The Grey Cub

I am writing this, weeping and red nosed, sitting in a cab heading to the Airport. I am leaving behind Bangalore, a city I used to detest but is now home to everything I know and love.

I am leaving behind a home, an airy little world of teal and yellow, where I was the happiest I have ever been. And I’m saying bye to Boov — Bear and H — with whom I have made a life together; who have seen me sob, laugh, and live out my grief these past few months and have come to become my people.

I know it seems like an overreaction, this terrible feeling of loss. But for me, its more than just the idea that I’ll never live with them again. And that I’ll never go out for frisbee nights.  Or have our cookouts. Or talk for hours by the peepal tree.

As I head back to Hyderabad, the pain comes from knowing that there is no more sanctuary. No more packs that will take me in, care for me, and shield me from the cruelty of what’s to come.

I’m on my own now. 

Life in a black hole

One of the things they don't tell you about cancer is how isolating it can be. More often than not, with people I just act like its fine, as if we still had hope, as if his chemo didn't utterly fail, as if they were still things we could try, as if my dad really wasn't dying.

I put up this front mainly to save other people from making the effort of knowing how to rightly react. And, it works for the most part, except when you do it so convincingly that they really do forget.  So, they make jokes about dying. Or take you to idiotic pubs where they sit across you and giddily sip vodka hooked up in saline bottles as your dad lies in the hospital the exact same day hands red and swollen, being pumped up with antibiotics to counter a blood poisoning.  Or, people tell you the big tragedies of their life like parking woes or salary hikes and expect you to sympathise.

For a while you try. You try to explain this new world you live in -  where everything feels surreal, like you're in a loop and everything around you is either speeding or has slowed down. Where everything is shaky, and you are constantly trying to keep afloat, stay in the sun, and not go under. Where you see a person slowly disintegrate and with them, take you too.

No one get's it. Not even the people who say they're closest. Every day, you realise you're slipping farther and farther away, and no one's noticed. Then, one day, you wake up and see that you're alone, in your own raft, and there's no saving you.

So it starts.

The earliest memory I have of my dad is of Sunday mornings. Of me sitting in his lap on our verandah and he carefully cutting my stubby nails into the newspaper spreadeagled infront, while he mulled over the Sunday crossword.

Then, there was the summer holidays. The one time he was made to babysit, he had put us (7 and 8 year olds) on our first ever flight, and by ourselves. By the time amma got back from grocery shopping, we were on our way to Calcutta.

Slightly older, at 8 or 9, I remember him taking Demonkid and me to school. We never once made it on time to the morning prayers. We spent the first hour of every school day standing outside the assembly hall for most of an hour. For five years.

Then, at 11 or 12,  I had not seen him for over a month. When he came back, he looked a lot older than when he'd left, quieter, more grave. He handed me a bag and went to sleep. It was a boardgame I'd ordered him not to return without - LIFE. My mom told me later that it was the first thing he asked on getting out of the hospital. He had had a heart attack.  

In later years, I remember him on the sidelines, seeing me trudge through colleges and jobs and boys and everything else. Never once telling me what to do.  Even when I didn't go to the college he'd have liked for me. Or take up a profession he would have wanted. Or be with boys he approved of. He stood by quietly, through my tears and mistakes, only ever wanting one thing -- for me to be happy. 

I always laughed at kids who were terrified of their fathers. I didn't think of mine like that. I think, neither did he. He treated us as adults, even when we were children. He let us burn our fingers and learn. He let us fly and all. Mostly, because he didn't know how to be a parent. 

What he did know and like were friends. And so we were, him and me. But he was always the better one -- Always curious about the world. Always wanting to do something new. Always trusting than doubting. Always living in the now than worrying about the morrow. 

But I didn't end up like him. I became my mother instead -- Cynical. Guarded. Reclusive. Risk-averse. 

And now,  I sit by him. In his chemo sessions. By his bedside. Willing him back to sleep as he wakes up breathless and panting every few minutes; still checking and double-checking PET scan results and experimental drug trials and median survival rates every night, feeling my jaded little heart crack every time I find out Stage IVs don't make it past a few months.

He has to. He just has to. 

Because right now, I don't want friends. I want my dad. 

Winter is coming.

Usually, I don't write on request but this one time, I thought I'd oblige. Mainly because I want to and partly because, if not for him, then who and if not now, then when. So on. 

Except for a random post its been a year since I read or wrote anything and that's pretty sad. Actually, you know what's sad? Me and my year. I spent the first quarter in the hospital with a spinal injury and thought that was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Then, my mom grew a tumour and I worried that this was it. But it was benign and they did operate and then it was over. Except of course, that it wasn't. 

