looking at life

through the lense of kaleidoscopes

twisting and turning and frantic

but fun.

looking at life

through the lense of kaleidoscopes

is seeing the colors...

I'll never be done.

looking at life

through the lense of kaleidoscopes

blocking the gray, the dark

and the sad

looking at life

through the lense of kaleidoscopes

is avoiding the real life.

now is that so bad?

as i grow my eyes open

and one still just sees

the happy

the colors

the frantic

the breeze.

the other eye opens.

perception is new.

this world is different.

what do i do?

where are the colors?

where's all the fun?

I'm not ready to leave.

what can be done?

i force my eye shut

refusing to see

the world that's out there

I stick to the me

the me I was yesterday

the me who is stuck

in the swirling kaleidoscope

where there's magic and luck.

looking at life

through the lense of kaleidoscopes

is ignoring the bad, looking through

just one eye

looking at life

through the lense of kaleidoscopes

is a life with just notion

am I living a lie?

I dont wanna grow up.

i dont want to face the responsibilities of adulthood. I dont wanna deal with bills. And taxes and whatnot.

i want to stay this way, young, naive and carefree. This age where I dont care what people think about me. This age where I can do whatever i want. This age when I can have all the fun i wish to have. i dont want to give up on my silly dreams. I wont stop looking up at the night sky and thinking, first star i see tonigh, let my wish come true tonight. Or thinking that the big coat in the corner of my room is a scary monster. Or simply getting up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons and eat my cereal.

i dont wanna grow up.

let me stay young and free.

i splish splash

i dilly dance

I sing a song of sixpence

The crowd moves in a rhythm I am not used to: stiff and linear. I can tell they’re thinking for when one interrupts their thoughts, a swear word escapes the mouth. I gasp.

I push through, I am not going in that direction. A puddle. Oh Joy. I jump in. i splish splash.

“F-ck you!” screams the one who got sprayed. I crouch low and whimper. The blow does not come. Adults only hit children and I am not a child, am I?

I withdraw from the crowd and walk on the thick railings, humming a tune as I lose my balance. I fall. I laugh. New battle scars. I’m proud. i sing a song of sixpence.

I meet my friends. We’re a cheery lot. You’re too cheery I tell myself. I keep as reserved as I can. Why does adulting have to be boring?

A song is playing. I sway a bit. i dilly dance. Oh look. I’ve lost my ‘friends’.

Nevertheless I soak up the sun. It’s my birthday today but I know I have not aged.

i splish splash

i dilly dance

i sing a song of sixpence

You have surely heard of the periodic table, haven’t you? It’s the crux of chemistry.. The entire subject fitting into one page! Isn’t that unbelievable?

Every possible element in this world, you can track it in the periodic table.

It’s fun, no doubt. But it is definitely not fun before exams.. Remembering a 100- something elements with their properties, reactions, special chemicals, exceptions to the rule..

I am a great, a very great student. I don’t like mugging up! And there goes my periodic table.. As I don’t remember anything at all during the test!

Well... That day, I had accompanied my father to one conference on ‘periodic table’.. And I had decided to spend the day yawning at the presentations.

I actually heard nothing that took place in the first part of the seminar.

In the second half, a professor goes up to the podium and starts speaking-

″ My presentation is about young people. It’s a bit different but I think you’d enjoy it.. Actually, I made this presentation because a certain person I knew, always called us ‘grown up child’. He was a doctor and he used to treat children as well as young lads like us, way back... I used to complain, I am not a kid anymore, he just smiled. He used to say that everyone is a ‘grown up child’. It is very important to remember that thing while you look at my presentation."

This professor, in his late fifties started from the birth of the universe and travelled every bit of story related to the Periodic Table. It was just amazing.. Superb.

After his presentation was over I went up to him to say that I had loved it all throughout.. I was the only young person in the room, considering that everyone there had to be lecturers and professors.. All old and aged. Incidentally, I told him about my intense fear of forgetting the Periodic table in my exams.. He laughed and said, " You know what? Make friends with colors, you'll know chemistry better! Color the exceptions, a different hue for a different group. Color the similar elements based on what you are studying- you will be able to relate better and stop bothering about remembering!"

I was in awe.

I did that too! And, yes he was absolutely right..

Looking from a child's point of view always seems crazy yet is the simplest approach. The professor taught it to me. A 'grown up child' himself, I suppose he made me a 'grown up child' as well!!

His mother was a crack whore. He was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. CPS took him away and awarded him to the state. He was raised in a state hospital with a slither of a chance to be adopted. He was "slow," but had endearing attributes. He was angry. He realized he had no parents, no brothers or sisters, aunts or contacts.

One day an Irishman adopted the black young man. He also had previously adopted a female child a bit younger. Jonathan was sixteen and horny. You guessed it.

The father beat the young black man and tossed him back to the state. He became too old to stay. He hit the streets. He resides in a state of rebellion at age thirty. He is a child in the mind and afraid of his future. He is lovable when he is not flipping staff a bird and saying "fuck you bitch" to be tough.

There was no stage in which he felt popular and loved unless he created it in his immediate environment. He became an expert at that. He discharges in two days and I will miss the man child, Jonathan McBay.

She seemed to have it all, loving parents, accepted to a reputable university, on track to a solid career path. Keri met Tim her freshman year of college. They decided they wanted to marry. She felt that she could not be a parent and work full-time so the plan was she would complete her degree and work until she and Tim were ready to start a family.

Tim gets accepted to medical school and Keri follows him to get her graduate degree. However, one year into the program, she decides that her chosen field is not for her and questions everything else in life, including whether she wants to spend the rest of her life with Tim. After a year back home with her parents, she decides to go through with the wedding and enroll in a different graduate school near where Tim goes to medical school.

Keri and Tim marry, she gets her degree but decides not to follow through with her internship and works menial jobs while Tim does his residency. Finally, Tim finishes his residency, they buy a big house in the suburbs in a different state, and Keri spends all day shopping. She is lonely in this new community and misses her friends and family back home.

Sure enough, the marriage ends due to her depression and the obsessive behavior that follows. Tim keeps the house and Keri moves back in with her parents in her childhood bedroom. Her dream of being married and having a family is over but she's so depressed and unwilling or unable to move on. She has one excuse or another for not sticking with school or a job and years pass by. She is currently 48 years old, unemployed, and still living with her parents. It is sad. She does not want to deal with being a grown up so she regressed and is currently living her teenaged life, dependent on her parents.

My friend in office was telling me to buy mobile. But I was thinking that maintaining it is a problem. Always I have to carry it everywhere- I was thinking like that. It seemed to be a burden to me. During some function in the hall, it was asked,

Who is not using mobile?

Two people were there and I was the third one.

Once I was admitted to the hospital and then was sent home. Even then I had much weakness and I had to be lying down on the bed for 3 months. At that time I learnt mobile just to vile away the time.