Head in the Clouds

Fifteen. 

What a raw, beautiful age in life. The age when most girls start turning into women; start falling in love and start unearthing ambitions.I did all of that; and a little more. I had never known the harsh reality of life until I was fifteen. It came like a whirlwind and it blew away all the bliss that had accumulated like a cloud above my head.

                                     

Those days of unparalleled happiness when I excluded myself from all social activities by camping in the library. Those days of living in Middle-Earth and Hogwarts. Basically those days when attachments did not mean anything to me. Just those bonds with close family and friends; people you could absolutely trust. There was nothing to fear, no one to hate, because it was all so pure. I had the beautiful ambition of becoming an archaeologist and then some day pen down my thoughts and become a famous writer.

What really happens to childhood dreams anyway? I think they get locked up in a treasure chest, never to be opened again. You sail away from them, like a ship drifting away from an island. Your castles crash down from the clouds. Your mountain of happiness has landslides of misery. 

And then some where, some how, a draught of reality flies in. You're forced to grow up and face the cruel world at such a young age. It's true, you have nothing to lose; no career, no social contacts, no property. You just lose one precious thing - you lose yourself. And you do that so helplessly, while the entire world nods in sympathy.

You're forced to stop living with dreams, and to live with people. Actual people, who are so unpredictable and imperfect unlike your friends inside your head. All your preconceived notions about people start to melt like wax. You fall in love with some people, who mirror the characters in your brain. And these people are inducted into your Mind Palace forever. Then again you meet people, who aren't pleasant, who have lived luxurious lives and are spoilt to a massive degree and people who lie and backstab and betray. And you are forced to hate them, an emotion you weren't capable of, because for some reason even the villains in your dreamworld were so prefect, that you could not help but admire their ruthlessness. 

And you're caught in a dilemma. Should I attach myself to real, solid people or should I be alone? Man is a social animal they say, but I have met people who have lived alone for all their lives and they are still content. Hermits have peaceful lives. Attachment and love, is to your work. Is to your family. And to your friends. Yet, it is not attachment if you don't feel the acute pain when you are separated from them. Pain is not really the best of all feelings; so why attach yourself?

You move in this circle of questions, swirling like smoke inside of your head. You don't know how to console yourself if anything were to happen to your attachments. Work ends when you become utterly incapable and people simply die or leave. What really remains except words? Words inside of your head; words that knit together to form sentences and sentences that pile up in patterns to form stories? If all the toil and attachments in life were to amount to dreams then why did we leave the dream world in the first place?

Questions, and questions about the purpose of life. The end result is nothing but questions. Maybe those who are really lucky, get answers. And those who aren't are simply whisked off to heaven and the moment they land there, they know. They just know.  

I See Fire

Seriously, what is it with me and song lyric captions? :P I don't know I just find it incredibly cool (along with the advertisement I'm doing for free) and how can you NOT like Ed Sheeran.

Anyways, HI there to all my readers. This is probably the longest vacation I have taken from writing anything substantial in my blog. The sad news is that there are loads of posts lined up in my drafts but I NEVER FINISH WRITING THEM.

I don't really call this Writer's Block, I think a better term for it would be "Stuck in the Mind Palace." A casual definition of Mind Palace in my own words:

 A secret place in your head, where everything and everyone is mind-blowing and somehow comprise of an array of characters you wouldn't really interact with normally. Also, this place is really different from one mind to another, so like your Mind Palace could be inside a treasure chest at the end of a Rainbow for all I care. Or an underground Mafia mansion. So, you know, it's damn cool. 


So technically, this is not a post. It's a form of conversation with my readers about basically "what has been up." And without any further delay, let me brush through everything that's going on.

The first thing, is keeping busy. Keeping so busy that I'm actually not getting the time to breathe. There's a lot of work, including studies and internship and there is suddenly too much to learn. I've recently caught the Web-programming bug and to think, I'll be learning more that 4-5 languages by the end of this semester! It's an amazing thought; because you should know that I kind of suck at any linguistic feat. I once had this deal with <insert part of brain that is concerned> that I will learn Chinese in six months.

........ Need I say it didn't work out?



I'm also keeping my fingers crossed for a Script writing course that NUS is holding from next week. If I can get into this, it will be great, because FINALLY some experience in Theater. I mean, with an Uncle who is pretty much almost a veteran in Bengali Theater (mind you, Bengalis are REALLY proud of their Literary and Cultural Heritage and yes I am bragging) it's kind of sad my exposure to Theater has been so tiny.


I've been watching a lot of movies lately, in my free time. Some new ones, some old ones. I just keep my eyes engaged for as long as I'm not sleeping. So there was Disney's FREAKING-AWESOME movie Frozen, and for all of you who thinks its not good, you can disappear in a puff of smoke. "Let it Go" is currently my anthem and if anybody cares to listen, I can sing "Do you want to build a snowman?" at the top of my lungs.

Oh and then I watched HER. Despite the whole of Twitter going crazy on the praises; and despite the amazing screenplay, the script and the direction - boy, was this disturbing. I mean, kudos to the actors (I love Amy Adams) for the splendid job! My favorite part of the movie is when the hero, basking in the eve of his early forties (?), talks about how he has felt everything in this world. He has felt such an extremity of emotions, that whatever he will feel after this will be simply a fraction of what he has already felt. Oh, and the other most amazing aspect of the film, towards the end when the (umm...) heroine says, that the end of their love story is drawing near. She compares the episode to a book, which she is trying to read as slowly as possible, so slowly in fact that the spaces in between the words are becoming infinite.

Such. a. beautiful. script. I think the last time I remember watching a movie whose script I LOVED was Juno. And that was so long back.

Okay, so what no one knows till now is that I'm writing this post during lecture. Now, you must not get me wrong. As much as I love my course, I have the attention span of a cat. Before you know it, I'm done and bored.

SO, this brings me back to the last event I think I should include in my post. THE MUSIC. It's been a good month, with a lot of lovely music floating in from all corners. No not just the club favorites like Timber or Wake me Up or seriously any other electronic music. I mean like actual soulful tracks.

"I See Fire" really appealed to the Middle-Earth inside my heart. THE LYRICS. THE MUSIC. The only other version of this I think needs some applause is Peter Hollens' cover of this track from Desolation of Smaug. I never thought there would come a day when ALL my favorite people (Tolkien, Sheeran, Freeman, Cumberbatch, Mckellan, Bloom) would come together. It makes me want to weep in joy. *Takes out handkerchief* *sob*

I also discovered the Glee version of Defying Gravity (Broadway's signature track from Wicked) and this played on repeat for a week. Along with Let it Go and Brave, these three tracks have the strength to lift you up from the deepest and blackest depths of darkness. And that's enough metaphors for today.

Which reminds me, John Green's The Fault in our Stars is heading for the Theater and I'm full of major anticipation here. There's so much reflection in his works. Everyone, please read Looking for Alaska. I'm currently reading The Book Thief. These books are really metaphors in themselves.

This really brings me to the end of the blog post (once I start, I can never stop); and for all of you still wondering why I See Fire is the caption, the truth is I don't really know. It was the first thing that came to my mind; and there's nothing bad about a little bit of Tolkien in our lives, is there?

Hope this semester continues amazingly, and I'm being unnaturally optimistic when I say - it can only get better. :D Until the next blog post everyone!