Of Love and Other Drugs

Being the douchebag that I am, I missed my blog's third birthday. Three years! My blog is three whole years old! I cannot believe in its existence sometimes. That there is this portal I created for me to talk to myself. And I've ignored it, been angry with it, wanted to shut it down, but I come back to it anyway, because on days when everything else is trying super hard to make me feel terrible, Chaos is what's left behind.

Happy belated birthday Chaos, you are loved! :)

In other news, I've fallen horribly sick and everything feels morose. Every inch of my body goes up in flames of pain when I try to move. This means I can't do anything but rest my laptop on my stomach and scroll through endless distances of tumblr and pinterest, because this is as good an excuse as any to not work. I'm being force-fed a multitude of medicines which leads to long periods of hazy things.

I've come to realise that this diploma project is bringing out the most powerful waves of self-doubt and under confidence. Ze Boyfriend and I are trying super hard to lean on each other and keep our chins up. It's difficult when you look at it head on, but having someone to cry and complain about it with you makes it feel 1235126387% do-able. Fascinating how love can fill up all your gaps.

I'll be back once my nose isn't threatening to fall off.

Love,
Kanika

Ho Hey!

Here I am, sitting with the lights off at 10 am because the cloudy skies and torrential downpour outside are exponentially beautiful this way (and I can ignore the thoughts of how much mud is being generated right now), sipping a steaming hot cup of sheer chai, very impatiently waiting for my flipkart orders to reach me, also sheepish because I know this post is LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG overdue.

Hello chaos and chaosmakers, I'm here finally, over the initial time-and-space-eating black hole called 'vacation', having gone for 2 separate holidays with my parents in the span of two weeks. I've been busy, in the way that being home after a long time makes you busy: sleeping, eating, sleeping, reading, eating, baking, sleeping. Hence the silence over here: I've either been asleep, or I've been sitting in some tiny village in Himachal Pradesh and staring at mountains.

I'm back for good.

Love,
Kanika

Everything's Not Lost

There it was, I had it, my moment of everything-just-hit-me-all-at-once-what-am-i-doing-everything-sucks, and I handled it better than I ever thought I could.

And best of all, I had a friend to help me along, in that 10 seconds of silent chaos.

Everything is okay, and it will be, because the universe will always turn itself back up again and the sun will shine again new.

I will be okay, come darkness or light, the lows of loneliness or the highs of the contentment. Coldplay will always be the answer to questions that are woozy, with some added herbs and spices.

Everything is okay.

:)

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

1 AM and Diet Chips

Why do we dwell on the hurtful things, so much so that we have no space in our hearts and minds to dedicate to the good things? It's one of those human tendencies you promise yourself you'll break out of. To be able to find joy in the little stuff is a gift you are capable of receiving.

You know that people aren't nice so why waste time talking about exactly how un-nice they are? Spend that time lying down on your bed, staring at the ceiling and smiling when you think about your lunch and all its deliciousness. Take a walk with a camera and snap a photo of absolutely anything. Have impromptu 30-second dance marathons. Sit with friends who make you laugh.

Life is just too goddamn short to be angry with stupid people all the time. Wake up every morning with the drive to ignore them and concentrate on making each day extraordinary.

Stay lovely,
Kanika

source

Chasing pavements and dreams of not having a paunch

Hello, my beautiful blog.

Being at home is decadent and rewarding. I've been eating so much nice food that I'm dreading going back to the nights of instant noodles. Of course, I also must try to get rid of the paunch I've developed...and I thought I must before I got attached to it lovingly (sometime last week I caressed my stomach and apologized for not feeding it chicken in a while. I begun to freak myself out). Cue 'Eye of the Tiger' and brisk walks every evening. It took me three days to stop getting tired within ten minutes. My iPod is a brilliant companion. :)

I've been spending a lot of time on Blogger recently and I've been stumbling across blogs where the last post was scarily long ago (think '1 year', '2 years'...) and the thought made me shudder. I cannot imagine not being able to post in that long...and I vowed to make sure my blog doesn't land up being silent for such a while.

