Until I find you

2008 ended with a loud thunderous silence. Something inside me died then. That presence inside you that holds on to faith by the skin of its teeth even when you're sure it has no reason to. That presence died. In 2009 I proceeded to destroy myself completely. 365 days spent kicking myself in the ribs - it was like that beach cliche, little hopeful kid painstakingly builds a sandcastle and a bigger brutish chap comes along and cruelly kicks it down. That was me and myself all of 2009.

I forged on or atleast I thought I did. I didn't believe in anything or anyone and if I managed to give the impression that I did, it was because I started to make an exercise of suspending disbelief. 'If I can't believe it, atleast I won't disbelieve it until proven otherwise.' What that meant was I was holding my breath, waiting for something to go wrong. Which ofcourse it did because I looked at everything as potential hurt and so I willed it to become that. I did that. Noone else did that, I did it.

By the end of 2009, I was struggling. I was barely there anymore. It was someone I didn't recognise. It was someone I'd set out not to be. The worst night came, dramatically enough, last night. The last night of the year. I had been hanging on to someone for dear life and realised he was already gone. And I slumped to the floor. Those many tears shouldn't be biologically possible. This time there was no silence, there was only screaming. "Love me love ME LOVE ME LOVE ME LOVE ME LOVE ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE" I begged at the darkness. I begged... of myself.

This was new. I thought I was crying for him but I wasn't. I hadn't realised up until then how badly I missed me, how much I wanted to feel like a living breathing emotional person again. I don't remember how I got to bed, when I changed into my nightclothes and snuggled upto my dog. But that's how I found myself this morning.

And so here I am, nothingness except a thin pinhole of hope, suddenly and very very slowly making the darkness lighter. I had banana milkshake this morning. And it was wonderful.

Happy New Year. I hope you find your truest self too.

Waiting in line

When I was really young, my idea of perfect love was straight out of the pages of my aunt’s meticulous collection of Mill & Boon books. A man (and oh what a man he was) and a woman met in imperfect circumstances and waded through their disdain for each other inspite of their initial attraction. Eventually they fell so deeply in love that they were alright with losing those parts of themselves that had been most vital to their earlier identities. Yes there were the bits where they compromised on self respect and addressed each others’ genitals quite a lot more florally than feels right - but those were the bits you appreciated because you hadn’t yet been introduced to the internet and its vast reserves of porn.

Years later, when I had graduated to more important literature (and had internet access), I too scoffed along with everyone else at ‘those crappy softcore porn books’ but somewhere I knew it was still the kind of romance I longed for. Then I met a man (and oh what a man he was), disdain inspite of attraction happened, and eventually…well I fell in love. I have to believe he did too, just not like in the Harlequin romances.That was the first time I felt faith falter.

I realised that love is not as easy as just waking up from a coma after 2 years to find yourself in the arms of the woman who put you there in the first place. Or taking over a multinational conglomerate only to fall hard for your archrival’s disreputable lawyer. Love takes time, and effort and bus tickets and cold dinners and clipped conversations and did you pay the bill because I didn’t and if we have to bathe in icy water one more time I’m leaving you.

That was when I met another man. Make that boy, I met a boy. There wasn’t initial disdain or attraction. But the conversations were refreshing, the jokes original, the comfort unbelievable. And I wondered if those M&B writers weren’t being too single-minded – uneventful romances can be just as exhilarating. Here there were embarrassingly floral descriptions too. Only not out of passion, or even lust. But because we both knew a lot of different words. In the end, they were the death of us, especially since he was saying all those words to someone else too. And faith took a tumble good and proper.

I gave up on even tidy romances. I started taking solace in being left to my own devices because while they made for ennui sometimes, they never hurt. Then I met another boy. Our conversations were stilted, just like me he was smarting from his previous relationships, our interests couldn’t be more diverse and he was…vegetarian. Still we co-existed, enjoyed each others' unfamiliarity and I’ll say it: if this were indeed a Mills & Boon, I’d want to very badly skip to the unholy parts. But it never caught and I don’t know why. With each passing day, I saw our potential for being the love of each others’ lives dim.

And so here I am once more. Come full circle you might say. Wondering if Harlequin romances do happen and if I just need to wait it out. On the other hand, and not to put too fine a point on it, my aunt did die a spinster.

Woulda coulda shoulda

Soon I will start my new job and I did a test run today, to see how long it'd take me to get to it. Considering I live outside Mumbai city, I should have known that it would take me either long or if there wasn't too much traffic, long.

I didn't mind it too much because I had my headphones on, my book slid comfortingly from one side to the other in my bag and watching the world go by on mute does really have it's own very special charm. In times like these I find I experience a silence that has very little to do with the absence of sound. It's a stillness that feels almost unbearable and sometimes quite frightening to experience. Especially because it lets me be absent from what is happening around me and invariably is the time the mind uses to say 'Okay you're here, shall we do some cleaning today? You really mustn't put it off any longer.'

Today I thought about regret. About the countless times I've heard people say 'if I had done things differently, I wouldn't be here today.' Heck, I've said it a few times and I thought today, well what's so special about here? Am I just afraid to let my mind even imagine the way my life might have played itself out had I done the things I most wish I had?

Years ago an easy decision I didn't make could have saved somebody's life.
Years ago just a little kindness might have made a man feel less wretched.
Years ago a little self forgiveness might have saved the best friendship I've ever known and never had again.

'Tch, why look back at what you cannot change?' chides the part of me that hates these unnerving processes. But to me these regrets aren't a way of berating myself any longer. They're my way of, on some really non-human level, letting those people know I still think about them, that they alone can allow me to visit those parts of myself that I can't stand to consider for more than a few minutes at a time. It's my way of letting them know I am becoming the person they had needed me to be all those times.

I'm unravelling!

My closest friends are divided down the middle. There's the Meryl Streeps and the Steven Seagals.

The former lot is always experiencing some manner of dramatic upheaval on any given day. Life is all deep emotions and obscure lyrics. There will be drunk-calling exes, initiating internet flame wars, identifying with Julia Roberts in every role she's ever played and working up phone bills that hurt to even say out loud. Not ones to shy away from a good solid controversy, their currency is tears and pointed Tweets. This faction abides by a more...elastic..code and is all heart because "let's face it, the other way is dead boring."

For the latter, any heightened form of expression is just being unnecessary and they have practically no use for interjections. They believe in emotional decorum and underplaying everything. To them, life would be no less lived, if pointless hugging were to be removed once and for all. Hard to ruffle and harder to please, this is not the lot you want to call when you've done something incredibly stupid. Not because they'll judge you even though they probably will, but because they remain maddeningly even. Something that really makes the Meryl Streep camp lose their shit.

Organically, I'm a Steven Seagal. I'm awful at discussing issues, I'd rather let them ferment until one day someone goes "Hey you!" and I take a knife to their jugular. I loathe confrontations because they feel incredibly stupid and defensive and if there's one thing more uncomfortable than getting defensive, it's watching someone else squirm defensively.
In recent years though, due to prolonged exposure to some of my friends, I've found I can sometimes out-emote Meryl Streep. In The Hours. I get all wimpy and my nose twitches and moderate length impassioned speeches just, you know, ebb from me. On occasion I've had to physically stop myself from seeking out James Blunt on my iTunes.

It's really very confusing. It makes my inner Steven Seagal want to, without a single facial expression, place some lead between my eyes. But I'm afraid this will make Meryl Streep-me go into overdrive analysing my childhood and then it all gets very Wind Beneath My Wings.



Somehow I'd imagined I'd be having more complicated and important thoughts by the time I turned 24. Just goes to show, age is very distantly related to maturity.


* Ten meeelion dollahs to anyone who can tell me where the title of this post is from. Don't pretend you don't care!

When I have time, I wonder

Too many times in the past week I've gone 'I know! Exactly!' while watching Dexter. Commiserating with a vigilante serial killer. For someone who is so dead against even capital punishment, this is brand new.

Sometimes I wonder if, as a generation, we're all pansies or getting there quickly. I think the people I know alone keep the hand sanitizer industry afloat and not attending close family funerals because you 'cannot deal with it'? When did it get okay to indulge your neuroses so much?

This has been a bad month for trust. Sometimes all you can hear is the empty clanking sounds of long cherished concepts as they fall about your feet. Is it still trust if you know you won't be surprised if the things you're most afraid will happen, do?

Writing is not therapeutic for me anymore, it's become this anxious, regimented farce. I feel terribly close to just letting it all go to hell.

I haven't touched a cigarette in nearly two weeks now. Now that I'm a non-smoker, I want my testimony to be heard: This sucks. It's more sanitary, sure, but more suffocating too. Giving up was the easy bit. Making your peace with now being on the side of The Righteous Twats is harder.

How much do the choices of the people close to us, reflect on us? Think about it. If your boyfriend's last love made Fatal Attraction seem adorable and one of your closest friends adores someone who calls everyone 'babes' - what does that say about you? Are you the antidote? Or more frighteningly, do you share something in common with those people? Ever think, how could he/she have loved them and me?

