Hashtag Sad Face

"And at once I knew, I was not magnificent."

If you want to know someone, really know someone, listen to the songs they talk to you about. Watch them listen to these songs and notice their faces and their bodies change with the music. People might go really quiet and close their eyes and just sway. Or get on top of the nearest table and sing into a hairbrush. Watch them. You'll learn a part of them they wouldn't be able to outrightly display. People come to terms with themselves through their favourite music. Whether it's Carly Rae Jepsen or Sufjan Stevens, they find something in the melody, or in the words, or in the memory it provokes. Don't disregard their love for a song you can't stand; it made them feel something they probably can't even really explain to you.

Which is why I fucking hate music. (saying this only for dramatic effect)

Recently, Bon Iver made me stay up till 6 am and cry for reasons I'm entirely unsure of. How the hell are you supposed to go about with your day when you hear a sound that makes you sit up for a second and notice the goosebumps running down your back? And how is it that the new Coldplay song, in one play, had got stuck into the very recesses of my brain and refused to leave for the entire week? I'm humming it all the time. A screen capture from the video is my desktop wallpaper. You don't get it. It's a disease.

Hey Chaos, stay around.

Love,
Kanika

Unbearable

Somedays it's an explicable spring in my step, some nights an imponderable gloom, and an almost constant will to express but no strength to articulate my brain.

It's been a struggle to not care about the shitty things that happen in a day (because everyone tells you not to care) but I care anyway. It's easier than trying not to. And I feel better about not denying anything that goes on in my head.

I am slowly beginning to realise the things that make me happy. A clean table, a plant on my desk, a good cup of tea, laughing with friends, a cozy nap in the afternoon, people who lend books, a lovable bulldog puppy who plonks his butt into your lap and demands attention, my new-and-improved fairy lights (photos soon!), sharing a cigarette in the dark in the balcony, logo design books, and I could go on and list things that seem so tiny but add up to really really fulfilling days.

All of this, and Fantabulous February is up soon! I almost cannot contain the joy right now :D

So for people who don't know what FF is (where have you been?!) let me take you through.

Fantabulous February is an exercise I cooked up to keep myself engaged in writing, because I began to feel at this time last year that I was losing my love for the written word. It goes like this: every day for the month of February, I'll be posting an image or quote or basically anything which is even half-inspiring, and by the end of the day, I'd have used that inspiration to write a post of my own. It's like forcing yourself into creativity. And the best part, anyone who wants to take part can do so, all you need to do is write a post on your blog, post the image/quote/etc. there too, and once you're done send me a link to that post, because I like including them here :)

This is the FF label, so you can see the crazy prose we came up with last time :) HERE.

YAY FOR BLOGGING AND BLOGGERS AND FEBRUARY AND LOVE AND EVERYTHING.

Love in ecstatic restlessness,
Kanika

We're Wrong

"We accept the love we think we deserve." - The Perks of Being A Wallflower

Being self-aware is a prized and difficult quality, and the moments of my own where I think I have begun to understand why I am the way that I am make me intensely proud. Right now, for example, I know I don't deserve this, and after days of dealing I'm finally acting on that realisation. Cutting out the hard, terrible and rusty part of the love and trying to keep only the parts that still work. It's not supposed to feel like this, like a punishment, like there is nothing better out there so you stick with the hurtful. Know what you deserve - something that makes you happy. Every person, bad or good, deserves that. I am not a bad person, as much as I'm being convinced. 

Whatever happened to being scarred and broken but proud of it? Being complex and strange and weird but never berating yourself for being unsure?

I'm unsure. Complex. Moody. Sad, mostly. Difficult. But I love you. Let me love you anyway.

Love, 

Kanika

Sleep can't cure this

"Go away," she said,
"leave me be,
to wallow in my misery
to soak up in all this self-pity
because no one seems to care."

Yes, I wrote that. I'm a genius with poetry, am I not?

- I have too many feelings inside me right now, and they are threatening to come in the way of my daily routine. I feel like curling up in bed and sleeping for days so that no one is able to hurt me anymore.

