'09-lessons learned:

Often the most trying circumstances are the ones that teach you a lesson or two. There are some mistakes you've got to make. Some tears you've got to shed. Some vile people need to enter your life. Bad things need to happen. Only then will you appreciate the good ones and also the not so bad ones.
These are the major occurrences of the year which put me through a lot of agony, which I now think, was quite unnecessary. This is both the comedy and tragedy of looking at things in retrospect. You either hit upon things that you should've had done/said or things you shouldn't have had.

Year 2009. New semester began. All was well. Was extremely happy to be assigned an interesting project. The desired modifications were challenging and the expectations, encouraging. The icing on the cake was that I was to continue with my old project team- people who were more than team members- they were the people I had come to regard as my closest friends in college since previous sem. I knew everything would go smooth just like previous sem. Like all previous sems. Nothing would go wrong. Except that, it did.
Egotism is something that harms not only the perpetrator, but also the people who are subjected to it. But with friends, or people you call friends anyway, one tends to overlook and let go a lot of things.I completely understood when they say they couldn't contribute to the designing as they had to take an entrance (which btw was totally unnecessary at that point of time), So I and another teammate started doing both our and their bits, like I knew they'd have done. We looked up, rejected , discarded, archived something like a thousand plausible circuits, were asked by our professor-who for some reason refused to treat students as a humans-to make a million changes in a strictly stipulated time. But a billion calculations and trillion taunts and more than two weeks later one prototype was finalized and hence I told myself happily that a work well begun is a work half done.
But the good project, like a lot of good projects, looked good only on paper. It is frustrating when something that seems to be so simple doesn't work. But we kept working anyway. Our friends were still on a self imposed study leave.
One fine day they returned and we gladly filled them in with what all progress we'd made. And then kept trying to get the output somehow. Wow! now this finally feels like team work. And even if something was funny, and the vibes I was getting were not so good-I was too happy to sense it. And then one day I took a leave for two days for some important reason, on the third day celebrated sari day with college friends :). And when I got back in the lab on the fourth day, I wondered if I had been in coma for four years! The prof called us to his lab to reprimand us because we'd been very insincere and in his words 'dummy members'. Because apparently according to our 'outta-leave-friends-cum-team mates' we didn't do anything. I think that's what 'are-you-fucking-kidding-me' moments are like. Feels like..you know..maybe the before and after Tsunami scenario. The ugly turn of events that followed this are too sordid and too painful for me to type. And honestly I don't want a record of it anyway. But from where I see it now, I think being thrown out of the project that I initiated and nurtured was not a bad thing after all. Because I saw the true hues of people, was able to differentiate my real friends from the phoney ones, did another project that was of much more use (no, the grapes are not sour :D), and proved my mettle to the prof who later went on to praise us in front of the same people who were responsible for the entire mess. No regrets. Yes, I feel bad that things can not be same as before but I also can't have it the other way. People backstab. Life's like that. Move on.


My friends were worried that I had not had a major crush in years. The last one was five years ago (from that time). They kept suggesting guys after guys and I kept pooh-poohing them, until the time for a big entry came. Entries, actually. This would remain one of the strangest events of my life. Two guys who share more than their names, zodiacs, languages, heights, builts, intelligence. At one point of time it was actually as thrilling as a movie :D. Both of them were so similar and yet so different. They came at about the same time, stayed for about the same time and I started liking both of them at about the same time. And then there's the very obvious dilemma. I couldn't figure out which one did I like more. First one- lovely, Second one-too good to be true. More proper tags would be- the simpler one and the stud. But it's always wise not hit on someone unless you're sure. In anycase I don't casually hit upon people. Something that I need to learn before the clock starts ticking, but that's not until I'm twenty five or six. So anyway, the stud kept offering me ride back home and I kept declining it. And even though I used to cite some feminist crap as the reason for not accepting his lifts, the real reason was that I got too conscious of myself every single time (Shit! my hair isn't even properly shampooed, why the hell am i wearing yellow :x ). But on one beautiful moonlit night (talking of nature playing it's part!) I sat behind him. I knew he was blabbering something, but I couldn't hear him. For my insides were doing conga and there were a thousand violins playing in my head. BUMP...BREAK..."..and that's when my girlfriend said..blah blah"
Whaaat??!!?? OK. So, the sound of the surroundings is back.And that my friend is how a card castle falls. Never laughed so hard-at myself. Matlab what's with life! He could've mentioned it anytime. Anytime in more than a year long aquaintance. But no! He had to mention it precisely at my movie moment. And soon after this incident he started boring me with his silly girlfriend talks. But if truth be told, the more he talked about his girlfriend the more relieved I got that the person he's talking about is not me. For one, he kept on referring to her as 'my girlfriend'. Till date I don't know her name. Neither do I have any curiosity for it. Hopefully I will never cross paths with him again. And the simpler one, I found out wasn't so simple after all! But at least he's still lovely. There are times when you can neither eat your cake nor have it. But that's because the cake is fungus infested and you can't see it! Life's like that. Move on :)


But these issues are way too trivial. Difficult was the part when Chikny left vikki :( But she's quite happy and honestly it doesn't matter that much, like she said it won't and like we agree it doesn't. Ok, it matters a little bit. But only a little bit. And it won't matter much when we'd move out the coming year. Although she is quite thrilled at the prospect. Now I wonder why :P

'09 taught Acceptance.
Letting good people into your life is important but equally important is to let the bad ones out-accept it.
When I say bad, I don't necessarily mean bad person. Maybe just bad for your focus and your long term happiness. Although some are downright bad! :P

And also, cliched though it might sound, but still needs some acceptance. Change is constant. People might go to different places but that doesn't mean they drift apart. Uttara didn't drift aaprt, did she? Definitely not. :)

"Acceptance is the first step of understanding and with understanding only can there be recovery"- Albus Dumbledore :)

PS: Might've quoted incorrectly. My memory is cursed!
PPS: Only if Dumbledore wasn't gay.. :P