One month.

It’s quite a long time period in a human life-span of about seventy years. Yep, 1/840th of an entire lifetime, pretty big, going by the numbers, huh?

Before I write any more crap about the significance of one month in life, you’d have come up with a reason why I mentioned a month which such emphasis. Yeah, it’s been a month since I blogged. Nope, it’s not the exams – normally, exams bring out the creative in me, as I’ve said a couple of times in this space. I’ve written the best of my posts battling university exams; I’ve even come up with the idea of writing a book, couple of years back, during a similar exam-season. But this time around, a certain mental block engulfed me. I simply couldn’t put pen to paper (wrong imagery in a digital age). Normally, I just had to sit down – the words would be flowing. But this time around, it simply DID NOT HAPPEN! The reasons are too far-fetched to delve into; for a while, I thought I was a simple person, an open book of sorts. But the past month, gave me insights into how complicated a person I am. By experience, I had gotten into the habit of making the simplest of things complicated (and vice versa, albeit occasionally). Procrastination, MY BIGGEST FLAW, was eating me up, slowly and steadily. A month was all it took, to kill my creativity and to get myself messed up – in ways more than one.

Nevertheless, the past month – marked by an extended study leave and my last (regular) university exam of Engineering, was eventful.

Fun

Doing nothing , when you’re supposed to mug tens of thousands of pages is an interesting experience. In an ironically-screwed-up manner of speaking, that is. Each day of mine would be characterized by obscenely-late waking hours, that would be as late as 11 or 12 AM. The hangover would a tad too much that I wouldn’t even be able to concentrate before the books. Diversions were the order of the day, and I fell prey to them. My friends-circle (or triangle, which is closer to reality – cause, technically, a circle is a figure with infinite vertices, which is rather far-fetched) provided much-needed solace in the mean time. Had some of the best times in life, during the past month. The month was indeed a wake up call, in terms of friendship – it was a paradigm shift of all. I saw new people enter my life, and some of them are inseparably close now! Of course, ‘loss’ – the inheritance of which, is etched in my mind as the biggest of life’s lessons. So I’m cautious this time. I should be wary of losses, but I’m hoping against hope that such a situation shall not arise.

Introspection

I got plenty of chances to introspect back at life. It’s a fun thing to do – watching yourself live your life in third person. Like a movie. I owe the replay to Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya – which was a virtual rewind of my life. Watching it three times, set off a saga of rewind. All those good times, all the moments of joy, of sadness, of euphoria, of pain; they “flashed before my mental eye, in a bliss of solitude”. History is all about learning from the past  - and I realized where exactly things went wrong. Some of my mistakes were are irreparable – but, they grounded me, and I realized the value (and the joy) of making mistakes. I understood the ‘connect’ – there was an irrevocable connection between every incident of my life. Each occasion, each living, breathing moment had a meaning. I had found my purpose in life – I am Happiness Evangelist. Spreading happiness to the world around me was my calling. I just LOVED seeing a person smile – perhaps God’s most beautiful expression among living beings. So, I’ve made my decision – I’m going to bring smiles to the people around me – I don’t know how, as yet. But I’ll sure figure out, in the long run.

Depression

Depression seems to be my steady-girlfriend; compensating (even bolstering and complimenting) my lack of real-feminine company. The cliche talks about the idle-mind-devil’s-workshop nexus; in my case, it’s a giant factory of sorts. The Devil has actually had too much of a field day in my mind, which has ensued in huge huge bouts of depression. The God-given power of hiding them before the world under the veil of a smile is a talent in itself – but it ended up draining me. By the time, I opened up floodgates of emotions, it was too late. These days, every other minute of  idle time would end up ushering in untold depression. The not-being-able-to-blog part ensued from the death of creativity was an added blow. Hence, I did my bit tackling the depression monster – and it was a fight quite well fought! Depression was always at bay, ready to pounce upon, and I had to be alert all the while. In a way, facing the depression monster was an experience by its own right.

Happiness

Yep, if depression’s my girlfriend, happiness would be my best buddy, personified by a few good people called F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Not the TV show, REAL buddies, if you misunderstood. They were there, period. And they did what they were supposed to do. Love them for that. Enough said.

Reading

My biggest hobby till date suffered an onslaught this exam season. Didn’t read much apart from regular acad stuff; couldn’t even glance through the newspapers. Hence, my general knowledge was at an abysmal low. Yet, managed to catch upon old favourites like ‘The Kite Runner’  - re-reading classics is always a pleasure. Caught bits and pieces of other books in my repository. Was good.

Social Networking

This was one activity that I repeatedly indulged in, over the past month. Which means, I was consistently online in gmail and Facebook. And I tried tweeting more occasionally after a while. Since I’m not into heavy duty apps in facebook like Mafia Wars/Farmville, et al, usage of the social networking site was mostly for status updates/photo uploads/comments et cetera. Meanwhile, I started a fanpage for ‘I chose the red pill’ and recorded a staggering 229 fans in a matter of two weeks. Huge record for the blog and personally for me. Thanks a trillion for the support, guys. You may join the fan page (or rather, ‘like’ it, in new fb terminology) by clicking the widget on the sidebar – only if you are a fan, that is.

Writing

Journalistic and Creative Writing pursuits were mostly absent during the month. I couldn’t devote time for ‘The Hindu Metro Plus‘ – of which I’m a freelancer now. I mean, I HAD all the time in the world, but, well… it just wasn’t possible. Blame the procrastination. Nevertheless, I did my maiden translation job. Rehashed a series of articles in Malayala Manorama Online; translated articles originally in Malayalam to English. That was pretty much the only writing assignment.

Acads

Last, but never the least – they too did occupy a lion’s share of my time. Especially, towards the latter days of the gap. Hectic exams found me nerve-wreckingly tensed. Yet, they weren’t as hard as I’d expected them to be. After a while, I did manage to get down to some tough-nut studies. It was hard, but I did manage to surmount procrastinational tendencies – can’t say I wasn’t entirely successful. But I guess I shall reap the benefits of perseverance, albeit minimal.

Looking back, the break was perhaps necessary evil – it was meant to happen. This blog is one of the few good things that has happened to me  (it actually tops the list). Leaving it astray for a month was a hard decision, but that decision proved wrong. The facebook fan page was enough testimony – and that has given me my dose of inspiration and motivation. I can’t assure frequent updates till eternity, but I shall write as much as I can, even more; for all those who care to read.

This post is dedicated to everyone, who’s come here and had a dose of the red pill. You guys give me my blood, I’m alive today, thanks to you. And I shall keep writing, as long as I’m alive.

Love,

Hari.

P.S.

Some of you have complained about this blog going down every now-and-then. Apparently, it’s a server side issue. Hence, I’m moving over to a new server. Hiccups with the site are expected. Kindly bear with ‘em. I chose the red pill, will be up online, in 24 hours time.

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