Phase In, Phase Out

You know, the more I think about it, the more certain I get that I'm a Phase Person. A Phase Person is somebody whose personality is so far from well-rounded and wholesome that he/she can only ever be a passing phase in another person's life before the latter senses the need to detox. Clearly my self esteem levels are at full mast here. More seriously though, I don't think this a bad thing.

Longevity has never really been my strong point. I have noticed that most everything in life has a shelf life and pushed beyond its expiry date, a relationship, a yellow ointment for problems of the embarrassing kind and your favourite sitcom, will all eventually become a force of habit. In a word: tedious. And I'd just rather eat a washcloth.

Being a Phase Person has some very attractive perks - you don't have to give up smoking or swearing like a truck driver. All your worst habits like chewing your nails, your acute discomfort with brightly lit coffee shops and your endless reserves of self deprecating humour will seem cute/different/quirky. Some strange sexual caveat would probably bump you right up to 'exotic'.
For that short period of time, this is paradise for the kind of Twilight Zone person you are.

Until it all starts to go a bit runny.

One day your Phasees wake up and realise you are a very dysfunctional person indeed. Your obsession with toiletries, all in various nauseating floral scents, are the cause of their headaches. Your deep interest in their mothers' maiden names unsettles them slightly, and can they ever really trust someone who doesn't care for ice-cream? Don't even get them started on your tendency for having your few meaningful conversations with your bilingual, fruitcake of a dog.

From there it's only a matter of time before you become the star of their 'This one time...' stories which will most likely end in '...and then I met my wife/ turned to drugs/ found Jesus."

That's my least favourite part about being a Phase Person. It just never lasts.

Dating question.

Is the right person for you the one who puts up with you inspite of your idiosyncrasies, or because of them?

I have found the latter to be true for myself. I am one of those 'love is blind and loins are blurry' kind of people. If I like somebody, every 'do want' and 'don't want' checklist goes through the mind's paper shredder. I'll put up with pisspoor attitude, terrible pronunciations, various psychological complexes and barely satisfactory hygiene. Once I even kissed a guy right after he told me he beat his dog.

Sounds a mite tragic, yeah. Usually I am really very wise. Wise beyond my years. I'm like where the wisdom's at, usually. And granted my 'I wuvz youu no matter what' tendency has got me wading through piles of emotional excrement on more than one occasion but I can't imagine it any other way, you know?

I love the feeling that I could listen to someone ramble endlessly without once experiencing the need to roll my eyes, stifle a yawn or worst, cut 'im short. That I'd happily laugh at an awful joke just because it gets him all aflutter to tell it. That I'd pretend his keen interest in ferrets doesn't concern me slightly. In fact, I think some sort of weird habit involving coffee cup Feng Shui and an extensive collection of something totally useless would probably turn me on (Understanding a little more about why I loved As Good As It Gets so much). It's the nitty gritties that noone on superficial interaction with him could possibly know of. It's those little things I know about because I have the privilege of being this close to him, that make all the difference to me.

This 'staying with someone inspite of their shortcomings' business is all very charitable but it just sounds like a big ol' bag of Settling. I you don't love it, it's going to always be there, on the edge of your consciousness, messing with your confidence every time one of his 'shortcomings' surfaces. Too much trouble, if you ask me.


Note: All of this profundity is only valid until such a time as he stays a gem. All bets are off in the events of adultery, lie-telling and overall douchebaggery.

Habitat

You told me my silence unnerved you the first time we met. That for a stranger you'd met only moments ago, I stared so far into your eyes, it was as though I was looking for what was behind them. We laughed about it later but I never stopped staring. Every day I looked at you like I'd never seen you before. You're the only stranger I've known for so many years.

And when you lie, it makes me smile. Because I know what you'll do before you do it. You'll talk faster, louder and you'll rub your right eye with your index finger and say my name too many times. And I'll keep staring at you nodding ever so slightly, letting you believe I believe you. Because I've come to enjoy the nuances of this charade. It's like we're in a movie scene, you're a much younger, much better looking Michael Douglas. And I never leave a performance before the very end.

You're not one to disappoint either.

Midway through the routine you'll realise you're being fidgety and slow down consciously. Except I should tell you you slow down just a touch too much. Don't enunciate so much, stare into my eyes with conviction for 1 second, not 3, and don't grip the table's edge so hard. That's it, you're doing good. Go on.

Tell me your life made little sense before me, tell me your loneliness only left when I walked into that room all those years ago. Now pause to let out a little laugh like you're remembering it - my blue dress, the way my hair flopped across my forehead, how you noticed the scar on my knee. You'd never seen anything lovelier, haha, I know. Not a word out of place. Have you got all of this written down somewhere? Because that would be too much, even for you.

I wish you'd hurry though, I feel slightly bored and I want to get back to my book. Come sit by me, hold my hand gently and pat it softly with your other hand. Pull me closer and throw your arms around me. Give me that reassuring hug and kiss the top of my head. I lov...that's right... I love you, yeah say it. So much? You love me so much? Well, that's new. Improv. Brava! Now collect me to your chest and we'll stare at the tailor's across the street, as he loses himself to the rhythm of his Singer machine.

...

I am not generally given to loud, expressive fits of anger. This might be in part because I think loud fits of anything are genuinely warranted only in very rare cases. Also, I despise confrontations like I despise Criss Angel, that no talent, goth fuck. And usually before I work up to that kind of anger, I get distracted by whatever social networking site I’m using indiscriminately at the time or say like, a potato chip. Then there’s the fact that I stay calm to spite those people who say ‘let it out’ with those infuriating hand actions, heads cocked to one side, voice all calm and soothing-like. No bugger off, I’m keeping it in, I’m keeping it ALL in, go be Oprah some place else and get out of my face.
But a big reason, you’ll almost never hear me screaming or typing in angry caps, and I’m aware of how cutesy and made up this sounds even though it’s a 100% true, is the Old Spice song.

Remember that one? Unfortunately I can’t find it on Youtube so for those who can’t remember it, you may use Chariots of Fire as stand in, it has the same effect. If you haven’t heard Chariots of Fire, you’re probably deaf. In which case, nevermind the rest of this post.

Anyway.

Everytime I’m on the brink of blowing off some serious steam, the song starts playing in my head. Its rising crescendo perfectly accompanying the gradual slowing down of the words and expressions until it’s all very comical, I stop to chuckle and in the process the loud anger has dissipated. What’s left can well be dialed down to sarcasm, the odd snide comment and some heavy duty passive-aggressive bullshit like eating the last muffin I knew the person really wanted or uploading unnecessarily cheerful status updates that I know will piss him/her off.

Only recently it occurred to me that the latter method is long drawn, tedious and even more laughable than being caught Old Spicing. Also less fulfilling, because honestly, while I’m plotting all these abstruse ways of putting it across, the person concerned probably just thinks I’m having my period. Whereas a well-timed ‘Fuck you’ said at a higher decibel is succinct yet descriptive and clear as a bell.

That settles it. Come Monday (I hate starting new resolutions mid-week) and I’m really getting into this whole 'expressing self' business. I may end up feeling better or I may end up halving the number of people who put up with me always, to one. But that’s okay. No longer is a men’s aftershave lotion going to come between me and my true feelings.

I'm going to have to let you go

It occurred to me yesterday, during a particularly tiresome conversation when my brain came up for some air, that firing someone should not be restricted to jobs alone. Imagine how easy relationships would be if you could just eject people from your life without having to wade through the emotional afterbirth.

You cordially invite them into a safe (for you) space, make nice for a few minutes - "Your hair looks neat", "That leopard print really suits you.", "No you don't come off as a pretentious self-serving twat at all!" - and then you go in for the kill or in this case, an excruciatingly polite rejection.

"So I'm sure you're wondering why I called you out to this sardine tin of a coffee shop, in broad daylight, with all these pretty prospective witnesses. It's just that your performance has been slipping lately. I've tried to cover up for you with the others - I told them you had a shitty childhood, you have extremely low self esteem crossed with a puzzling narcissism and your mom always loved your sister more. That kept them quiet for a while. But it got harder for me to cover your back, you know. All the lies, all the incessant mooching off, all the general douchebaggery and this complete disregard for personal hygiene? I mean give me something to work with for chrissake!

Anyway, I'm sure you have your reasons for being such a conscience-free prick. And for why your personality is only the tragic imitation of everybody around you. Maybe your skill-set will be more employable some place else, say like...in a...um...well I'm sure you'll figure it out.
I wish you only the best. Don't let this small hurdle change who you are. Lots of people are sociopaths. And maybe someday you'll end up killing someone just because you felt bored but that's way into the future. And what's important is, I won't know you then.

I was told to release you with immediate effect but I got you seven days notice. I figured you'd need time to finally return my clothes/books/CDs/money. You can keep that framed picture of us - I already have a tonne of uncomfortable pictures with people I don't really like lying around. I'd return the stuff you gave me too, but can you ever really fit deep mistrust and disillusion into a paper bag? I'm not sure.

Anyway I think I'm going to go now because this has already been half an hour of my life I'm never getting back. And just to paraphrase our relationship, as usual I'm going to pay for this elaborate and expensive meal you had no qualms ordering even though your er, dog ate your wallet. You might want to go easy on the grease though, you're looking a bit fat. Bye now."

Yeah I think this could work. You should try it. I would but we all know those who can't do, write.

