Our Journey [ For Srushti ]

It started out pretty simple.
You, me.
A streetside cafe
Simultaneously glaring and giggling at randomers that walked in
Me with my blushing cheeks and green capris
You with your then chubby face and innocent eyes
Smiles all around
Nervous whispers.

Second thoughts.
Him.
An awkward baseball cap,
Impossibly chaotic facial hair
Tantra t-shirt - funny guy.
E-mail IDs and phone numbers exchanged,
Tissue paper, silver kolhapuris, sly little kicks under the table;
Love/lust?

Pain.
You,him. Me.
Crying in a corner at a birthday party
Cocktail umbrellas and blue slushies
Of Reliance phones, 'stalkers' and polka-dotted dresses
25 missed calls the day you cried.
I couldn't bring myself to accept
That something had changed.

Venom.
You,him.
White envelopes and cursive handwriting
Letters about respective psychogeneses
Chocolate eyes and ebony skin
Hate-speech, unimaginable
What went wrong?
Falling apart with no-one to catch you
Accusations flying like restless birds
Across a dark sky of hate,
Loss and broken hearts.

Beauty.
Me, him.
Holding hands over a battered camera bag
6:42 PM on 20th July 2007
Giddy with the words: I and love and you
Sunsets, bracelets, chocolate, flowers, perfume, happiness.
Six months of love
Hugs in the darkness, late night text messages, 50 calls a day
The introduction of Pepsi MyCans
Phone calls in the pouring rain,
Four exclamation marks outside Crossword.
Love.

Separation.
You, me.
Pain and anger, volatile
Unspoken conversations, uncried tears, futile friendship bands
Sister, friend, angel
Giggles and sneaking around
Long talks, inside jokes, comforting hugs
Gone without a trace.

Sex and lust.
Him, me.
Dark alleyways, perverse perceptions
Kisses and tongue and meaningful whispers
Mangled bodies, hands, legs, lips.
Ignored phone calls, unanswered text messages
Gasps, heavy breathing, moans and whimpers
Cigarettes, marijuana and XTC
Him in love with drugs, me drugged with love.
Explosions of desire
The world won't matter.

Sex and lust.
Him, you.
You finally get what you've longed for for so long
Taken in by the lies
The false promises, the glorification of you over me
Complimenting your body, stolen kisses
Playing on your weaknesses
Sharpening his strengths
You meeting my eye as you hold him
Him promising he loves me, and then you
"Unofficial relationships"
You, falling just like I did.

Recovery.
Me.
IB Grade 7, Business and Management, Psychology, Environmental Systems, French B
White shirts and skinny jeans with formal heels,
Akanksha Aurora, June-July 2009
The red identification card
Co-producing shows, graphic design and late night edit shifts
Phone calls and coffee on the terrace, again unanswered
Running as fast as my heels could carry me to the chocolate machine with the surfer girl
Genuine smiles as opposed to fake
Confidence as opposed to low self-esteem
Happiness as opposed to pain.

Friendship.
Me, you.
A Facebook message from a Playboy Bunny,
Bonds strengthened and animosity dissipated, sharing everything we ever had to hide
Smiles and giggles in French class, dissing bad grammar in Psychology
All that talk of ugliness and slobbery kissing
Listening to Mr.Personality and Right Said Fred
Back to normal.
The girl with the new haircut
and the girl with the no-longer chubby face.
Picture taking in the bathroom, dissing common friends, losing others
Not caring, because we have each other.

So here's to me and you. Minus Him.
:)

Internationally Bitchslapped

So exams are finally over. I've been walking the fine line between a 37 and 41 points (if you think it's weird, wait till you read the rest of this post).

The first paper I received was ESS. I'd gotten a 6, which was the highest in class,
but it was still a 6, so I wallowed in depression for the first half hour of class and hunted for marks in the next half hour. I needed 5 more marks to get a 7.

The kicker?

I found only 4 marks.

However, after much chasing and bullying of Mr. Desilva, I finally gave up hope. But then, yesterday, when I passed him in the corridor and asked (without expectations) whether or not he'd bumped me up to a 7, he narrowed his beady eyes at me and went
"Do you think you DESERVE a 7?"

I went for the kill.

"Yes," and punctuated this with a somewhat nervous grin.

"You're my only 7!" He grinned, as I suddenly spouted a flurry of "THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!"s and "Oh I was so depressed with all my other grades, you totally made my day!!!!!!!!!"s and lots of exclamation marks.

Business and Management. The memory of this paper still hurts. The sheer agony makes me cringe away from the number 5, used in any context. Seriously. My mum asked me what time it was once, and it was 5, and I was on the verge of tears..

