Throat hurts, limbs ache, you can't find your voice..
INDIA HAS WON THE T20 WORLD CUP!!!
Need I yell more with a voiceless voice? :D
Thank God I lived to see India win some world cup!!

If you did, 'Fire Away, Dinesh Karthik' was me!!!
I was on TV!!! Woohooo!!!!
More, later, if I am in the mood.

... if I jump for joy when someone I nearly blush over really appreciates my work? :D
I've got enough happiness-fuel to last me till the weekend.
Long live kutti sandoshams!

Do you know what it feels like, when you are neither happy, nor depressed, nor satisfied, nor angry, well, just feel nothing? Do you remember how it feels to be devoid of any emotion – feel the emptiness in you, hollow, and ringing? Telling you something that you just cannot understand or interpret in human terms?

I feel void. I want to escape, not because I’m irritated, or angry, or bored. I want something new. Someplace new. Some people I don’t know. People who just know my existence and acknowledge it. I want to sit in some far away meadow, where flowers are scattered across in my favourite colours. Purple, blue, white and red. Where there is one bird, just one bird, that sings from time to time. I want no sound except of the bird, and of water from a river quite far away. I want to lie down and stare at the sky, as it dawns, as the sun shines, as dusk returns, and as stars blink.

I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to meet people. I want a book. I want to remember my favourite songs so I can play them over and over in my head, and they sound pristine in that silent heaven.

I want to run away from the past and the future, forget life, school, job, final year project, deadlines. I want to be able to keep walking in this place, and still not see its end.

I want this surreal world, now. The room seems to be closing in on me, as does any thought, making the void inside resonate with the sound of emptiness.

Sigh, where can I find such a place but in my dreams?

Take me away.

I pride myself on the freedom of expression of opinion that India gives. If I am unhappy about something, I can freely write to a newspaper or magazine criticizing the people involved, blog about it, or go with a bunch of people and hold banners and march down the roads. I am happy that our newspapers brim with diversity of opinions and news. I am glad I can shoot a movie the way I want without pretty much getting a lot of it censored. I can shoot a movie about the political party I want to support and play it on TV. With a very few exceptions, I feel the government is quite doing well in granting me the freedom of expressing myself. But at what cost?

It is my fourth year in Singapore, and from the beginning of my stay here, I have been vaguely amused by the media and law here. My feelings have only become more appropriate now, in my final year, as I learn media law and read the hundreds of statutes that define seditious content, the word ‘obscene’ and party political films. As ever, I guffaw at what I consider a sad state of affairs when it comes to freedom of expression. There is only one noteworthy national newspaper, which likes the ruling government. Laws make sure the opposition is not anything to take note of. State television channels are a farce, as the government seems to have an invisible hand running it. People here do not really have many avenues to openly express what they feel, and in fact, not many even have anything to say. Three guys who blogged about an issue with ‘racist’ remarks were punished appropriately. Singapore is cautious, treading each step of its way with utmost concern, giving the government an absolute hand at handling people’s opinion, so that no situation arises that threatens the nation’s harmony and co-existence of the various races.

So on the one hand, we have India, that grants all its freedom, and is going far, yes, but still has way, way long to go in terms of development. On the other, we have developed Singapore, which has pretty much everything you need to lead a comfortable life – minus the privilege India grants. Even though I vehemently support the importance of having freedom of expression in my class, a doubt keeps creeping into my mind – is it worth it? India has achieved a great many things by granting this right, no doubt, but have we achieved what this right is for – development, peace? Have we taken for granted the right to speak up that seems to be running in our blood for centuries, been happy and smug about it, getting us pretty much nowhere in terms of the glorious vision of India as a developed nation?

Some answers please… a discussion could be enlightening!

