Art

Well to me, it always sounded like an activity which is clearly meant for people who don’t have any work or use it as a method to pass time and show off that they have bank accounts full of money. However, my perception towards art, which was just limited to drawing and painting drastically changed last year. I was planning to buy a birthday present for a girl I once loved but my mind was not ready to help. I was lying down on my hostel room’s bed a month before her birthday and started thinking about what should I give her. My mind with the internet ran to a series of options, from a ring, a dress, a teddy bear, a flower bouquet, a pair to boots, a novel, a show piece which portrayed love, a painting and some other cute silly tacky stuff. I started to analyze. A ring or a teddy bear is a very common idea and any boy would go to a shop and buy it, a dress or boots was out of option as we were just good friends and I was not her daddy, novel can be boring and lastly a show piece and a painting are the lamest gifts I could have thought of.
Disheartened, I tried to sleep but could not. A great advantage of hostel is that your friends are available to you all 24 hours. I got up, wore some woolens and went to Ankur’s room. It was 2 am and as expected he was still awake, playing counter strike. Informing him about the ‘life & death’ situation, I looked at him for solutions. He came up with some but those didn't help. It was a low moment for two Bros, who believe to create rather than buy. Besides, there was no idea of what to create either. After searching on internet for more than an hour and not finding anything creative, beautiful and aesthetic, Ankur like all other addicts logged on his Facebook account. He was going through his notifications, when my eyes went to an ad on that page. It was some random T-shirt ad saying “Personalized T-shirts”. I finally got the idea. I would make her a T-shirt which she could not buy from any market. It was 4 am after everything was decided; only some hard work was left to be done, so I went to sleep, quite relaxed.

The next task was to search for a good company or dealer. I found one near my university. When contacted him, he was ready to print but the problem was that he only printed T-shirts with a small photo in the center which too was not of good quality and even the fabric was cheap. The search continued for about a week through internet, phone calls and personal meetings but I couldn't find any who would agree to my terms. I needed a fully printed T-shirt, not just a small photograph in the center, plus it was just a single order and no big supplier was ready to take it, they wanted a bulk order with minimum 100 pieces. When my hopes were low, my dear friend Ankur came up with good news. His father, who worked in a government organization, was giving a bulk order for printed T-shirts for his workers to one the suppliers in Delhi. Ankur’s father was an open minded man, so we asked him to help and he happily agreed. With his reference, we called the supplier who accepted all our conditions; he had to as he couldn't afford to lose a major order from the government. After a few meetings, everything was fixed. It was time for some action.

Nights after nights were booked for the ‘ultimate gift’ as we called it. Ankur was the best guy I knew for Photoshop and he without losing his temperament worked late nights for the gift I would give to the girl I loved. But that’s what real Bros do. Our days were already booked for various classes and rehearsals, thus nights were the only option left that we could use for our creative work. So the concept was that we would use her already uploaded photos on facebook and put them together to form a beautiful collage and that would be sent for printing. But the results were not satisfactory. It didn't look too good.

After a long discussion which included serious talks, jokes and even fights; we came to a solution. It was to go out and explore some creative places; maybe we could get an idea. We headed to various art galleries in Hauz Khas and Noida, some old monuments and even a handicraft fair. To be true, handicrafts fair was of no use, except we spotted some really pretty girls there. But in total, it was a great experience. I had now started to observe creativity and deep thinking behind everything. ‘I was the new Sherlock in town’ (a little exaggeration intended). A number of photos were taken and the idea was finally in. Photoshop has some very detailed features in which layers after layers could be overlapped. So we formed a collage of the photos taken from the trips and it came out beautifully. Then I chose her best picture and placed it on that collage covering major portion of the poster and other two pictures that were merged with the collage. One on them colored to old style red shades and it started appearing like a painting of a princess hung on a wall. The other appeared from the ground in various blue shades in the ‘delusion form’. A space on the top left side was used to quote one of her status updates. Some hidden texts were also engraved in the collage that was to be discovered with time. After three more sessions and various editing, color & style revisions, clipping at sides and final polishing, the great poster was done.

