While The Sun Shines...

The sun is yet to fade away here...delhiites are relishing all the sun they can get before dec15 when i heard it disappears for a few months. Its nice to see young and old, men and women, lay out their cots and chairs to catch the son and i think woh...what wud americans say abt this kind of sun-bathing!! Sachin lightedned up the Kotla and Delhi with his long-awaited 35th. I grew up watching him play and having missed the last 4 years of the new brigades arrival he continues to be my favorite. Another day and time I would have walked miles to see him play but yesterday, as I overheard my roomies debating the "worthwhileness" of heading to the Kotla in the absence of Sehwag I was tempted to go watch the match...but the innate tendency to bunk classes is unfortunately not my area of specialization anymore. The Daal-Chaval-Sabji routine hasnt been helping much in my body countering the cold thats getting pronounced day by day. Thats when we discovered this Kottayam achayan running a kerala mess far from the madding crowd in a real dinghy area. The barotta and beef there is keeping me alive...and its taste...oh my god...and its a wonder how they keep the place running in the heartland of Hindutva.

Today began much better. I woke up too early to not be able to plead any excuses for missing mass...so I headed out for the only church in the vicinity at St.Stephens. Arriving in a huff, wondering if I would be making my grand entry midway or to the end of the service I found the chapel deserted and the service to be in the evening which clashes with my classes. Anyways the solitude and silence was worth the effort to make it there. After 5-10 mins of contemplating, a group of boys and gals walked in and started playing the piano and guitar. I smiled at the expectation of getting to hear some good church songs and the tune they started to play seemed vaguely familiar to some song I had heard. And then a gal broke out into the song..."Pehla Nasha, Pehla...". I stared open-mouthed in surprise at the offending "church choir" and they gave me an embarassed smile. They were the choir all right, but were practising for a college fest!!!

As is with me...there is never a shortage of mallus around me. They are a curious set really...and their outlook to life is something i have never seen till date in any of the friends i made till now. One guy is a philosopher and writes wonderful stories in malayalam and may someday become a scriptwriter in our films...I have introduced him to blogging and he was inspired by Jithu's Mal blog. Then there's another guy who is an avid Christian and he is out to reform me of what he says are heathen beleif's creeping into my Xianity. The third guy is a lookalike of Mohanlal, in looks, height, dressing, way of talking, everything. And next month yet to arrive in Delhi is Mr.Andy Padman, my classmate in Loyola and roomie at USC who gave his first attempt at the civil service this year. Gotto play some box cricket yesterday at our terrace and it wuz so refreshing...it felt good to bowl my off-breaks, fox the guys a few times and once they learnt my tricks, having to try new things in vain and the realization that my batting has started to deteriorate as i got yorked, beaten and caught without wasting too many balls...either the hand-eye coordination is failing or i'll need lots of practise!!

Well studies, what do I say...its a process of unlearning traditional answer-formats followed in school and college, its a realization that logic and not chronology should be the approach taken to learn history, its a cycle of 2-3 days of intense 15 hour streches in front of books and then a day of languor where I catch up on all the sleep lost and again back to the books with the perpetual feeling of racing against the clock...my neck hurts like hell these days from studying on the bed...my roomies joke i smell more of himami fast relief than anything else...i guess the spondilytis that runs in my family has come to haunt me too...thankfully i move into the single room in a few days and will have space for a table and chair!! In the end if it has to be, it will be the coaching, my legendary good luck and my writing that could give me the edge over others...its a journey I am taking a day at a time, this is the life I have dreamt of living...the freedom to chase my dreams and making it happen with my effort...I have given up on the much-hyped vacation of this December...I'll miss the guys big-time but if I can give them a cause to celebrate in 2 years then I guess it'll all be worth it.