Blast From The Past

Background
I used to have a close friend. Call that person X. We were very good friends. Let me rephrase that. I supposed we were quite good friends. Most of the time I went out of my way to help X. But then one fine day I realized that it was only me who thought we were great friends. X never considered me as a friend but always showed great care and respect (only in my presence). Without me around X criticized and ridiculed every move of mine. You would ask how I got to know all this, well to say the least, I got good sources. So after my final year I cut out X completely from my life. I think X was fine with that because there was no attempt from that side to know what happened.
The Encounter
Yesterday I was waiting in a long and boring queue for submission of a form for my voter's ID. It was raining pretty heavily. Thankfully we had a roof over us but the number of people there was way too much. Suddenly in the crowd I spotted X. I turned my gaze to avoid that person.
I was drowned in the sound of rain and the frustration of standing in the queue when suddenly a person asked for some help to a girl standing right in front of my. Out of sheer habit of helping people I turned around to help the needy person and to my surprise it was X standing there.
BANG!!! A boom went inside my head. That feeling of awkwardness was terrible. I wanted to blurt out all the horrible feelings I had right in front of X's face. But you know what I did? I helped X by giving the directions to get the work done. Obviously X didn't thank me. It was as if I didn't exist there. Only my voice came from somewhere into X's head and gave to solution to the problem. X spoke to that girl for some more seconds and disappeared again in the crowd leaving me feeling stupid. Why did I have to turn around? And even if I did why did I have to open my silly mouth when I knew no one was talking to me? Stupid me. I went back home disgusted.
I always wonder some things in life like, Why do I have to always hide my anguish? Why do I have to be disturbed because of people who hurt me in the past? Why is it difficult to find friends who aren't back stabbers?
I believe things done in your past always haunts you, especially the bad ones, no matter how much you try to get rid of it but I believe this is something called Life.

August--A month of events

Apology
To start with I would like to apologize for not writing for so long. I offer no excuses except that I had become pretty lazy. This laziness can be attributed to the fact that I am on a break between two phases of my life and do not have much to do these days. For my penance I would write about all the things I did in this month. So here we go.

Rishi Raj
The month started with the visit of a very dear friend of mine Rishi. A sub lieutenant in the Indian Navy he is my schoolmate from Dehradun. He belongs to Sikar, Rajasthan. He had returned after a 4-month long trip around half the countries of the world and was proceeding for his vacations. Luckily he missed his train from mumbai due to which he spent 3 days at my place. We had one of the best times ever. Everyday we were wide awake till 2 or 3 am chatting about old times and new. It was like speaking to your own soul because we knew each other so well. He told me all about his exploits in different countries. I must say I was really amazed at the pics of some of the wonderful scenic places in the world. He is very lucky to visit all those places. We also had a small get-together of schoolmates posted in mumbai. It was real fun to be amongst so many brothers. Rishi left mumbai on 1st of August for his hometown. The following days were filled with sad boredom.

Results
My final semester results were out on 29th of last month. But as I was with Rishi I could not go and see them. So I went to college on 2nd. I was pretty happy at my result but I could see my teachers were happier. It felt really great to see how interested they were to see my result. The care and affection they had showered upon me had put me on top of the world. Sometimes I wonder do I actually deserve all that. Everyone wanted sweets so I promised to treat them on 4th.
As promised, I went back on 4th and distributed sweets to all my teachers and some of my friends(Didn't have enough to give all my friends). The day ended with some fond memories of college coming back to me. Did some packing in the evening because I was leaving for my native place the next day.

My 10-day sabbatical to end my 14-year VANVAS
I needed a break. After all the efforts and stress I had been through in the past 4 engineering years, I definitely needed some time off from the concrete world. So I set out to the best place in the world--MANGALORE my native place. I was setting foot on my ancestral soil after 14 years. When I told this to my friends they joked by comparing my 14 years to Lord Ram's 14 year vanvas. But it felt the same. My cousins were on their vacations so it was an ideal time for me to go. The feel of that place is completely different from mumbai. Life is pretty easy. No hurries at all. Everyone had all the time in the world to do their stuff. So did I. I behaved like a tourist at all places. That was one problem because whenever I had to speak out a secret I couldn't as everyone knew the language. But it was an experience in itself to find so many people using the language unlike mumbai where every language is used without discrimination.
The buses were one big attraction. Every driver was an Indian version of Michael Schumacher. They competed against one another to reach the next bus stop so that they can get more customers. The screeches, the turns and the halts were similar to an F1 track. The drivers didn't mind if the people in the bus are all flung here and there. I got a video of the conductors. Will be putting it shortly online.
The very first day I saw a ritual of Nag Panchami. I usually keep away from temples and rituals but on the insistence of my aunt I went to the ritual. I was nice seeing people praying to what looked like a slab of concrete. I told this to my aunt who shot back at me with a look that said "Shut up or you are Dead". I do respect faith in God but when it crosses over to blind faith I get irked. Anyway that was one small incident. The prasad was wonderful. It was a mixture of coconut water, honey and I think some curd. I drank two glasses much to the amusement of my cousins.
I visited my ancestral home one day. It has been like that for so many years. I simply love that place. Its by the beach and back in 1994, when I had last gone with my family, we had a greatest time ever. Too bad I missed out on so many opportunities of visiting that place earlier. That place brings in calmness and clarity to my soul. It rejuvenates every cell of my body. Its simply the best place in the world.
The best thing about the trip was FOOD. My relatives left no stones unturned in serving me with the best seafood ever. There were fishes, prawns, crabs and chicken. Everything was prepared every time I had a meal. Considering how big a foodie I am, this was heaven. The best of them all was crabs. I hadn't ever had any and here I had almost gorged in 5 or 6 in one meal. Sorry my vegetarian friends I had to put this experience. Trust me if you havent eaten crab by the time you die then surely you would lose out on the most delicious of all sea food.
The trip ended on 15th but I will have the memories forever. Especially of the crab. I came back to mumbai on Independence Day but was hardly cheerful about it.

Back Home
I got back to my tuition and some workouts. I had put on at least 2-3 kilograms on the trip. All I did there was eat a lot and just loiter around. Got in touch with few friends and watched a boring movie "Bachna Ae Haseeno". Well the movie should have been titled "Bachna Everybody". Yash Raj, the movie producer, should be jailed for torturing innocent lives by luring them to watch that movie. I am still sulking for those precious bucks I spent on it. I could have done something worthwhile. That was all till now.