Excerpts of a love story of some kind

“There are so many moments to remember and sometimes I think that maybe we're not really people at all. Maybe moments are what we are.... Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.” - Markus Zusak


We lay there with our heads hard against the concrete. The hard cold concrete. Soft music filled our ears and the city stars shone above our heads. I was being her friend in this moment and I didn't even know how I was doing it, I just was. The songs began to describe the moment even more aptly and the city stars began turning into shooting stars.


She was crying, bitterly.


I haven't seen her in this light, ever. Is this what she was like when we fought?


She sobs and repeats under her breath how terrible a person she is and I cant see how so. I want to hug her and touch her and kiss her tears away but I'm scared. I am confused and spellbound because I have never seen her so vulnerable and yet so guarded at the same time. She cradles herself in her arms against her chest as if trying to make sure she doesn't physically fall apart with every crying breath.



After a while the music sounded louder as her sobs subsided and turned into deep breaths and questions. I answered them, and she giggled. We began to talk and I noticed she wasn't looking at me, and then she did.


All those seconds and minutes and songs became a moment, one that lasted through the crying, consoling and ended in a kiss.


It was poetic and beautiful and the emotion was palpable.



She called me a career choice, she called me a muse, an idiot, she also said she hates me without any conviction in her tone or in her eyes but I knew her heart.


I could describe her in many ways but horrible isn't one of them.


'What do we do now?' she asked and answered her own question better than I ever could.


'We do what we do, we be us.'

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.  All Rights Reserved. 

Wonderful People

Prolusion

It’s a happy day and I feel grateful. It’s a day to smile without a reason. A productive day. A day with a minor sense of achievement. A day where the music sounds nicer and cheesecake tastes better.

“Any resemblance to any person dead or living in the following essay is not a coincidence. Wonderful people do actually exist”

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People are nice.

Even the worst of them can turn someone’s day around when least expected.

I am writing this for myself and for all you people out there who pretend to be happy but when it comes down to it you’re full off cynicism, bitterness and hate. Where you want to do things to ‘get back’ at people who hurt you, or seek out revenge as a scorned lovers towards someone who cheated on you, or hold things against one another. The worst part is we don’t have feelings like these toward just anybody but towards people we have loved or love. In most cases its still love, but a bad toxic kind of love which leads to hatred and the other aforementioned feelings and qualities.

Everyone has had good and bad days and good and bad relationships. It’s quite pathetic because we remember the bad more than the good.

I believe however, that there should come a day in everyone’s lives where they get sick of the feeling and decide to make the little things count. It can be that one nice thing that can get you through the week.

It can be someone bringing you chocolate éclairs when you most need it. Or that moment when someone makes you sign a scrap of paper which you have a little piece of writing on in the hope and faith that one day you will be a world famous writer.

When you feel like its one of those crappy days some person who you only say ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ to can wall post you a link that brightens up everything.

A ‘Goodnight’ text sent from the same person everyday who you haven’t met in forever.

A note saved on a phone full of all your favorite things. Things even you forgot you liked.

Also, have you ever had a day so terrible that you need a friend to call you every few hours to check if you’re still crying or not? The calls don’t help much really, until that person calls you half asleep and tells you how wonderful you are in five sentences and hangs up. It can go a long way with someone.

How having a caramel donut brought to you at 8am? Or having a piece of cherry flavoured white chocolate change your day? Or maybe a phone call by a friend when least expected or maybe a schezwan vada-pav.

It’s that vibe you get from a friend who doesn’t understand what you love and why you love it but makes an effort anyway, or just lets you steal their rings instead.

Or when someone you properly hung out with for the first time holds their pee in just to wait to pay the bill.

Even wildly scripted letters, or badly sketched birthday cards. Having let someone experiment on your hair can benefit you a lot too. The simple joy of doing the ‘Macerena’. Oh and by the way did you know a status on Facebook about wanting to read a book, can make someone just have it delivered to you?

I would be lying if I said that it is the thought that counts. It’s not the thought, it’s the little things. These little things and many more of which I have not mentioned have gotten me through a lot, a lot being the differences I’ve had with these same people.

For all of the times we’re lost and for all of the things we’re not.

Someone is always something you aren’t and you are always something that they are not. It’s a lovely little cycle we have going.

It is the little things that go a long way with me. It makes your not so perfect picture worth looking at.

Oh, and you wonderful people out there.

You know who you are!

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.  All Rights Reserved.

Change: The process of waiting for a new chapter to begin.

The past two years have been as slow as they have been fast. Sometimes a month went by too quick, and at other times we could barely kill enough time to make it through an afternoon without getting immensely bored.