Choice. How one simple word has enough potential to make you stop and think hard about something.
I stood there, torn between the two things drawing me to their sides. Is there really a choice? 'You always have a choice,' the words came to me. Said by some wise soul.
Soul. I had some soul-searching to do. Which would suit me? Both beckoned earnestly. I was at the boundary, given the tough job of choosing. My insides groaned. So did I.
My eyes wandered all over my immediate surroundings, looking for clues, cues, hints, to help me. That only made it worse, and I had to force myself to focus on my only two choices. Choose. Choice is a privilege, I knew. Not here. It killed me.
I closed my eyes. God, give me the power to decide. Give me the wisdom to choose the better option. Whichever would give meaning to my life, immediately. Is that asking for too much?
Someone slapped my back. I opened my eyes. 'Choose one, fast!' I heard.
Dairy Milk. Toblerone.
I'd rather be without a choice.

P.S.: Konjam kadi element popped up :P School's begun, and final year is no piece of cake. You have to do a final year project, study, apply for jobs, wonder how first years are getting hippier (:D) and worst of all, act like a responsible person. Losing my license to be myself at an alarming rate. What's to come?
And oh, did I tell you Chennaigal's family is back in Chennai, and Chennai is good ol' home again, and hopefully for a looong time to come? :)

Ever heard of an uneventful life going by at the speed of lightening? Heed mine. Doing hardly anything all day, but finding the days to head back to Singapore ticking off like that! (I clicked my finger to demonstrate - just so you know.)
Two (and a 1/2) books, two unfinished-hanging-at-the-point-of-action long short stories, random online final year project meetings, and recently accompanying mom on her craft class trips and dirtying my hand with ceramic and fevicol, all just describe these two weeks. Ahmedabad is thankfully back to its sweltering, stickily hot self - it's better than its dreary, always-raining form! And hot means ice creams! :D (which I have had only twice, sadly :( no time - I just described the paradox!)
And now there's Worldspace at home - it's a blessing, man! Shruti, the carnatic music channel is quite good, until the violin accompanists get so awful that the violin seems to be screeching into your ears and to quote a F.R.I.E.N.D.S-ism 'Makes me want to put my finger into my eye, through to my brain, and twirl it around!' Ok, that's taking it to an extreme, but I just want to change the channel, and that happens depending on my mom's mood :P. KL radio is decent too, playing either really-good songs, or awful-to-hear ones. Farishta plays old hindi songs, and is good at times too. Jhankaar, the new-Bollywood-Indipop channel, simply sucks. There are some good English stations too, like Voyager, UPOP, Orbit Rock and Top 40 (which I think plays the week's top 40 - just that, over and over again!) But considering that of ten songs they play, it's a surprise if I know 4, and also that the music will probably get on my mom's nerves, they're hardly played. But good, nevertheless.
We get two newspapers here, Indian Express and Times of India and both are pathetic. Indian Express is ridden with typos, and these buggers can't seem to differentiate between its and it's. Give me a break - it irritates me to see this error in some blogs, and on bloody newspapers, man, it's the last straw. And this, my friends, is the newspaper that has 'Journalism of Courage'!! Nothing but sensationalism, I say. But TOI beats I.Express on sensationalism hands down. Placement of news is awful, and less said about the way news is written, the better. Looks like these buggers don't know anything called the 'Pyramid of News Values' or they forgot their bloody Journalism 101 class stuff when they joined this awful newspaper. Even the quality of the physical paper is so bad that I don't even want to touch them when I flip through them. Ugh! I miss The Hindu badly.
I'm in the mood for more cursing - the wonderful people ruling our country and their petty politics, stripping a most deserving man of his post. Can any of the candidates plan India for 2020? Or have students thronging to meet the President? Answer questions intelligently? Walk over to the dias of a journalistic debate and bounce off questions and answers? Or visit my university and give a meaningful talk? We'll miss you, Dr Kalam. It was an honour to have you on our campus and personally, to take pictures of you from an arm's length away and write a news story on you.
What more.. it's been rather fun going with my mom to these craft classes and watching all the women talk away to glory in chatteringly-nonsensical hindi. There were even college-going and young girls who for some reason seemed to be preparing themselves to get married and stay at home to do all this - so I felt a little absurd to be in such company, but yeah since I won't be all that, I decided it doesn't matter :P
That's about it - I'm supposed to be doing research for my final year project, but I can't find relevant studies and so I have gotten bored. Guilt is tugging me to open the other window showing the results of my search on 'Social Presence Theory' .. yeah, I'll get there..