I went to the dealer and hand it over to him specifying the dimensions of the T-shirt and the poster. A week later after about 30 phone calls, few emails and three more visits to Delhi, he finally handed over the packet to me just two day before her birthday. Nervous about how it has turned out, I slowly opened it. It was one of the most satisfying moments of my life. I was simply flabbergasted when I had a first look on it. I wish I could show it to you but it requires a private permission, which I will not get. So I can just try express it in words. It created a true belief in me for Art. I now try to think creatively rather than theoretically.
When I showed it to Ankur, he too was very happy. We packed it, which too was a clever design. It didn't gave any hints whether there was a T-shirt inside or something else or anything at all. The day finally came, I presented it to her. First she thought there is nothing in it, but then I told her to open it alone at her place. I was in mess having dinner when she called. “Oye! It’s so beautiful. I just loved it.” were her first few words, the conversation continued for a little while. When it was over, I was contented. After more than a month of hard work, liters of fuel, sleepless nights and a big hole in my pocket, I got the reaction I was longing for. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it.

This whole mission made me realize two things. One is about the ‘Bro code or True Friendship’. Other is about ‘Art’, for me it was this T-shirt or maybe Love, for you it might be something else. ‘Anything we do with passion that we enjoy doing, to create something ravishing, unique and beautiful is how I would define Art.’ It can be anything not just painting or drawing. It can be a striking new mobile phone, a mesmerizing landscape, a beautiful flower, a computer tablet, a stunning car or an attractive girl. There is art in everything. Steve jobs believed that a good product is created with the intersection of Art and Science. I never fully agreed before I actually experienced it. Finally, being a science student all I can say about Art is that Science is never complete without Art and Art just gets better when comes along with Science.

2. The Back-up option

You must have thought that this is a dead blog now and all my spirit to write has fallen down the drain. Well you are not totally wrong, this blog was kind of hibernated. After publishing the previous post, my exams started. It’s not that I was studying from dusk to dawn putting my entire ass in the books; rather I was wasting time doing simple nothings and never had the heart to do something productive. Actually exams are something where we don’t study much, but our mind becomes paralyzed to think of anything else other than exams. And fortunately after exams, I went on a biking trip with a 'homie'( a word referred to friends who are even better than your best friends), so I hope you will understand the complexity of the situation. Ok, enough of these lame excuses for my laziness. Let’s start with the story.

3^rd Semester. End Term Examinations

All three of us were sitting in my room having the awesome event of “Group Studying”. The aforementioned event is traditional practice where you study less (almost zero) and gossip more (almost all the time). Next day I had to face my Data Structure exam.

After studying for about two hours, we all were restless, so Satyaprakash started to narrate his stories or more accurately – his love stories. The stories in which he is the heroic stud, moreover a Casanova hitting and picking up chicks from all over the town and making out in the wildest of the places. Though the stories were very interesting but they were all far cry from reality. So, after a while we all told him to “SHUT THE FUCK UP.”

Thus, we started studying, but, as far as studies are concerned, complete concentration for half an hour feels like ages. I could not resist and asked Sahir, “How much growth have you made in your scene?” He was perplexed at first but as we shared same frequency, he understood what I was talking about.

“Hmmm, nothing much, we chat occasionally, actually this is her twelfth standard, so you know boards, her parents want her to remain away from the internet. That’s why.” he sounded helpless and a little sad.

On the other hand, my love for the lake girl was in full swing and I had no idea what the fuck was going on in her head.

“Yaar. You have never told me how did you started chatting or to put it in better words, how did you started this online dating? I mean there must be many guys on that chat box, then how come she chose you?” I was really very curious to understand this mystery about Sahir.

“Hehe… It happened just like that.” He was now smiling, maybe thinking about that very day, but keeping his image of a secretive person, he gave me this silly answer. It was getting very irritating.

“Would you stop fooling around and tell me what happened or the secret services will fire you for letting the next big thing out?” Yes I was very much irritated.

“It’s nothing much dude. I sometimes used to visit this site and one day I saw this chat box. It was actually a common chat box where anyone could write anything. Then I saw this name called 'Ishi' his smile widened. What the hell. Love seriously screws up your mind. I say this because I was in the same state as he was. Whenever,I thought about her, I felt awesome and maybe I even smiled.

“So, how did the chat initiate?” I was waiting for the ultimate suspense to uncover. An answer that would change my entire online dating life. Yes, I was thinking too much.

“Actually people in the chat were busy flirting and abusing each other. I started chat with this girl. She liked me and then we moved to a chat box for private chatting where two people can chat in private.”