I think everyone has had their fair share of drama in these past two years.

Drama, love and friendships. All of these, out of which some have taken a turn for the better and the others for the worse.

Being sixteen and seventeen has been fun. I felt like the very clichéd phrase had come to be true ‘Old enough to know better, young enough to care a damn.’

These past two years were fun and easy. It was only after we were done with the partying and fun did we realize we had an exam the next morning.

I think I speak for quite a few people when I say we’ve mastered the art of studying an entire portion just a day before the paper.

With junior college came an increase in freedom. Things were different around us. People were different.

Life was good. Comfortable. With a familiarity of sorts, and with very little responsibility.

Life is still good.

We’ve all given our final 12th grade exams.

We’ve all celebrated the end of that era.

All that is left to do now is question the correction method as we face the outcome of our efforts.

I however, am not afraid of the outcome.

It’s the result of the outcome of our efforts that have got me thinking.

This summer has been the waiting room for what life has to offer us next. The world seems to be getting smaller day by day and yet seeming so big .The change has almost been palpable to me in the last few weeks and it has only built up.

It’s like the end of a great book.

The season finale of what was the summer of 2012.

However, it is the beginning of a new chapter in all our lives.

Time to make new friends, hold onto the old ones, make mistakes and move on.

Cheers to everyone who has turned 18 or will be turning 18 this year. 2012 is a pretty cool year to turn 18 in case the world does end.

A happy birthday to everyone who I have forgotten to wish or will forget to wish in this year despite Facebook, and in the words of Neil Gaiman

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.

The Endings

A sort of prolusion: I wrote this after finishing a truly wonderful book that would be recommended by many who love literature. It made me actualise how I've been judging the difference between a good story and a good book. And as you will see, I have mentioned, Inspired as a sentiment left by a good book. I mean, it got me to write this little piece right?

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When I read a book, throughout its chapters I'm wondering what' part of it is going to decide whether it's going to be good or bad. As one would come across parts, characters and sentiments that don't appeal to them. I do too, though there are also things that I get from it.


However from all the books I’ve read so far I'll have to say that the end is what draws me to my conclusion on sentiment or opinion toward any book along with the character attachment that the writer has built up for me, as a reader to enjoy. 

By 'end' though, I don't mean a happy ending, or concluding the book with what would make it good story, though the idea of a good story may vary from person to person. It is the last line of every book that leaves me with my decision. Even if the ending is implausible and the last line is one that gives me a feeling of which can only be described as a sort of freedom I feel in my chest and an involuntary 'wow' or a relieved sigh escaping my lips.


It means to me, that the writer has left a kind Impression on me. In more than just that of the writer’s literary genius. It makes it a good book.


Something more along the sentiments of exhilaration, happiness, wonder and curiosity are left with me. Sometimes I’m left motivated or inspired. Hopeful, or just with a smile plastered across my face. I'm even left tears in my eyes at times.
I read every last line of a book twice, sometimes even over and over again.


Why you ask?


Once for the story. Once for my decision on whether it's a book I'd recommend, as in good story or good book. And the rest of the times are to feel that freedom and whisper the involuntary 'Wow'.

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.

Ages of Revolution

I wrote this at the age of 15.

I was sitting at my dining table. I had taken a break from studying for my history prelim which was the following morning. I have always been a fan of history. My mother and I were having an argument about how my reluctance to eat home cooked food would soon result in consequences. As the argument heated up, in my head I simply referred to her as a tyrannical ruler.

This is when it all struck me.

This is a comparison between the different stages of adolescence and a few of my favorite revolutions in history

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The Renaissance which means ‘rebirth’, started in the late 1400’s and was carried out till the 1600’s. This too in a way was a revolution. There was expansion of trade and voyages which led to the discovery of new sea routes and made the Europeans interact with many different races and nations. These foreign lands and the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome were their inspiration to a bright and better future.

Similarly, for us, from the ages of 10 to12 we’re easily influenced by singers, actors, celebrities and other important people. This like the renaissance is the starting point for a bright change in our future. We should call this our learning era or our renaissance period. It all starts here.

However, this is the time where we also start questioning our authorities, exactly how people took to humanism and liberalism and started questioning the church and their feudal lords. This eventually led to the disintegration of monarchy. 

We too, would one day want to overthrow autocratic rule, or our imperialist authorities but there are two more revolutions or stages in our life that we have to pass through before we get there.

Let’s compare our nature to the industrial revolution, the Americans and finally the French. However let’s not forget the imperialists.

 The 17^th century, ages 11-13.

