'If I Could Sleep Forever’

He could feel the warmth of her tender body pressed against his; her silken black hair flowing down to her cheeks. He bends over to remove it from her face and gazes at her beautiful face. Never in his life has he seen such an exceedingly attractive lady. She defines beauty; olive skinned, large pretty eyes, tall and slender physique; he gently reaches out to touch her soft supple lips.

She giggled in her sleep, maybe she is in a beautiful dream. He could see her dimples; how cute she looked. Everything surrounding her is beautiful, content, and filled with love and affection.

He loves her more than anything in this world; she gives him a reason to survive. And she loves him too. She is the one who takes away all the pain from his life, the drudgery and suffering. He lies back on his pillow. He is scared to lose her; doesn’t want to lose the moments he spends with her. If somehow he can freeze the time with her and their eternal love.

He looks back and finds her staring at him; her beautiful charming smile. She bends over caringly. He can feel her warmth. “You haven’t yet slept, what have you been dreaming about?”; and moves over to touch his face. He can feel her care and dedication. “Sleep darling, you have to work tomorrow, it’s already late” and bends over to kiss his cheeks.

The foot lands on his face. He wakes up startled from his dream and finds a fat man shouting at him. He gets another hit on the chest; soon he realized the man is the owner of the cargo ship he works on. “Wake up you scum bag, get your ass on the deck before I throw you out in the ocean”. Grunting at him, the man goes away.

He looks down at his dilapidated condition; his torn clothes barely covering his weak body. He goes to the basement and picks up the heavy boxes and carries it to the deck and does this repeatedly. Again and again. Then he goes to clean the toilet. Repeatedly, again and again. He has lost the count of it. This was his routine. Everything surrounding him in this real world is melancholic and depressing.

Sometimes shuddering in spasm of hunger, he falls down; he is in seizure with no one to help him. His co workers also make fun of him. Though he hardly knows anyone, he is constantly being nagged and bullied by them.

He barely gets anything to eat, surviving on two pieces of bread and cold porridge; and beaten constantly by the supervisors. The only reason he works is because he wants to meet her again; the reason why he is alive and suffering all these torture.

After a hard day's work he goes back to his four feet bed, barely able to stretch himself amongst scores of other men. No sooner is he fast asleep. He sees her beside him; her tender loving look takes away all the hardship of the day. She is caressing his bruises, both corporeal and emotional.

He is in love with life again.

“If I could sleep forever, it is of her I dream.
If I could sleep forever, I could forget about everything.
If I could sleep forever, if I could sleep forever.”

Prashant--

We all need a reason to carry on, because we are never our own reason to carry on. To want to carry on is a gift, but to find the reason to carry on is a bigger gift. May we be all lucky enough to find the reason.

If I could sleep forever... I could sleep forever.

--Hezne

The Way I look At ‘Life’

It will be hard to say that what I am going to write here, is completely out of my own imagination. But who does anyway? I strongly don't believe in it, and I certainly don't advocate you to do so. These have been my thoughts on some of my extremely lazy days when I don’t have anything else to do, other than to think about life.

I believe one person lives in two different worlds. One is the real world, where we daily struggle. And the other is, well, the surreal world. A place where our alter ego dwells. Everyone on this earth has aspirations, desires and goals. We have a vision of what we would really want to be and how we would like the world around us to be. We have a have a need for wanting to be the perfect being in the perfect world. The sense of perfection is subjective here. Like I have an image of the perfect ‘Prashant’ in his perfect world, which might be completely different from yours. My goals and my desires mould this perfect Prashant and his world. In my real world I constantly try to emulate him. He lives in a world where he is able to accomplish everything that I dream of, in this existential world. He has the perfect day, the perfect job, and of course the perfect relationship. He is what I will love to be in this world. Yes definitely, the image of perfection keeps changing with time, depending on one’s interactions in the real world and one's changing aspirations. But we constantly, at least idealistically, try to make both worlds meet.

Our happiness is dependant upon the overlap of these two worlds. The similarity between the real and your imaginary self decides it (like the overlapping area between two circles in a Venn diagram). The bigger the difference between us and our alternate personae, the more we strive to achieve in this materialistic but real world. Quite a few times the frustration leads us down. Sometimes our hyperactive imagination leads us to imagine ourselves as other characters with different powers and goals (our alter ego), sometimes vanishing into a fantasy to escape a difficult situation; an act of craziness. I can extend this comparison to the case of suicide when one finds a huge gap between the two worlds. The remorstration of not being able to be what he really wants to be, drives him fanatical and eventually forces him to take such an extreme step.