Hence!

This is what I currently look like, for people who wanted to know:

I don't want to puke looking at this picture, so I guess it's a good one.

Credits for this: my sister sitting on top of a slide.

The posts are going to be more frequent, I promise (if anyone is still even reading my crap) and I have some stuff coming up next week which I will want to share! :) (mostly it'll be self-obsessed photos of me. You have been warned.)

Let the comments roll in!

Love,

Kanika

Ouch

4 am - 9 am coffee high!

These two weeks are all about 

-finishing work and doing a good job

-waiting to go home

-drinking bucketloads of coffee

-hearing birds chirp at 5 am every day

-sneezing and sniffing through

-loving my laptop

-missing my camera

-HOME

-spending time with Ze Boyfriend....or not, because there's no goddamn time

-cursing about the number of hours in a day

-wondering why teachers do this to you

-crying in relief at a completed assignment

-article writing and stabbing myself with a fork

-staring judgementally at my sleeping roommate

-the possibility of carpal tunnel

-the hidden wonders of lozenges (hint: alcohol)

-not realising that I'm drooling at McDreamy

-Hooooommmmeeeee

-making lists and feeling productive

-not really feeling productive

-being productive anyway

I'll be keeping you posted.

Love,

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

Articulate Silences

Hi everybody, you don't have to miss me anymore, I'm back for good! It's been so long since I clicked on 'New Post'. It feels great. I feel great.

Lots of alone time and new music leads to constant epiphanies. Boredom helps, mostly. Being quiet has its advantages. I feel terrible for not telling you what I've been thinking and feeling, it's been nearly a month and I haven't found the words to explain it. It's a strange calm which is irritating everybody around me because it's making me put myself before everyone. I want to be a better person, and I needed to retreat for a while and let these feelings wash over me so that they never come back. I've gone into a cave of silence. It's tranquil. Nothing bothers me here. Whatever had the capacity to get under my skin no longer occupies any space in my mind..leaves so much more room for happiness. :)

I've been-

keeping my room clean,

spending hours on filing my nails,

drinking 3 cups of green tea in a day,

not giving a damn,

not talking to anyone,

pissing off my boyfriend,

reading books,

watching way too much Community,

singing loudly and badly,

spending no money (doesn't mean I'm saving it),

drawing and listening to new music which is lovely,

drinking chai in the rain,

taking baths that are way too long and relaxing,

feeling too much and too little at the same time,

avoiding conflict and creating it,

dancing alone with my fairy lights on,

eating apples,

not talking to people who bore me,

unapologetically rude,

writing in my mind and not in my journal,

missing some people who decided to leave me alone for their own good,

reading things I wish I had written,

smiling to myself.

College isn't feeling very challenging, only boring and demotivating, and it's getting intensely difficult to find ways to push myself. The past three weeks haven't been that hectic, but next week promises a shit-storm of great magnitude. I'm prepared. 

And I'm going to try to post at least once every two days. I took three weeks off, and it's time to be attached to this blog again. Starting with how it looks now, I'm loving the minimal clean feel. Comments are very welcome and much loved. :)

Love,

Kanika

Eyes on Fire

Taking every day as a new obstacle and crossing it with pride (mostly). Every morning I decide to do things differently than the previous one, but it mostly ends up being the same shit-fest day after day.
There is my instantly hot temper, my ability to feel extremely stupid in a group of people because I space out so often I can't follow the conversation, and I'm been thinking about things way bigger and beyond anything I experience in any one day in college. Lots of questioning, mostly unnecessary, but it feels important.

Work isn't exciting, there are too many random holidays in the middle of the week to keep me in a sleepless-stressed-about-work stupor.

This song is lovely, give it a listen.

Born to Die - Lana Del Rey

Randomly,

Kanika

p.s. I love comments, I don't bite.

p.p.s. I just did 20 stomach crunches and then rewarded myself with a packet of hide-n-seek biscuits. Nice.

