A Hotel Room

On a backpacking trip alone, I stopped at a hotel on the way due to an unforeseen change in the weather. I was lucky to have carried a lot of money. The hotel turned out to have pretty posh accommodation and I ended up staying there for the rest of my 7 day trip, a total of 5 days. What can I say, the view was so beautiful. Overlooking a lake, I’d sit on a beanbag in the balcony staring out at the cloudless sky, day and night. Stars would fill the sky in millions as I spent my time in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere. I’d sleep whenever I wanted to, in a plush bed with feather stuffed pillows, while the television provided a soft lullaby. It all seemed too real to be true, and I was completely comfortable with it. The fact that the hotel’s name was Mirage didn’t bother me. I had been lulled into the lap of luxury by a lake.

It’s a surprise I hadn’t stayed any longer. On the fifth day, as I sat staring at the lake in the morning, I noticed a tiny detail. One of the guests who jogged around the lake everyday had been wearing the same clothes and was in the same position at the same time as the previous days. I found it odd and decided to get out of my hotel room. The minute I stepped out of the door, my head spun and my insides felt as dry as a desert. The heat was getting to my head. I looked around and noticed the crumbling ruins that once made this lonely hotel. When I looked back into my room I saw torn bedsheets and a broken television set. I looked further at the pristine lake, menacingly clearer than a clear sky. I grabbed my backpack and ran out fast and far away.

It was a rocky road, with nothing but sand everywhere. Green was a rare sighting. I ran on and on, the scenery the same on either side. Suddenly I saw a building ahead, a solitary standing structure. As I came closer, it seemed to be familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. I stepped in to find out it was a hotel, and was taken to a lavish room immediately. I looked out the balcony to see a mirror lake, calm and composed, almost as if it were a placid person. The bellboy said “Welcome to Hotel Mirage.” I smiled to thank him, closing the door as he left.

5 Minutes to Signup

There are 5 minutes to signup, our chaotic, evil system of choosing a course via a website (custom built I assume).
So if this makes no sense, it's probably because I can't see what I am typing due to the darkness on campus (no one is getting up to switch on the lights for fear of not signing up on time... It's a fastest-fingers-first sort of system...) or because I am in a hurry to put everything down on this so I don't miss my course.
I am sitting in an almost empty campus save the few people from my batch all waiting restlessly to get this over with. And some people in the admin office and the security staff.
Shit I am so nervous. Almost everyone wants the same courses in the VisComm department.
My friend just told me the time... I have 3 minutes. I should go start endlessly refreshing the website...
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!
I got my courses...Screen Printing and Calligraphy. Which I should say are the most wanted courses for the workshop weeks. Oh my god!
That has got to have been the shortest and most intense signup I've ever had.
Usually I'm chilling at the p.g. in my room with music, an hour to signup.
This time it was a roller-coaster ride.
My adrenaline is still rushing...

Let me give you a brief background to what generally happens.
You access a website, login with a unique ID used for all our college official work. Then you wait, refreshing endlessly, for checkboxes to appear signifying the start of signup. Click the checkbox, hit the save button all fast enough and you will be lucky to be ensured you will get those courses. Otherwise you're stuck looking for a nice course which hasn't been filled up. And they get filled up fast. Speed of sound fast.
And that's pretty much it. Later you feel like you've just run a marathon. And then there are all the sighs of relief or disappointment.
You have tense people, restless people, excited people, people with no hope all around you before and during signup. The atmosphere is mostly thick with stress. Music doesn't help most of the time.

Yep that's signup for you.
You're in trouble if you have a slow internet connection.

Out at Sea

The waters are still, eerie and salty black.

I remember a poem from long ago,

One of stranded sailors and a lone survivor.

Of many nights at sea,

And albatrosses around necks.

I sit on my wreck

No compass, no map, nothing to guide me.

It’s dark.

The sky has no stars

As if telling me there can be no hope left.

There is no way back.

I look up, at a cloudy sky.

I can only hope there is no storm.

But what is hope anymore?

For despite so many clouds

There is not a silver lining.

It begins to pour.

I’m soaked to the skin.

There is nothing, I realise

That I can light to make a fire

Save the raft.

Afloat, with nothing but my mind to keep me company,

And the darkness all around,

I stay up for hours playing games with myself.

‘I Spy’ in the clouds, ‘Tic-Tac-Toe’ on the raft,

Until the delusions of life fade away.

I fall into a silent stare.

One that reaches far beyond

Into the vast nothingness.

And I’m lost once more,

In real dreams

With dying embers of hope.

The stars have taught me well

As they have any sailor.

Without them I would truly be nothing.

I am nothing.

A wave pulls me out of the murky depths.

The raft and I

Drift along

Complying with its gentleness.

We are anchorless.

We have lost our bearings.