Last month, my dad came down with the flu and went to our local doctor for a cough syrup. Last week, we found out it was Stage IV, cancer.   

You know, considering how many horror movies I watch, I should have known, the false scare. Classic stuff. Mother walks the halls of her new and eerily quiet house, following the whispers from the basement. With her heart in her mouth, she takes one step after the next, climbs down the stairs and in one sweeping motion, yanks the closet open - there is nothing.  She can't believe it. She sighes in relief and turns to go back to bed. And then gasps, but...no... its only the cat.  She picks it up and laughs and chides self for being silly.  She gets back into the bed and under the covers.  There he is, waiting.  

That's how I feel. Shocked. Numb. Screamy. 

Life hasn't changed at all though. Not yet, anyway. My dad still laughs merrily discovering email forwards, youtube videos and Telugu TV. My mom still worries about the milk. I work. Or play boardgames. Or from time to time, sob uncontrollably into Bear's chest. 

My mom's favourite anecdote from my childhood is that she could almost always predict when I'd get sick. She'd have a stack of leave letters to send school every time my dad went away on tour. The morning after he left, I'd just run a fever, every single time. I laugh everytime she tells this story because of how far-fetched it is. But now, I can see why that could be true.  I feel physically, revoltingly sick every time I have to think of a world in which he doesn't exist. 

But, I don't have to think about that. Yet. So, I won't. 

Gaah. This is not what I started wanting to write. Also, I think I just DDed you. In case I haven't told you about DD, she is this girl who sat next to me for breakfast last week and told me about how (i)her boy broke up with her (ii) her PhD didn't work out (iii) her house got flooded and rot (and) grew moss (and) got infested with rodents (vi) her dad had a heart attack (v) her grandma died (vi) her house caught fire (I might be making this up) and (vii) her mother found her a new boy who's 15 (or was 10) years older. 

(viii) Oh and also, she got food poisoned two hours after she told me the story. 

Let me stop here while some of your pain receptors still remain.   I will write the post that I meant to and before next year, I promise. 

On marriage and other things.

After many, many months of radio silence, Smurfette and I got talking one day last month and she casually let it drop that she and the boy were looking at a December wedding.  I pretended outrage. I didn't even know there was a wedding on the cards, let alone the season. And then, she said something that's been in my head ever since. 

"What else is there when you start dating at this age, man," she had said. For someone who's been single for a decade, at 25, I found myself reluctantly conceding her the point. 

But now, when I see one talentless photographer after another making millions filming my friends and their mothers getting dressed in incandescent-lit wedding shoots, I am beginning to see the point. No, wait, doesn't mean I am getting married. But all I am saying is that I get it. 

I think there just comes this time when you finally realise that you no longer need to belong to the misfit of a family you were born into. That you can make your own now, one that will look and feel just as you want it and you can at last have that the home and the dog your mother never allowed you to have. And above all, have someone in whose story you'll be the hero.

So, yes, I come to the same conclusion that has been arrived at by millions of minds and shaadi.com a million years ago. I don't know why they don't just advertise it like this: 

Marriage (v): A great distraction from the dreary business of life.  

There. I am sold.  

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.

Yeah, so

This time, I have no excuse. I watched Avatar the Airbender and much of Kora and then the latest in Downton, Newsroom, BBT, Sleepy Hollow, Luther, Dracula and even HIMYM instead of write here. Absolute douche, yes. But you knew that about me already. So, I assume all is forgiven. Okay good.

So, let me tell you about October. For me, anything after August and before December are always the blah months. When nothing exciting ever happens and I'm counting seconds to the end of the year. This, therefore, was a pleasant exception.  No big things happened, no.  But a lot of small things did.

After months and months of wallowing in sickness and health,  Janaiah and I broke up. And not because he injected a B12 shot into my armpit, dear readers.  I was blind. Boys do this to me again and again and I still don't see it coming. Turns out, I wasn't his only patient. All this time, he had been seeing two others right under my nose, my lecherous neighbour and his son, no less, dear readers. How does one get past that?

But things got better. I went to Pune, drunk myself silly (in a blind wine-tasting festival), crushed on another wasted giant (who apparently recreates feasts from iconic movies, for a living. I resisted even that, dear readers, until he showed me pictures of his Hobbit table with chamomile tea and red wine. How can one resist that?), overdosed on five-star rooms service, hung out with Jughead and Bada and generally had a blast.

It doesn't end there, my cousin just came home with a pink bundle of fleece. Turns out that is a baby. She is the first girl in our family since, well, me.  I am her only aunt in the whole world.  Now, if she just can fast forward to 10 and something and see how awesome I am.

