Dear Two Face

To
Ms/Mr Two Face
(Ya all got the Batman reference right?)

Subject:- Politely and formally expressing my distaste for you. (I am nothing if not polite.)

Dear Madam/Sir
I, Ahana Bose, of Female Complicated! would sincerely like to inform you of my antipathy towards you. Please pay careful attention to the following words. If you correct yourself, you may make more friends. (I highly doubt it though.)

First of all, do not say something to me and the exact opposite to someone else. You'll get caught and it ain't pretty. I've seen better people with their mugshots in black and white striped pajamas.

Second, you are still a human (I'm still doubtful). You may be tossing and turning all night in your bed, over-thinking your immense contribution to our humble human race while we're just ordinary people who are dreaming high and doing nigh, but that doesn't make you any more superior to us.

Your swagger is not like Jagger so stop acting like it is you and not Levine singing his song about our dear old Micky. You must be great at many things but humility is obviously not one of them.

I am now at the end of my tirade and I would have liked to end the show with some witty one liner but I am still dependent on others to provide me with that. So I am leaving you with Marilyn Monroe's apt words- "If you're gonna be two faced, at least make one of them pretty."

Yours not so lovingly
Ahana Bose

Joys of being in Electrical Engineering at DTU

DISCLAIMER

The following articles is only for the eyes of EE department students of DTU. If you don't happen to be one of us, keep the secrets to just yourselves or know the we have a surprisingly good knowledge of electricity's various cool uses. Just Kidding! Enjoy.

If you're in DTU and you're in the Electrical Engineering Department, chances are you're probably, either complaining about how demanding this stream is and playing the martyr card in-front of your friends or regaling the horrors of the stream to scare off your juniors. I haven't even completed a month yet, and I know it is going to be a tough ride. Yet, our lives are far from a lost cause! There are certain things that appear to be special only for the EE and EEE department students. Lets go through them, shall we?

1)  You can get out of commitments by the merely mentioning your stream. If you're a part of any society and you're being asked to do some work, use this fact as your trump card. It works like a charm every time. Taking advantage of people's sympathy for us is so easy! 

2) Plenty of streams will taunt you about your workload and lack of a "life". These mostly include production, automotive et al. I've found the perfect response to such jabs. Their branch is simply not CORE enough to be comparing with us. Get it, get it?! No offense to my friends in those branches!

In case the person in-front does happen to be from a core branch, just leave it. You don't need to reply to everybody. We are simply too busy to care. 

3) Shared experience of burden and torturously long study hours makes us thick buddies with our classmates. Which other stream boasts of that?

4)Unrelenting teachers makes us the most clever people. Our brain develops an uncanny ability to make up excuses to get out of work or ask for seemingly legit bunks.

To Please Others

If you go through my articles carefully, you might observe my annoying habit of constantly trying to please others and caring about what others think of me. I am telling you on the outset, keep your purty lips zipped if you’re going to tell me that it is good to have a pleasing personality. (See, I am already on the path of redemption!)

If the Great Indian Series special on Chamchas (sycophants) by the Times of India, shows us anything, it is not really in our best interest to be boot lickers. It leaves you exactly in that position: the boot, perennially open to the whims and fancies of others, never knowing when you might be kicked by the same boot you’re kneeling in front of.

Nobody needs to tell me that I tend to make better decisions when I make them completely on my own and for my own sake. I know that. And I also know the reason why. I can’t show anybody that my decision was wrong. Even though I am not crazy enough to believe that I’ll always make the right decision, but one thing that I can be sure of is that, I’ll automatically work harder to ensure that I don’t fail at it. Elementary, my dear Watson.

I am pretty sure I am not going to change overnight. Who knows, I might never change at all. But note my words people because I am going to try.

What makes me happy?

Here I am sitting, sulking over all the things that are wrong and unfair in my life and all of a sudden a question pops into my head; What makes me happy?
For a moment I simply tried to collect my bearings. Questions like these are so simple but we never really settle down and actually think about them and answer them.
So here I am, typing out the list of things I find pleasure in:-
1)Appreciation- I like both giving and receiving them. I know I sound as if I am in constant need of others' approval but I am being honest here. So take it or leave it.
2)Taking walks alone. I find my own company often comforting. I don't need to carry on a conversation, and I definitely don't need to tiptoe around people. You get what I mean?
3)The adrenaline rush of doing something new.
4)Reading romantic comedies.
5)Just being with my best friends. They are not plenty in number but somehow they know me and accept me the way I am, which is saying a lot.
6)Swimming- The feel of water all around can be both scary and exhilarating at times. I fear swimming in anything other than a pool. The fact that I can't see what is underneath and that it is possible for me to give myself up to the surrounding water to swallow me up, is fodder for one of my worst nightmares. Yet, whenever I dive into a pool, all I sense is peace. Odd isn't it?
7)Day Dreaming- Who doesn't like to dream? Since you, my reader, probably do, I find it a pointless exercise to explain this point.

