Pen pals and postcards.

For the first time in the last seven years did I skip an end-of-the-year post. Perhaps it's one of the first changes that 2015 decided to bring along, but hey, for those who are still listening- the happiest new year, my wonderful humans.
My old readers wouldn't be surprised to hear about my perpetual incapability of recalling the year that went by, but like each year- it left behind a feeling. 2014 was a year where I really brought my game on as far as competing with myself is concerned, it burned me out emotionally and physically but I feel like it straightened me out in ways that wouldn't have been possible in any other way. I had never realized the kind of distress love could bring, so there, that's one more thing I've seen- the realization that love has a side that could be immensely futile was perhaps the scariest realization of mine in the last 20 years, but I think I'm alright knowing that now.

2015 is going to be a year of aggressive amounts of getting work done. Yes, it's the year to be ridiculously productive. It's the year where I'm going to push myself to start laughing my ass off on nonsense again, of going on multiple breakfasts to my favorite cafe and read or doodle for hours. I think I sort of lost that 'spunk' somewhere. I think I lost it in trying to find it in other people, or even some times believing that others will induce that magic in me at some point. Mistakes. A whole lot of Berlin-Artparasites and long nights of Bukowski did me well, for they reminded me of the importance of being ridiculous. So basically this winter has too many solo escapades around the city as soon as my Uni applications are done (if I survive them, that is).

From the 2015 Letter Project :)

I've started this new project of sort for 2015. I've been typing letters on my typewriter and sending them out to people, just because. I feel like the lost art of letter writing is a horrible loss, and if sending out a letter to someone nudges them to start writing them once again- it's definitely worth the shot. So I have a long list of recipients and I'm terribly excited about this! If everything works out alright, I may even extend this project to you fantastic readers. I thrive for wonderful things like pen pals and postcards, so this year is about reviving those old habits.

How have you all been? Tell me about your year and plans that drive you. I wish you all the most wonderful year, go badshit crazy and make this the most memorable 12 months that change you, that make you grow and make you thrive. It's a wonderful life, and that's a cliche for a reason.

To those of you who emailed me wondering if I'm still alive- you guys are the best. I'll get back to you all real soon. Go make wonderful things happen for yourself, keep the happy vibes alright? :)

All my love,
Nil.

(P.s- fiction coming up, realy sooooooon.)

Fragile.

"Fragile." 
Your suitcase is going to have that sticker when you're at the airport, right? I want to be that sticker. I want to be a part of that suitcase that you packed from home, that has that book you kept asking me for but ended up buying instead, that has the orange shirt that has the cologne on from last night's farewell, that has the black bow tie I always wanted to see you in, and the little black diary of yours that's tucked away into a chain.

I want to be a part of that box of home that you're carrying to a new land. I want to sit next to you when you tap your foot impatiently, waiting for your flight to take off. You've been waiting too long to escape this place, haven't you? The ticket in your breast pocket was the one shot you needed, it turned out to be the one shot you finally got.
I want to be standing right there when you step out of the aircraft and see the new city for the first time, when your mind has no curfews and you're all set to run... I want to start running with you.
I want to be sitting across the table, when you have your first breakfast away from the round table with a red and white checkered table cloth back home.
I want to see you quietly put a letter you received a day back at the bed side drawer, I want to see you read it, again. I want to be the last full stop, on that letter.

I want to be each and every stamp on your passport. I want to be every single crinkled bus ticket that stays in the pockets of your jean. I want to count your change while you tip off the waiter at the cult cafes around the world, I want to share the binoculars you see through to see the horizon complementing your new terrace. I want to be the coin you toss in your first wishing well in Europe and I want to be the chop sticks you use so proficiently for Sushi.

I want to feel your pulse as each and every second becomes an experience.

However, I see the ends of your trousers flapping through the gust of air that comes in while you board the plane, and your suitcase goes away with you, while the Fragile sticker stays on with me.

-Nil.

(P.s- I promise and update post, next. I'll spare you the perpetual after-midnight- Fiction OD.)

Stewie Griffin is my homeboy.

Greetings, World! 

I be back from the mountains and might I add it was (to say the least and sound sober) the best effing trip ever. Ev-er. Ev-er. Ever. 

I see you've got the point. So yes, best trip ever- only we took it with a pinch of salt cause the fourth lady of our wolf pack stayed back to become an ace lawyer. So yes, that tiny  huge set back shall be taken care of next time we pull her by the hair irrespective of lawyers dying all around the world. 