28 years

He saw her, he saw she was sublime.
She saw him, she liked his shoes.
"She made me want to start over," he'd later say,
"They were *really* nice shoes," she'd shrug.
The other men stood beneath their windows
Wooing her friends with spangly trinkets.
He came for her twice a month.
5 chikus were his offering.
"Did you know they're also called sapota?"
She stared at him, then shook her head slowly.

They went through the motions
Got married.
She for a roof, he for a second chance.
Had children.
She for companionship,
he to prove he could.
Left.
She from despair, he from indifference.
Returned.
Because they both keep promises.

The worst has passed,
for the first time they notice each other.
His mangled hands,
her maddening pronunciations.
His emotional stutter,
her unbelievable strength.
The story is told that
for the five days she wasn't home once,
he went hungry.
"She didn't make it, it wasn't worth eating."

The beautiful bits always stop short
so you never forget just how good it got.
She awoke one afternoon with the deafening silence,
his breath had stilled for the last time.
For as long as she lives,
she will never forget his slumped head
or that feeling of being well and truly alone.

The years fan out.
Some worth remembering,
some just disappear into others.
There are no smiling portraits on the wall.
No gracefully yellowed black and white photographs.
And the mind's moths continue uninterrupted.

The hallmarks of true love
have changed since 1981 too.
"Of course he loves me but he listens to bhangra-pop!"
"She's perfect except for her beer belly."
"I think I love him. Or do I?
No, I do, I do. But what if I don't?"
Thank God she's hard of hearing.
These eedyets wouldn't know love
if it smacked them full in the face.
She'd tell them her story
but devotion isn't part of their vocabulary.

Be yourself

That's a big bag of crap, let me clear that up once and for all. I learnt this important lesson early.

Right from the time you're a kid, it's what adults are always prattling on about.
Like Mrs. Rose, my second standard teacher. Rose only in name, I might add.
So when she cracked one of her really obvious, middle-aged jokes, I, being myself, rolled my eyes.

Let's just say I didn't see that backhanded slap coming.

Moral: Be yourself, you get slapped so hard your brain rearranges itself.

Still my naivete prevailed. Maybe Rose is just the exception, I fooled myself and stuck to my guns. Until it happened again.

Now when you're a quiet kid and you sing to yourself, people take that to mean many different things. But boiled down to their concentrate, all these opinions generally end up at 'weirdo' or 'asshole'. I've always got the latter. So between totally missing the boat on teacher humour and not being related to anyone who had "pull" in the staff room, I was the farthest thing from teacher's pet.

Cut to standard 9. I get called into the staff room minutes before break time. Nothing too ominous, just a whole bunch of underpaid, predominantly single women in their late 30s, gathered in one place, looking for an outlet.

Me: Can I come in?
Degenerate 1: It's MAY I come in, not can.
Me: Sorry. May I come in?
D1: No.
Me: Okay.
D2: You have an attitude problem.
Me: ...
D1: See? This is what I'm talking about.
D2: *nodding happily*
Me: Okay.
D1: Okay?! She's saying okay! Do you have a problem or not?!
Me: I don't know. No.
D2: Not even owning up to it, trying to defy us.
Me: Can I go? (break time was coming to a close! Those delicious cream biscuits weren't going to eat themselves!)
D1: Don't act too smart, you will not go anywhere.
D2 : Admit you have an attitude problem and say you're sorry.
Me: ...
D2: Say you're sorry!
Me: ....
D1: Say you're sorry or no break.
Me: I'm sorry.
*Bell rings*
D1: Looks like you're going to have to wait for the next break.

Moral: Be yourself and you miss snack time. No go. NO. GO.

Then I grew up, got a tonne of bad haircuts, made a tonne of bad decisions, had a tonne of personality crises, you know, usual teenage stuff. But through it all, I refused to act. Why? Because it takes effort and time. Time that could be spent watching Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad. So that's what I did. Until I got slapped in the face again. This time metaphorically.

The year was 1999. I remember this because every time Summer of 69 came on, I'd shout 99. Yeah. I know. Take a moment.
The boy was wiry, he was tanned, he had dirty brown hair and cute mispronunciations. When we finally talked (he caught me on one of my blank calls to his house. He said 'Gyuri?', I said 'ye..NO!' and the jig was up) and told me I was awesome. He liked me for me - androgynous, bushy eyebrowed, bespectacled and kicking his ass at carrom. Best moment of my teenage life. Also the last time I ever heard from him.
The next time I saw him, he was with a girl who, if this were a highschool movie, would be the main sidekick atleast.

Moral: Be yourself and you'll be with yourself too.

Now I could keep the examples coming but I think I've made my point and more importantly, I'm irritating myself. The bottomline folks, is this: Stop lying to kids. Or if you must make overly simplistic remarks like 'be yourself' atleast have the courtesy to emphasise on the 'as long as you're not making anyone mad, as long as you're not swimming too far from the stereotype and as long as you're doing it on your own time".
Kids have a hard enough time reading, nevermind reading between the lines.

Sometimes my mind don't shake and shift, but most of the time it does.

Everything has a place. Everybody has a place. Our lives are like a labyrinth of people and the experiences they bring along, all crisscrossing in a mindboggling fashion. Some tiny doorways lead to light so blinding you have to shield your eyes and others go and and on before you realise those flickers of light you kept moving towards were just fireflies doing what they do, completely oblivious of how much you're betting on them.
Each day you try to simplify. For such a complex species, we're very simple. It's what we like to do, simplify. Some days you draw a connection - 'Aha! So this is where that door was leading to!' - and you feel pleased - 'I've come close to solving the puzzle', you think - until this turns out to be yet another little passageway with a series of indistinguishable doors all lined up, waiting for you to see where they take you.
Behind one, there's sedate 2+2=4 happiness and people with smiles that are kind but dispassionate. Behind the other there's no floors, this place has no need for them, it's like a tornado and promises to be euphoric and exciting and very very lonely. And behind the third, time seems to slow, it's all like a big moving sepia toned picture. You've been here, you've done this, it's comfortable. Just cash in your chips and say I'm too weak to wander down all these little alleyways.
Or sometimes you can just squat in the hallway for a bit, light up a cigarette and examine the cracks in the wall. Let the fireflies do their thing.

I'm sorry.

Being angry made me do things I would never do in good faith. Or in love. Or in friendship. Being hurt brought out the most petulant, vindictive version of me - a place I go to only when I'm unable to man up to what I'm feeling and just, you know, say it.
No, I have never steered away from the truth because even anger won't make me do that. But I presented the facts knowing fully well that minus the little inflections, pauses, circumstances and contexts that give words their potency and true meaning, the cold colourless facts would get you the worst sentence. I did that intentionally and I'm sorry.
Sure, there were times I feebly protested at the harsh judgments that were being meted out to you based on my words and my words alone, but I didn't mean it. That was me pandering to my own guilt and self pity. I'm sorry.
The truth is you were the best and worst thing for me. How much you gave equalled how much you took. Not more, not less. You made promises you never kept but you also did so much that you never promised.
You're not the bad guy. You actually never were. And is it twisted that though you didn't eventually accept me, you've accepted me more than anyone I've ever known? And you betrayed me the way only someone who has come to be your second nature can.
And to date when I have a joke to tell, it is not until you have laughed that I feel pleased with myself.

Disquiet

Colder than dry ice
Quieter than silence
Less frightening than horror
more unnerving than fear
Smudges of consciousness
Told only by the hair on the back of your neck
that prickles slightly
And by wakeful sleep

Here's what I'm going to do for You

I'm going to make you feel lovely.

I'm going to make you feel smart.

I'm going to make you feel kind.

I'm going to make you feel worthy.

I'm going to make you feel wanted.

I'm going to make you feel funny.

I'm going to make you feel musical.

I'm going to make you feel thin.

I'm going to make you feel interesting.

I'm going to make you feel quirky.

I'm going to make you feel alive.

I'm going to make you feel calm.

I'm going to make you feel valid.

I'm going to make you feel bloody fantastic.



Why? Because it's the least I owe you. The very least.

Sometimes it takes a swift kick in the pants before you realise you've got to learn yourself and fast if you're to keep your head above water.

I have decided I don't know myself very well. Or at all, for that matter. I'm one of those people whose answers to anything have always been something to the effect of "I don't know, could go either way." Which is why, too often, I end up relying on other people to tell me what to do or give their opinion way more consideration than I should.

Then it occurred to me that a big reason for this lack of self awareness is that I'm very hillbilly shit-kickerish with my introspection. For example I'll ask myself broad generic questions like "What do you want?" and I'll get broad generic rejoinders like "To be happy." And then I start thinking about potato chips and we all know how that story goes.

I'm very generic the few times I make a courtesy calls to God even - "Dear Jesus, give me everything I want. And also give everyone else everything they want. Thankyou." If I'm specific, I strongly suspect it's not the right kind of specific - "Dear Jesus, please don't let her (the parlour chick) fuck my eyebrows up. Thankyou."

