XOXO – Hugs and kisses??

I grew up telling the people around me that hugs were freakishly over-rated! People would hug each other for seemingly unnecessary reasons and it would annoy me to the core! Moreover I couldn’t stand it when these people thought they had to share their hugs with me!
I meet an old friend – a hug, I meet an old aunt – a hug.
I see someone after a weekend – a hug.
I get good marks – a hug, I get bad marks – a hug.
I hurt myself – a hug, I get a present – a hug!

Why?? I could never – for the love of God – understand why these people needed to hug other people so much! I would often think, ‘can’t everyone just maintain a little distance from everyone else and deal with their joys and sorrows from afar?’ I had something against physical contact with most people, so the constant hugging business practically made me nauseous! I especially hated those people who loved to hug so tight that you could practically feel every bone in your body as well as in the other person’s body! I would make excuses, throw tantrums and everything else I could think of, to get away from hugs. Some friends even thought that when I was really upset everything would be better by hugging me! Yeah! one tight squeeze could probably make me shed a few calories but not shed some grief! But no one really got that! Whenever a friend was going away on vacation or for an internship I would say goodbye with a firm handshake and a smile and most of my friends would feel offended. They began to think I didn’t care enough, and well – they were my friends at the end of the day – so I decided I needed to make them happy and live up to their expectations. If it was a hug they wanted it would be a hug they got! ‘How hard could it be?’ I asked myself and convinced myself that it was just like a blood test or like ripping off a band aid or like getting a tooth plucked out! The pain would last for just a moment and then it would be over!

So thus started the hugging business – at all times when a hug was called for I would hug the person and even pretend to like it! My friends thought there was a miraculous change in me but little did they know that every time I hugged a person I would think, ‘I’d rather have the band aid.’ But everyone was happy and I fulfilled my social and pointless responsibility of hugging people! But just when all was well in the world, in came another crisis! I was upset one day and when my friends saw that, they all rushed over to hug me. And in my mind I was going ‘baaaaaarrrrrrffff!’ I couldn’t uphold the social duty of hugging in this minute of sorrow! But did I have a choice? Me being the do-good-er that I am I had to do the right thing and allow people to – yech! – hug me!

It was then a habbit among all my social equals to hug me and expect a hug back whether the moment was dark or bright! I wallowed in my own misery as I hugged person after person! And I cribbed everyday, silently – to myself, about how much I hated hugs!
As time passed, I grew up and entered a fine college with fine specimen of today’s youth – vibrant, energetic, filled with ideas! There was just one problem – there were all addicted – to HUGS!! This place was worse than the one I had come from – here, people would hug each other just as a way of greeting! I would regret even saying hello because that would mean it was ‘hug-time’. I had to get accustomed to pulling that band aid off several times a day and there’s this thing about band aids – you can only pull them off a certain number of times without getting annoyed. And the same was the case with hugs and me. That much physical contact in a day was more than what I could bear! Nevertheless, I did it – day after day – without complaining!

Then came one curious day when I was all alone at home and feeling a little blue. I didn’t know what was happening or why I was so low, but I did know that all of a sudden, for some insane reason – I wanted a hug! I couldn’t understand why I was acting like this and decided to blame it on teenage hormones! But no matter whom or what I blamed it on, I realized that the only thing that could make me feel better – was a hug! That was the moment when I was enlightened! I realized that this cruel world I lived in had managed to drag me in too! The last standing soldier had fallen and I too was addicted! I decided to accept the change and move on. After all, everyone made mistakes! From that day on, there was no more pretending! I would hug everyone of my own will and would even enjoy doing so! Days passed in this manner and then came this one day. Yet another day which started off pretty well as I had had some pretty exciting news! But I couldn’t share it with anyone as it had to be a surprise. So there were no hugs there. And as the day progressed it didn’t get any better.So I sat up till midnight pondering over issues. Just about when I was done going around the same problem over and over in my head, I realized, how desperately I wanted a hug at that moment! But there I sat – all alone with no one but my pillow to hug! I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat down at my computer and began writing about how I used to think that hugs were really over-rated…

just my rambling thoughts – 2

here’s part 1.