One thing I concluded about Sahir that day. He sucked at narrating stories. Satya was maybe a fake, but he was an amazing story teller. He could bind his listener and entertain them, specifying each and every detail.

“Oye stop it. Who will tell the details?  What the hell did you utter, that she found you interesting enough to open up a private chat with you?  And this time please tell me like a sane human being.” I literally begged this time.

“You are such an ass. You want to know in detail, ok then listen. Long long time ago.” I gave him a furious look.

SAHIR’s NARRATION

“Ohh, I exaggerated a bit. At that time I was in twelfth and she was in tenth, so we both had our board exams in that session and we both thought that the site would be of some benefit. Yes it proved out to be, because I found her there. I started the chat with a simple hello. She answered. She answered because every guy who found a girl in that chat box either started with ‘I love you’ or any other nympho shit. I talked normal and maybe genuine. Actually a funny thing happened, when she asked my name and I answered ‘Sahir Arora’, she was quite surprised and told me that her full name is ‘Ishi Arora’ which means we both shared the same surname.”

“Oho...  Arora !!! That means you are my wife.” I joked.

“You can be a brother too.” She attacked back. I was taken aback by this missile.

“I don’t think that would ever be a scenario.” I was curiously waiting for her reply.

“He he” what the hell does she meant by this “he he”. But I then I asked.

“Let us chat in the private chat box. This one is too creepy.” What would she answer?

“Ok.” Rajat gave me an expression of appreciation.

“Then we chatted and chatted about almost everything. From her favorite shopping destinations to her favorite books, music, places and how rich she was. No she never boasted anything like that, but both her parents were working in investment banks at high posts. Now you can make out how much money they made. She had already seen more than half of the world. Now I was feeling very small, very poor. Like a beggar dreaming of a princess. But she was sweet, really very sweet.

She asked about me but I had nothing fancy to tell about. My life sucked. I had not even been to all the tourist spots in India, forget about the world. My life was limited to the comfort zone of my home, or the discomfort zone of school, nothing else. I thought of writing fancy stuff that I thought would impress her but I dropped the idea. I told her about my normal boring life. In return, she sent me many smileys. The chat that day continued for about two hours. For me this was a big achievement. I had already fallen for her.” Rajat passed me a smile which conveyed that “Yes you are in love”.

Rajat was giving me a puppy look, he wanted to hear more. I remained silent, lost deep inside my thoughts.

“Then?” Rajat had to bring me back to the real world.

“Then? The frequency of chats increased, we used to chat all day long during holidays. I used to wait for her to come online, she waited for me. Believe me she did. Then we moved to Facebook, she already had an old FB account. I never really liked FB so never cared of making one but for her I made an account.”

“To hell with you bitch. You don’t have a FB account. Who are you lying to?” Rajat blurted out, shocked.

“I have one. It’s hidden. She is the only friend in the list. She knows it.”

“Are you seriously a boy or some pretty chick who doesn't want random friend requests? I mean seriously, which normal male will keep a hidden Facebook account?” It was quite hard to digest this stuff for Rajat.

“Look dude, if you seriously are one and doesn't have any other strange stuff hidden inside those shorts. Please continue and finish the story fast before I pass away with inability to take so many shocks.”

I smiled and continued, “On her Facebook account I saw her photos. Yes, she was beautiful and cute and amazing. And she had travelled half of the World.” Rajat rechecked the photos; he told me that girl was maybe not a hot bombshell but she was quite beautiful. He was partially correct. I found her hot too. He also read some of the chat which I showed him, the chat made him believe that she likes me.

“This continued for two years, we still chat, not that often as she will have her twelfth boards this year and her parents are pretty much concerned about it.” He explained half heartily.

“Did you go on a date?” asked Rajat with even more curious face.

“No?”

“Asked for her number?” he again asked, a little sad but still curious.

“Many times.”

“Thank God. Did you get it?”

“Nope.”

“WTF. Then she is playing around with you brother. She is just keeping you as a sweet safe guy back up option.” Rajat was concerned, but he was no pro about chicks or relationships, so I did not took him seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“If she had any feeling for you, she would have at least wanted to go on a date with you, and she has not even given you her number.Which means you are on the hook!”

“You will not understand, she says that it is good this way and she want to concentrate on her studies and we will date when she joins college.”

“Ok dude. But don’t be a back up option.”

“You are crazy. How can I be? And I will never be on the hook.”

“Your choice.”