I think the other reason I have failed to know myself enough so far is that I tend to judge my answers very harshly. The classic 'Damn, everyone else is asking for the cure for cancer and I'm asking for weight loss' syndrome. I feel guilty and lame and superficial and then I'll kid myself into thinking I want all those deep things when really I just want to very badly look smoking in my new pencil dress. Is that so wrong? I am coming to think not. I have just come out the other side of a very bad phase and even though I'm seeing lights in the distance, the repair takes time. I read these words recently and they made perfect sense to me:

"When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life, it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

So I have decided to ask myself a series of very pointed questions to which the only rules of answering are - Specificity and truthfulness. Wish me luck. And if I feel brave enough, I'll put 'em up here. Now I go hold down my day job.

"Cellphones are the Devil incarnate. The sooner they all perish in a brute fire, the better mankind shall be," she said downing a bunch of inordinately sour grapes.

I'm hideous. Confirmed.

It has happened folks. I know what the worst haircut in the world looks like. I've been staring in the mirror for some time.

It all started with an innocent enough trim at noon today. Then came the words 'broad forehead' quickly followed by the words 'shorter in the front' and nodding from both me and the stylist. Then I choose that moment to look down at the phone in my lap and text someone and only stop short when I hear a metallic snip. Now picture the next bit in slow-mo except that was the actual speed I was moving at. I look up very very slowly, hoping with EVERYTHING I hold holy, that that snip wasn't as near as I thought it sounded.

I stare into the mirror so intently, it's like I'm seeing myself for the first time. And I am. Where there used to be a broad, but unoffensively so, forehead is now a broad forehead with a tuft of hair curling so maddeningly, it's making me teethe.

"That is... short."

"I'm not done yet."

"No?"

*Two minutes later*

"Now, I'm done."

He moves aside and I see the formerly unruly tuft has been tamed. Except now my hair is looking like the bastard child of The Kate Gosselin and Elaine Benes' hair from early Seinfeld. It is flattened in front and starts running amok as you follow it to the back of my head.



No, seriously.

You know how people always say 'It could've been worse'? THIS haircut is what they're referring to. This is like the worst case scenario of haircuts. It's like the Amy Winehouse of addicted musicians, it is like the Rakhi Sawant of reality TV whores, it is like the Josef Fritzl of bad parents.

I hopped into church on the way back from the parlour to collect my house keys from the mother. This is church right? Place of worship? Communion with Jesus? Solemnity guaranteed? She. Laughs. She looks at me, midway through the Hail Mary, and laughs.

I'm not meeting anyone till next year. And by next year, I mean tomorrow. And by tomorrow I mean drunk.

I'm bringin' appreciation back!

Call me a slut for encouragement (Today I asked a friend to transfer her appreciation for my blog from Gchat to here so I could have ‘comments’ [This is your mention Shwetters! *waves*]) or just freakishly addicted to American sitcoms, but I am really dismayed by just how rarely people high-five each other anymore.

We’re dedicated to keeping internet dialects of English alive and kicking, in spoken conversation, no less! We haven’t gotten sick of uploading heavily photoshopped pictures of every last mundane activity of our lives (and nature) to Facebook. Some of us *wretches slightly* are still giving the middle finger whenever faced with a camera lens. Excruciatingly cool.

So then what happened to high-fiving?

What caused the death of this sublime culture of expressing encouragement and appreciation via well-coordinated claps of the hands at a slightly higher altitude? Is there any way that is less pre-meditated and quite so spontaneous as The High-Five? Are we afraid it makes us look stupid? People are still actively wearing Crocs, so that can’t be it. Why will we 'Like this' the crap out of people's Facebook status messages but are unwilling to lift an appreciative palm to let someone know they did good? Is it somehow too juvenile for us now? I don't know about you, but I still laugh at names like ‘Wang’ and videos of kittens head-butting each other endlessly. I’m a fully paid up member of Juvenileville. So what happened then?

I thought I’d leave space to accommodate that deafening silence.

Fine. Nevermind why. I’ve decided to be part of the solution. From now on I’m bringing back high-fiving. Every time I hear a good punch line henceforth, I’m high-fiving! Every time a friend of mine fits perfectly into an outfit, I’m high-fiving! Every time less that a friend of mine (you know who you are) says ‘Lol’, I’M HIGH-FIVING.

High-five me back ok? Don't leave me hanging now!

I just had a really good day.

That almost never happens!

Wrapped up alot of work, worked out (WADDUP!), ate no junk food or in between meals and talked to my favourite people :). Now I'm going to bed. At 1.30am. That's about three hours earlier than I usually do.

Huzzah!

For an introvert, I sure yap alot.

I remember these soul-sapping conversations I used to have with this one acquaintend (She was my acquaintance, I was her friend) of mine back in college. And by conversations I mean I would emit a series of 'hmms' at various pitches and different intonations while she would painstakingly drone over every last tedious detail of her life.

There was the one time I ended up lying next to her at a sleepover (Nothing sexual. Though I would have considered it in exchange for her silence) and she had been talking for about 3 hours straight. The others in the room (one tiny mutant and Tata Young's lookalike) excused themselves with a simple "sleepy now, bye" but yours truly, going-to-be-canonised-any-minute-now-wait-for-the-invitation was feeling bad to interrupt her. The all pervading night didn't interrupt her, what chance did I have?
Finally, about an hour later, long after I'd safety-pinned my eye-lids to my forehead to hold them open, she fell silent. I would have screamed 'Hallelujah' except my brain threw in its chips, sat down stubbornly and refused to have a single other thought. This girl had actually talked herself to sleep. The sound of her own voice had lulled her brain into a coma.

So why am I putting you through this agonising anecdote?
To point out that sometimes you can become what you laugh at.

I have become my acquaintend! These days I talk involuntarily. The brain is willing me to recognise the weariness in the listener's face, its saying "Don't say that, DON'T SAY THAT. Dammit you said it! Okay, it's alright, just don't say that next thing! DON'T SAY THA...". The mouth has gone batshit crazy and is swinging recklessly from one topic to the other leaving in its wake a loud resounding "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Tarzan style.
I feel like I'm constantly in one of those badly synced Chinese films. I can say what I want in 2 words but I'm prattling on regardless.

To those who've chosen to endure, remember, death comes eventually.

Some things never change

When we were little, my best friend and I drew up a prototype of what our perfect guy would be like. We were dorks, it goes without saying except I must say it - we were dorks.

There were detailed physical descriptions:
Must be taller than but not tall enough to make you feel short. Must NOT be shorter than at any cost. Same height is frowned upon and will only be excused in exceptional cases.
Must be big built but not muscular in that when he hugs you, you feel safe but not endangered.
Must have Bryan Backstreetboy (for her) and Kevin Backstreetboy (for me) hair, no compromises.
Must not have strange girly voice like those NSync faggots.
Must have more hair than us. (This was before either of us had experienced the sweet pain of waxing and after we'd had a couple of embarrassing incidents with our main crushes.)
Must not sweat. But if he does, he must sweat sexily.
Must dance awkwardly. Super smooth, hectic dancers were not for us.

Behavioural descriptions:
Should not patronise us or let us win. Except, he must. But do it in such a way that we never find out.
Must have a foul temper that only we can dissolve.
MUST.NOT.CRY. Yeah this one was underlined so much, she tore the page and I broke my pencil point. Then we added brackets: (Can well up. Slightly. But if tears leave the eyes, then it's just very over.)
Must be possessive. For example, broodingly nursing his glass of Pepsi while watching other guys make a play for us and then looking appropriately crestfallen is good. Holding hand protectively to let people know we're with him, even. But wear-your-salwar-kameez-in-the-pool possessive and expect some serious laughing and pointing.
Must be take-charge because that's responsible. But more importantly, hot.
Must not be named Prakash, Monty, Leslie or Kiran. Yes, this is a behavioural trait. Think about it. An amazonian, guitar-playing, sexily-sweating Prakash is just not the same as say, an amazonian, guitar-playing, sexily-sweating Nick/Kevin/Bryan/NOT-AJ.

Ability descriptions:
Must be musically inclined. Must play an instrument so he can tour with us when we're on the road. Must carry all the Grammys we win. Must sing like a Backstreet boy with a hint of any of the Code Red dudes and if we're being unrealistic, then the 98 Degrees fellows thrown in for good measure.
Must have a sense of humour. If not, why're we even talking?
Must play a sport. Preferably football because cricketers are unattractive. Uno and carrom don't count. Table tennis totally counts (you had to know the context) for like a hundred meellion points. Especially "doubles".
Must speak perfect English. There are many deep, accepting girls in the world who wouldn't mind 'a-POR-tunity' and 'I propose her and she say me this and that'. We weren't two of them.
Must...(then we got distracted and started practising our Ya Mustafa Ya Mustafa Raveena Tandon moves. I'm fairly certain that somewhere some guy has that on his 'Must Not' list.)



I want to say times have changed and the list is not relevant at all. I really want to say that.

The Wooden Four Post Bed

Noone will ever guess, is magical. It changes shape and form and everything around it. Last night it closed in on itself and turned a canoe. Fat black waves slapped against its hull but it endured. Cold, hard and unrelenting.

One forgettable June day it looked like a coffin, no jokes. Everyone would've laughed at me. But the body lent it credence. The four posters made over it like protective arms. This bed has intent, imagine that.

