A Bowl of Elusive

Mirza joined college in the summer of '08. As is usual for freshers, he soon found friends, other misfits and rebels like him. Praveer was one of those friends. Tall, lanky and sometimes awkward, Praveer was a talkative and charismatic young man. And he got along well with Mirza. Praveer and Mirza later ended up as roommates at Indira Niwas, but this story was from a time before that. Male bonding can be interesting to encounter, especially because guys are usually so uniquely messed up in the heads and mingle in such funny patterns. The first year of college was all about finding their footing for Praveer & Mirza. It was a time for their individual personalities to clash and gel with those of their classmates and their seniors, who by the way were no less interesting than our protagonists. Meet Himanshu, Vivek Pratap, Arshad & Deepak, the seniors inhabiting 4 adjacent rooms in the boy's hostel. They were sassy and intimidating, and eventually became role mo

In one of my earlier posts, I had revealed that I suffer from a condition called Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It’s a very common mental disorder where the patient experiences severe, ongoing anxiety that interferes with daily activities. Now I have spoken about it to many of my friends and acquaintances and the usual reactions are on the line of “try-to-calm-down” or “relax-its-all-in-your-mind”. What people fail to understand is the extreme nature of stress that I experience. EVERYTHING STRESSES ME OUT. WebMD says “Generalized Anxiety Disorder (or GAD) is characterized by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events with no obvious reasons for worry. People with GAD tend to always expect disaster and can’t stop worrying about health, money, family and work. The worry is often unrealistic or out of proportion for the situation. Daily life becomes a constant state of worry, fear and dread. Eventually the anxiety so dominates the person’s thinking that it

Preface: Mirza is a fictionalized and combined version of the several fascinating people I've met in my 28 odd years on this strange planet. I will be recounting various stories like this one, some weirder than others and I'm gonna call it the Mirza chronicles. Mirza was, for the lack of a better expression, “a regular Joe”. The only distinguishing feature about him was his height and build. But he kind of cancelled those features out with his meek demeanor, if you know what I mean. At that time, Mirza was staying with his friends at Indira Niwas, which was at a walking distance from Vista Do Rio, the hotel where he was carrying out his summer internship. Indira Niwas is a legendary house and this is one of the many stories associated with the place. Mirza was a teetotaler, striking a stark contrast to his housemates who were habitual drinkers and dopers. But they got along well and that’s all that mattered. In the winter of ’09, Mirza was working night shift at