An idea whose time never came!

It was a day in making for many days now... Today, I tore off all my personal diaries. All 8 diaries. 20 years of writing. About a thousand pages. Everything. 

In between, I looked at some pages. Somethings were always fresh in memory. Some faded thoughts reappeared. Some forgotten names were recalled. Almost everything made me a bit of emotional, a bit of nostalgic, a bit of sad, and a bit of irritated. There were friends, strangers, estranged friends, friendly strangers, teachers, students, loves, laughs, moments, fights, loves, kisses, hugs, tears, and everything that had been there in the past 20 years! 

While tearing everything away, I kept some random pictures or thoughts in between. Like, in the struggling years, a page had only this written - "I am an Idea whose time has not come!". Another page had random thoughts written, like this one: 

And I wrote not on pages and margins only but sometimes, even the diary covers had some messages. Like this: 

And in between those pages, there were the stories of my Lucknow days, when life was shaping up, my IIMA days, when life was full of events and challenges, my longing for Lucknow and then, disenchantment with Lucknow, Indore and IIM Indore days, my travels to different places and for different purposes. There were the stories of all the love I got, all the love I missed, all the loves I kissed, and all the love that couldn't be. There were the lists of my happiest memories and the best moments of life and the best people in my life and the loveliest loves of my life and the superpowers I want and the places I wanted to visit and the milestones I wanted to cross.... 

In essence, like I wrote in this blog post here about my autobiography, today - I destroyed all the notes for that story. Pretty soon, I am planning on deleting on a lot of other stories and stuff as well. Why - you ask? Because I am an idea, whose time never came. And never will. At the end, all that remains is this - a bag full of wasted life, forgotten memories, and ideas, whose time never came!!!

Nanaji

Aaj Nanaji ka birthday hai. 

It used to be a special day for all of us in the family. I don't remember when it ceased to be special. Nanaji is no more. I don't even remember when did he pass away. All I remember is that I was heading to take a class that morning when Didi called. I took the class, I took the lunch, and the day went on as usual. I did not meet him in his final few years. I guess it all went downhill after he moved away from this room, where the picture below was taken. After that, distances were huge and he was not himself ever again. I was not close to him in his final years and did not see him in his final days. I don't know what would we have discussed in those days, as he was more bitter than usual and forgetful too.

I am also forgetting things now, some by design, some by default. But I remember that growing up, he had a huge influence on me. He told me tons of stories, I asked him tons of questions, and we spent so much time in intense discussions that the others in the family often wondered what we two had to talk about. Today, I also don't know what we had to talk about but all I remember is that those were some of my best discussions. 

Somethings that I do remember are that he wrote accounts, exercised daily, had a poor childhood, dropped out of school after his mother passed away, rose to the middle class with hard struggles, and loved Raj Kapoor. In fact, he was my window to Raj Kapoor songs and also, to Kundal Lal Sehgal songs. That is why I learned a lot of RK songs in my early years.

Yesterday, I heard a lot of those same songs again.

Yesterday, I sang those songs till my jaw hurt.

Yesterday, I wish I could sing a few more songs with Nanaji.