Other days it just lies there. Pretending it's ordinary, pretending it does only what it's meant to do. Be a bed. On those days thumping fists, heels dug in and soaking faces cannot elicit an answer. "I'm a bed," it rolls its eyes, "what did you expect?"

Yet yesterday as I approached it, only a door between us, I thought I heard an engine rev. I tip toed without a sound and then started running faster than I knew I could. I kicked the door down and screamed "Take me with you!". The silence didn't resound, it ricocheted. Off the four posts, grazed my shoulder and bounced out of the room taking the words with it. "I'm not magical," it laughs, "that's not petrol you smell and I am not talking to you. Beds don't talk. People are saying you're crazy. Stop it."

So I lay down and sank slowly into it. Into its big rumbling belly. That was the last night.

Today in its place lies a duffel bag bursting at its seams. I look into it. Nuts and bolts and wooden planks - it's the magic bed like I've never seen it before. Vulnerable. "It happens to the best of us," it says in a chorus of thin, smaller voices.

Yes, this is a magic bed. Because everyone knows that the most powerful magic is the most unobtrusive. It doesn't make a production of itself. It just leaves in the conciousness the conviction that something has changed.

"Good luck finding out," it's saying as I zip the bag.

Gut instinct or just my lunch?

I have always envied people for whom their gut instinct is like a lighthouse, helping them navigate through the choppy waters of contradiction and indecision onto the shores of resolution and clarity. These people always tell me their gut instinct is audible to them, ringing clear like a bell. For example, my friend, who I will hereon refer to as Fat Pants, is one of these people who as a rule functions on merciless logic to get him to that point just before he makes his final decision. Then he lets his gut (HEH) take it from there. I asked him once how he's sure it is his instinct that he's listening to and not just another line of reasoning. His said two very powerful words to me. "Fucking. Introspect."

"Lock yourself up in a room, cry your eyes out if you have to, scream if you must. But don't get out till you have your answers," he explains.

Now here's where it all starts to go pear-shaped.
For someone who blogs about what she's feeling and thinking and opining, I really suck at introspection. It just doesn't come naturally to me. I blame it on my daily-diminishing attention span, my soaring propensity for procrastination and my tendency to second guess myself all the time.
Plus I am someone who's always been unable to delay gratification - it's why I smoke, it's why I'm overweight, it's why I stay up late watching back-to-back episodes of Mother instead of writing my stories for work. So there's a very good chance that I could be mistaking what I really want to happen in a situation (want to feel the comfort of being in a relationship, want to eat fries, want to be liked) as my gut instinct. A very obvious and a very real trap.

I've swung by the seat of my pants for so long, but for the first time I'm feeling the weight of my malformed opinions and underdeveloped decisions weighing down on me. I'm tired of 'definitely, maybe' and I'm ready for 'definitely'.

To this end I've decided I need to first shut out the physical noise before I'm able to shut out the noise in my head. I'm withdrawing my cards, I'm leaving the building, I'm putting out the 'closed for business' sign. For a while anyway.

5.08 am.

Project Get Shit Together (TM) not going so good.

Some truths in the world of Gyuri

You're only as good as your last thing you said to me. You will not be held to what you did or said before that. It doesn't matter.

Having someone unexpected drive two hours, through backed up traffic just to come see how you're doing is humbling. Thank you, you made my day.

We are all like water. At some level, we're all able to change, adapt and still be refreshing.

Last night I thought my search for the perfect maxi-dress was over. Then I tried it on. The search continues.

Sometimes the suffocating familiarity of friends is furthest from what you need. Thank god there's the comfort of virtual strangers.

If you wake up to people watching you having drooled on your own hand, own it. Act like it was the plan all along.

Pretending you care can, on occasion, be the nicest, kindest thing you could do for people.

It's probably best not to accuse someone you want to date of paying for sex.

Watching friends take a turn for the pretentious or turn even more pretentious is painful. In a better-you-than-me kind of way.

My eyes are quitting me, one font size at a time.

I do not know the first thing about boys. I don't know if they want to be kissed, if they want to be pursued, if they want to be ignored, if they want to be smothered. They're like sensitive aliens.

I read recently that every city, every person, every experience has its own word. A word that belongs to it and it to the word. If Europe's is Flamboyance and Obama's is Charisma, what is yours? I think mine maybe Whimsy but I'm not sure.

Where do you get the best chocolate cake in this city? I want to know.

Delicious dread

I don't store most people's numbers because then I'd lose all reason to pick up my phone. I really love and hate not knowing who's going to be on the line. Everytime my phone rings, I get nervous. Until I see a name and then it's all shot to shit.

Everybody's somebody's fool

My aunt used to wistfully sing this Connie Francis song to me from a tattered book that had taken her through her loneliest times in the army. I was just about six, or maybe eight, but even I could tell there was a sad story in there somewhere. Over the years we heard murmurs of a certain Captain Y and a Lieutenant X and a whole string of other designations but she took her secret with her when she died an old spinster four years ago.

Cut to 2009, and I am finally seeing that this Connie person was really onto something there. Everybody IS somebody's fool, everybody IS somebody's play-thing! And there are no exceptions to the ru-u-ule. Yes everybody's somebody's foo-ool! It really is a very catchy song.

Anyway.

Like I was saying. I've realised the hard way, that we all have one person who makes self-respect seem like a bell and whistle. It doesn't matter that you can list ten reasons for why this person doesn't deserve even your memory, without batting an eyelid. It matters even less that your friends are wincing at just how many times he/she shuts you down. And should this person make a gesture that only technically, after really having searched for it, qualifies as a nice thing, to you it's the equivalent of a kitten and a puppy baby, a kittuppy! You can't remember why you even considered considering cutting this person out of your life. Until he/she does it again.

Are these people walking genital warts? I don't think so. Are they awesomeness-incarnate? Nope, that they're not. It's what we ascribe to them that makes them so irreplaceable. And when you figure what that is, this person begins to unravel before your eyes. And suddenly it's blindingly clear that this person is just another person. And you were here before him/her and you will continue to be here now that he/she is gone.

That is closure.

Need. Air. Now.

In my observations of human behaviour (which generally involves watching friends through the comforting haze of beer and then extrapolating the conclusions to cover the whole of humanity - yep, it's a science), people derive almost sexual pleasure from knowing they have friends in common. There's gasping, impassioned name-calling, heavy breathing and such other excited noises.

I used to understand this peculiar behaviour once. Who doesn't like a good co-incidence to break the drudgery of the day? Noone likes to turn down a 'What?! Really?!' moment. But once, thanks to Facebook, BMM, a suffocatingly small media industry and overzealous Contact Whores, knowing people in common becomes the rule rather than the exception, I'd expect the thrill would wear thin. Not so.

As for me, I've come to dread this particular strain of conversation. EVERYBODY knows EVERYBODY. It used to be that you could just hang with another group to escape hearing the same anecdotes, the same names, the same thoughts. Now you must physically saddle up and ride out of town to find people who haven't heard of you or 'know your second cousin from your Mama's side, what a slut she is!'

I remember my Junior college self and how I longed to be on backslapping terms with everyone. It's funny how you can hate the things you think you want most. Now I just want to stop people when I sense they're about to know someone I know.

'NO.'
'No what?'
'No you don't!'
'No I don't what?'
'No you don't. Want to order the um, platter?'


Life's a clown.

Do you think that maybe?

Our biological clocks are bitterly divorced from our psychological clocks?

If English were a brothel, 'I Love You' would be its most hard-working trick? Costs almost nothing, takes instructions and is dead in the eyes.

Euphemistically speaking, we're all assholes?

Life should keep its lemons and hand you a stiff drink instead?

Billy Joel had the right idea?

Panic is a necessary precursor to the best things to happen to us?

That the power of speech would be more apt in reverse? As you grow and your mind gets more sophisticated (baseless claim, I know) you need words to get you by, less and less?

This blog has run its course?

I do.

I'd like one sense of humour to go, thankyou.

I've lost the funny, I have. I'm just not funny anymore.

I say things and I think "Well, that's not funny. Did you mean it to be funny? Because it's not. It's unfunny and tedious and practised and you should just stop talking."

I am finally that person I have feared I would some day become - A funny sounding person who suspects, and is joined by a great many in this suspicion, that she is not really funny. She falls just short of hitting the spot. Every single time.

I'm actually talking about being unfunny. Now a naturally funny person would not have to talk about being or not. It would just be something she did or didn't do.

If I had a dime for every time I said the word 'funny' here, I would BUY a sense of humour.

You see what I mean? Do you think this is how Russel Peters feels?

You know how everybody keeps saying Hrithik Roshan dances like a dream? Whose dream does he dance like? No no I should really like to know. Who dreams of what is essentially one big human bicep with unnecessarily long appendages, doing what is essentially hectic slithering, whose eleventh finger you keep catching glimpses of, every third frame or so?

We need to rethink our phraseology.

It was lovely, it was awful.

I do not know when or how I turned so nocturnal but the trappings came early. I started pushing 1am long before I was out of school and by the time college came around, 3am had become the norm. Being employed caused a lapse in the sleep pattern but not for long. Currently I am pushing 5am everyday and even then, I have to talk myself to sleep. Waking up late comes with its set of pangs but I feel like I am rarely able to be of much use during the day. It's too bright, it's too noisy, the mind cannot latch onto a single focal point.