The different countries try to set up trade in different in many parts of the world, preferably the weaker ones.

We try to set up a social circle, try to look for a group of friends that we can stick too, we hope to impact, bring about a change in that tiny group. Maybe, even get a couple of people to listen to us and create a status for ourselves.

We call these different groups stereotypes.

In the 17^th century they called it colonies.

It is at this age where we determine our social status by the people we hang out with. And it was at that age that the Europeans showed of their military might to colonize the best land the one that supplied the most amounts of riches and benefits.

Our thoughts work the same way, we refuse to believe it does, but we only make friends if we know that we will benefit from them. Not financially or materialistically, but emotionally and for our social benefit.

So you see we have the same matter of interests in the 21^st century that countries had in the 17^th century. The only difference is that theirs was for national benefit and ours is personal. They made progress and modernized themselves; we make progress and grow up.

I won’t emphasize much on the industrial revolution as we have nothing much to do with capitalism and exploitation at the ages of 13-15, but we do start getting our very first gadgets. The industrial revolution is also known as the ‘Machine age’.

It is not major thing, getting a cell phone or being the proud owner of an I-pod, but the impact these gadgets have on our lives is revolutionary. We get addicted to mere scraps of metal put together which help us communicate and entertain us. Fabulous isn’t it? The benefit of technology. That’s exactly what the industrialist thought when Hargreave created the Spinning Jenny or when James Watt came up with the Steam Engine, also let’s not forgets the ancestor of our cell phones, Graham Bell’s Telephone.

Many people might not agree to the fact that cell phones and other gadgets impacted their lives or way of living. Let me just say, certain historians also disagree that the industrial revolution is actually not a revolution. It was a progressive change. Even now the use of gadgets has been a progressive change, we started at 13, but it has a revolutionary impact same as the industrialization. Try giving up your cell phone by the time your fourteen and a half!

You can’t.

You’ll feel helpless.

At fifteen we have already set up our groups and by the 18^th century the imperialist nations had already set up their colonies. But at fifteen, we’re still only children.

Some bold enough teenagers will separate themselves and from these groups and start little groups of their own. In particular these are those older than us who have moved past our levels of immaturity and have grown up. Similarly certain people of the different European nations left their homeland and formed colonies in the ‘New World’, which later became known as the United States of America.

We look at people older than us and get inspired by their courage to make something of themselves. Our role models, we call them.

The world looked at the way America overthrew their imperial nation and got inspired to do the same, but they took their time. We’ll take ours.

There comes a time when we begin feeling suppressed by our authority and will do anything and everything to go against them. They often ask us why we grow up, in very subtle ways, not wanting us to move away and be theirs to take care of. This again is in the personal and emotional interest of our authority. They don’t want to suppress us but they don’t want to let go either.

However when it came to the British, they too merely wanted to protect America, the land, and reap benefits of that region. It was business, all in national interest.

Did the Americans believe that?

Do our role models believe that it’s all in the emotional interest of our authority?

Do we believe that?

The Americans protested and war broke out. Our role models rebelled and found their way out. America became independent. Our role models became adults.

On 14^th July 1789, the French could no longer handle their monarchial rule and revolted, and like the Americans they fought for their freedom.

We work for our freedom, study our way into adulthood. We, like the French were inspired by the Americans – Role models

We too, will one day be inspiration to those younger than us. Then it’s our turn to be the first federal government and their turn to be the cornerstones of our progressive modern world.

At adulthood, it all about world war one and two.

I’m not there yet, but I will say this.

It isn’t going to be pretty.

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.

Love by the first Stanza

"S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo."

Katie stood there in the corner of the room. Her lips smiling, her eyes dead and her brains usually asking her why she was doing this to herself. She was at a party. She barely remembered the last time she was at one of these things; she deliberately repressed that stressful, awkward social memory. It was a drunken memory; it only existed in little pieces and fragments in her mind.

It was the kind of company that made her uncomfortable. It was held in a large square-ish room with dim lights and music. The music wasn’t too loud or too soft. That was the only perfect part of the ambience.

She knew the people there, by the distinct features of their faces and by their different names. According to her however, all their minds were just the same shallow pools, everyone there had about as much depth as a puddle of water on flat surface.

There were people here that she liked more than other, despite their differences. They were nice people. 

Genuine people, but nothing like her. She was boring, self-righteous and would have rather spent an evening in a dungeon with books and rag like clothes, than with her former lover and his friends like she was doing right now. To add to that she was in a pair of high heels and a chiffon dress, and all she really wanted to do this Saturday night was to watch a movie at home and read into the early hours of the morning. Given a choice, this girl would pick the dungeon with the books over most things.

