Its gonna be a long post.To savor the taste,sound and smell of real India you will have to travel in a sleeper class that was the lame reason Dad gave on booking the back ticket from Bangalore in a sleeper class.I don't think the statement has much to do with the love for the ordinary lifestyle it has more to do with monetary gain for it costs just 300 bucks for a sleeper class ticket whereas it costs nearly 2000 for a three tier AC. The changing phase of India was clearly visible on the ticket booking pattern for,there were seats available in sleeper while it was all filled in 3 tier.People are opting for luxury travel as compared to cheap travel and people are ready to shell out any amount of cash for the same.Students,housewives,singles,executives travelling alone can be a major safety issue and AC class promises a safe journey at affordable rates.AC travel offers clean toilets,bed sheets,pillows ,blankets,good food as compared to its poorer sleeper counterpart.Dad had to pull in all strings to get a tatkal,where in which you will have to pay the fare from starting station but,even a last minute booking will assure a seat.We got in Island express from Ernakulam town.There was a family already occupying the whole of six seats.The journey was kind of a reminder that people are not welcome to the whole privacy thing even now.Playing your mobile at high volume or showing the family snap to your fellow passengers,invading the leg space man it was tough.Even my poor Ipod couldn't save me from the noise level outside my bubble.What helped us to cut out our misery was the fact that the journey was an overnight one.At about 9 Dad indicated that it was bed time though 12 is the usual timings for us.We reached Bangalore 10 minutes before the indicated timings,another rare feat if it was about 5 -6 years before.Indian railways have gone a long way from its dubious reputation of being the snail service to a more time conscious service.Things have changed for better and I have only good things to say about their punctuality.

Its my first time to the garden city and i was on a tight schedule,after attending my GD and PI we went for a quick round through the city.I couldn't find much difference between Cochin and Bangalore,may be the cleanliness and the dressing sense,it clearly indicates the free spiritedness of the pub city as compared to the conservative eyes down in queen of Arabian sea.Don't ask how, but, we got stuck at Big Bazzar and with my mom's fascination for any thing free we decided to buy in tops under "BUY 2 GET 1 FREE SCHEME" thanks to the far sightedness of the employees my dad had to stand in queue for about one hour.Initially one of the dresses we selected was returned back owing to its unisex tag,well then why the hell have they placed it in the ladies section? okay,next the billing section didn't have a clue about the whole offer thing and they were calling in staff from every department.If they don't have a data base of their own offers why the hell do they give any?What we saw was poor display of retail management.Even the employees,had a tough time in understanding English as all they knew was Kannada and literally i had to put in every word in hand signals for them to understand.After the awful shopping experienced i logged to go back to the shops back in kerala where, you get personalised treatment + less tension. I rate the shopping experience as 2/10.

On our way back,we were booked into the seats 1,2,4 and after 10 minutes the toilet began to stink,topping it were a pack of guys who were stationed near our seats,the crowd got worse and after 30 minutes there were nearly 25 guys[ think they were going for some excursion] near our seat.Sleeping in such a scenario was out of question and the train was an overnight one an added misery.Leaving me and mom alone dad disappeared into the crowd,after about 15 minutes he came back with a jovial smile"we are shifting to 3 tier AC".Phew!!! may be dad had too much of the savoring the real India idea.We were back into the comfort of the cool chill and the rest of the journey was pleasant.Though we did smell and see the real India ,it was too much to handle may be because we are accustomed to small luxuries in life.Its difficult to burst out of it and join the crowd.India really looked gorgeous from within the glass window and that's all i wanna experience right now,anything above or below it too hard for me to digest.

I loved him.The relationship of four years that came to a full stop just because i was.....Ya i deserve it,i haven't giving him much of attention lately and its quite natural for him wanting to move away.Can't blame anyone right now,no shedding tears,no frustrated talks just plain simple acceptance of the fact that"I have lost him" and i have to accept the truth.Yesterday ,as i looked into his eyes i seemed confused as those were not the warm eyes i have been used to for years.May be i don't deserve him,may be he is better of with someone else.I won't forgive anyone who tries to steal him away from me for,we share "our lives".What i don't understand is why did he had to wait until this last moment to express.I'm lost...i don't have words,Someone promised me a life without him but,I'm not sure if i can move ahead.I used to depend on him for almost all the calculations in life. We were inseparable and where ever i went i had his hands intertwined into mine,the world knows about us.He has my name etched on to his skin and just like that one morning i find him missing from my life.I received the news with shock,i tried calling up my friend for any details and all i received was"Saw him outside while you went to see the professor and then he disappeared".Life has to move on.I will have to buy a new CALCULATOR

There are times when you have millions of things you wanna share but, you fall short of words and no other word is enough to capture your emotion.Time can perform miracles,time can change your outlook,time can alter your wishes.