At night I'm a better version of myself. I start to look better, the anecdotes seem to assume colour, the punch lines come easier and the cogs suddenly loose and fall out and the wheels begin to whirr with soothing steadyness. At night I always feel closer to the person I imagine I'm trying to be.

And yet the nights are always much too short, the half hours pass feverishly and before I know it daytime has begun to make itself known. In those moments when it begins to get light again, the feeling is strangely calming. To know you're privy to the experience of the night jerkily making its way out as daylight replaces it irreverently. But there is also panic. A sense of futility, the world suddenly seeming like one big inside joke that try as you might, you just can't get. They'll reference purpose and meaning and 5 year plans and discipline with self-congratulatory smiles and all you're thinking is 'Christ, any minute now, the punchline." It doesn't come and you call it a day.

Does it matter?

No.

Enjambment.

There are no neat lines, no end stops, no numbers, no symmetry. Only minutes melting into minutes and sleep into wakefulness into sleep again. Pondering too much by half and feeling too little by half. Forgotten characters coming back to play leading roles in one big mental epic. Fact and horror fiction bearing uncanny resemblance. And new voices subsiding to a distant general buzz.

It's Just a Ride

You know I'm often asked why I'm so apathetic towards my own life. "Why don't you have a bigger reaction?" "I'm sorry, is this not bothering you?" "How could you just let that go?"

And I want to be cool and say I'm laconic because I'm above it all. Not true. Because hey, not having things go the way you picture them in your head, no matter how limited and skewed that picture is, makes anybody smart. I'm no different. To a point. After that point has been reached - it generally takes lots of swallowing to keep the bile down, mental cursing and a quick call to my friend Parge - it passes and then I'm above it. And cool. And laconic.

Because you see, in the bigger scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Because time is more potent than any of this. And over the days, it stretches every memory, every experience like a rubber band till one day that band is so taut, it gives and it's over. When you wake up one morning and realise you've forgotten your ex's phone number. That's time. When you realise 'your song' has gone back to being 'a song'. That's time. When you realise you don't feel bitter the person is happy and you don't feel pleased if the person is sad. That's time right there. And it works like that for everything - divorce, death, getting fired, getting rejected, getting fat - without exception. Isn't that a wonderful constant to have?

So when you have made your peace with the fact that everything, good and bad, passes eventually, you figure why not start being okay sooner? Time's got enough work on hand with all those emotionally-constipated people who just. won't. let. it go.

That said, I know people who read 'Laconic' as 'Pushover'. These people are, and I quote someone I can't remember here, 'mediocre at best and suffused with feelings of entitlement.' This lot is a complete waste of time and space, sullying the gene pool one hyper-sensitive, neurotic second at a time and should be lined up and shot at close range with a BB gun so it hurts like a bitch and they don't even get to die afterwards. Them and those fucking Zoozoos.

And since it turned out to be the weekend of Bill Hicks, I'll let him end this post for me.

"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question, is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, “Hey - don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride…” And we… kill those people. Ha ha “Shut him up.” “We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.” It’s just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok.

But it doesn’t matter because: It’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. Thank you very much, you’ve been great.”

Jeezus God!

I'm struggling to not shut down. When the mind is put through these levels of ridiculousness, it just wants to self-preserve and collapse in on itself. I'm trying my best to avoid house-of-card analogies here because cliches must be reserved for more deserving occasions like death. Or the annual family get together. This would be a golden time to do some actual writing if it weren't for these blasted exams that I can't, for the life of me, remember why I'm taking. I write best when I'm fucked up. True story. Misery breeds creativity and wotsits.

At this point the only thing that would make me feel better is a really cruel joke at someone else's expense (Yeah tried Dlisted. No, not cruel enough) or unholy amounts of whiskey and a one way ticket to The Fuck Out of Here.

DoubleYouBee Oodles

So the exam weight is making its presence felt. Everything I managed to get off during the last one month spent travelling to the end of the world in the oppressive heat is ba-hack.

I tried to do the Suryanamaskar today. Alone. In my room. I think the walls laughed at me. Even Luke had to look away, embarrassed. (This is not an exaggeration, btw. He lives in a permanent state of embarassment on our behalf.) I look incredibly foolish doing anything yoga-related.

As for walks, my current earphones make the music sound like it's being carefully filtered through a succession of empty clanging tins. Curses. Will buy a new set at some point.

The one thing that immediately took care of the excess oodles the last time I did it, was dancing. Belly dancing. Yes, I belly danced. And was actually pretty good at it too. Twelve classes and I'd lost 3 inches off the waist and inches off everywhere else. Then I came home and the Mater asked me to give her a demo. I, ofcourse, refused. Then quite expectedly, she emotionally blackmailed me. So I um danced, without music and her looking over her glasses. When I got done she was actually quite nice about it. Told me I was rather more flexible than she'd imagined and would I please never do *that* in front of another human being again? Thankyou.

Now there's the gym option (I'd rather die at this point). So I'm guessing the deafening, soul- rupturing walk it's going to be.

Oh, I'm sorry, there's no point to this post if that's what you're looking for. My bad, I should have mentioned that at the start.




Listen to Polaroid Solution by Faded Paper Figures. Any song that stays relevant for two days on loop is alright by me.

I hope I never get so clever or posh that meaning what I say becomes optional. I have met people like this, whose words are as watery as their eyes.

Logic? I'd rather die.

I think the Biggest Tragedy of all is to begin dreaming sensibly. The day that happens to me, I'll shut shop and prepare to die. That would mark the end of any kind of living for me. It's is my fine-tuned illogic that keeps me afloat on bad days.
As a child I'd lie on the floor with my best friend and we'd stare at her high ceilings and puzzlingly Victorian decor while talking about all the things we'd do, ten years from then. This year is ten years from then and we've both been places we'd never imagined and had experiences that would require a house with much higher ceilings to be contained.
Whenever I feel like I'm in danger of getting real, my mind goes running to retrieve that memory. Cold hard floor. Lying on it, palms folded behind my head, talking crazy. There may have been a Mariah Carey CD playing but then that's what selective memory is for.

Yes, yes I'm going back to study in a quick minute

But first. Seen on a chat window.

"You know what would be a fun Ponds ad?

Show one pond. Then zoom out and show two ponds.

And just blank screen to

Ponds.

Hahaha"

The 'Xam is Upon Me

Which means my brain is categorically refusing to have anything to do with any manner of reading/ studying/ absorbing/ learning. I am hoping that I still have some flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants left in me. Meanwhile my thoughts are pulling apart in many vague, irrelevant directions.

Please enlist them, Gyuri, we're so intrigued?

Well when you put it like that... here's some of them. (If I'm wasting precious minutes not studying, it's because of you.)


My mind is like an industrial strength sieve. Nothing sticks, my memory's developed leaks, details just elude me. It's why, though I'm decently read, you'll often hear me talking about 'that book' in which 'that guy, no no that other guy' did 'that thing'.

I really, really like how women look when they're playing the guitar. I think more than wanting to play the guitar for 'the music', it was wanting to look that way that made me get one. Then I found the strings really, really hurt the fingers, you know? I still harbour some ambition on this account, though.

I'm convinced my exam centre is a place of knowledge by day, and a urinal for weary truckers by night. Will I be carting unholy amounts of tissue along for my papers? You bet!

I don't think the world can afford to lose Terry Pratchett. Or Havelock Vetinari. Or Sargeant Nobbs, or Captain Vimes or Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler or Granny Weatherwax. The whole Discworld really. And it's going to.

Letting go of the past functions much like my Mum's Asthalin pump. One minute you're suffocating, next minute you're exhaling with relief. Your chest doesn't feel constricted anymore, you can hear better, and your eyesight clears right up.

Cheesy lines only irritate when they're being used on everyone but you.

I have not been out in longer than I care to remember. Mojitos, some retro music and good company is a cliche I could very much use right now.

The minute I get a sense that you're playing to the gallery, you've lost me. The minute I get a sense that you don't care what I think about you, you've got me.

I cannot wait to land another role in a play. Even if it's a minute long. Barring that, being backstage hand sounds pretty good too.

I've met a bunch of people who do not have Facebook accounts. They're alive, well and seem to be thriving socially nonetheless. With a very low propensity for breaking out into impromptu photo-sessions, I might add.

I say 'fuck' too much. People think it's very unbecoming. Let them think. Fuck.

Dlisted has been an endless repository of sadistic laughs. Michael K, you're going straight to hell. I hope you aren't gay as a pink unicorn there because we can do sexy times when I get up there myself.

I haven't been crazy mad in a long time. Irritable, yes. Cross, yes. Mad, no. I'm certain it's not because I'm a mature adult. I just don't think I care enough. Oh well. All's the better for me. I look ten kinds of ugly when I'm mad.

If I pass this exam, I'll feel bad for people who actually studied. If I don't, it will be right only.

Today I make my stage debut.

Wish me luck. This could go either way.