ok, so this may be partly influenced by the princess diaries – but only partly!! for some time now i have noticed that when i am sitting in class, or going home, or watching a movie, i have some interesting idea on which i could write a blog post. but by the time i come home and get to my computer i often forget what it is. so i have been carrying a little book around in order to write down these small little ideas i have. but unfortunately, these little ideas turned out to be really ‘little’. meaning, i can’t make individual posts out of these, because they would turn out like this. so i am combining everything i’ve written down so far into one blog post.(which might end up being a little long, so please bear with me)

people

isn’t it weird how distinct two people can be? what could be interesting to one person could easily bore another and the way two people would react to a situation is usually different. every now and then such different people are thrown together and a beautiful experience is generated or a strong relationship is established. i find it really exciting when i meet a new person and we talk about our tastes and preferences, our lives, our passions and so many other things. it feels so good to find out why people act in certain ways and what makes them who they are, to get into their heads and to understand the way they think. the discussions we often have that are practically never-ending, the stories we share, the jokes we crack, the memories, the laughter – it’s so wonderful to remember that you had at least one profound moment with so many people in your past and enthralling to know that its going to keep happening with more people in the future who will give you so much to learn from.

but yet, so often we look for that one person who is like us, who thinks like us, who laugh like us and more importantly – that one person who understands us. all these people around us, who we have memories with, but sometimes fail to understand us, may not be the person we are looking for, but they are here, they love us and are trying their level best to understand us. so smile, and be thankful for all the people in your life.

Running Away

i have been running away from this issue for a very long time but today it just hit me in my face and i didn’t have a choice but to face it. our education system completely sucks!! all everyone cares about anymore is getting marks in some meaningless exam. even lecturers only a want a good pass percentage for their classes. they are not capable of answering our questions if it is slightly out of the syllabus. today a fellow classmate asked my lecturer why we were studying what we were and she asked him to shut up. it was a valid question. what is the use of studying this particular thing? shouldn’t all of us be able to answer that particular question? but we are asked to shut up because it doesn’t fall into our syllabus. and people say students `do not ask questions. memorizing is more important than understanding and attendance is more important than learning. i can no longer run away from the fact that we live in an unreal world where the quality of everything is deteriorating.

Alone

i walk in a crowd, with a huge group of friends, but i feel alone. even among friends there are tiny groups, i have mine too, but the truth is – i am alone. i listen to everyone , to all their stories, their laughter but somewhere inside there is this yearning for someone else, for something else, for someone to understand what i feel. i see people look into each other’s eyes and just understand. i want that!! i’m not talking about love, i’m talking about something else. there is this closeness that i cannot feel, a happiness that i am missing. i feel stupid sometimes for being around my friends, for saying certain things, i feel like i don’t belong. i feel left out, i guess. sometime ago, i thought i had that person who understood me, but i was wrong. that feeling was inside me for a very short time and then it faded away. and now i know what i am missing. and i don’t like it..

the dog, the rain and my passion.

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It was raining pretty heavily. But I didn’t care. With every drop of rain that touched me I felt more secure. I felt like I was disappearing into the rain, and the wind was taking me away with it. But a part of me was still in the present; looking at every tiny object around me- romanticizing it all! I had been like this for quite sometime now and I had no idea why. I barely spoke to my friends any more and I didn’t concentrate on anything I was supposed to be doing. All I ever did was analyze everything, look at life from a different perspective, a different angle. I thought about everything I wanted to do, all the places I wanted to visit, all the food I wanted to eat and all the colours I wanted in my life. I sat at home, watching movie after movie, in languages I didn’t even understand. And I loved it! I loved the peace and the silence I kept all around me. But I also had this thunderous roar sounding within me. And with every drop of rain that touched me, just as I was floating away with the wind, I was also looking for answers. And then I saw this dog sprawled on the pavement and he seemed like the only one on that pavement who espoused my policy of gripping the rain. He seemed as away from the world as he was with it-just like me. Then it hit me. I was shutting them out because they weren’t what I was. As in, I belonged to another world. A world filled with writers, filmmakers, critics and artists. And a world with a whole lot of colour. They loved me but they didn’t understand me. I needed someone to understand my need to watch movies in languages I didn’t understand. I needed someone to understand my need to stay silent in the midst of a huge crowd. I needed someone to know that I yearned to laugh and cry at the same time. And I also needed someone not just to know these things, but also to understand them, to feel them and to go through the same stuff with me. And all of a sudden I felt happy because the dog understood me. The dog was with me. As petrified I am of dogs I was still grateful for that one dog, because in that moment-he had made me happy. So I left it all there- the dog, the rain…