We have nothing to keep us grounded,

Nothing to hold us.

There are more now, waves pulling us with them.

Lulling us into a sense of safety,

And comfortingly sleepy warmth.

In this old unfamiliar land,

There is happiness,

There is hope.

I can always find my way back.

But the stars are hiding today.

Falsehood grows

Becoming a storm,

Crashing through my reverie

Wreaking havoc upon the raft

As I wake to find it my reality.

The stars are right.

There can be no hope left.

Piece by piece,

The raft and I disintegrate.

We are laid bare to the storm.

Yet we hang on for dear life,

But for what?

What is a sailor without the North Star?

What purpose does life have if you have been lost?

Questions that will never be answered.

Questions that are silent screams.

The raft creaks in pain.

The storm only hears itself.

I laugh hysterically,

But no one hears me.

I have nothing to lose anymore.

I have nothing.

It has been lost,

I have been lost.

I am nothing.

Not Good

The day was bright and warm. After a lavish lunch, I went outside and sat on the porch. From afar I could see a young girl with eyes that twinkled like the glinting drops of rain, running in our huge field. She was a faerie in her pale, floaty dress and was carrying a small basket. She looked cheerful and it made me feel like a paedophile.



Made with two of my friends for an assignment in class. The original paragraph, which we had to rewrite:
It was a very good day. After a good lunch, I went outside and sat on the porch. From afar I could see a beautiful girl running in our big field. She was wearing a nice dress and was carrying a small basket. She looked very happy and it made me feel good.

Walking in the Woods

Two roads diverged into the woods.

But the right path was the one I was on.

So I ignored the two diversions on the side

And walking ahead, I went along.

Based on the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

3-Step-Pepper-Pasta

To all my friends, who have learned to enjoy the small things of P.G. life... Because that is what dreams are made of.


Living in a Paying Guest Accommodation has it's perks.
For one you don't really have a fixed curfew. I mean we are given one, but it's not like we follow it (OK we kind of do).
Another is that you learn to cook just by tasting the food provided. You can guess all the ingredients correctly (no joke), and figure out the recipe.

I present to you, one of our findings:

3-Step-Pepper-Pasta

 

Serves: Less than the number of students accommodated

Prep Time: Half a day (maybe more)

Ingredients:

Pasta (we have macaroni here)

Ground Pepper/ Pepper Corns (we found ground pepper)

Tomato Ketchup (store bought)

Water

Preparation:

1. Pour water into a pan till about 3/4th full. Add a tablespoon of pepper. Bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until it is al dente, which should take roughly 10-12 minutes.
2. Strain the water into a saucepan. Add a few handfuls of ground pepper and cook till it thickens into a tomato sauce like consistency. Add the pasta. Let it soak for a few hours.
3. Strain the pasta again. Put it into a bowl and add one teaspoon of tomato ketchup. Mix well. Empty an entire bottle of ground pepper and mix well again. Serve cold in a big canister.

Bon Appetit!

Of Sisters and Sins

She's twirling her hair, not once but thrice, like in all those Hindi soap operas where they have to repeat a 'dramatic' scene thrice for effect (and exaggeration). I know she's daydreaming only because I used to do that in the 7th grade, when I had a crush on one of my classmates. The glazed eyes (because of staring into space), the hair-twirling, the readjusting her hair every second, the constant smiling when you think no one's looking.
Because no one is. Not directly anyway. I was looking from the corner of my eyes.

Yes, I was spying. But it's quite funny to see the sort of expression on her face. Of course it's embarrassing once I realise I probably made the same faces too, way back when. She, I hope, never remembers me having made those faces in the first place. She was too young to care, anyway. Even if she did notice, she would look at me weird, wondering why I was making faces at no one in particular. She specially hated the times I was staring at her, but wasn't. It was no fault of mine. My mind was just preoccupied. As is her's these days.

Unfortunately, my curiosity only increases every time I see her smiling into space.
I can't even ask her who or what (assuming it's one of those times she isn't daydreaming) she's thinking about. That would only give away the fact that I'd been staring at her, spying, in the first place. Then she'd be too conscious of the fact and never make faces again. Or trust me the little bit she does. That would be a disaster.

This piques my interest even more and I end up committing sins no sibling (younger or older) should ever commit. So horrifying they are, they cannot be named. There is also the reason that I'd be murdered in my sleep by my sister (in her dreams) if she ever found out. I know this because when I told my friend my little secret, she stared at me like a principal would stare at an 'A-student'-turned-delinquent.
With Disappointment.
(I forget to mention: My friend is the younger sibling in her family.)

Of course I feel guilty. So I just ask my sister directly instead. Which gives me no answer whatsoever. I will tell her ultimately. About the terrible sin. But maybe after she's married and lives on the other side of the world.  Besides, she's probably done the same thing while I've been away.