Rose tinted glasses don't suit me one bit

I am convinced that I have reached the very end of any possible innocence I had left post-puberty, porn and peroxide. Lately I seem to have trouble holding the cynic in me down. Alot less is cute, alot less is understandable, alot less is falls into the 'Oh, it's nothing' scheme of things.

It came to me today, on the train ride to Malad (which for local train-virgins is as far as it sounds, just like Vangaon and Titvala). I was standing at the door, eyes closed and enjoying the rhythm of the rail tracks when suddenly I hear annoying voices. Goes without saying, they belonged to two kids (The girl looked about 4, and the boy about 8-9), who belonged to a mother with an equally grating voice. Now here's the part that creeped me out.

The little girl was being tantrumy as little girls often tend to be. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The mother was fawning endlessly and semi-babytalking them which seemed inappropriate but still not anything to get worried over. But the boy, now the boy was being a bit strange. In my life experience, boys that age think it's emasculating to be seen being fawned over. Not this one. This one was all over his mother. And for some inexplicable reason, he kept, um, fondling her chest? I just don't know why. "Mummy yeh dekho," while holding her chest. "Mummy, next station kaunsa hai?" again, hands on her chest. Maybe I'm reaching here, but I could've sworn he was trying to find reasons to put his hands on her chest.
And I felt myself dislike him. A little boy!

Maybe I'm looking too much into this and maybe that makes me the creep here, but does anyone else find that quite as disturbing as I did? Does this fall within the normal boundary of parent-child behaviour? It's similar to when I see older teenage or early twenty-something guys get physically affectionate with babies, especially girl babies. It just makes me uncomfortable. And a bit sad that I've come to be so skittish about these things.

A special thanks to the Josef Fritzls of the world. I blame you.

Project Get Shit Together (TM) begins today

It's been a long time coming. And I think it's finally here. I've left much too much upto whimsy so far - today onwards my life gets a shot of purpose in the arm. I'm told this won't hurt at all by the mater but then she also told me castor oil 'doesn't taste so bad', so I'm not dwelling too much on her opinion here.

That said, I think I know myself well enough to know I embrace change best when I don't know it's happened. So baby steps. I thought I'd set a few ballpark rules to give the project some form, though.

They are:

- Don't say 'yes' if you mean 'let's see'. Most of my unfinished business started that way.
- Go one way or the other. Make a choice. Stick with it.
- Get 8 hours of sleep, no compromise.
- Do it right then. Not after one (or ten) episodes of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
- MTV Roadies is where useful minutes of life go to be buggered and die.

Yerp. That about does it. I will add to the list along the way.

This blog is where I'll be charting my daily progress.

"All the best, Gyurkovics"? "Sure you'll smash it, Gyurkovics"?

No?

Okay.

When cheese makes er, sense?

Watched Dan In Real Life the other day. Again. All the usual adjectives, yeah - formulaic but nice, conversational, Steve Carrel is awesome times infinity, etc. I don't get Juliette Binoche yet but I'm willing to give it time.

Anyhoo, the point I'm coming to is the line in the movie that goes "I'll forgive you your past, if you forgive me mine." I experienced something approaching the dry heaves when I heard that - anymore in that vein and I'd hate the movie, so kudos to the writers for reining in the emos - but it did make me think for a second.

Look.
I am a creature of habit or have been for most part of my life. When I place myself in an equation, I have to know every last bit there is to know or atleast a substantial amount before I decide to invest. (It's why I make wagers only when I know I'm right :D).

Which brings me to relationships and how forgiving someone's past (assuming there is something that needs forgiving) comes so naturally to some people. It doesn't to me. In my opinion and a fair bit of experience as well now, if you did it once, you'll do it again. I've heard the "it happened long ago, how does it matter?" or the "I wasn't thinking straight" and they don't bode well with me. And who really, really forgives and forgets? The first instant that the situation develops cracks, aren't the person's past misdemeanours going to be the first thing that cross your mind? Noone forgives and forgets. It's just postponed till something crappy happens.

I think more than being so nauseatingly virtuous, it's just about having the gonads to knowingly make a bad decision, hope like hell the chance you're taking pays off and have noone but yourself to blame if it doesn't.

Take a baseball bat to the crap-stuffed painata, I says. Do it.

Ho Hum

My life could best be described as organised chaos right now. I've obviously bitten off more than I can chew, juggling three very different um, balls? Forgive me, I'm very prone to mixing my analogies.

From spending every waking hour near-comatose in front of the TV/ Comp, I find I can barely manage to sit down anymore. There's always somewhere to head. something to do. My couch-potato self of a few weeks ago would be mortified - this would be her worst nightmare. I'm feeling pretty good though.

I've spent the better part of the last two weeks on trains, trying desperately to understand how on earth Grammar got so mathematical while corpulent women try to shove their sweaty boobs/ abdomens/ kids in my book and face. I've made two eunuch acquaintances - we smile our acknowledgement everytime we see one another.

On the personal front, I'm finding myself surprised. There's a big 'what, really?' and some little ones hanging over me head. I don't know, the plan for now is just to wait and see. Also, this cool 'Single in the City' thing I imagined I'd do is going decidedly left of centre. I do not, for the life of me, know how to react when I hear a line. I start sweating profusely, fumbling and desperately searching for something to do with my hands (Awful, awful time to quit smoking!). I'm sure I look quite attractive doing that too. Yeesh. Like the succinct Parge says "Dude you're a dick."

The hair is doing better as far as staying on my head and not the shower drain goes. Expect it to behave itself, and I'm expecting too much. And it's been attracting odd attention.

Today in the train, the woman to my right nudges me and points to her right. That woman points to her right. The third woman looks at me sheepishly and says "Madam, is your hair real?"
I just smiled, it felt too strange to venture an actual answer.
I wonder if her Mister will hear of the girl in the train with the ridiculous curly-haired wig.

Christ. I think I'm in over my head.

Sound the sirens, it has happened

In a few months, I officially come of marriageable age. According to my mum. And since my last (and only) 'i'm sure this is it' relationship sank like the fucking Titanic, she has little or no trust in my ability to find a suitable boy in time to have babies before I have osteoporosis.
She has begun looking up the matrimonial section of our weekly parish news bulletin. She wants me to get in touch with a 31-year-old engineer from an oil and gas company.

"The only thing is you'll have to move to Quatar."

"But I'm 23, Mama!"

"So you think if you sit at home like this, someone is just going to waltz into your life when you're 26 and good and ready to be married? Life doesn't work like that."

I have a feeling this bad mood is going to last me all year.

Dil hoom hoom kare

I watched Confessions of Shopaholic yesterday. I wasn't feeling intense enough to watch Gulaal and certainly not breezy or bored enough to watch Pink Panther 2. The movie turned out to be strides better than I'd expected. It had several funny parts, and I do love the formulaic improbability of chick flicks. Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood is alright, no great shakes. This role had Reese Witherspoon's name all over it. The clothes were very New York leathery-skinner socialite offspring variety, think Nicole Richie circa her Simple Life days.
The winner for me was the beautiful, almost-delicate, lovely Hugh Dancy as Luke Brandon, Rebeccca's editor and love interest. He is...ok, I need to stop or I'm going to have a verbal orgasm. Look for yourself.



So naturally, I come home and Google his hotness expecting his real life interest to be very Emmanuelle Chriqui-ish. And what do I find? He's engaged to the asexual, dry-bread blandness that is Claire Fucking Danes. You know how sometimes you look at a person and get annoyed. Claire is that person for me. I don't understand the purpose of her in Hollywood. She's so damn annoying to look at. She reminds me and could easily fit the part of those annoyingly masculine, flat chested gym instructors who think having curves is a sin and who will chirpy-talk you into murdering yourself on the treadmill and finding your inner wind with some unpronouncable yoga pose. And she's got a certain Gwyneth Paltrow 'I'm above looking pretty, let me embrace the coarsest, harshest looking side of myself' thing going. As I type this post, he's beginning to look less attractive to me, just because he finds Claire Danes attractive. He's not my type,. That's right, HE is not MY type. I spurn you Hugh Dancy, spurn!


Working that gym instructor look.

One of those days

It feels strange when you wake up one day and realise how much you've changed over the years and just how weird you've gotten, or rather how you've swapped past weirdnesses for bright, new, scary ones. Yes, I have lists to illustrate.

Past strangeness
I ate coffee powder
I ate tea powder
I was terrified of flying balls (Every possible joke you could think of making has already been made, rest assured)
When I looked in the mirror, all I saw was fat.
I was cripplingly shy. Most conversations I had were with people's shoulders or with their feet.
Having to speak up in public would reduce me to a cold, sweating, fidgety mass of nervousness. I'd go days without saying much.
I hated the idea of someone looking at my face for more than 40 seconds at a stretch.
I was a creepily good listener. It didn't matter who, even people I didn't know would walk up to me, you know, 'just to talk." I could go through conversations that lasted hours without having spoken more than a few words.
I hated phone conversations.

