To August

I had almost written off August as an uneventful month only to realize that this month has special significance for all US college graduates. The degree of this significance (pun intended) depends on how much 'college' you have in you.

If you are a fresh student starting in the fall session, somewhere around the second week of August you will get introduced to a whole new set of people in your life, and it will be the start of a new august chapter. For an international student the significance is much more, we usually shore up in the first week of August just to get settled in before school begins.The weather too is on the kinder side to make the transition smooth. And this is the story of that one day in August when we made that leap of faith.

If you are living the sordid work life, this is the month when college football starts and henceforth you get a chance to proudly wear your university colors to work. You would have already paid the $6 monthly fee for ESPN so that you have something to look forward to when you head back home from work for the next 4 months. Better still you would have made a plan already to drive up to the University for a homecoming game and meet some old buddies.

If you are in any kind of relationship with a fellow college-goer, there is a good chance that sometime in August was the first milestone for the chain of events leading to the state of affair as they stand today. I would give milestone credit  to even that lame August evening when the two of you get introduced and have a conversation for the first time and the next day the girl doesn't remember the guy's name and confuses him with someone else and the guy intermediately writes off the girl as a snob with special note to himself- never approach her again!

This is how life unfolds and memories are made a day at a time, a month at a time. This concludes my ode to August and yay! finally a blog for this month and the record still stands :)

What's with the open mouths??

Sign off..

She knows how to give the right black and white effect to the moment...

The moment of reckoning, when the scores are entered and then they get the official seal. The finality of the last stroke, when with a swift movement you underline your signature and lift up the pen. It’s done, its attested, its signed, it’s the final verdict..
They could never easily decide where they wanted to go. It doesn't matter if there are two or ten people in the gang, the choices always stack up higher than what they initially thought. There is always the lure of the tried and tested places, but then there is the adventure in looking around new corners. Interestingly some one or the other must have heard something good/bad about it or read online. We just know too much always and so are always at a loss of not knowing the exact enough. And thus the question always stares.. Where do we go?
Interestingly the place of rendezvous invariably stayed the same for them. They were always meeting in smaller or larger groups at the same place, though the number and faces kept changing. We live in a strange world where there are infinite permutations of the same combination.
The same two eye, one nose, a mouth, the same basic color- a tone darker or a tone lighter yet the one above knows his art just two well, he never makes two pieces just exact.
And thus the question always stare.. Why do we keep coming back to the same point and why is it never really the same?
I could never fathom why every time they met they fought over something. They would meet after long intervals, after many failed attempts to get down together. They would plan, make promises but then they'd get busy in their sordid lives or the city would play the devil and make the distances seem double. However despite everything they would meet once in a while, sometimes another one of the flock would come calling from a different city and they'd gather together once again. Yet still the warmth and joy of meeting would be incomplete unless there were some heated exchanges and someone was/played the 'angry bird'. And thus the question always stares.. Is fighting a true sign of friendship?

Going back to the picture above, this is a small piece of what really transpires before Nelly sits down to fill out the feedback form at Yo-China in Delhi after a sumptuous meal with the old college flock- The friends who meet after innumerable rounds of planning and ditchings'. Then they do the customary multiple rounds of CP where some of them are dying to sit and eat and the other half is dying to shop. By this duration some one or the other has picked up a fight because they are tired and hungry. Then the discussion starts about where to eat, which invariably ends in a Chinese place but not before whiling away a good hour or two.
Its then when the sun really sets on that day of togetherness and each one of us sets off in his own direction. Its then that we sign off again on an invisible promise to meet once again; do all the above things with the same spirit. Love and Fight and split the cheque/check with always the same honesty... ALways...

photo credit:sr