- I want to do another Fantabulous February, except this time it'll be Joyous June. Let me know if it's a good idea and if you would like to join. Read more about FF under the FF label. Click on the top of the post.

- I'm going to spend tomorrow entirely without using an internet connection. I was going to say computer/laptop but I forgot I'm at work and without solitaire to calm me down I will probably brutally beat my fellow intern. No facebook, email, twitter, tumblr or blogging tomorrow. Can I do this? I'm certainly gonna try.

Love with feeling, (if the labels on this post are any indication)
Kanika

Thank you for the music.

In my place, in my place
Were lines that I couldn't change
I was lost, oh yeah

I was lost, I was lost
Crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed
I was lost, oh yeah

Yeah, how long must you wait for him?
Yeah, how long must you pay for him?
Yeah, how long must you wait for him?

I was scared, I was scared
Tired and under-prepared
But I wait for you

If you go, if you go
Leaving me here on my own
Well I wait for you

Yeah, how long must you wait for him?
Yeah, how long must you pay for him?
Yeah, how long must you wait for him?

Please, please, please
Come on and sing to me
To me, me

Come on and sing it out, out, out
Come on and sing it now, now, now
Come on and sing it

In my place, in my place
Were lines that I couldn't change
I was lost, oh yeah
Oh yeah 


This post is dedicated completely and wholly to Coldplay and how they changed my life. 


The first time I heard 'Yellow' was back in seventh grade when heartbreak didn't exist and I had a best friend of the opposite sex, something which became a regular fixture only after that. iPods still weren't in as much vogue as discmans and we would sneak them into school in tiffin boxes and unnecessary notebooks just for the joy of a few minutes' of intermittent music between classes. That's the first time my best friend said to me, "aye you, stop obsessing over bollywood music for three minutes and come here and listen to this. Fucking brilliant." Back then the word 'fuck' was used sparingly so when I did hear it I knew it was meant most genuinely.


The opening bars began. For a minute I was like "WTF yuck, I hate this song and him for making me listen to it!" but that was my stupid bollywood-brain-washed self talking. And I let that self override what I really felt about it. I refused to ask him the name of the band and I was left in peace to listen to what I felt was quality music but was actually just a load of shit put together and set to a rhythm.


The second time I heard 'Yellow' was at a concert that happened in my school campus and I had been headbanging to some obscure rock song the band was pelting out. And they stopped and we gathered our breath, and as I was adjusting my hair and smiling to myself about the awesomeness of the night, the lead singer announced that he was going to sing something the audience would love. We of course cheered our heart out at that, and suddenly the familiar opening bars of that song started to play. And all my friends around me screamed and yelled in happiness, and I think I was the only one in that audience of 500+ people that didn't know the words.


College came and my music tastes turned from popular to just a little bit varied. I picked up music from here and there and became quite a youtube whore, and my laptop, whenever it is on, is constantly playing music. My habit of playing songs according to my mood changed: earlier I would play sad songs when I was sad and happy ones when I was happy, but now the moods have become more specific as have the playlists. I have a set of songs I play only when I miss home, one to play only in the mood I'm in on certain afternoons (which also varies according to the weather), one to play when certain friends come home, and another to play when I go for a bath.


Then one day, my friend copy-pasted the entire Coldplay discography onto my iTunes.


'The Scientist' played when I lost my grandfather. 
'Fix You' played when I lost a ton of other people.
'Brothers & Sisters' plays sometimes, randomly.
'Warning Sign' plays on nights when I sit up and draw, and smile to myself.
'In My Place' plays to make me happy.
'Strawberry Swing' always, always, ALWAYS makes me smile and it reminds me of empty-bus rides at night with my iPod and me singing loudly out of the window.
'Swallowed in the Sea' makes me feel loved :)
'Green Eyes' makes me sing along very loudly and badly if I have earphones on.
'Clocks' plays to make me feel worthwhile and un-useless.
'Your Love Means Everything' makes me cry every single time I hear it. Without fail.
'Christmas Lights'..."when you're still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn't really feel like Christmas at all" :) it's like this song was their birthday gift to me.


I just had to say...thanks for the music, Coldplay :)