In That Moment

I feel divine.

Nothing can ever break this feeling, this wondrous feeling of being the strongest person in the whole world. The most inspired person in the entire solar system.

I feel small.

Every unexplained shadow, every unfamiliar noise, something out of the corner of your eye without a face. An intense acceleration of the heart.

I feel...content.

A warm glow pulsating from my temples to my toes, filling me up with light and a level of calm which is paramount. Smiling and finding things to smile for.

It's a strange night with provoking music.

Maybe I need to write a book

I've been at home and only home for 5 days now. Five days full of feeling. 

I've been in the middle of a lot of conversations lately. I've been watching more news on TV than I have in the entire duration of my being in Bangalore. TV people no longer know how to conduct a debate, it consists only of fat old politicians yelling at each other and making a fool of themselves. People around me yell across rooms and parks and into gadgets. The decibel levels make me cringe and shudder. Who talks softly anymore? And is there anyone who still values the beauty of silence?

I feel closer to a person with whom I am able to share a comfortable and non-awkward silence. That's the real test of a relationship...are you able to still feel together when you're not verbally showing it? There is so much more said in the lack of words than in their abundance. I've been keeping my thoughts to me for a few days and it's overwhelming, but fulfilling. And when I do say something, I make sure it's honest, and clear. It makes for less chance of conflict...with family, with boyfriend, with friends. If you tell someone exactly how you feel in the clearest way possible they never have to assume what you think, and there is simply no room for miscommunication or misunderstanding. I've been trying really hard to not let my short temper explode at the littlest things, and it was difficult at the beginning when everyone turned into a complete asshole. People are inconsiderate and no one is inherently nice anymore. I had to stop deluding myself into thinking that people like being polite; they don't. Everybody's default setting is jackass. And the sooner I realised that, the sooner it got easier to be carefree. I'm not going to be all zen and say that you should stay calm no matter what...if someone's mean to you, I'd say give it back. Subtly maybe, so that your karma doesn't get all screwed up.

Being at home for these two months has taught me tact, has made me quieter than I have ever been, happier in many ways and sad in some. I'm glad I interned here. I needed time with my family. 

Coorg tomorrow. This trip is going to be insane. I'M GOING TO MAKE IT FUN. :D

I'm sorry about the silence on the blog. I think I explained the reasons for it, up there. But let me get back to college and the many emotions it brings, and soon I shall be a chatterbox again.

Love in excitement and tranquility,

Kanika

Pathos and Apologies

Joyous June has been discontinued.

I've been under so much stress and pressure at my internship and I've had sleepless nights for a week. I couldn't keep up with it. I'm sorry to anyone who wanted to join later. And I'll also be deleting all the JJ posts by tomorrow. But I will update this post with all your links tomorrow, because I'm so happy the people who participated did so. I don't want to remove all that with nothing to show for it.
I want to go back to relaxing blogging for a bit. Not blogging that was causing me to be in hysterics at the despair of not being able to update on time. It got too much for me. I'm feeling horrible but I assure you (and myself) that I will make up for it by doing it another month, maybe when I'm back in Bangalore, because somehow I manage to feel more inspired. Maybe it's sitting at home and having so many things and people that distract. Or even just going to work from 9-7 and coming home with no desire other than to meet my bed with a giant hug. The past week has been long and ardous, and with three days left for my internship to end, I just really want a break.

In other random news and feelings, not only am I exhausted physically, but mentally I'm not in a great place. I have things to deal with but no time. Bangalore shall bring clarity and solace. I cannot wait. Three more weeks.

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

New Feelings

New theme, new header :) And I adore it. It's very dreamy and unreadable, just to my liking right now. Once I post this I'm going to go on a blogpost deleting spree. Delete all the clutter and make this blog pristine.

