One of the top thoughts amounting to suicide, I read yesterday, is “If I died tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter to anyone anyway”. How about “I matter to me”? Isn’t that both capitalistic and warm at the same time? Isn’t what you do with your life, your own problem? Of course, there will be a massive drag of expectations, deviations in events and 'destiny’. But still, what you live for is your concern. The universe doesn’t give a shit. Why should anyone else? The will to live should be your own – if you kept looking to others for a reason to survive or excel or experience, you’ve got a problem. I am able to say this today, with the silent voices of two girls with me – they helped me realize and live the truth: to each, his own.

Love marriages are such a risky business. In fact, I think the whole concept of romantic love is a myth. A lie we want to believe, a story we want to have faith in. Is love as depressingly important to our faith as God? Maybe this is why we keep justifying the flaws in the theory – “falling in love is not the same as being in love”, “love is suffering”, “love is a test of our will and strength”. Nonsense. We should stop living life’s inevitabilities and ugliness in the name of romantic love. There is no such thing. There is only attraction and companionship – both explainable, both logical. Attraction is specific to a personality type, and companionship is a fundamental need of human existence. I highly doubt the truth in statements like “I cannot live with anyone else”, or “I will die without him”. Wake up.

“How did you manage that??”, I was asked when I updated a friend on the whole RCA story. It has been a long and tiring episode of my life, now that I think of it - starting from my guts to even think of applying to the RCA, the miracle of the portfolio, the journey halfway across the world to an interview, the successful admission that broke my heart, and finally, and most unbelievably, the scholarship. Man. I still cannot explain the portfolio! I know it didn’t just ‘happen’ – I worked hard, really hard for it. What I cannot swallow, though, is the drive, perseverance, patience, self-expectation, and grit. What was I thinking, going to the interview - knowing that I had no money for the course fees?? I think it was more a desperate attempt to continue to pursue a dream, more than my hope of achieving it. It never occurred to me, how I might work at the studio where I was interviewed – only thought of taking in as much as I could, never to return. It was the dream. It is the dream. I’m living it, and I’m desperately looking for someone to thank. Thinking of all this, I wondered how best to answer my friend’s question. Trying to put all the truth into a concise set of words, I replied, “I simply tried.”