Death By Chocolate

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
-Henry Louis Mencken, A Little Book in C Major, 1916

Imagine a box for chocolates with hardly any chocolates in it - filled with wafers, hard walnuts, black salt, some pieces of chocolate, some live pieces of coal, a few grams of black tar, a bit of confusion, a dash of disregard, a twist of excitement and the rest of the space as anger. That is what a part of my heart is right now. But I glad that I would only do what I find correct. I don't see that I have a right to be wrong but I see others who have a contention over that right. The rest of the part of course is chocolate.

I had a long and lovely time with two of my friends in the college today. We spoke, spoke and spoke. Then in the evening we went to Ohri's. It's kind of a meeting place for us - though we have many such places including college. I went to college today because I found it much better than staying home and sitting in front of some screens downloaded from the Internet. It's nice to have people around who are going to listen to us and to whom we find peace in listening.

It's many days now since I slept in the evenings. Once I spend some time on the computer, think about for a while, have some snacks and food in the evening I get fresh enough to keep myself going well till early morning. Yesterday I spelt after 3 am and while on the bed I was still wondering how much time it's going to take before the sun rises. It's ironic that I felt that because by the time I finally woke up it was 11 am. But there are bigger ironies - like the one I mentioned yesterday.

My Chocolate

It's all a game to you isn't it? You roam from town to town, bedding merchants' wives and temple maids and you think you know something about love? What about your father's love? You spat on him when you brought her onto this ship! What about the love for your country!? You'd let Troy burn for this woman!? I won't let you start a war for her.
- Hector, Troy

The evening of Sunday was all spent with friends. A blurred plan to study was made almost a week back when a friend called me. I confirmed it and asked other friends too if they could come over. We studied for a while executing some programs and left for a ride when it was all dark outside. We went past many places before having biryaani and fruit juice and returned home to finish only one more program. I could see a change in one of my friends who was beating me with silly ignorable reasons all the while. I too tried keeping it silly by letting my actions remain devoid of annoyance.

I somehow felt that I knew why he was behaving that way imagining a simulation of how I would be if I were in his place - if I were him completely, growing up the way he grew, having the kind of people he has around him, and keeping a psychology he keeps. I hoped that I was being prejudiced and I was myself - I am so happy about this always, I don't have to keep any masks and neither do I have to call anybody as a liar. Just sometime back I pondering on how a habituated liar would always think of others as liars!

Yesterday evening I was trying to run some programs when my father said that my brother, mother and he were going out for a walk. I asked him if I could join them. He was fine with it but also pointed that I had to study. I didn't like him telling that but I knew he was right and I asked him to go without me. Sometime later after I finished some time with the programs I called up my father and the first thing he asked me was to come over to Softy Den for having ice creams. He had just reached that place walking and I joined them within minutes. I had chaat and chocolate ice creams till my stomach could let in no more. We had a walk back home taking a longer route. I had my dinner after 1 am.

And that was for the first time in the four years of my undergraduate studies that I practiced programs at home. With a friend's help some days back, I had installed the .NET environment of Visual Studio 2005. Sunday the same friend had taught me a few programs. Yesterday I ran them myself and tried to perfect them. For the first time I was all happy to the reach the college with seven out of ten programs finding me comfortable. The test today went like an almost cakewalk with viva being the fastest section.

Once again when I was with all my friends, I had this particular friend irritating me. He was throwing water on me with no reason I could judge - not even prejudice caught me and gave any help - and I was just taking him as a friend who was probably trying to have some fun. Later in the evening when he came to my home with others, he continued his weirdness. And it was when he said that he seriously wanted to talk to me that I understood what he had in his mind. In fact it was the same thing I thought I had speculated on Sunday. He was aggressive and said that he wanted to talk to my mother.

He said that I will have to prove my seriousness before he does. I simply couldn't help myself from thinking how he was still not 21 years in age - I found no reason to stop laughing the way he was talking but I was clear with what was happening. Then he said that he wanted to ask my father if I had really spoken to him about something serious a few days back. I immediately started dialing my father's number but stopped it. If I had called my father, if I had let my friend talk to my father, I wouldn't have been writing all this here. Instead it could have been a story of how I made a friend and how I lost him.

I could easily recollect a day almost a year-and-a-half ago when he came to my house in the evening, all red, angry, heated up and ready to fight me. I am sure that day his heart-beat was a lot above normal and there was an uncontrollable burst of anger within him for me. He had come to ask me something direct and scold me, or perhaps even beat me up, but after some initial conversations he had calmed down. That day he had come to a friend's house to fight him for being a good friend of another person.