She stood there, a person in a literal social circle of people. She knew most of the faces, the ones she didn’t know she didn’t bother learning. She blocked all their voices out and lost herself in her own thought. She wondered if any of them would be able to speak to her about Orwell’s 1984. She longed for someone young’s opinion on his work before she began reading it.

“Wishful thinking” she murmured, only loud enough for her to hear.

Katie’s mind wandered off to a saying she once read. It was something about there being no advantage for a man who can read and doesn’t, over a man who cannot read; was it Mark Twain who said that?

Lost in her mind she heard an unfamiliar voice say some very familiar words.

“Let us go then, you and I, 
When the evening is spread out against the sky 
Like a patient etherized upon a table; 
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 
The muttering retreats...” And the words ended there.

This little poetic display was followed by several ‘ooohhs’ and girlish sighs, which came from the people around her.

The voice belonged to a boy, probably who was nineteen, twenty maybe. He stood in the same circle of people with Katie. His hair grew just a little over the top of his ears and slanted to the right over his forehead, nowhere near his eyes. His eyes smiled and held their own and his mouth was twisted into a smug grin.

It was annoying her.

Someone from the circle said in somewhat of an inspired tone “Whoa that was nice bro. Did you write it?”

“What do you think?” he responded.

The girl next to him held his arm and said “Stop being so modest! I know you wrote it.”

The impish grin didn’t leave his face, “Of course I did,” he said as he sipped from his glass. Trying to hide something that was much too obvious.

“Plagiarist.” Said Katie, loud enough for just about everyone in the formation to hear.

This was the first time she bothered to say something other than the necessary pleasantries she made with people. This, according to her though was a much needed word.

“I’m sorry, what?” said the plagiarist.

“Nothing, you write really well,” she said abruptly, trying to avoid even the slightest conversation.

He looked her in the eye, and that grin was more impish than ever, “Well, if you’re calling me a thief you owe it to me to tell me why, don’t you think so? “

Katie couldn’t believe someone would doubt her about such things. She turned away from him, looked at the people around her and subtly made an announcement, “I like writing too, and what he said here was truly wonderful and inspiring. I mean, I could almost hear what could fit those lines that he wrote; it just seems to be coming to me.” She paused and got a quick glance at his delightfully puzzled face.

“Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.. And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument..Of insidious intent..To lead you to an overwhelming question…“Katie took a deep breath “Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’ Let us go and make our visit.” She concluded.

There was a brief silence among them, before her ex said, “Wow, that was really nice.”

“I couldn’t think of a better fit” smiled the plagiarist

“Are you convinced?” she asked him.

“Yes, but it would be nice if you took heed of the point that I was trying to make.”

“Would that point be, pointing out all the obvious ignorance in the room, because that would be moot, since I’ve already proved you wrong”

“You, madam are an unexpected, pleasant surprise amidst it all. I bet you think I am too,” There it was again, the impish grin came back on his face.

“I don’t associate with people from the underbelly of the literary world, “she teased.

They didn’t notice that the people they were standing with all fell silent during their conversation.

The girl who still had her arm around his gave Katie the stink eye and asked what probably everyone was thinking, “Do you guys know each other?”

Before Katie could answer, the plagiarist moved the girls arm from his, “Regrettably, no” he said. He extended his hand toward Katie and said, “Ron.”

“Katie” she responded taking his hand, “it’s nice to meet you” said Ron.

“Likewise” she said, “Though I expected your name to be T.S Eliot, honestly, I’m a little disappointed.”

He was laughing and they were still holding hands, till someone cleared their throat. They let go and looked away from each other. The two of them however, had smiles on their faces. They didn’t say another word to each other for most of the night.

Katie’s smile would turn into a smirk from time to time.

They’d steal glances in each other’s directions. They knew this was more than just a casual meeting, they had built a connection. A connection, not based on infatuation, hormones, looks or personality. A connection built on words. There was something there, something which hadn’t been given a name yet, something that could be called ‘Love by the first stanza’

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.

The Magic of Humans

Do you know that feeling? The gut wrenching, heart breaking, soul pinching feeling that this world inevitably subjects us too?

Disappointment.

Yes, that’s the one.

People have a lot of ways of coping with it. Alcohol is one of them probably the most popular one. Religion is another. Then you have hobbies among all the other things.

There is this one thing though, that by popular judgment gives us a break from reality, and it makes us believe and hope and wonder. It makes all other sadness, and disappointment disappear. Some do this as a passion. Some as a hobby and the others because it just makes you absolutely awesome.

