The Cult.

Disclaimer: This may SOUND like a whiny post and it is but its not. Not really. This is a sad story, though. 

You know what my life was like a few months before now?

Wake up around 5 or 5:30-ish, run out for bus, 1 hour ride to university, run to department, check you have everything, go for placement (any school, hospital, institution). Take back to back sessions till lunch. Go back to university, have chai, gobble down a samosa (if I was very lucky), run to class. Sit in class bored into a stupor, take notes, etc. Pack up, run to bus, ride back home in an hour and a half. Get home, inhale food and more chai, get to work, moan, whine, complain talk to mom, complete work (or leave it for the morning), drag self upstairs and heave self into bed by 10, 11 or 12. Depending on how lucky I got since I usually survived on 3-5 hour power naps. Then the next morning, wake up at 5 and start all over again.

You know what my life is like right now?

Wake up at 10 9:30. Salute self.

Stare blearily in the mirror, wondering when I became this fat, feet shuffling, 3 sweater wearing hobo.

Drag self downstairs and moan at bright sunlight and even brighter good mornings from the parents.

(Yes, I turn into this cat who falls down.)

Anyway, I digress. There are two bright spots in my morning. The first when I have chai (pure, sweet bliss).

The second and believe me when I say I am very ashamed of myself and I hate who I've become and it makes me want to throw up with disgust at how low I've sunk and I want to tear out my hair and scratch my skin and - You get the picture. The second spot is...

Watching Masala Mornings.

I know. I know. Throw stones at me. Mock me. Hit me. Hate me. Moan and despair over the horror I am for I have joined...

THE CULT.

The cult of the cooking show audience. I wait with bated breath for Shireen Apa (for shame, what are you SAYING Maryam!) to announce the day's recipes after which I run and grab my university notebook (weep) and beg mom for a pen since I lost mine (more weep). 

This cult... It is horrendous. It makes you do crazy rituals and it bestows terrifying abilities upon you. You lose all sense of sound except the voice of Shireen Apa, tune out the kitchen sounds in your own home, tune out your mom, tune out the world apocalypse but DO NOT - I repeat - DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE miss a WORD Shireen Apa is saying. 

You see? You SEE how she brainwashes with that food and with speaking like she's talking to retarded children, extra slow and extra clear and you find yourself nodding along slowly and vibrating in your seat with impatience for the next slow-as-wading-through-mud sentence, your eyes wide, your breathing short, leaning forward towards the T.V., pen gripped with extra strength tearing through the paper- Okay fine. I'm exaggerating. 

But this cult. It changes you as a person. It changes your ability to think of anything but the next Masala Mornings Show. It... It... DISTORTS REALITY. It changes worlds. It makes you hallucinate and hyperventilate. 

This cult... Do not fall into it's trap. I'm begging you. Do not become me I am now. Crawling on the floor, moaning out for help, craving the next Masala Mornings episode, crying and curling up into a ball on the weekends (its on only Monday to Friday). Spare yourself this fate and start looking for a job the second you graduate. Golden words, I'm telling you. Otherwise...

This is your only option. Now go kill yourself.

THE END.