Today he wanted to beat me, and he did it several times, he was angry with me, frustrated, he had no belief in what I was saying and he wanted proofs for what I had done and what I feel. Later when I thought about his behavior I wondered what on earth made him think that I would be lying about my talk with my father. I couldn't believe he wanted to talk to my mother and ask her to take care of her son. I have nothing much to talk to others about why he was like that, I am feeling pathetic that he - this very friend - was saying all this. I know tomorrow will be a new day for him and he will be fresh again. For me the next day starts in 20 minutes from now when the clock shows 12 and it hardly makes any difference to me.

I have always believed that when I have to fight a person, I need to fight what he has done and not what he is. It is easy to dig out all about people, bring their lives in front of them and even make them belief what they never were, it is easy to show others what people are just by using truth in its most humble form. I can do that with myself. All I need to do is paste some already written text here and my self-defamation would be done. But that won't help anybody. It would help me instead for I know how self-vilification works the opposite. But it is always bad to criticise a person for what he is; it is better that we go for what that person does.

But what if that person is a friend? What if I know that that person has been trying to fool me all these days? What if I know that he is somehow the only one of all my friends who cannot be trusted? I am not writing all this to tackle him. I love him, he is my friend. I am just in awe of these kinds of complex human behaviors - not just of my friend but of myself too. It's interesting how we respond to changes around us, to the people around us and most importantly, the change within us. I just need to learn to carry all this with me without letting it effect my objective.

I find myself so happy always that I am clear with my objectives and I do things that are compatible and in coherence with them. There is nothing I am into right now that would effect the course I plan to take to pursue and to get to my objective and forward it. There are my ideas and my logics and I appreciate all those who have their own. I respect all those who know what they want; and even those who don't know because that is simple human behaviour. I believe that not everything can be learnt from experiencing - we can't experience everything, or by the time we get to learn from them, it is already too late. I am my best teacher and my teaching tools are the people around me and the books written by wonderful men and women and the great book given to us by Allah. I really don't have to worry about what others ask me to prove.

Drunk On Chocolate

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
-J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1945

I had this rather nostalgic feeling when I woke up at 8:30 pm today. I was perfectly fine with my happiness giving no respects to any swinging moods. I blankly turned on the computer hoping to find some friends online. I checked mail, tried to understand why MSN messenger wasn't working, removed some applications I wasn't using since long and went through the dictionary of phrasal verbs to find the right word to put between 'Drunk' and 'Chocolate' for the title of this post. I came up with 'on' though found no help in the dictionary.

Today's test was a bag full of sleep and lethargy - I saw the questions, answered all of them to the extent I had read those topics, yawned before starting it and after ending and left the room humble and satisfied. We have not yet given the test for the first internal assessments though it was conducted several times. The lecturer had told us that we could write it later but we haven't heard from her. It seems like a joke that keeps laughing at itself whenever it sees any test being conducted for the final year students. Today a friend of mine studied when we explained him all the topics on the phone just 10 minutes before the test.

I was driven to madness when I started eating chocolate at a buffet today. Things started as temptation, developed into rage as the taste was irresistible and ended up as craze. It was partly an exaggeration on my behalf that I continued to pour in more chocolate into my throat after my belly was full but my heart was never satisfied. I was high on spirits and was indirectly encouraged by friends. I kept taking in as much as I could knowing that I might never get such a chance again. It was heavy but left me asking for more. The soft cake dipped in lusciously rich hot chocolate was simply sinful. I couldn't count how much I drank on it and the number of pieces I broke on my tongue. My mouth still waters.

Favor Chocolate

I learned the real meaning of love. Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but loyalty never fades. You can depend so much on certain people, you can set your watch by them. And that's love, even if it doesn't seem very exciting.
-Sylvester Stallone

The traffic during nights seems to have gone up near my house. The main road is the only route for people living around Gachibowli to reach the new airport with the outer ring-road still under construction. Contrary to what people have been telling, it is not any big task to reach the airport from here. The roads are wide and flat making things smooth. I am yet to pay a visit to the new place; all I know is from what I read and heard. I hear that things are much better that what we see in the pictures.

It was just after I crossed this orange-light lit street that my father prompted me to speak up about what I wanted to talk with him. I was somewhat nervous not knowing how he would react but once I started I relished the rest of the time I spent with him till I reached home. It was just another step into the kind of freedom my parents give me. In a way I didn't ask him anything which he could have refused, I only asked to get things advanced. He made it easy for me by not having me give explanations.

Yesterday my brother asked me if I don't have to study for the internal test which I was supposed to have today. I asked him "when do I have the test?". He replied "tomorrow". I explained "so I will study tomorrow". And so do I. I studied after I reached the college in the morning and I did the paper decently fair and satisfactorily; for me. I left the exam room in just 30 minutes getting inspired from how bravely my friend left. I was done with the answering and was waiting for somebody to make the move. I only continued and more people followed.