Kinky is getting married.  Kinky, the crazy ball-girl. Kinky, the shroom-cooker. Kinky, the trance-stealer.  Dear readers, if you knew Kinky, you would appreciate how much restraint and stoicism I am displaying here.  Along with Jennifer O'Neill, it remains the surprise of the year for me.

Oh, and I almost forgot, while I wait for The Good Thing to happen, I start at a new job tomorrow.  I'm going to be writing for a paper whose newsprint looks like toilet paper (which a surprising number of people seem to dig).  So yayy, me.

P.S - In yet another one of my self-help exercises, designed to test my commitment, fortitude and will power, I will be writing here once every week from now on. (starting December 1st or once I can decide which day of the week it should be.  Whichever is later)  So yeah, there.

No cure for a common birthday!

Dear Readers, 

I've been getting increasingly agitated e-mails inquiring about my health and well-being. (By the way how come you guys only write when I stop writing? Haan? Haan?) By the grace of Pfizer and Bayer,  I still live. And write.  Okay, so maybe not so much write.  But if I told you the number of things I'm currently doing (including but not limited to rubbing strange-smelling oils into my hair, read for 3 days uninterrupted {check out my goodreads. 35 books in the last two months, baby. And the janeeyrelaidbare was a mistake. No, I don't generally read erotica. Just vampire porn from time to time but hey, I'm a rapidly aging, red-haired, cat-hating vegetarian singleton, cut me some slack yeah?} and so on), your head would explode. No, really. It would go KABOOM! . 

But because I'm inscrutable and mysterious (and not lame and transparent as evidenced during this year when I got face read TWICE this year by Sunny baba who told me good days would be here by 24th August {Do I look happy sunny baba? Do I? Do I?} and Kutty Sir who asked me in the kindest way possible to something about my commitment phobia and my zero self worth {which made me bawl and bawl until I passed out} but let's forget them freak shows. Can I also take this opportunity to ask #boy1, #boy2 and #boy 2.5 and boy #3 -- did you know? What was my tell? I don't want to anyone to ever know I like them. Until of course, they sign a written declaration of intent . But not a minute before. Not one minute. Help me!!! Okay, this is definitely not going as planned. Let me jump out of the parentheses now before grammar lady jumps out of my memory and stabs in my insomniac daze). 

Because I'm inscrutable and mysterious, I will only tell you the approved and censored material that I've noted in my commonplace book. 

Yes, I read Lemony Snicket. And so should you.  

Now, where were we? Right. So I read somewhere that there is no cure to a common birthday but I disagree, your honour {oh harvey, I watch the abomination that is Suits for you. Will you be my Batman?}. I have one word for y'all -- Alcohol. And one word of advice, if I may. "Pre-game."  So there I was in Blue Frog (which EVERYONE I know said I should go) and whatddya know, free entrance et all, and I knew it was going to my night! 

The next two hours will forever be etched in my memory, dear readers.  Here's how I remember it.  

Enter. Galactic Senate {where's leia or padme}. *Blink* Food. Drinks. Projector comes on. *Blink* Jalapeno Poppers. Puke. Vodka. Sigh. *Blink*  Palestine conflict. Goats.  Blood. What are they screening?! *Blink* Vodka. Blood. Iranians. Boom. Subtitles. Vodka. *Blink*Aunty slides into booth in front of me.  Hair. Zero visibility. Bombs. Vodka. *Blink* West Bank. Torn limbs. Trees. Vodka. Broken Camera.*Blink* Subtitles. Blurry. Hair. Aunty side please.  Vodka. *Blink* Giggles. Aghori. Me. Outside. Rain. Smoke. Clove. Vodka. *Blink* Enter. Belly dancing music. Army. Blood.*Blink* Giggles. Samwise. Me. Badda. Smoke.*Blink* Risotto. Puke. Tanks. Stone pelting. Blood. Tears. Are those cows? Giggle. *Blink*  Vodka. Smoke. Hair whirl. Aunty exits. The End. *Blink* 

Think about me, dear reader.  I survived that. I giggled through Palestinian slaughter on my birthday. No, no need to talk about my Karma.   

(Hello readers, look at my cake. Now back to me. Look again. Now back to me. Sadly you can't have mine, but if you stopped eating rubbish and switched to fondue, yours could smell like mine.  Look down, back up. Where are you? On a blog with a cake that smells like mine.  Anything is possible if you are an old smurf! Ha ha ha ha ) 

  

You think I've lost it. But not so, dear readers.  This year is all about venturing into the unknown, doing the unthinkable, conquering the unbeatable... or something.  

