It's almost 1:30 in the morning and and sleep refuses to aid a restless mind such as mine. I have in the 20 years of my life never witnessed such a day as I have just a couple of hours ago. Suddenly I feel like I have plummeted at full speed in to "big, bad world" out there and the only thing that can really save me is myself and the choices I make in life.
In college today my friends and I saw two full grown men with blood-shot eyes and syringe marks on their arms openly dealing in drugs. Their customers were a boy and two girls who didn't even belong to our university. All of them were caught by guards and the cops were called to handle the entire escapade. While the whole incident seemed very exciting at that moment its it only now that the severity of the entire situation has taken its toll on me. The vulnerability of each of us, the growing habit of smoking cigarettes or pot or injecting drugs into ones veins is like a silent plague overcoming more and more of the entire human race. Later I see a friend of mine lying flat on the road because he has lost all his senses on alcohol overdose.
The uncanny feeling is growing fiercer within me as the clock ticks and I cannot seem to shake off the fact that no body in this world can really help you save yourself. Suddenly all those incidents of "harmless" smoking or drinking with friends don't seem all that "harmless" anymore because I am now scared of losing control. I wish I never grew up. I wish I never heard of drugs, or smoke or prostitutes who get into strangers' cars and trust their lives with people they have never even met before for money.
I am losing my mind and that is a form of losing control over oneself. I highly doubt if even who reads this can understand what I'm trying to say, but the point is...this world isn't safe for any of us. No matter how old or mature we are, if tiny particles of unknown substances are allowed to run through our blood once, they will do so again and again. None of us really have any control and we are all swimming in circles in a large whirlpool of muck and grime. "It's a wonderful world" seems like idealism to me, because even though the Grand Canyon is breathtakingly beautiful, even there, there are prostitutes and addicts.
I'm scared for myself. And I'm scared for us.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale life slowly.

Exhale life slowly.

Inhale life slowly and make it reach your brain.

Exhale life slowly and make sure it still stays in your brain.

I turn from the left to the right. But what I see doesn't change. A whirlpool of colours, so pretty in mosaic. So much for sight.

People speak in different tones and they say different words but everything merges into my favorite song in my head. So much for hearing stuff.

Hot seems cold and cold cannot be felt at all. So much for sense.

I smile and tears come out from my eyes. With stone cold blank eyes I see into the very depth of other people's souls through their eyes.

I'm standing alone in the pelting rain. No wait, I'm standing amidst a huge crowd in the pelting rain.

Life makes a lot of sense to me, yet I cannot figure out life one bit.

I'm falling into deep sleep, first clock wise and then anti clock wise. All I can see is blinding light instead of the cool solace of dark slumber.

I wake up and the world is normal again. Maybe the world was always normal, but finally I find myself normal again. In my bed, the light of the sun sits with me with a cup of morning tea and a little chit-chat.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Life is in my veins.

It's chilly and the cigarette in my hand gives out blueish smoke. When I look at the smoke billowing upward in sleepy spirals, my head suddenly begins to swim. For a second the crooked old tree in front of me that I had been staring at dissolves into a shape I cannot decipher. Vibrant colours mix with the faded yellow of the tree and suddenly I see a painting of Piccasso in front of me. Incredible what an empty mind an an empty stomach can do to you. Hallucinations they call them. For a second nothing makes sense.

I wake up again. The tree is back. So is the old lady. She is lying flat on the footpath with flies almost everywhere on her being. Gentle movements of her tummy confirm that she is infact alive. The few shreds of cloth that cover her looked like someone had puked on them. It's funny, at that precise moment I thought of Clara. She's the bitch that lives next door. A spaniel who gets clothes from puma. A dog. And she has an AC room all to herself.

It doesn't make sense to me anymore. Nothing really does. Should I laugh? Or should I just pretend to laugh? Why bother. Why smile. Why talk to everyone and think of things to talk about, when at the end of the day you have to be alone in an empty room with nothing but your troubles looming up in front of you larger than life?

He told me to look this way. And then that way. He clicked on and on and I sat, somewhat uncomfortably in a saree in front of him. My first photoshoot. He wants me to smile. I pretend and flash a pair of uneven teeth. Good picture, he is telling me.