There are a couple of big things I'm going to say in this post, so it's going to be a little long. I'm asking you to stay with me right till the end, because it's been a long time since I demanded so much attention in a blog post. My last few posts have been distracted and silly, and I have been waiting in vain for a moment of blog-lovin'. It happened last night but the internet was switched off. So I wrote everything down. I guess sometimes writing things down helps more than typing. The scratching of my pen in a tiny notebook was more soothing than I felt the sound of my keyboard would have been at that moment.

I'm adding numbers to these things simply to break them up. I don't know how else to let this flow.

1. I'm going to quote my diary from last night. I wrote this after an intensely disheartening conversation with Ze Boyfriend.

I just spent an hour on the phone with a boy having to convince him that my love was true and pure. I always thought I'd be in his shoes in a situation like this. Keeping my low self esteem issue and constant need for positive reinforcement aside, I've never had problems in the boy department. I've had pretty good luck actually.
Tonight I was accused of being a heartless monster by a person who till recently has refused to accept that I was flawed. Now I'm a can of worms that just doesn't quit fucking up. Everything I do or utter is a mistake in the making that apologies cannot rectify. I must become a superlative version of myself in order to be worthy of this person's trust once more. The old me would have never stood for it. "What? Dance around on the whim of a boy? Never!" And equal rights would prevail, and that would be that. The new voiceless me, however, is not a force to reckon with. I'm spineless with no opinion...rather with an opinion that does no good and only harm when raised.


Things are looking bleak for me. There is love but there is also disappointment. When did I turn into this person who lets such hurtful things go right over her head without any retaliation? I don't want to be a meek, hollow shell of myself. That's what I'm turning into. Instead of the independent, strong woman I want to be, I'm becoming a characterless little girl.
What is a relationship if not a place for me to have my moments of despair with the absolute assurance that there is someone to help me get out of the pit? I'm not allowed to fall apart. I'm not allowed to be muted, only vibrant. I don't know if that's something I have the strength for all the time.

2. Two days ago while sitting with my paternal grandfather while he wrote some letters, I noticed his right leg jittering. I asked him why he was impatient. (My dad, sister and I have the same habit when we're restless.) He smiled at me. "I'm not impatient...it's Parkinsons."
It was like a slap in the face. Parkinsons? What the fuck? I knew granddad hadn't been keeping very well but it was always a slight weakness or a headache or something of that sort that had easily available instant cures. A Paracetamol. Some lemonade with extra salt. Freshly cut fruits. I always believed he would get better in a day or two. And he always did. But with this, I don't know how to find a solution. I watched in silent horror for the next hour as he quietly clasped his knee, stopped writing, and waited for the shaking to pass, every time it happened. He then asked me to help him put some clothes away.
We opened his army trunk, and my grandmother (who's suffering from really serious short-term-memory loss) stopped being low and both of them together told me stories as we folded clothes that brought tears to their eyes. Like how a certain sweater was my maternal grandfather's and when he passed away two years ago his wife graciously gave them all his warm clothes to my paternal grandfather. That made both of them tear up. It made me feel horrible. Because in the twenty years of my being their granddaughter, I didn't know that the bond between the in-laws was so old and so deep. I left the room after two hours feeling like a different person. I was quiet for the rest of the evening, mulling over the things I had discovered in the same room I spent most of my childhood in.

3. I'm slowly realising that as much as I whine about missing school and how simple everything really was back then, I'm doing absolutely nothing to keep in touch. Actually, that applies to everyone in my life, school or not. I get happy when plans get cancelled. I rejoice at not having to look pretty to meet someone but rather sit at home, drink chai and tweet. That's how strange things have gotten. I don't understand my brain anymore.

So as you can read (if you're still here) my mind is a mixing pot of confusion right now. Confusion but somehow still organized. And I just wanted to put it here, because my blog is the only place where all this makes sense.

Love in utter flux,
Kanika

Echoing in my brain

I need to let you fuck off from my life.

My days with you are numbered. I can feel it in my bones and in the long, slow drags I'm taking. In the way my fairy lights are twinkling tonight, in sync with the music blasting in my head.

"I don't even need your love,
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough."