BACK TO MY NARRATION

It’s our third year now. Sahir and I have different subjects, so we never study together and hardly get time to discuss each other’s life, also our friends are mostly restricted to our classmates now. Fortunately, I met him last week, about three days before the exams at the hostel canteen. We gossiped for about two hours that day. He told me that Ishi is now in a Delhi University college, they chat occasionally, about ones in about three or four months when she comes online. He still doesn't have her number and they have never dated.

Yes, he had let himself be the ‘Back - up option’.  And he is still going on with it from past three years.

Random Fact :- I managed to grab a ‘F’ in my Data Structure exam.

1. The Virtual Love

You think you can find your love on facebook.

On an economically auspicious day of February 2004, a friend of Mark Zuckerberg came to him asking about the new girl in his class. Mark at that time was working on this "to be super addictive cyber drug" called “Facebook”. In no time the idea struck his mind, and now facebook is one of the most visited site on this planet.

The idea was ‘Relationship status’ and ‘Interested in’. He was a smart ass, so he was aware of the fact that the users of his site would mainly have two biggest issues in their life: Getting laid and finding the one. In his country, first option covered the major role. As time passed, facebook became a hunting ground for hot girls, rich boys and people whose orientations differ from most of the population- the homosexuals.

Back on August 23,2011.

She passed through the back door of School of ICT (my college) and I fell in love with her.

This is just an outline, to find out what the correct situation was at that time. We have to go in detail.

I was there with two of my friends, taking a walk beside the lake, cracking lame jokes at each other when I saw her. The back door of ICT is about fifteen meters from the lake. I was caught eying her by my friends and soon I was the topic of the jokes. To prove the Casanova like qualities in me, I boasted to my friends that it’s not a big deal for me to get her number. They challenged me and I accepted the challenge. She was with two of her friends and they were moving towards the library in the opposite direction, my friends were looking for me to complete the task I boasted about. Gathering courage, I got up. Showing no sign of worry on my face, I moved toward the girls who were busy chatting among themselves, and kept walking, my friends were looking at me in anticipation, hoping a slap on my face. And when I was just 5 meters away, she turned and looked at me.

Within seconds, I looked away, changed my direction and moved briskly to my friends. They started laughing their guts out, mocking at me. The girls looked around suspecting hoarse laugh and saw us. I tried to hide my face from getting noticed. They went off. I became the protagonist of mockery for about a month and it remained their favorite incident to narrate whenever they ran out of jokes.

A month later, when I introduced the same girl to them, she was told about the incident and they did it with perfection as if it was their foremost duty, the contents were spiced up and my reactions were exaggerated. They are guys after all.

Satyaprakash and Sahir Arora were the two eye witnesses of the famous- ‘The Casanova lake incident’. Satyaprakash was an extrovert, Sahir Arora was an introvert and with them was an all time mediocre. Yes, you win this time. It's me. Throughout my life, I tried to excel in everything possible and turned out to be a mediocre in each of them. But it still gives me satisfaction, as I hardly cared on being mocked at what all I did. At least I did that crazy stuff when there were people around who end up doing nothing in life in the fear of getting crushed under the peer pressure.

So, we were talking about the witnesses, Satyaprakash boasted about all that he could have done on that following day. But we will talk about Satyaprakash later, and believe me you will have too much of him. Here is Sahir Arora, maybe an “aryaputra” but even his close friends did not have any idea about him. Besides being an introvert, he was also very secretive, but in no case does this mean that he was dumb in any sense. The guy was a genius; he never scored out of the crowd but still managed a CGPA of more than 7.0 where I was in the Chetan Bhagat’s fan club of the 5 pointers. I am not calling him a genius because he scored more than me but because the guy knew what he studied, unlike other engineering students who concentrate only on the overview. He wanted to know things in detail and he managed it too. He never studied too many topics but the ones he knew, he knew it in detail.

This is the story of how the genius guy fell for “The Virtual LOVE”.

So, my dear readers.

Let me tell you what virtual love actually is – The term “Virtual love” must have been invented as soon as the word networking was known in the small talk. This implies to anyone / anything stupid on Internet to which your dopamine secretes. It can be a girl next door with a misleading profile picture on facebook, or maybe a guy who promises to be a rockstar in his account and manages to fool a teenager sitting thousand miles away, who would eventually fall in love with him. (Here, I am just referring to dopamine; Internet is full of material to activate your other important hormones as well but keeping the decorum of the blog I am not going into it.)

