.

As far as including this pointer in my list is concerned, I’d really blame it on Star World. They aired Ross-and-Rachel’s first kiss a couple of days ago and I smiled and cried at the same time (Why am I such a girl?!?). In Chandler’s words:

I just don’t see why those two can’t work things out!

Anyways, while writing this post, that kiss was lurking somewhere in my mind and this pretty much proves that this list is really coming ‘of the top of my head’.

Lesson Learnt #4 – “Booker books” suck.

Believe me; I’m speaking from personal experience. I’m not really a literary genius, but I do have a sense of taste. I can understand what an aam aadmi would like and what not. And in any case I’m entitled to a personal opinion. Now, I’ve read 5 booker winners till now (not many I know, but still) and the truth is none, except Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, has impressed me at all. If anything, they’re simply boring. In fact, I’d go a step further, they suck!!

By the way, I’d like to add that Arundhati Roy’s God of small things was the final nail in my I-hate-Booker-winners coffin.

Lesson Learnt #5 – I’m a procrastinator, and incorrigibly so.

This is kinda the only pointer that really belongs to this list, ‘coz this is the only real thing that I’ve learnt so far. It’s true that I knew about it all along but I believed that with some channeled efforts I might be able to rid myself of this tag, in fact, that’s what my agenda was when I started this blog in the first place. But now I know that my case is totally hopeless (I learnt it the hard way of course, when I almost died and promised myself that, if I survived, I’d seriously make something outta my so-far-pathetic life, but eventually didn’t change anything at all).

Believe me when I say that I’m not cribbing about it. I was really frustrated with this habit of mine till now, but finally I’ve learnt that this is simply the way I am.

If death can’t change me, nothing can..!!