XIC Valedictorian Speech 2013

Good evening.

I have spent the last week attempting to find the right words to express to each of you how proud I feel in representing the graduates today in the acceptance of this honor, how 8 short months have enriched my life and how I am both intimidated and inspired by the brilliance I have witnessed in each of my classmates.

I attempted to use a metaphor to tell those of you who weren’t lucky enough to be students here about how studying at XIC gives you unexpected highs and lows much like a roller coaster ride- as soon as you think you can’t take anymore of having your heart in your mouth, the ride ends and you want to go back and start all over again.

But as I wondered what each of would be thinking of at this moment I realize for the first time that this is my very last task as a student of XIC, the last time we meet before taking over the world of communications and be written about; And so I start over.

I must, on behalf of every graduating professional today thank our parents who have pretended not to notice our surliness or absence depending on the deadline being chased, the support staff whose happy smiles every morning was the one assurance in this crazy year that the world was not ending, the board for helping us each discover ourselves and the faculty who have made us the confident communicators we are today, set to change the world.

A heartfelt thank you to each of you who graduate with me- I couldn’t have asked for a better set of sparring partners and friends to begin this journey with.

In my address to you today as the valedictorian of the class of 2013 I would like only to say- stay true and stay strong. The future is promised to nobody so go out and stake your claim. We are walking out into an ugly world where 5 year olds are raped but I believe, as should you, that the world is ours to change for the better.

Good luck and congratulations again. I still can’t believe it’s over but then, I'm told it's only just beginning.  

My mother

I sometimes smell that particularly flowery smell of sunshine- I can be in a sweaty compartment of the train, in a restaurant, in the canteen- and I feel like I've been thrown into another world. Time stops, my body is independent of my mind and I can do nothing but let fragments of a memory that I can barely remember take over.

There is a strange comfort in things that don't change. At 24 there is very little that hasn't changed and yet when I smell that mix of sunshine, starch and flowers I'm transported to a warm cocoon. I feel four again. I watch as my beautiful mother wears make up and combs her hair, watch as she stands in the middle of what looks like reams and reams of beautiful silk. I feel the cool breeze of the air cooler and the magic in the air as the puddle of silk on the floor rapidly disappears. Amma was always impatient dressing up, she would click her heals and swear at safety pins. I hardly blame her, there is a bewildering ritual in wearing grown up clothes. The click of heals, the touch of rouge, the right shade of lipstick and the precise fold of every pleat.

I watch as she carefully combs her hair and snaps at me for getting in her way or bringing food into the room- I'm a clumsy child and in my jaw dropping wonder I can't seem to balance my plate. Sometimes, and these were prize days, I would be called on to to be part of the enchanting ceremony. I would sit on the floor and yank on pleats so that Amma could tuck them in just right. She would then spray on that perfume- it was never the same perfume, I could tell by the bottles being of different colours- and yet it would be that same ambrosial bliss.

When I was a child I dreamed of growing up, of dressing to Naval balls just like my mother did, of being as pretty, as perfect. It's amusing how childhood dreams turn out. I don't yearn so much for any of that anymore, we live lives that are of mutual pride and yet so cosmically different; but sometimes, on that rare special evening I'll walk into my mothers room and pretend to watch TV as I take in the unchanged present and revel in the permanence of that smell.

I have "borrowed" a tidy sum of perfumes from Amma in the hope that I can conjure that moment on demand but it's never the same without my mother, her boxes of make up and those magical reams of silk.  

Of parks, bubbles and the life you deny yourself

There should be a word for it, somebody should make it up, the word to use when you can sell sorrow for companionship.

We live in an ugly world. What we see around us- the greed, the selfishness, the need to protect nobody but oneself- doesn't help cover the aesthetic flaws of the broken pavements with hungry crying children on it. We are so numb to every human suffering we see that, now, one feels worse for the dead rat being torn apart by a hungry crow than an old woman too old to lie on a bed, crying into her own naked shoulder begging for a morsel to eat.

We grow less patient and more numb with every day living the busy lives we do. We feel protected by the bubble we build locking out anybody who doesn't seem right. There is a sadistic joy in differentiating between the us and them; the them can be anybody- that boy who won't take the nail paint off his little finger, the woman on the train who can't contain her excitement about a new day. But that bubble gets empty. The people you surround yourself with echo the hollowness you build into your life and so you reach out, you let one hand slip out of the bubble and your wandering nervous hand has many takers. The ears in that hand are filled suddenly by those stories you chose to ignore, those wails you tuned out of.

Everybody has a sad story and suddenly everybody wants to tell you what it is. You pat yourself on the back for building a life free of such suffering and yet you watch doing nothing while that somebody will tell you of the horrors he suffers. You will watch every gesture he makes, listen to every changing tone in his voice, you analyse, critically, the truth of his story- the value it will bring to your next drinking session. You let your cold heart thaw and take in his suffering putting the colour back in your cheeks while beginning to realise that to this man, his suffering is his ticket into your bubble; a space you know you will not share with anybody who is not an echo of you.

You hand slips back into the bubble. Some disinfectant and a walk into a park with children who can count out money but can't do arithmetic drains out that story you heard, there is a babble of discontent that is so loud, it drowns out any truth you learnt. You laugh at the prospect of a person as broken as him finding his way into your everyday until you realise just how broken you are. You realise you traded your pain with him. You suffered his agonies as much as he suffered yours and your bubble is not safe anymore, fragile and easily shattered by the tears you fill it with.
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I'm listening to Jee Le Zaraa

Magic bus

In a comforting world there would be a midnight bus; A bus for the broken, lonely and dispirited. The bus would have no destination it would invite neither conversation nor silence. Nobody would compete, not for the happiest nor saddest, nor bravest stories. We would drive around and around knowing we are united among strangers; That heart break and sadness are not lonely, inescapable little cages.

I would like to think that it would be a magic bus. An open top bust that will let you see the stars through your tears, magical because no matter where you are it will always feel 12 degrees Celsius  You could wear a sweater , hold yourself, maybe cry into your sleeve and believe what you will.

I would wear my hair down, find the darkest spot and wrap my oldest shawl around me. I'd snuggle into my shoes and cry as though it were raining. I'd carry some music, the kind of music I'm too scared to listen to on a regular day because of the truth in the writer's sadness. Maybe I'd whisper along. I would love my sadness on this magic bus, I would know it's a part of who I am. I wouldn't need to find excuses then and we would all drive round and around for hours until we stopped counting. I wouldn't carry a phone, or maybe the magic bus would jam all signals.

Airports are much like my magic bus. Everything is temporary- A collection of strangers who don't belong, so much left incomplete.

Secrets

You and I we have a secret don't we. A secret that we won't share- about walking on clouds and dreaming with the rain; Bliss we can't talk of. You tell me it will change one day and I learn to keep secrets from you. It's a funny world we live in, full of whispered words, full of love too shy for company.

One day, I dream, I will wake up where the world is lit up by a rainbow, fields green and beautiful and the air will smell of happiness. I think the rolling hills will tell our stories no longer secrets. We won't be shackled to hushed whispers and signs, no more bitterness from words we can't say. I will want nothing to change and you will keep nothing from me. The world will know that you and I can walk on water that we can sing to the rain.

If you could see what I want and I could hear what you know, would the world be a different place to live in? 

Colaba is now home

Spicy Bombay