Coming back to the trip, we did..well, nothing. We woke up to the sound of the strangest bird calls (AND I STILL FIRMLY BELIEVE A FOX WAS GOING TO KILL US WHILE WE WERE AT IT.) We stayed at a tent which felt like the tent from the quidditch match in Harry Potter's Goblet of Fire. (The cheap thrills we derived out of it, I tell you!) =D

Anyhow, so we used to sit in/ out and chill all the time with regular rounds of coffee. There was bonfire every evening, and the camp had a gorgeous(estestestest) reading lounge where we chilled and read books till late at night, and the occasional games of Scrabble where I whupped everybody's sorry butts =) 

The food started from typical parathas to pasta to continental to french omelets. (Excuse me while I run back, again.) Oh and did I mention all you saw around was huge sprawls of fields and snow caped mountains? 

Yeah, thattttt.

Apart from that, we went Paragliding and white water rafting. Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen kind of blew us off our feet. Yeah, just a little. Yeah, uhhuh. (head must stop nodding.)

And then not to mention Old Manali, which is basically the Pahargunj of Delhi with a gazillion hippies and gorgeous Italian cafes.

So yeah, I finally got an old school leather bound diary and thus begins my promise to literally put pen to paper instead of typing stuff all the time. 

The ladies and I. Hippie style. :)

So yes, Campville was the best place that could happen to us after boards. You can visit their site here. And at any point when you're sick of life or just need to get out in general and fall on your butt straight in the middle of the heaven, Campville is the place to be! :)

Aaaaaaaaand, I'm having some major post Himachal withdrawals. So yes, Delhi feels dangerously useless right now. Not to mention there's some bad news at home but hey I'm not even getting there. The whole point of this post was to get my mind off things. So yeah. I'm absolutely jobless, I'm home alone, and the Family Guy is a beautiful beautiful old friend I reunited with after a whole year. =)

And now, I shall go waste time. Write some, read some, watch some and get the hell out some. 

Tata!

-Nil.

P.s- Major fiction spam coming up, brethren. 

FullPower.

Greetings from a happy child, ladies and gentlemen!
It's precisely 3:59 am and might I add, I'm sleep deprived and absoluuuutely content. Read on (*nudges.)

Fact: The end of Boards, 2012.


So thus, this is to basically inform (shout and tear my lungs out, basically) you lovable peepol that the brutal drill of Boards are finally, finally over. You probably want to rip my head out and munch on it with coke for the Fiction overload and the mind numbing rants on the same sulk stories but... Pass it, bro. Happy days are here again. =P


April the 16th has been a legendary day, for reasons beyond academic priorities. I'm not much of a play by play person, so reciting every grain of a wonderful day at multiple levels will perhaps have to wait. Nevertheless, lets just say, April the 16th has been a pricey date for good reasons. =)

In other news, the culmination of Boards as a hard fact hasn't quite hit me just yet. I keep forgetting and gasp every time at the time, while try and calculate how many chapters might have to pull for the night.
And then this slyyyy grin makes its way through and the 32 all out are in action =D
(And I swear, Mojo Jojo's laugh hasn't been this loud in my head, ever. Ever. And then there's some of Mandark's too, occasionally.)

So this is a quick post telling you people that I have literally nothing to do for a while (except identify with the song 'These are a few of my favorite things'. Nyahaha)  and there's this mental scene of Bhangra going on in my head, all the time. =)
Oh and also, I'm off to the mountains. So I shall read books in the middle of apple farms and go diving without knowing the first letter of swimming. If I die, nobody gets my Tazo collection. They be buried with me. And now I'm just blabbering. (Oh, forgive me but I just happened to slog my 'ttub' spelled backward off the past few months and you'll just have to deal with every dime of blabber. Okay, no you don't but whatever. Please? )

And, just by the way... So I was just going to put this out there :

BOARDS OVER. BITCHES GO CRAZY, SAYS SHELDON (AND I). 
(*Family members reading this blog will kindly ignore the overemotional usage of vocabulary.)

And now I shall go pack my bag with shorts and tee shirts along with flip flops.

(how long have I waited to type just everything in this post.)