Smile for the whole world to see. Atleast pretend to smile. You are my best friend now, and tomorrow I'm too busy to call you. I love you now, but tomorrow my friends are more important. Smile again. The old tree and the old woman on a dirty footpath. And Clara is richer than many of us human beings. He asks me to smile again. I do. afterall, humans have perfected that fake smile. Nice, he tells me. people can kill each other with bombs and guns but a diamond ring will make a woman smile.

The cigarette is over too and the smoke is long gone. Shit.

Gosh I cannot believe I am doing this again. I've spent like hours and hours at the comp but NEVER have i felt the urge to blog...I now feel as though I have suddenly discovered a very old, yellowed photo album and I'm dusting off the dust, trying to trace people I barely recognize. Bits of my blog seem almost as if I never wrote them...as if me, Shruti, the person I am right now would have never thought that way. The only thing constant is change I guess.

Well egg-jams are over and everyone is sighing heavily in relief...guess thats whats causing the winter chill. People are SO relieved that SOME PEOPLE don't just SIGH but also let out wind from other places...LOUD.

Nowadays I never have anything to say. Maybe it's because I don't think or feel anything. I mean, I feel happy and sad and all that, but I don't get thoughts. Nothing pops into my head all of a sudden. Maybe it's because I'm tired and I need time off to just relax. But I don't even know what I need time off from. I'm not sad or anything. It's almost as if I'm completely happy, yet I know I'm doing something wrong. Hope I figure myself out better sooner or later.

As for now, my face almost split into two...MASSIVE yawn...if anyone's reading this post, guess that's how they would react too...goodnight.

You asked me to take a walk with you the other day. And so when you tenderly touched my hand and decided to lead the way, I allowed myself to follow you. It was to be a surprise, you said and as you drew your cold, long fingers over my pulsating eyelids, I smiled. A plethora of stars burst out in front of me, when I closed my eyes and I made an unsuccessful attempt to count them as you led me on.
Hands off and with eyes that opened up with a jerk, I at first could not take in the surprise. We were in your mind. I looked around as we walked through the turns of your twisted mind. Voodoo dolls with innumerable pins stuck into them, hung from the walls. Melted wax, dead roses, locks of yellow hair and broken pencils everywhere. It was so bizarre and so dark that I began to feel uneasy. I had told you that I loved you. I had told you that I loved you for your craziness and that I could make patterns out of your insanity. But your mind made me want to run away. It scared me. The touch of your hand made me want to run fast and never look back at you ever again. You were too insane and too dark for me. I told you I loved you. I lied.
You looked at me and smiled. I looked at you and smiled back. I looked deep into your eyes and told you, without blinking even once that I loved you. Yet again, in a bizarre and crazy moment of fear, I lied to you.
I don’t really know if we were in your mind or mine. Because my mind is dark and twisted. It has got voodoo dolls on its chipped, blackened walls. And all of the voodoo dolls look like you. All of them, have got pins bored into them. Pins, knives and even forks.
I look at you again, hold your hand and tell you that I want to take you for a walk. As you look at me, innocently, purely even, I smile and tell you that it was going to be a big surprise…

Sinking
Breathlessness
Bubbles
Dark Blue
Breathlessness
Black
Panic
Cold
Breathlessness
Water
Power
Claustrophobic
Rising
Feeling
Seeing
Thinking
Breathlessness
Rising
Higher
Resurfacing
Power
Air
Life
Magic
Timelessness

I do not know when, or where, or why, or how...but they became friends. He saw her and she didn't see him, but they became friends. In the begining of it all, they needed to look for things to talk about. Later on however they had too many things to talk about and very little time to say it all. It was all a contradiction. But they became friends.
They hung out for coffee and chatted incessantly over the phone about things that did not really make sense to the rest of the world. Sometimes, they would get drenched in the rain just for the fun of it. It was all great. The best part was that they made each other smile.
Then something happened. One day, when the three of them-him, her and Mr. Time-were walking silently on an endless road, Mr. Time decided to have some fun with them. And so he twisted himself. Mr. Time twisted himself horribly and the two friends changed.
She told him to go away. She told him to go away just to see if he would call her back. He was too sad when she asked him to go away and so he didn't call her back. It was all a contradiction again, as everything with them generally was, but this time they could not get out of it.
I do not know when, or where, or why, or how...but they are struggling to become friends again. When I see them now, they walk apart. They have stopped telling each other things and they have stopped looking for reasons. Worst of all, it doesn't rain these days.