Present Strangeness
I am completely at ease with strangers, more so those I know I'll never meet again. When it comes to talking to people I know and have known for a while, I'm uncomfortable and want to just run away.
I have no idea what to say to people anymore. They tell me stuff and for some reason, if I feel the need to reply, I invariably end up saying the absolute last thing they wanted to hear.
I want to be listened to all the time. I get annoyed listening myself. In some way, it's as though I'm trying to make up for all the years I never ever talked about myself.
I rarely feel the need to communicate with people. The times that I do, I get sick of it five minutes into the conversation.
I smoke two cigarettes every night before I sleep.
I'm nervous and on edge almost everyday. Before I sleep every morning (4am), I feel a sudden rush of panic.
I eat a cube of cheese everyday at about 4pm.
I have a very strong urge to become an actor. Based on almost nothing at all.
I am obsessed with knowing inane facts about people. Sometimes I''ll stay up nights just looking up random subsidiary characters I've seen in films.


I scare myself.

Current song fixation: Let my love open the door by Sondre Lerche

What's everybody got against the money?

Lately I find myself surrounded by women who seem to have a healthy aversion to prospective dates/ boyfriends/ fiancees because the person happens to be loaded. And I, for one, don't understand it. Their reasons are generally that money makes people too snotty/ spoilt/ lazy and makes for gargantuan chip-on-shoulder potential. I think that's a sweeping generalisation. I get the sense that these women think it's the higher-order, moralistic thing to say.

So where am I going with this? Championing a cause for the rich? Well, sort of, yeah.

I think rich people have it pretty bad. Well sure they have gilded cars, South Mumbai houses and have a weekly clubbing fund that would comfortably take me through my month, but they also have to deal with stupid unfounded prejudices like these. So they had better opportunities, inherited already flourishing businesses and have probably never known what being on a budget feels like, so what? They didn't choose it any more than poor people did their own backgrounds. If it's so terrible to discriminate against people who've had it hard to no fault of their own, it should be just as awful to discriminate against people who've had an easy life to no fault of their own. So why are rich people having to take the rap for something they didn't do. A rather well-off close friend of mine is regularly treated differently because she happens to come from money. If she fights for a bonus after a month of working hard, she gets a 'but why're you so gung ho about this? It's not like you need the money." People regularly fleece her because "she can afford it." It's stupid.

And since when have people's characters become so entangled with how much money they have.
I have met rich people who're so endearingly unapologetic about their ample means yet so humble, and have also met the kinds who think you shouldn't be allowed to breathe without owning atleast one branded item. Similarly I've met not so well-to-do people who are unbelievably cool and a fair amount of tedious, bitter sorts who make you want to shoot yourself through the head just so you've wiped out even that .0 percent chance that you'll ever meet them again.

If you're going to discriminate, discriminate because he's an A-hole and hasn't got one interesting thing to say and isn't in the least bit attractive to you. Don't discriminate because he happens to like his Glenfiddich and has paper towels in his car. Ok the paper towels thing is weird, but you know what I mean.

As for what I'm looking for? I'm looking for someone to make me laugh, do fake accents, love my dysfunctional family, find my dog's flatulence cute, turn me on and talk, really talk to me. If he's not loaded, that's fine. If he is, just show me the dotted line. I'm there.


Ps: I watched Slumdog Millionaire again with a friend who hadn't had the chance to see it till now. Yep, I still don't get all the fuss. But for fear of being called obsessive (again), I'm making this a P.S and not a post.

I look around me and everybody has aged. Glaringly obvious, yes, but now I can actually see it happening. My mother seems older, slower and more forgetful to me. Everytime she breathes heavily in the night, I find I have to look over just to be sure, you know, nothing's happened. I watched Amitabh Bachchan on TV the other day - he's been old for a while now, but yesterday I actually saw how old. I thought about him dying and it scared me.
My friends have aged too. I've aged. It's harder for me to take off the extra oodles than it was two years... even a year ago. We have grownup issues now. We still discuss boys, but now it isn't about like like, it's about like-enough-to-marry, like-his-bank-balance-enough or like-is-he-really-ending-it-with-me-to-settle-with-her? Before I could go weeks with just four hours of sleep a night, no problem. Now I have 'aches', yes.
My dog doesn't frolick anymore. He's not a puppy anymore. He's turned into a quiet, older dog - well behaved, even. Eugh. There isn't nearly enough frolicking right now. Not with him, not with me, not much. Frolicking is nice. I'd like to frolick again.

Fuck.

I spend all my time trying to get noticed as little as possible,
Yet I live in constant fear that it will work.
I'm scared noone will notice if I disappear.

Hi Daddy,

It's been a while since I thought of you. I feel guilty about it sometimes but then other times I forget about that too. I feel like nothing should change the equation we shared when you were here, now that you're gone. I still want to tell you it's all your fault. I still need a punching bag. It's easier that way.
I think you going set the trend for 'quick and painful' for my life. I turned around for a bit and you were gone. Everything that does go, that means anything, goes that way now. Before I have a chance to make things right. I think worse than not having done the right thing is realising what the right thing is and then not having the time to do it. I was always a little slow on the uptake, you know that about me. And then having nowhere to send those new constructive thoughts, I put them away in the '?!' section of my mind, small regrets and questions that ferment and bubble and I know will rise without warning. And then I'll shake with sobs so gutteral, I'm shocked they're coming from me.
But don't think I'm unhappy. I'm not. I'm doing well, I barely cry at all. You'd be pleased to see me now, I think. I don't really blame you for anything, but you already know that. I can only hope you also know how much I cared without me ever having been able to say it. Because you cared more.

Bye.
Till I need you again.
Or think about you.
Whichever comes first.

Current song obsession: I Can't Stay by The Killers. I promise I won't make a habit of posting lyrics.

The emotion it was electric
And the stars, they all aligned
I knew I had to make my decision
But I never made the time
No, I never made the time

In the dark, for a while now
I can't stay, so far
I can't stay much longer
Riding my decision home

Exoneration lost his eraser
But my forgiver found the sun
And there are twisted days
That I take comfort
Cause I'm not the only one
No, I'm not the only one

In the dark, for a while now
I can't stay very far
I can't stay much longer
Riding my decision home

There is a majesty at my doorstep
And there's a little boy in her arms
Now we'll parade around
Without game plans
Obligation or alarm

In the dark, for a while now
I can't stay very far
I can't stay much longer
Riding my decision home

In the dark, for a while now
I can't stay so far
I can't stay much longer
Riding my decision home
In the dark


This is serious gold. Will upload video later.

Thanks A!

Even though He's Just Not That Into You was a particularly average film based on a supposedly hilarious(I haven't read it yet) book of the same name, I think it has basic glaring truth. Why are we trying so hard to make excuses for the people in our lives?
We enter into any alliance based on an idea of what we want that relationship to account for in our lives - whether a source of approval, or fun, or ego boosting, or advice/wisdom, whatever. So then we've already made up our minds about what it and the person who brings it is supposed to be like. And no matter what the person does or says contrary to it, we'll search desperately for the smallest and even most superficial way for it to fit into our 'idea' of what we ache for him/her to be like, effectively pulling the wool over our own eyes.
How do you remedy it. Needing, not loving, is the most severe hobble you could walk into a relationship with. You come to a point where you, your family, your friends, your pets, your books are all you'll ever need. It's when you'll be perfectly ready to be in a relationship that is lucid, honest and minus the bullshit.
It sounds a bit cold and clinical - why be in a relationship when you are wanting for nothing from said person? So you don't have your blinders on. You see the person for what he/she really is - deep haunting voids, small kindnesses, loveliness, awfulness - in all their glory and you feel free to lose yourself in deep love with this person, completely unfettered by imagined ideas of how this person can complete you.
In the end you choose, you don't let your weaknesses choose for you.

There maybe honour among thieves, but you're just a liar.

Be still my heart

I believe Marion Cotillard could say 'suck on this, motherfucker' and still make it sound like sweet soft lilting velvetine goodness. I'm sorry Julie Delpy, Marion is the new French love of my life. In fact, I wonder what she would have done with Before Sunrise\Sunset. Yes. I went there.

Where did love go?

Did it get lost in the mail?
While I checked my reflection in you rearview mirror, perhaps?
Did it wander off while we were too busy having a fun time?
Or maybe when I asked you to stay longer,
When you were poised to leave?
The door was ajar, you know.
It could have slipped out.

Click to enlarge

As delighted as I am that Kareena decided not to bring her sacred allegiance to Manish Malhotra to the Stardust Awards, I am having some mixed feelings about this dress.

On the one hand, I like that she's changing it up a bit and I like bouffants, have no qualms with her YSL Tributes and the dress, even - I think I get it. But all together?

That's the kind of hair you do if you're going all out with the red carpet regalia, a neater bouffant, perhaps. The dress has completely hijacked her figure here - the top half is billowing and wayy too non-descript. The sleeves have an odd frill at the elbow the fluttery hemline is alright though personally, I think, body con dresses do better by her. She should leave the alternative, Cavalli-esque business to Katrina. Woman's amazonian enough to carry this off, Kareena isn't.

The makeup is so ashen, she's looking pale - I wonder why she decided to give her red pout the heave-ho. It would have picked up the general dowdiness that's settled on this outfit.

I'd swap those platform wedges for a nice pair of pumps, too.

Did I say I was having mixed feelings? I'm not anymore. I definitely don't like this.

Ps: Have I mentioned I'm obsessed with her? I am. There I said it. Say what you want.