You asked for it. For me. For the 25-year-old-me (who's reading so much young adult, it's pathetic. And sad, like watching my 75 old neighbour trying to lure me into his lair by wearing polka dotted underwear. 

Okay, fine. I go sleep now. 

Now, what was I saying?

I can explain.

My wrist just stopped working. On account of all the writing I do. Outside of this blog. For a living. No, not carpal tunnel. Megaloblastic anemia, it is called. Yes, I know. Given my -- how shall we put it -- 'healthy'-ness, you would never guess. What can I say? Size doesn't matter after all. 

The point being that I was advised to type as little as possible. Ergo, my absence. You know how promptly I blog otherwise. 

On the bright side, turns out, there is a medical explanation for my Dory-like memory. It's B-12,  dear readers, curse of the grass-eaters. So, because of severe and prolonged 'brain food' shortage, my neurons have been deep fried, says Patel saab, my doctor. Therefore the dizzying and mindless haze that is my mind. I knew it! 

On the not-so bright side, since I can't get this thing in anything non-meaty,  I've been spending most of my time outside Janaiah's house, waiting for him to awake from his drunken stupor so he can inject me with the blood-coloured shots that I've been prescribed to take (daily and then weekly and then monthly) for the next year or so. Failing which I'll slip into a coma, wither and die. Again, on the plus side, so now I can wait for Ryan Gosling to come and read to me.  Yayy, me! 

-x-

Did I tell you guys about Bumble Bee?  So, after our Side Bottom left us, after seven years of loyal service, I felt much like when Goofy died, and I thought I'd never want to get another car again.  But after contributing 88.9 percent of my salary (for the past four years) plus 4 phones plus an iPhone to Autos Anonymous, I thought it was time.  

In April, after many tears and recriminations, I finally bought Bumblebee. By bought, I mean half-mine and half-Citibank's.  Like an arranged marriage on Shaadi.com, I have been smiling for the camera and telling everyone how it happened so suddenly and fortuitously and what a solid match it is. But in secret, I wistfully stare at a Beagle every time it passes me on the road.  That said, I have to admit, it's gotten easier though, I think I'm even developing an affection for Bumblebee. Like Aishwarya Rai, maybe I will realise that Ajay Devgan is who I should settle with, not Salman Khan.  Never Salman Khan.

But coming back to the point. Oh yeah, I drive now.  By which I mean I can make a car move forward. If it's small.  And during the day. When it's not raining. On a one-way road. Which can reverse on it's own.  And comes with a parking sensor. 

In completely unrelated news, I have started making friends with watchmen everywhere. I have no idea why though. 

-x-

Depp reminds me of a younger me.  Not as much because she's a lot like me as it is because of the boys she dates. This, even before she tells me about the love of her life -- Ice man.  I tell her he's not good news but she thinks he's The One.   

I want to tell her, that I know from experience, he's not The One.  That she'll date several more versions of Iceman and discover that she has a penchant for angst-ridden, over-achieving, smart-assed, two-faced, commitment-phobic, insensitive, egoistic, uncommunicative, jerks.  That, he is simply The Type.

But I don't say anything. If she is me, she'll find out soon enough. 

-x-

Two more weeks and twentyfouryearsgone.  Ah, well. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills.  So Samwise and I went to drink at HRC on her birthday and then sat and wrote all the things we have to do before we are 25. Except for, ahem, 1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 15, 18, 22 and 24, I seem to have done okay. Who'd ve thought, right?

Oh, oh, oh. Also, for the first time ever, I think I finally know what I want to do.  In life, I mean. Or, at least for the next two years. For a person who can't think far enough to plan her dinner, that's saying something no?

-x-

Now, to The Birthday.  I'm going to be in Bombay so I can be with Jughead.  And Aghori. (Both of whom are currently maintaining a radio-silence that's driving me mad but I'm hoping they'll come to their senses soon.) And Samwise. And Poison Ivy (Who I can count on for epic conversations.)

The last time I was in Bombay, I was standing on the insanely-crowded marine drive on New Year's  desperately trying not to cry.  The last time I had a birthday, I was in Goa, stone-cold sober and tragic and heart-broken.

So, anything above this and I'll survive 25.

 -x-

Night

 “Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.” 

Dawn, Elie Weisel. 

Na na na na na na na na na

The Original

Two Face.Get it? 

Just look at the strokes, will you? A linc pin, ladies and gentlemen.

Were photoeditors always this cool? 

No, really?

I'm flattered you think so.  But no, it didn't just pop into my head. Inspired by this genius on deviant art.