Flavor Chocolate

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from French by Lewis Galantière

I want to be explained that I am not the only one with such kind of things in mind. It always gives more strength and confidence to know that we are not alone with what we think and what we do. I remember whenever I went late to college my biggest worry used to be being the only one to go late. Being scolded or not being let in was completely a different concern which I hardly used to pay attention to. Perhaps these are simple human instincts that demand our desire to have people around us who stay with us even if we don't think alike. And perhaps the word lonely has been designed to describe how it feels not to satisfy that desire. Like love, many human instincts seem irrational. But they exist and they make a difference.

I reached home at 7:30 pm after spending almost 5 hours in the college. I was expecting some company and thankfully I had a friend with me. There was nothing I did about the tests I am supposed to have from tomorrow. Right now I have the same amount of over confidence which I had the last time I had such tests. There are eight answers I must learn to attempt the essays' section and the only thing I know now is that I have more than 10 hours before I have to put a few of them on paper. I have done it before so many times and inshAllah I won't find it difficult to do it again. These words of mine are sure to be misleading for any person who hasn't been through the four years of engineering studies.

Writing two to three paragraphs for a post is easy. But writing sensible things is always a task especially when I feel disappointed with people around with the reason being my own actions which never intended to go wrong. I had no plans to write for today but I have to sit down and study now and this is the only way I can feel better. I am not being criticised, nobody has scolded me, but I can understand what things imply and how they can work blunders. Things will be different when I open the book now - it's going to be a reminder of past. It looks unfair how an hour of test requires so much effort which we never put. I remember studying for hours together in the past. Things have changed and according to many people even I am supposed to have changed. I know my objectives and morals remain the same. 'Objectives' and 'morals' - two of the many heavy words!

Only Chocolate

Men love because they are afraid of themselves, afraid of the loneliness that lives in them, and need someone in whom they can lose themselves as smoke loses itself in the sky.
-V.F. Calverton

I watched all the three movies of the 'Bourne' series again. I had been looking out for them and today we had a get-together at a cousin's place in the afternoon. We played all the three parts back to back with a break only for lunch. The plan was for yesterday itself but couldn't be completed for a reason still being discussed among us. I couldn't believe my parents let my brother too stay out even till late night.

Some days back I sat to think about the luxuries we have and how we treat them - we just ask for more. We are used to these enjoyable easy things that we just don't care about what others have to face. And when we have any difficulty in getting things this easy we quibble and get frustrated. I find it funny how quickly I get irritated when I don't find food of my choice in dinner or the clothes to my liking ready to be worn in the mornings. Or perhaps it's only me with such kind of character traits. I try hard not to have sympathy for myself.

It's always better to be in action than to see others controlling it. It hurts me to sit and relax when some of my friends are not comfortable with the future they might possibly be having. It's like watching a war going on in front of me with my own people fighting and I can't do anything for them. I just have to try to pray not knowing what exactly I should ask from Allah. I end up with asking Allah for their happiness but that doesn't satisfy me. If I could do something, something at least to make them feel better and stronger, say something that gives them happiness and lets them know that Allah has big plans, and just see them happy, I could be so happy. This is selfishness for me.

I Don't Share Chocolate

There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature.
-Stephen Stills

I waited all through the week to hear from the University of Texas at Arlington about my application's status. They started with informing me that they have not received one of my transcripts. Then they declared not having any of the transcripts. I had to mail them several times before calling up their office. I was asked to resend the complete sets. But then when I was leaving for bed early morning today I received a mail from them acknowledging the possession of all my documents and also letting me know that my application has been sent to the next level of processing. It was a positive reply providing a relief. When I finally woke up today it was 2 pm and I greeted my father home.

My preferred university is the University of Texas at Dallas. It has one of the best infrastructure and faculty for Computer Science in the whole of the United States. I satisfy all their requirements including GPA, GRE and TOEFL scores. It's all just wait-and-see. I am confident of getting admits from New York Institute of Technology and University of Houston at Clearlake. I would love to stay in New York if it was softer on my pocket. Houston would be perfection just that the university is just about average. Though I have also applied to a university in Chicago, I am not keen to go there. But of course, it's the visa processing that will have the final say. Allah will decide.

We are supposed to submit our projects on April 2nd but our project-guide himself took up the date of 5th. He is being too kind for us helping us with almost everything. We only have the implementation part left which initially seemed to be the biggest hurdle. A casual attitude all these days gave us only one thing - support from our lecturer. I only hope that we get decent marks for the documentation and a respectable grade in it's viva. It's just another subject to be cleared. I happened to refresh Rational Rose, spend more time on Visual Studio and get myself comfortable with Visual Basic. I am sure I am not going to keep this for long with me. Knowledge too gets stale.