I will crave the feeling of my hands in your pockets, and that feeling will overcome me on rainy nights when the power goes off. But you're leaving. And I hope this hollow ache is of relief. 

Somebody That I Used To Know

Walk out the door, I told you and between your screams of protest I grabbed you by the collar and threw you out. Away from my life, my home, my little bubble of happiness I created all by myself when you left me in the middle of everything. You’re making it break, I told you, as I hauled you on to my porch, you’re ruining everything, you always do, you’re the proverbial stupid spanner in my life of tiny, relentless works.

Tiny is a horrible word, especially when you use it excessively in your head to describe your own value, and worse when someone else put the word in your head. It’s not a welcome addition to my mental self-esteem dictionary, and I have solely you to thank for it. You’re a frequent contributor, actually. You must find that amazing, knowing that so long after your physical absence in my general scheme of things, you still hold the irritating place in my head- the voice at the back of it.

Detachment is a word that sounds bereft to begin with, used in a sentence generates a feeling of pity. Aw, you poor thing, having to slowly hammer away at that shrine in your heart you built for something. You poor, poor thing. I wish I could help, but I’m afraid I have no intention to.

I wish that dashed line would erase itself in a fireball of sentimentality. You wish I lost my way with words so that I no longer had the ability to make you insanely guilty and highly relieved at the same, exact time. Guilty because you thought you turned me into this subtly crazy version of myself, and relieved because you left before the worst of me came along. We wish there was an easier way to conduct ourselves at these uncommon bonding sessions – a way to get much farther away than ever considered possible, and right now we don’t know what way we’re going.

The function of love no longer an easy prescription, you kissed my cheek and left me standing there, the back of your head bobbing away in a painfully familiar rhythm. See you soon, I couldn’t help but whisper. 

See you soon.

Love,

Kanika

13th August

I haven't seen you in a while.

I haven't forgotten your face yet. The freckle next to your ear. The way your stubble feels at 4 in the afternoon. Watching you sleep with your mouth open ever so slightly. 

It's been a while and yet here you are, whispering your choice as I stand in front of my open closet and wonder which shade of black to put on today. And then again when I choose between sleep and despair. Once more when I trace over the daisy chain tattoo on my ankle you envied. It took a long deep breath and clenched fists and images of bad nights to remind me of your absence. 

I often feel lonely. Immense love for what we were supercedes all else. The universe conspires against me. It makes me think of you and I lie in bed staring at that crack in the ceiling and I feel a sudden ache envelop me whole.

"The perfect words never crossed my mind,
Cause there was nothin' in there but you.
I felt every ounce of me screaming out,
But the sound was trapped deep in me.
All I wanted just sped right past me,
While I was rooted fast to the earth,
I could be stuck here for a thousand years,
Without your arms to drag me out."

Love,

Kanika

Erm...

I saw this on tumblr. It spoke to me.

If I say a hearty yes it will mean embarking on a journey without your warm hand in mine in a city I knew but one that is familiar no longer. It will mean turning a blind eye as you move on and lock all our happy moments in a box inside my head, all mine to keep, all mine to open on days I miss you just a little too much and smile, thinking about how happy I was with you.

Saying yes entails a new self actualization process, finding myself all over again without your voice in my head telling me it's all worth it in the end. Saying yes means I admit to being on the path of getting over you and I don't know if I'm prepared.

My adventures always handed you the largest role out of anyone else I loved and now I must leave with just your memory, a faint aura of your loveliness, a slight heartache when I find a trace of your handwriting on a piece of paper in the corner of a drawer or a letter from you thrust into the suitcase under my bed. I'll smile at our photographs, knowing we had something beautiful. But for now, I must leave. To embark on my adventure with a hearty yes.

Thanks Bangalore Weather God!

All unedited and clicked by me. :)

The rain turns me into a silent spectator of the world.

Like this :

'Tis me. Clicked by friend today.

Remember how much I cribbed about the heat here? Can you see the sweater in this ^ photo?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH :)