The 21st of July in the year the world was destined to end.

Everyday I wake up and struggle anew with the realisation that I am a college student now. And it makes me mad.

Its kind of a funny story..

how after you reach a certain age, your mental growth is mostly latent. No matter how many books you read, how many movies you watch you can almost visualise your grey cells  swimming around up there. And they do not multiply.
Infact, they drop dead, like kids overdosing on street meth at an otherwise innocuous rave party.


When you reach that moment of clarity, you want to die. Because you realise that no matter how gargantuan the amount of suffering you endure, life gives you little compensation. The gain is nearly non-existent.
The existentialists? The absurdists? They got it right.
The answer is there is no answer.
That beggar child, smiling upto you, on the other side of the half-lowered car window. You will never feel happiness quite like she does.
Your semi-privileged life is almost a curse.
I say almost only because I am not completely the ingrate you make me out to be.
Everything you thought you could escape from as a teenager. You really cannot.
There is no escape. It is what it is. The years make it bearable. You build up a tolerance for all the crazy ape-shit that makes up civilisation as we know it. The pause button is only applicable for stoners and burnouts, other such social outcasts. And life goes on. 
Till one day, when your sole purpose for waking up is to go right back to sleep again.
You die.

It rains, sometimes.

I had an awful lot to say.
To vent.
To whine.
Make an exhibitionist ragdoll of my anger and sorrow.
But the good, the bad, the ugly neutralised itself and left me with nothing to say.
The last few days have taught me more than I could have imagined possible.
I knew I was naive, despite everything, at some primal emotional core of my being.What I never gave a thought to, however, was that this naivete was not only restricted to my sentimental experiences but encapsulated the whole of me.
I must be broken.
Believe me, I am.
I suppose all my friends think I'm in a dark room somewhere with the windows boarded up, self-medicating. And I am. Inside my mind. Outside, I am shopping for a 'new life'.
I have a college. A good college. I have the course I wanted. A lot of people wanted.
Most people do not even have that. Right?
Then why am I not happy? Well. I suppose because I never really gave a shit about Anna Hazare. Or whatever the heck. 'Corruption'.. 'Reservations'.. were all pretty words I learnt from my Political Science textbook.
Until my classmates from different streams altogether started buying themselves seats people like me deserved. And colleges stopped bringing out 'official' second lists. Until I heard of how an acquaintance had been college-hopping with a recommendation letter from  the State Education Minister. And people whu tok lyk ds got into the college I'd prayed ceaselessly for. Prayed to a God I knew didn't exist.
Social capital is a priceless possession, capiche?
Calcutta, you have let me down.
But I will survive. You hear me? Tomorrow is another day.