This thing I’m talking about has several different names and forms.

Magic and fantasy being two of the names, two of the best names.

Imagination a slightly more realistic definition. It’s more socially acceptable.

Then you have the harshest, realistic word. One that I’d consider an offense. Only the meanest, worstest of people would use that term for what we do. It’s called, Delusion.

This intangible, yet tangible thing that we call belief, hope and all other things that are wonderful comes in the various forms.

Popularly those forms are known as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The BFG, Some wonderfully mushy love story. Any other book, story, movie, show, musical or play. The other most hopeful forms of this delightful magic are the writers.

Think about it, everything important and note-worthy is written down, whether it is by a government official or a student in elementary school. Even history as we know it today wouldn’t be what it was, as we know it today if someone didn’t write it down. Writing is binding and eternal. And most of what I just acknowledged about what people write is because they have too, not because they want to, yet there’s a significant amount of truth to it. To those legal documents and classroom notes.

So could you possibly imagine how much weight there is, how much spirit and soul, heart and love that those who write with their own will pour out onto paper. However little fact it may contain, however little science. It exists, some part of it exists. It has to. There is no other way to explain it.

Writers or creators. Kings of their own worlds. Music players and actors. Readers and admirers. Our worlds of Jedi knights, dragons. Twinkling stars and thieves. Music, swords and spells. Love and magic, oh and what almost palpable forms of love and magic. The beauty of similes, metaphors and syntax. The twist of complexity of words with the most casual meaning. Or the simplest words which can portray the truth of all truths. Its there, and it happens.

We all believe in the love that Lily Potter had for Harry, the love Snape had for lily. The friendship that Lupin, Sirius, James shared. The tightly bound Weasely family. The brains and the beauty of Hermoine Granger, I mean, she got Viktor Krum right?

Or what about Roald Dahl’s trying to express through Willy Wonka, that it is ok to be different and weird. He expresses the rarity of someone like Sophie who knows that all giants are terrible and eat human beans, doesn’t mean that the BFG does too, she didn’t judge him. She helped set him free. She believed that all he wanted to do was blow dreams into houses. Wonderful dreams for people to dream.

Those wonderfully mushy love stories that I said are magical? The intensity they express about what something as simple as looking into someone’s eyes can do. The guy, who said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, knew what he was talking about. Or that electric feeling you get when you accidentally find your fingers touch that other persons fingers.

By ‘that person’ I mean the person you day dream about, and the person you tell your friends about. The person that makes you start your sentences when you talk about them with a smile and a sigh, a blush or a giggle.

What I mean is that, all the things, and everything magical has some truth. The reason we don’t see this truth is because we don’t believe in people anymore. We’ve lost that ability to see what sets us apart from everything alive in this universe.

We can love so much that we can experience selflessness. We can be brave like Harry. We can learn how not to judge people like Sophie. We could look into person’s eyes and see their soul if only we took the time too. It is possible to be with that particular someone that you like more than you like normal people without doubting them and we can get over doubt. Doubt won’t let us live the way we were meant too.

The truth that I was talking about which exists? We are it.

That is the only reason we believe it to be true.

The truth of magic lies in humanity. It lies within us.

I believe that the reason we believe in all the aforementioned sources of awesome is because subconsciously we know that people with the eccentricities like Jack Sparrow, Eragon and Harry are capable of existing.

I know that we can be magical if we want to. Lets not let the thought of 'We're only human' stop us from being great.

Even if we practice all this and it does go to waste, there is always the human virtue of forgiveness that has been written about. Or the one of being happy or content. The one of rising above things that are beyond your control or by leaving it in the hands of a supernatural being after you’ve given it all you’ve got.

If it doesn’t work, we could always just have a Lord of the rings movie marathon, watch lots of Disney movies, drink hot chocolate and read our favorite books. (Read Dr. Seuss, he doesn’t care how old you are. He can fix anything)

All I think is, that before we are completely doomed and begin to suffer from lack of good writing, good music and good company, vibrant imaginations, a conscience and the popular notion of good, mad fun and the concept of insanity being the new sanity we should make some MAGIC.

Then one day, when this world is run by Cyborgs and all of, or whatever remains of us humans is what we have written. There will be a lot of cyborgs to whom our race, would be a kind that they dream of and imagine and think of as we think of Dumbledore or Dobby. They’ll believe that we our magical and we’ll be right up there on the shelves among Dragons, Elves, Wizards and other things wonderful.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9104338/Uncle-Wal-was-definitely-Roald-Dahls-BFG.html

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.