A quick hello

Wow, I didn't think this was what would follow that godawful post that you kept seeing every time you came visiting here these past few months. But as I (and Robert Jordan) keep saying, the wheel weaves as the wheel wills. 

A lot of crazy things have happened since we last met, especially with the friends. Jughead went through what was possible the toughest phase of her life. Samwise went back to college. Dark Lord got married. Ha is back in India and working the grind. And I, dear readers, have been in a relationship. 

There, I said it. 

Now this blog has seen it all. Me. In a relationship. With a boy who lives in the same continent and time zone as me. As long-term readers of this space will know, that's a first. 

If it helps, I don't get it either. Bear is nothing like my type. He's irritatingly idealistic, stable, gritty, confident, expressive and incredibly physical. And somehow, he has managed to convince me of his merit; and that my lazy, nihilistic, existential, fickle, talentless self is what he needs. So it goes. 

That in three months, he's managed to worm his way into every part of my life so much that it doesn't scare me anymore is what scares me the most nowadays. That I am happy doesn't help matters either. 

But enough about that. If it survives the winter, I'll tell you more. 

Speaking of winter, and in case we don't meet in the next fortnight, I am going to be off for a White Christmas (if the visa gods are kind enough to humour me). So, see you guys on the other side! 




P.S: I'm still not reading or writing at all, so please excuse the brevity with which I aimed to finish this post. 

P.P.S: It's probably because my writing has no fuel, which hitherto was served my unending reserves of misery. Therefore, I deduce that its my temporary happiness that's hampering my creative muses.  

OR 

More realistically, its because I've been binge watching the latest episodes of everything from Scandal and New Girl to Newsroom and Homeland, which are probably some of the worst shows on modern television at the moment. Ergo, the acute paucity of working brain cells.

P.S to the P.P.S: Once I figure out why Rhonda Shimes makes her people talk like that, I will be back, I promise!

Woe is me

Somewhere in the process of growing up, I've become a person who no longer trusts words.  It's funny considering how I'm in the business of words.  And that I love words more than everything else in the world. Or maybe that's exactly why.  Words mean different things to people than they do to me. Words of affection and appreciation, gratitude and regret are thrown around so casually that they mean nothing to the said or the received anymore.

For me, words have measure. And meaning. Weight and worth. When I do say the words, I will them with everything that I am. Naively, I expect the same of the people I love.

Knowing that words don't mean anything, actions do, is perhaps one of the hardest things I'm learning about life. 

***
I could never communicate pain. I was one of those freaky babies that didn't cry at all. Instead, I stared unblinkingly at people until they looked away. Predictably, I grew into an incredibly pigheaded and prideful child. Probably also why in every fight of my life, I have invited myself a world of pain.  

For as long as I can remember, it was always simple -- never show hurt, never reveal a weakness, never expose any vulnerability. Never give anyone the power to get to you. So I didn't.  Not when I was hit by a bike. Not when I had a cigarette burning into my leg.  Not when I was being beaten bloody. Not the million times after.  

For someone who prides herself on being pretty perceptive about most things, it never occur to me to it would mean, because I don't say, I must not feel. That because I refused to let anybody have the satisfaction of seeing me hurt that I got hit that much harder.  

In that, nothing has changed. In fact, I do it so convincingly now that nobody can tell I'm breaking. 

*** 

Have you ever found yourself frighteningly lonely? I don't mean like waking-up-on-a-deserted-island- with-no-hint-of-humanity-in-a-thousand-mile-radius lonely.  No, I mean, the kind of loneliness that creeps into your life without warning.  When you roll down numbers and numbers on your phone and have no one you want to call.  Names you hover over but don't ping when you see them shining green on your chat list. Eyes you don't see when you walk into a room.

You know, all this while, that they are there - your staples. People who care. And will listen. Who will make you laugh and everything.

But, no, it's still you I want.

*** 

In one month, I turn 26. The end has begun. 

*** 

Speaking of birthdays, if I died today, my greatest regrets  (in no particular order) would be

Never knowing love. 

Never having travelled the world. 

Never getting a chance to write/report something truly brilliant/brave. 

Not having done something to make the momma and papa bear know I love them more than anything else in the world. 

Didn't do anything to change the world I was born into. 

****

This post is fucking depressing. I need ice cream. As Steven Meretzky would say, "Wasted day. Wasted life. Dessert, please."

The Lankan Sojourn

Maybe because I didn’t expect it to happen that it happened. Actually, it almost didn’t happen. A, who was supposed to come with us, left for the U.S. Tomcat lost his passport and almost didn’t come. Just when I was contemplating arsenic, everything miraculously worked itself out and we were rushing to catch our flight to Colombo. And then, twenty minutes before takeoff, as we walk to the airplane I lose my boarding pass.  This time I know, it is the end. So I walk to lie on the tarmac and wait for the flight to run over me when I see it, through the blinding sheen of tears on my face, lying there on the ground - the traitorous piece of shit - ready to go with the wind. It's only when we clear Indian airspace do I breathe again. You had to be there to see but it was like the Indian version of Argo. 

I didn't expect to like this place. But even the sun and the tourists and the stinky food, I loved every bit of the tiny island nation. i loved its blue beaches and green green hills. I loved the ochre drapes and serene faces on the buddhist monks. I loved the sight of hundreds of kids pour out onto the streets every morning in time for school. I loved the batik prints and the elephant motifs everywhere. I loved that the women show off their mid riffs and hide their elbows.  I loved the little hideouts outside of the tourist trails. i loved their shiny new trains and their crazy tuk-tuks.

But what I loved more than any of these were these moments of peace when time comes to a standstill, the world falls away and you become invisible. 