Love and everything with a lot of free time,
-Nil. (Imagine the Scooby Doo smile okay? There!) :D

And now it's time to face the music... :)

And I was right. This trip to Calcutta was all I needed to get my feet back on the ground firmly and hold the chains of control in my own hands.. This trip ladies and gentlemen, was offbeat and a far cry from all the experiences of travel I'd had till now. This trip let me fly and discover that one city which brings a smile on my face every time I hear of it, and damn.. It was home :)

Starting from the to-die-for 'lebon' tea to the Indian Coffee House, to Howra, to Princep Ghat, to Lake Kali bari, Gariya haat, College street, Park street, Oly's, Some Place Else, Nandan, Beduin, Aminia, Camac street, Old Calcutta, Eden garden, Red road, Park circus..and so many other places that I can't even remember at this very moment. I saw all of it! With two of my very favorite crazy people :) ... I saw the city like never before, alone. 

Calcutta drove away my Writer's Block.. A romantic city like that is sure to.. I wrote a lot of fiction, few of which will find their way published on my blog.. few of which will remain locked up into the pages of my notebook for me alone to cherish :) 

Honestly, dear Readers, I thought I'd have a lot to say and talk about, once I'd be back, but I don't. 'Cause in some ways, this trip has taught me that smiling silently is much better than laughing aloud. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but sometimes, to take in an experience, the best way to make it last is to just keep it to yourself and smile. And leave it to that :-)

And now that I'm back in town, the usual business with my favorite ladies and ladas (I mean the boys) are on!  Went for lunch to this amazing Tibetan place yesterday with Rob and boy was it amazing or what! (Raima, if you're reading this- We both plan to take you out to this place as soon as you get here!) and the following week is full of Rem,Vanta,Guina,Shiv,Reddy with dates. Also, Maiden is here in delhi, so this is the official Partying Week. So the surreal fun is over at Cal and now it's time for me to face the music- Delhi :-)

So here are a few pictures that I took and which might help you get a whiff of the essence of this place, The City of Joy.. wait up for my next post- a fiction piece :)

Old Calcutta.

College Street.

Maidan.

- Love and revelations,

Nil.

I run away to Howrah.

Hello there, World!
I'm sorry to be updating like a retard, but honestly, so much has been up this Summer, and with me boycotting Delhi almost the whole of summer, I think bloggerville needs some explanation too :P

Oh and did I tell you lot I got a nose pierce?


So tomorrow, I'm off to Calcutta- yes, my much awaited trip.. My cousins (read: the party animals) are there already, waiting to receive me early morning at the airport =) I'm going to be gone for 10 days so brace yourselves for the insane memoir I'm going to write once I get back!
I've been waiting to go since about two years.. earlier,for other reasons, now- for different reasons. But I'm going all the same :-) I can't wait to see Hugli, to experience the night outs at Tantra, to have Beduin's fish chops, to sip on 'lebon tea', to go to College Street and buy tonnes of books and shoot there, I'm going to meet an oldddddd friend at the Coffee House (could it get better? ;)  and he has promised me to take me to a couple of places that are apparently out of bounds? Anyhow. Oh and my darling sister's there too, on her toes- waiting to get started on the catching up and shopping, while my metal head brother's promised us every night at Some Place Else with music that gets you high and makes you forget everything and most importantly, everybody.
This trip is going to be it. I can feel it. This trip is going to be exactly what I need to do away with every negative element in my body, and I'm going to come back as a fresher and newer person. A much happier person.

So while I go and pack my bags for the best ten days of my life, I want you guys to have a look at the last two fiction posts as I know I haven't given you guys enough time to do so considering I'm updating almost every day.
I promise to write about my City Of Joy as soon as I'm back!  Take care, my lovely readers! 153 Followers! I think I just hit heaven :-)

-Love and travel bags,

Yours only,

Nil. :-)

I run away to 47*c.

I'm just about to start packing..for another runaway from Delhi. I did mention my 10 day long escape to Orissa for a cultural workshop right? Yeah, well, that starts tomorrow!
Although I'm going to get baked in the heat out there, trust me I'm looking forward to it like a greedy kid looking at candy. I'm going to wittness legendary artists like Pandit Birju Maharaj, Shree Ashwini Bhide, Girija Devi, Rajana Sajan Misra- and the list goes on. It's going to be insane, and I can feel it already.