In starting of this post, I talked about the possibilities of finding love on facebook. Alas ! there are no possibilities. But Sahir found his love on a social networking site.

Which one ?

Orkut.

Oh! common, it’s a wrong answer.

Sahir was a CBSE delhi product. So, if you CBSE guys remember, CBSE’s management ones made a site to help all the students who were ready to commit suicide every now and then. It never helped though. Apart from the result, which was obviously a big turn off, there was something which made this site even more popular. It was not counselors, notices or forum. It was a chat section made with high hopes, that students all across the country would discuss important questions and topics to prepare for the exam. The so believed "bright" students might help the "weak" students, but, it obviously served a different purpose. It was a chat bar full of online young blood, with nothing to do. The chat mostly contained abuses to each other which reached to the level of mothers and sisters. It was just a time pass for Sahir, until he found his love there.

Or what he thought it was. 

Prologue

Prologue

The Sun eventually shines ..... however dark the night has been. 

To all males and all females.

This is not the first STORY I am narrating, it’s not my first BLOG either. But if we combine these two simple things, we come up with something substantial ....  "My first story on the BLOG." I would like to thank myself for the same. The laziness I posses as a gift of God almost took me two years to actually start blogging from the time I started thinking about it.

It’s been more than two years when I first started to stay away from my home. Well it may sound sad to few, maybe tempting to those who have never experienced a life away from their home. But I am blessed to experience 'The best of both worlds' - My college life both as a Hostler and a Day scholar. With my home just 15 minutes drive from the University, I get to enjoy extra homely comforts along with hostel days when I want my friends to be around.

Maybe you are getting bored. So let me tell you what this blog is really about. Chuck it. You will know it eventually. Going back to where I was.

Where was I ?
In Hostel.

 Yeah! I am now back on the track, so during my stay in this glorious campus, ( mind you it’s just the campus I am talking about. Arrogant professors, engineering, boring lectures and Assholes are not taken into consideration)  I came across many breeds of people - Some were Good, Generous, Passionate, Hardworking, Geniuses, while others were  Not so generous people, Whining Perverts, Bitches, Jerks and Self-aggrandizing Assholes. But there is uniqueness about each one of them, that's how God has designed us, and the modifications we make, screws that design. During my stay in hostel I came across a number of students and each of them had something interesting with them. I was in an Ocean of Tales.  The stories that will make you feel better; some can even make you feel terrible. I cannot guarantee anything, except that I will be your narrator till the time, you are my reader.

Each unique identity has a network of hormones secreting  in their bodies, some has excess of 'Dopamine', so the world calls them " Die hard romantics " while others have excess of 'Testosterone and Estrogen' and get famous as  "Nymphomaniacs' or 'Tharkee'. I was more of the prior case and it sucked big time. The girl I loved once told me that she thinks all boys are 'tharkee' . At any time, she was wrong. It’s just that most of them are misjudged and people agree to anything a pretty chick utters. Boosting my ego, I disagreed.

Most days of the year are unremarkable with no cosmic significance. They begin and they end, with no lasting memories made in between. Most days have no impact, on the course of a life. August 23 was a Wednesday.

She walked past the door at the back of School of ICT.

You are genius, it’s a love story. Maybe the same silly piece of shit that they sell in market nowadays.

Or maybe NOT.

But then I thought of writing on Lokpal, Corruption, Frauds, Psychology, Justice and India when I dropped the plan as only the bore ones like me would read on any such subject. In our late teens and starting 20s, all we care about is getting laid or finding the one.

I could just grab a glimpse of her and I was in love.
The statement written above is purely lame and insanely silly, it’s something even I cannot digest. The biggest problem with my country is that Bollywood romantics have totally screwed our minds and has raised our expectations for a perfect love story. But believe me, real life has worse to offer. Things that either rip you apart, or make you strong solid.

My mind at that moment had only one thing, "I fucking need a Girlfriend". I was tired of being single. When I saw her, my mind started to analyze. Right height. Right complexion, Avg. figure (too slim), Beautiful eyes, very beautiful eyes. She would do.

My mind indicated the gland responsible,   Dopamine was secreted and Yes! Now I was in love.

Or Maybe NOT.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                          Believe me…. The Sun eventually shines.

                                                                          To be continued, be in touch.