I think these are moments I travel for. When I’m lying under a starlit sky listening to the crash of waves or walking along a cobbled street watching my breath frost on a cold night or sitting at a cafe sharing a secret smoke with a stranger. Bartering tales of far away lands with fellow travelers. When even the voices in my head cease to be. And, I just am. 

There, I can be anybody or nobody at all. 

Summer is Coming

Its not like I have anything to say. I'm only writing here because I have this thing I'm supposed to be doing right now but as you can guess, I'd rather do anything but that.  So here I am, wasting your time and mine but really, I can't think of one other thing to do at the moment. Apparently, neither can you.

Now that we are here,  let me tell you about my week.  To say that it was heartbreaking would be an understatement. My advice? Don't wait and hope for nothing. Oh, I know, they'll all say, the magic of thinking big and the secret to the universe or some such shit.  They're lying. There's nothing worse than feeling like a failure. Not.one.thing.

Actually, the one thing that is worse than failure is remembering all the other things you've failed at. Like math. (Running out of fingers since '95). Like boys (Why would I lie to the one boy who likes me that I'm seeing this other boy who I've not really seen in two years but now ever since I've lied, I really want to see).  Like jobs (All I want is a job that lets me travel and write and meet people and bake and help little children and has weekends and pays. The way people are acting, you'd thing that's too much to ask or something). Like rein in my weight. ("No, not a suicide vest, still my hips," I had to tell the lady at the airport).

And speaking of suicides, you know what else is happening? Weddings. So, so many of them that I feel like sleeping at the venue so I can just wake up and go to the next. If you are planning to invite me to yours, don't. It's a kindness, really. But if you really insist on me being a part of it,  can you just please live-stream it and then home-deliver the food? I'll even send your dabba back and a gift with the same courier fellow, promise. Just don't make me dress up and wear shoes and match things, I beg you.

Wow, I sound like such a jerk, don't I?  But if you really want to call me names, do you think you can call me a makeup slathered horsebeast or a stilletos and perfume lying horsebeast slagbucket . I've been meaning to call someone that ever since I read it but the only one I know really who has a horse-face is well, me. Since, we are in the mood for public humiliation, I might as well tell you about the boy from college who thought he was paying me a compliment when he said,  "you have a face only your mother will like." He was trying to say his mother, apparently.  Like that makes it better. Which reminds me, of course, of my favourite boy of all time whose favourite cuisine, he told me with great pride, was "fruit juice." And they ask me why I'm single.

For a person who started this with nothing to say, I'm sure am like an Energiser bunny today.  I would have loved to go on, and I don't even mean that snarkily, I have missed talking to you, it seems but I have to go do that other thing. By which I mean, that I'm going to go bed, try to slip into a sleep-induced coma and hope to never wake up.

On that cheerful note, I bid you farewell.

This be the year

Don't think I don't know what you are thinking.  I can sense your disappointment all the way over here through cyber space every time you come to the page and then leave upon seeing the cobwebs exactly as you left them last.

If you haven't already guessed, let me tell you how my new year resolutions are shaping up, one month into the year.  #epicfail dear readers, that's how. I needed a muse, a purpose, a sign from above, something to make me just sit the fuck down and write.

In the end inspiration arrived in the form of something entirely unpredictable-technology. To put it simply, if you are reading this, you have two things to thank for it - Swype and Morse code.

Lemme start at the start. Despite all my resolutions, for most of the month, I was in hibernation, refusing to see anyone's face until they lured me out of my room with tubs and tubs of ice cream. And then something happened and suddenly I have a life again.

It started with movies that refused to be watched at home - Catching Fire (for which I blame Ha), the Desolation of Smaug (for which I blame myself...), American Hustle (Will I ever lust after Christian Bale ever again?) And of course The Wolf of Wall Street (Matthew McConaughey, hello my new love.) 

Ahem. Right, so as I was saying, yes, it started off as innocent trips to the movies and now I'm busier than when I had a full time job. Which btw doesn't mean I was jobless then just that I thought I didn't have any time then but you should see me now....arrghhh, you get what I mean! This is why I don't write anymore dear readers, I am a complete mental case.

But anyway, let me at least attempt to finish this post while still can. So there I am in my warm little hole in the ground when it's suddenly time for amen s wedding! The amen with whom I share more memories than anyone else in the world, that amen.

So started the calls and the mails and the shopping lists. The bachelorette and the mehendi and the nikaah and the reception and everything before and after. There should be a dirty-cakes maker and a wardrobe leasing company and a thoughtful gift store made available to all friends of brides. It's the only way you are still feeling happy at the idea of anyone's wedding. 

Then for resolution number I forget which: "learn a new skill". Now any one else would learn to sing or dance or draw or swim, but of course, not me. Being the over enterprising thing that I am, I decide to pick up Morse code, the one skill I'm guaranteed to never have a use for in my lifetime. That doesn't stop me from conjuring wild fantasies of a post apocalyptic universe where in the aftermath of a world wide technological breakdown, I am the sole hope of mankind, sending garbled messages at 1wmp speeds to Brad Pitt who I'll hook up with later on.  It's becoming harder and harder to concentrate during class while devising strategies to evade zombies/alien thingies but I will be ready when the time comes, I promise.

In other news, chances of travel on the cards. And exercise. And a job. And boys. And an ma. If even a few of all the things I want to happen this year happen, this will be the year.

P.S: First among new ventures circa 2014 - linesfrom. Feel free to contribute!

P.P.S: I want to say I'll be good and make up for the three weeks missed but maybe best not. But lemme just say, Swype? Big fan.