Tick tock, goes the clock....

Just 10 days to go before I leave and the finality of my departure is finally beginning to dawn on me. There was a sense of excitement and eagerness that accompanied the shopping; an anxiety that one should be adequately prepared and should have everything that could conceivably be needed when one reaches one’s destination.

But now that the shopping’s over and it’s time to start filling in the bags, a strange sense of despondency is setting in. It isn’t as if this is the first time I am going away from the family, although the last time that I did, it was just for a fortnight, and with a certain date of return in mind. Maybe the uncertainty of when I would get to return (surely after the two years of the program, or maximum after three years) is getting to me; maybe it’s me doubting my ability to stay alone for two years, having never done anything of this magnitude before in all my 24 years.

Somehow looking at the shopping and thinking that, excluding a few minor additions here and there, this are going to be all my worldly possessions for the next two years is slightly unnerving. That I won't be able to argue or fight with my brother the way I do now would be comforting for my parents, but somewhere deep down all that squabbling was part of our affection for each other, and I am surely going to miss that. I will miss my breakfast time chats with my parents over myriad topics while we would read the newspapers, my tea getting cold and their scolding me for never drinking tea as it should be drunk, hot. Whatever it is, it’s weighing me down.

Somehow it feels so unreal that after 10 days, I will have to do everything on my own; perhaps more than anything, it’s the cooking which is terrifying me, considering I have NEVER cooked a decent meal in my life, save maybe omelets, scrambled eggs, and the occasional half-fry. Maggi doesn’t count as cooking, and well, tea and coffee is something you just know, so it also doesn’t count. But mother’s tips and recipes and the good old Internet should hopefully see me through. La mamma is packing in so many condiments, prepared masalas, ready to cook dishes and utensils that someone might think I am going to cook for an entire regiment at Williamsburg; but in frankness, it would be nice to once in a while cook a nice Indian meal to remember the pleasures of home and the taste of mummy’s cooking. You can't get it all, but a simulacrum is better than nothing at all.

In all this, let it not be said that I am not looking forward to going; au contraire, I am most eager for the opportunity; to quote the parents, this should teach me responsibility. There will be many who are in the same condition as me; we will all stumble a little, but we will all be there to help each other overcome the teething troubles smoothly. So here’s to life at Williamsburg and to the next two years at the College of William & Mary.

You're nothing but a pack of cards....

Iran's attempt at change may have fizzled out, or at least it may seem like it has. But I, for one, am hopeful and somehow feel certain that we haven't seen the end of this just yet. Call it a retreat if you may, but even the greatest military strategists will confirm that sometimes it is better to tone down one's assaults and to recoup for a day when the enemy will be least prepared than to continue to barge into the bayonets.

Somewhere this entire episode has revealed to the Iranian people that the system, the establishment which was set up to rule in their name has subverted its purpose to rule, over them and to dictate how they, the people, may lead their lives. The Ayatollah may have thought the clergy a better bet than the nomenklatura of the Pahlavis to run the nascent Republic; the chances of ideological differences and strife breaking apart the Republic would have been remote. But even he would not have foreseen these troubled times when even the clergy is divided on whether or not to support the Establishment.

The incumbent Supreme Leader, a man foisted on the Iranians not by the dint of his own eligibility but by back-door politics, quite like a Pope in medieval or even recent history, seems a kindhearted and noble soul, but his pronouncements on the protests have shown him to be delusional and perhaps distant from those whom he is ordained to lead. He and his acolytes have turned Iranian against Iranian and for one brief moment raised the specter of the Iranian Revolution; just this time, the enemy isn't the Shah, it's the clergy and their baseej.

Lewis Carroll may not have been a prophet but his Alice in Wonderland somehow finds resonance in this sad and unpleasant episode in Iran's history. The cavalier attitude of the entrenched establishment towards the protests of their own people, their blatant and unapologetic attempt at denying the people their right to choose who should rule them, and their repudiation of all and any tenets of basic human courtesies makes this a very difficult game indeed.

Alice said of the Queen, “They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is that there's anyone left alive.” To every call suggesting that the people have the right to think, the clergy retorts that the right is just as much right as pigs have to fly, to quote the Duchess. But in the end, the Iranian people, like Alice, though small and subdued now, will grow to her true size and will triumph over those who deny them their rights and privileges just as Alice triumphed over the Queen's and the Duchess' armies, and then will retort in their baritone voice, like she did, “Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards.”

Till the sun rises

What is it about love that drives us to it like moths to the lamp? Perhaps the metaphor is a bit too negative, too harsh on the beauty that is love, but apt nonetheless for there are always two sides to every coin. Why is it that we can't just be friends, not be bound by crazy emotions and sentiments, or by expectations and assumptions? Why must we insist that there be something more than a deep and resounding sense of friendship, of a sense of lifelong companionship, for arelationship to truly mean something to us?

Love isn't all it's made out to be; it's so much more. Love is a strange emotion. When one thinks of it, a conflicting multitude of thoughts arise. Love is pitiful and marvelous, empowering and parasitic. It is hideous; it is beautiful. It is weak and strong at the same time. Love has started wars, ended wars, caused the depression and death of millions, as well as caused uncountable others to be thrown to the heights of ecstasy. So is love truly such a pure, lovely thing? I think it is a mixture of both. Just as nothing is purely good or evil, so is love. When you are in love, it's like every morning is the sunniest and the brightest in the history of mankind. The flowers never smelt so sweet, the birds never sang so beautifully, and the breeze never blew so pleasantly on your cheeks. The rains never came down in such melodious drizzles and the heat, well it never really mattered, did it?

But when you find the doors of love closed onto your face, even Hades would be a more pleasant place than life. Persephone has to spend just six months with Hades in his dominion and yet when she meets Demeter in the spring, her soul has paled and diminished; imagine then living such a life day in and day out, not knowing when deliverance would come from this pain. You want to yell out, to scream, to cry, but the tears will not flow, the sounds will not burst forth. It is the punishment the Fates entailed for your heart, a punishment for its impudence in presuming that it may seek love where it had no right to do so, for its audacity to dream of a life of its own creation free from the dictates of the Fates. Your heart may burst with the deluge of emotions that it contains, but it must not ever let loose the flood waters.

In such turbulent times, the memories of the past prick and pain, and yet they soothe and calm. They mock the Fates and their punishments, the pain and the suffering, and serve to remind us of our courage and our belief in our self, that we too are worthy of some one's love and affection, that friendship need not always be the final frontier, that someday someone will feel the same love that we feel for them. They implore us to stay true to our heart, to not fail it when it needs us the most, to caress each memory of a love bygone like it were another life within us. They foretell that one day this night will get over, and the sun will rise again. Till such day, they offer us only their comforting support as lights in the darkness.