So this one's a long story. Rojoa, in order to prove a point to the rest of the world, decided to go extra-strict with us to dispel his reputation for being lenient. Of course, I was incensed and decided to go the rebellious, I-will-not-accept-this-stupid-grade-because-I-have-never-gotten-more-than-a-7-in-my-life way and annotated my entire paper with angry pencil lines linked to the criteria for higher grades so that I could at least get a 6. Of course, since he re-evaluated my paper, he also re-evaluated everybody else's.

And guess what?

EVERYBODY BUT ME GOT UPGRADED.

Stupid, stupid, STUPID tiny snakey Voldemort man!

So I walked into the lunchroom, making a huge scene about how I've probably failed everything, and I'm not a nerd anymore, and my life is over and I'm going to die in some sad Indian college and never go abroad, when cutie Wilcox (my English teacher) pulls me aside and goes:

"If it's any consolation, you got a 6 in English"

And a consolation it was. I thought I'd get nothing more than a 4. But then, when I finally got to English class, I looked at my paper and realized that I'd missed a 7 by one mark.

ONE MARK.

AND M HAD GOTTEN A 6, which means, on paper, M and I are equally good at English!

Now, does that really suck or does that really suck?

Anyway, I refused to give up that easily and went on to beg for the mark and she's promised to consult the head of department and try her best to bump me up.

Fingers crossed.

Moving on, Thursday first period - Psychology. Straight 7, no questions or begging involved. (Thankfully)

French, 7. (or according to miss delphine, "Mees Akaynsha, sept")

Ah, math. Again, I missed a 7 by one mark, but then he gave me the mark since he'd forgotten to count something in my paper (phew)! Of course, M got 57/60 and kept bragging about how that totally "pwns" my 51.

So, in sum:
English: 6/7?
Psychology: 7
Business and Management: 5
ESS: 7
French: 7
Math: 7

Total: 39.

STUPID STUPID STUPID 39.

WHEN am I going to get that 40?

:(

So Damn Beautiful

Oi linda,
Bella que fa?
Bonita, bonita, que tal?
But belle,
Je ne comprends pas Francais.
So you'll have to speak to me, some other way. (:

<3

Smile :)

6:30 AM - Waking up to the Pet Shop Boys, startled out of bed by the unimaginably high volume of my alarm tone.

7:12 AM - Out of the shower, hair washed and combed, kaajal in place, clip securely fastened to the back of my head

7:35 AM - First song on my Shuffle: 20 Dollar Nose Bleed by Fall Out Boy. Lately, I've taken to listening to songs that don't mean anything, just so that I can't relate to anything. I wonder what Freud would think of that as a defense mechanism.

7:38 AM - I reach the stop to find S looks like a big yellow pineapple; and the other little girl (for whom I turned into Superman for a day) is in a frilly white "frock". Seriously, a frock.

8:20 AM - Everyone's marvelling at my ESS notes, and who can blame them? *smug grin*

8:30 AM - Panic. I don't know anything on the exam, even though I busted my ass studying for the past 5 days.

8:40 AM - Panic.

9:00 AM - Panic eases.

9:30 AM - My hands fell off, and I'm still not sure I'll pass the paper.

9:45 AM - M and I went begging to Deepak Bhatia, yes, BEGGING because he threatened us oh-so-sweetly in the mail about our stupid Maths Studies Projects.

10:00 AM - I'm called a "skeleton" once again

11:00 AM - Panic.

11:30 AM - More panic.

12:00 PM - Internal explosion. I doubt this much panic is good for anyone.

1:00 PM - Metaphorical tears.

1:07 PM - Lunchroom with M, him stuffing his face and me compulsively ingesting bananas. Finding out that his paper was as shitty as mine was comforting, but not enough.

1:15 PM - Learning centre. M is googling useless presentations for our B&M case study online, and then arguing with me about how he's not just doing it to show off

1:30 PM - I commence my scholarly pursuit by picking out relevant business terms from Paul Hoang's textbook, and then panic about how I don't know all those things

1:40 PM - M wants to listen to British radio, and shows off about how he's so cool because he knows his British postal code. He then proceeds to, very conspicuously, sit on the floor near the CPU with the volume on minimum so that he can press his ear to the speakers and listen. He then grabs the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records, and vows to show me a picture of the woman with the biggest boobs in the world to make me feel even more inadequate than usual. He then proceeds to complain, and I quote, "This is a gay song…all these English people like this song…all these British farmers and all."

2:00 PM - M decides it's time for a so-called "Study Break" and proceeds to play Chaos Faction, during the course of which he takes the liberty to swear a lot; mostly in the vein of "FUCK YOUR MOM!" and "I took your mom bitch!" and "I kill your mom. I kill your dad. I kill your family, you stupid fucking gorilla/eskimo/sumo!"

3:00 PM - Tears again, but this time happy tears :)