This trip won't be a vacation- the first thing we were told. We are to get up everyday at 3:45am and start our day with Yoga. The whole day we will attend lectures, performances by these artists and regular three hours of intensives everyday (in my case- Odissi, Creative writing and Sufi music) .. The way we live will reflect that of a Gurukul style of living. No comforts and a lot of sweat and hard work through out the day. Lights will be off by 9:30pm and no cameras or phones allowed. The idea is to isolate us for these 10 days so we realize something greater than a materialistic idea of a comfort zone, and understand the gravity of the experience that we are practically being blessed with, to actually be in a program with artists of such mountainous levels.

These guys at SPIC MACAY are going to drill us. They are going to drill us for all these 10 days, but they've promised this to be the best experience of our bloody lives, and hell I'm on my toes to get on the train already! I'm going with my bunch of favorite ladies and I can't wait to meet the other 1500 students from around India who are going to be there :D

So, dear Earth people, say Goodbye to Ole Nil till the 31st of June... and I promise to be back with a bang! I'll be back with a million stories and I promise to rant for as long as your ears don't fall off : )

But till then, I walk into isolation with a smile,
and I hope this stay at the Undergrounds will be a legendary tale of my life, a tale to tell :-)

--Kites for the summer,
Nil.

Mid week cry-sys(tem)

Playing now: Saibo.

Hello there Thursday people.. It's been one long and tiring week, and it virtually kills me to think it's not even over yet. But I ditched school today and slept till about lunch time, which hadn't happened in a long time. And now I feel drugged,because I just slept for 13 hours straight and I can't think right now.

But first things first- Weekend trip was fantastic. I was out in the heat practically all weekend, walking with my Jaipuri jootis hehh. I didn't have to reach out to my phone buzzing, because it was back in Delhi sleeping its happy butt off. I didn't read much,cause I do that a lot in Delhi.. and yeah well, I wasn't in a mood to read, for a change. I'm officially in love with Johri bazaar, holy hell that place is like wonderland for anyone who likes to shop junk, and Spice Court is the place.to.be if you like to eat good food. I saw an elephant from this close for the first time in my life. It creeped me initially, but hey it was pretty cute :P I sound like a retard so moving on.
  I ate like a pig, walked like a hippie, clicked like a lunatic, and wrote like a lover.
That pretty much sums up most of the weekend.

There are like, a zillion pictures. But I'll stick to a few to just get you the feel of the weekend :)

Stepping out of the weekend, the week was an equally crapped up week. Bullshit at school, there's a riot ladies and gentlemen. And obviously Delhi seems like such a curse after any vacation at all. Oh which reminds me, my plan of boycotting Delhi this summer is finally coming true :) The whole of June, I'm off to Calcutta, and the trip is absolutely fixed. May....I'm still trying to work out.

There's this Spring Concert happening tomorrow, for which I was real eager to go. But looks like I can't.. I have my first round of exams startin' up this Monday :/

But then again, knowing me, I might just crash the concert for an hour anyway.. lets see. I hope you all come, I hear it's going to be fantastic. Details on Google/facebook.

Anyhow then you guys, I should make a move for lunch now. I have an afternoon of Political Science awaiting me. Joy :|

So while you guys are at it, grab a quick mango shake. They're awesome during summers :)

Ciao World,

shall come back with maybe some fiction, next post :)

-Love and free vacations,

Nil.

Guess who's going to have a fantastic weekend?

Me.
Yes, I'm off to Rajasthan tomorrow morning for the weekend! My much planned road trip finally seems to be working out. So I'm leaving early morning tomorrow, without the phone, with the camera, William Boyd's novel, a diary, and summer clothes.
I'll be staying at my aunt's, and I plan to visit every fort, Nahargarh fort topping my hit list. And I can't wait to get to Old Jaipur! Hawa Mahal, Johri bazaar,Amber fort..sigh..I really hope I get some nice photographs.. Also, I plan to shop for Rajasthani stuff. I don't remember the last time I got those pretty skirts and the lovely earrings!

What I'm looking forward to the most is being absolutely disconnected from Delhi. No Internet, no phone. Something I'd been wanting since a long long time.
It's going to be such a relief, dear readers. God bless for Good Friday!

So I shall go pack now! This post was a quickie. So I'll see you guys Mondaayyyy. I suggest you lot go for a quick trip,too. Get out of the traffic and the work desks, and put on those summer shorts!
Have a great weekend you guys,
I know I will :-)

-flip flops and cotton shirts,
Nil.