For now, I can only come up with these things. As and when I think of something new, I might add to this list.

Being Detached

As I was about to leave for home, I had heard my friend calling out to me. Knowing that I still had some time to kill before I just had to leave, I had decided to stay back and hang out with him. As we had been talking, he told me how he did not expect me to stay in contact with him after college. He told me that I am very detached and that I don't really form any deep bonds with people. The revelation, though sudden, was not surprising for me. I actually felt really glad that someone had finally pointed my exact behaviour.

Puzzled by my reaction? Don't be. I have been giving all this a thought for quite a while. I have often thought about my unwillingness to talk on phones, avoiding being alone in conversation with another person, rarely being the initiator of chats on Whatsapp or simple SMSes etc. In isolation, these habits seem simple quirks, but together they make me look eccentric and definitely point out my detached nature.

I wonder why am i like this? I wasn't so much before. I reason that it must be because I have often seen people whom I care for most, move away (just geographically; life isn't so dramatic) and I end up feeling terrible. I suppose it is just my coping mechanism. It might even be because I am subconsciously trying to keep people from coming too near my intensely convoluted and complicated inside. I don't know but I would like to know.

I am told not to obsess so much about myself, so I am leaving you with just this much to think about for now. Until next time, toodles!

A Dictionary of Cute and Stupid

I have a friend who developed a habit of calling anything and everything "cute" in our last year of high school. She's in the same college as me but not in the same class so you would think that her influence would have minimized over time. But no! Friends, especially good friends, change you and not always for the saner. So now I go around, generously spreading the word “cute” and “stupid” (well that is my addition) everywhere.

If somebody is idiotic, I say cute. If somebody is peculiar, I say cute. If people infuriate me, they are definitely “stupid”. And it goes on and on. Can you imagine someone using the same two words all the time as if they never really attended their English classes after the age of six? I do because I am that person.

You would think that my habit might have rubbed on people around me but it is not so. Their response to me every time is a combination of choice words, aptly showing their annoyance. Guess habits are not that contagious except for the time when I am there.

So I am making a sort of resolution to expand my vocabulary. If you don’t believe me, check my phone. I downloaded a dictionary app last week. So now I’ll be going around saying adorable and bonkers and other cool words. :)

The Emotional Drama

It is dangerous to be stuck in an emotional drama.

Take for example an accounting balance sheet. According to the accounting equation, your assets are the sum of your liabilities and capital. So if you take emotional drama to be your liabilities and your mental health as your capital, then your resulting emotional well being (your assets) is really low.

The above analogy may seem irritating to a few because of the comparison between human emotions and money but come to think of it, isn’t the above statement quite true? How long can you subject yourself to repeated onslaught of someone’s moods? How long can you withstand a fight that doesn’t involve you directly but affects you because of your proximity to the parties involved? And most importantly, how long can we continue to allow our anger or hurt to fester? Till the time our mind suppurates from the wound and we end up disfigured from its effects?

Within a week, I had a fight with a friend (which has thankfully been solved), I’ve seen two of my close-ones fighting continuously (and man does it annoy me like anything!) and I have unknowingly acted as an emotional Guru (now don’t we all hate such emotional-high-and-mighty-know-it-all-gurus like me?!). And on top of it, somebody suggested that I tend to sadden people around me by complaining and whining too much (which I suppose may be true but I was nevertheless hurt by it).

I am telling you people, we need to get rid of unnecessary emotional baggage. It weighs us down tremendously. I refuse to be the slave of my emotions. Easier said than done, but I am going to try like anything. I may run the risk of appearing cold at times, but hey! I do not need the tension man!

Memories

I go forward into the past,

Touching upon things that I lived through.

Old memories and feelings gush into me,

Almost throwing me down with their force.

I love what happened them,

So much so that I feel pain in shaking hands with them again.

As I flip through the pages of the wonderful years gone by,

I remember the faces that changed me.

I can see the incidents floating in front of my eyes,

Reminding me of what had been,

And that it will never be the same.

What an ingeniously cruel thing to do,

To hurt me without a finger raised,

With only my fond memories.