We can say the wood from which the chair is crafted, has a purpose on this earth. Similar for the wood that made the table I am working on. It works the same way for humans and animals. Everyone has a unique role to play on this earth. Our inability to realize the ultimate truth drives us away to individualistic reality; away from the abstract essence of our life. The problem is that we can’t see it on a holistic scale. It’s our inability, which makes us see discreet reality. And not grasp the abstract knowledge. The human mind isn’t matured enough to visualize The Truth, of why he has come to this earth.

I believe everything is pre-decided in this universe. Everything happens the way it is supposed to happen. There is a ‘law’ that governs our existence in this world. Like physics law for materials; every time you drop a ball it falls to earth because of gravitation; every opposite charge attract, and likewise for innumerable things that seem so obvious to our immature eyes.
The dissatisfaction and unhappiness, which has crippled the present day world, will be eradicated if one looks into his life like this. Just for one day, think that you did what you were supposed to do and the mistakes were bound to happen in spite of whatever you tried, u won’t be dissatisfied and unhappy about your past and choices that you have made. Believe me. It does not mean that one can be complacent and lose the urge to do better. I am not saying that we need to lead a life of a vegetable and lose all interest in life. The beauty lies in striking the right balance; doing work and not being too attached to it. Because things will happen the way it is supposed to happen.

Does it not look more than a mere coincidence that this earth is governed by a set of some beautiful physics law that we have learned in our science classes? There must be something that instills such a stunning relationship in this universe that strikes such a perfect balance. I am not spiritual, in the sense that I don’t believe in going to the temple and praying to God. But I believe that there is something that controls this universe. That maintains this balance and uniformity. Otherwise it’s utterly impossible to have such a beautiful relationship; like an electron always tries to be in the lowest energy state in the orbit, like planets always revolve around the sun. Similarly we have a set of tasks to carry out on this earth. We have to see that in a holistic view. Discreetly, everything looks haphazard but there is a beautiful relation that defines our purpose on this earth, that we are yet to discover.

Prashant--

There is a definite force that governs us all. Call it what you must... physics, law, etc. But that force is God.

The Truth is much simpler than what we perceive it as. And like you said, the human inability to see this in a holistic view has rendered us handicapped. But the simpler fact is that, The Truth was not and is not meant to be revealed. We are but humble slaves. Once we have accepted this simple fact by stop looking for life's answers and simply letting life go by, will we find happiness and be content; utter bliss. No extreme measures needed. We do what we can to get by, we do what we can to survive.

We simply surrender to a force bigger than you and I.

It is only human to want perfection. Which leads to the creation of the perfect but surreal world, complete with an alternate persona. Perfect but surreal; our escape from this harsh but real world. And the sad fact is, the perfect world is, well, surreal. But if you must, I do agree that striking a balance is key.

Life is that. Simple. Meant to be digested just as it is. Not filtered or diagnosed. Having said that and written this, makes me a hypocrite.

--Hezne

Joblessness with a Job: My Life at IITM in the Last Semester

My state (since last 2 months): total joblessness
Possible reason: my job, but I am not sure about it because I will be the last person on this earth to be complacent about anything. To tell you the truth I have a great sense of insecurity that keeps haunting me all the times. It’ just that I want to be out of these four walls. Sometimes this place gets just too sickening for me. I want to start a new life.

I have penned down my day’s routine to as much detail as I can possibly do. Its kind of a boring life in my last semester at iits, place which has played the foremost role in shaping my life. But I am not sure if it’s for any good. It’s just that I don’t wanna do anything here now.

I wake up at 10 am in the morning; I curse myself for waking up soo early, but cant help it’s too hot to sleep. I go to toilet, and damn, there’s no water. I come back, pick up the newspaper and the same old stuff, Bush blabbering about how important democratic system is, and how can the biggest democracy play a principal role in restoring peace in the world, will Ganguly play in the next test match and blah blah blah!!! I believe seventy percent of the content can be prepared by these media groups by just sitting in their offices. It’s just the same old stuff. Anyway I pack it and rightly dump it in waste basket. It’s 11 and I can go to my D slot class. But I have absolutely no enthusiasm especially when I have missed my morning slots. Infact to tell you the truth, I haven’t attended a single class in 3 out of 5 courses this semester. I have no idea if the professors have enrolled me for those courses. Time passes by, leaving me in state of indecision and daydream, cursing my life at iit or making plans to change myself in case I am in a better mood.

My table clock strikes 12 am and I check out the toilets again. Again, no water. Anyway, its grub time. I go down to the mess. Phew!! Same old boulders of uncooked rice, rasam and sambhar. Somehow I fill my stomach, grab an ice cream and go back to my room. I force myself to play guitar. It’s painful. I pack it after 10 to 15 mins. It’s 1pm now. I plan to go to the lab for my 6 credit project. Man I have to cycle 1.5 km in the hot sun. No incentive other than this that I have to get my degree this semester. There have been cases where decent fellas had to stay back for not doing satisfactory work. Eventually after a lot of conflicting thoughts about my sense of duty and my laziness that has crippled me this semester, I plan to go. I pull over my jeans, unwashed for 2 months, my faded t shirt which says Einstein wasn’t genius and chappals and I ride my bicycle, making an irritating sound because of some loosened screws. 230pm I am there. I go to my professor and force a smile at his grunting face.
Me: Good afternoon, Sir.
He: Long time, haven’t seen you, how much have you done.
Me: speechless. Trying to get an intelligent answer but damn I can’t.
He (irritated voice and still grumbling): Did u complete the graph, what about the specimen in the furnace, you did XRD of the samples?? And what about the mathematical modeling. Did you start that?". By this time I lose track of whatever he is saying and those technical gibberish flies above my head. I keep telling myself that one day I will get all that he asks me to do, but don’t know when. Anyway I reply: ya I have started. That’s what I could think of after half an hour. Damn I am bad at persuasiveness.

With my head down I walk out. Go to adjoining room and switch on the A/C and sit before the computer, I switch on the FTIR machine, open matlab on comp and take a nap for an hour. It’s 330 pm and time to go to the canteen. I have a crappy puff and water something coffee. I curse it but still have one more. I walk back to my lab at 430 pm. My professor is packing. I show my face. I smile, but no use so I sneak inside to take my stuff and slip out.

It’s 5pm and I am back to my den. Time to go to the swimming pool. I love it; this is the only thing I enjoy being here. Water is heaven for all the Chennaites. For almost an hour and a half I swim, completing 10X50 meters. Cool I have improved.

I come back around 7pm. Sit before the computer and do some mindless surfing. I go to mess and find same old boulders of uncooked rice, rasam and sambhar. I can’t torture myself anymore and I call my friend, Akshai " Hey, dude wanna eat out.”
He(stingy bastard as he is): I am bankrupt, my debit card has expired. You gonna treat me then I am game otherwise eat in mess.
Me: Dude. I paid last time we went out.
He: No machi, kinda low on cash.
Me: you are an asshole, you gonna give me back all my dads money.
He: We will see that later. (He has to pay me 523 bucks, last counted). We eventually agree to meet. Me: “How much do you have?” He:16.50 Rs in my pocket. I have 142 Rs. And we decide to go to Dhabba. We order 2 sabji and 6 rotis.

He plunges into food and we discuss about different stuff; mainly politics inside the campus, music, movies, books, courses, BTPs and how unfortunate we are in term of interaction with opposite sex. We have a diverse ecosystem inside the campus. Males, different varieties of trees and animals, you name it and its here, black bug, spotted deers, monkeys etc. and few non males too (as commonly referred by junta here, mostly because of their inability to classify this section in either gender). Statistics say it comprises 10 percent of human population inside the campus. I wonder what will be the state of an iitian when he walks out of this campus and sees a female. Imprisoned inside these 250 hectares for at least complete 4 years, in case he doesn’t gets detention, one will be lucky to spot a female. Once he walks out and sees that sex ratio isn’t as skewed as represented inside, it will be quite of a traumatic impact.

After grub he takes a cigarette, and offers me. I deny. Infact this has been happening since last 3 yrs but he is hopeful that a pessimist like me will eventually resort to it. I come back, open DC++ and search for movies. I have seen almost all except few mallu movies. I download those and try to pass my time until midnight.

1 pm net is down. I play guitar for sometime and then try to write something. 130pm. check if someone is awake. Sardar is awake boozing. I sit in the room filled with smoke for a while and then pack. I go to Jalan, disturb him while he is busy mugging. Meanwhile Junta are playing footer in the quadrangle; I wish to go there but am too lazy. 2pm come back to room and start a novel. It’s boring and sooner I crash off.

This has been my routine for more or less last 4 years. What I feel is that life at iits is different, rather funny at times. One has problems adjusting initially but then you get used to it. Enough time passes and you get so that you depend on them and that’s when it’s institutionalized. Your lifestyle moulds accordingly unaffected by the world outside. It consists of routine life and then more routine. But the great thing is that like thousands of fellas who graduate from iits every year you wanna leave an impression in this world. “___was here so was me”.

PS: other than stuff concerning the BTP is true to the best of knowledge. Regarding the BTP, problem is the professor, who has gone to Singapore is least interested in the project. The conversation with him is hypothetical, imaginary; one of the many day dreams of the author.