If you ask me, where I have been hiding for the past one week,I would not have an answer.Was it a route to escape the bad vibes?.Did i realise anything?.Yup!!!don't plan your life for, planning never goes right instead always be prepared with plan B.You won't have to stare blankly at random"?" when the plan A fails. Right?.

When I was small I used to have millions of dreams and with each year i began crossing out some of them out of the list,not that I achieved any but, because I began to realise that those dreams are high up above,something that I may never be able to achieve from bare ground.Right now if you ask me some of those dreams are still alive but they are no where near to the original ones.They look more like skeletons that have suffered worst of alterations.At this point of time even ghostly skeletons seem scary and achieving them seems to be a far stretched dream.

Fate ,luck,destiny they do exist and they can U turn your life making it slip,taking you unaware that you are going to land hard on the floor.I find "HOPE" a little hard to digest and so is "FOR SOMETHING BETTER"

Is ma life worth all these fights?.Is ma life worth hell lot of cash?.Is ma life worth anything at all?.It does!!!.Its worth at least 5 smiles,smiles of people who can't live without me in their lives .Its worth if not for me ,these people's hopes.So,life goes on...new dawn,new search for existence ,a new struggle.

This post is about raw talent.The first time I met Nisha,i rubbed her off as yet another arrogant junior but, her work made me her admirer.There are people,who think writing poems is no big deal as it only requires rhyming words at the end and complicated sentences.For me,the highest point of achievement is to write a good poem,unfortunately I don't think I can in near future.I started ma literary journey through poems but, somewhere down the line I lost the art.Purists call ma poems, a branched version of thoughts.I'm never comfortable with the constrains,I can never introduce rhyming in ma poems.There are poems, which are beautiful even without the rhyme but,they are full of literary puns,sophistication,flowing beauty.Once you start with the first line you don't feel like stopping until the last.I'm more comfortable with stories,Hindi and English here, not the style that's given prime importance but,the idea.You can replace any word with another suitable one,the one of your choice something that cannot be done in poems.My style of writing depicts even the minutest details of the surrounding though time consuming it gives me immense satisfaction to put into paper what i have imagined.Also,ma stories are character centric,one character that drives the whole story.In poems its style that matters,the sentence construction that matters.That's why I believe a good poet is a literary genius.

This poem was given by Nisha for selection process.She is the 1st prize winner for poem writing competition.

A TALE OF VITAL LIES

The darkest hour before dawn

a lonely shore in the bowels in the metropolis

the only witness to this tale of vital lies

the night has an exuberant charm in her

coquettishly igniting the ardent passion

she was their partner in crime

The waves swept over the gravel

glittering in the moonlight

paving the bed where he laid her

the filth stained her bare skin

and soaked her curls

but he unaware and she numb

both succumbing to the spell of the chill.....

I'm too lazy to type whole of the poem.The poem flows like a river and you won't feel like to put an end until the last line.Congrats girl,keep the good work up.

We rocked the fest yet again.Two consecutive years and until next arts ,the cup will be safely placed inside the AEI department.The victory doesn't belong to AEI alone,but whole lot of people who worked day in and out.Leave me out,I don't deserve a mention.What I experienced during the arts was something to cheer about,walls broke,conversations happened,past was forgotten.I'm still not sure if it will continue from Monday,but if it did it would be a regret wiped off.

Okay I do know how to bring out Keats and Shakespeares for,the students I selected bagged 4 out of 9 positions in literary events.Now,what say Mr.You know who?.Even i bagged 3rd prize for my story:30 hours-Autobiography of a terrorist.The short film topic:Silence speaks, brought back some old memories,previous Arts fests ,the long wait ,communication through eyes.The corridors where ,I spent most of ma educative years staring at someone.I never had the courage go and speak to him so, whatever I wanted to speak I conveyed through ma eyes and he understood.We were not even in a relationship but,somehow he read ma thoughts better than anyone else.The brandwars again where,he actually wanted me to go onstage but,ma fear for live talks somehow forced me to give up ma position.As a compensation, I took part in mock press this year,Mock press requires two qualities I lack the most:Humour sense and quick response.I skipped few heart beats but, ma captain and friends assured me that I have what it takes to tackle the press.I enacted MS Dhoni,Indian cricket captain.Cricket is something I'm not quite comfortable with still ,I made people laugh and even the judges bursted out.Considering the fact that I was the only girl of the lot and also,being ma first time most of ma pals were quite surprised to see me crack ma shell.May be the Arts wasn't as bad as I projected it to turn up.I actually got back lot of things I missed,pain,hope and confidence.LIFE GOES ON.