The said trip

Ahem. 

So, it seems that I might have been a little angsty the last time around.  But here am I, dear reader!  Five shades darker, eight pounds heavier and ten degrees happier. Because that is how, crazy, stupid, impromptu trips make me. 

This is how it happened, dear reader.  There I was, during the last week of July, contemplating matters of the heart, wandering through life listlessly. Having resigned myself to the boring birthday weekend looming ominously ahead with nothing to look forward to, I was as usual pretending to work, trying not to sleep when the call came. "Listen. I know it's last minute. But I have like a week to go before I join work. Do you still wanna do the trip?" she asks. Heh. Did I want to?  The next week, I'm filling out leave forms, wrapping up at work, throwing clothes into a rucksack and running to the bus stand.

After this point, many many things happened. I remember little. So I resort to chronology and notes from the iPhone. So, humor me.  Okay? Okay. 

Day One

Hyderabad

I try to sandwich my bag into the overhead compartment. Like me, its curves seem to preclude it from sitting anywhere prettily. I'm on the verge of throwing it out of the window when I feel a swatched hand reaches past me and glides it in, as if to show that's how it's done . Even before I turn, I know I'll regret it. He's tall and dimpled. And now, he's flashing them and smiling down at me. I hate him. I wonder if his is the empty seat next to me. No. He's the one in front. So he leans his seat into mine and starts to read. Bright Shiny Morning, I find out. 

I'm seated next to a woman who looks uncannily like my grandmother. I dismiss it as a tragic coincidence until she starts to talk. And confirms it. I check my phone obsessively. Maybe Smugface did say goodbye. But no, no new notifications, Apple informs me mercilessly. Aunty is still talking about the temples I must visit. I fall asleep.  

It's a rainy, green, morning. Aunty is still talking. To her husband on the phone. Something feels wrong.  My feet are bare. My shoes are gone. I'm flapping around like a headless chicken. I've woken up Swatch. Aunty is trying to comfort me by touching me inappropriately. Swatch's standing over me again, smiling. He's retrieved my shoes. I feel like throwing them at him. But I smile back like I'm Cinderella. 

There's an ominous silence. Aunty has stopped talking. She's looking at us look at each other. She doesn't like it. She waits until he sinks down in his seat. And tells me about me. How gullible I am. How trusting I am. How boys only want one thing. How I should never talk to one. Never even make eye contact. I can see Swatch tilt his head so he can hear better. He's smiling that smile again.  I hate him. 

Aunty's still talking. 

The bus stops and I reach for my bag. But Swatch gets it before me. I give him a dirty look. He grins at me. Aunty is tapping her foot, making her disappointment known. We get down. He's waiting a few feet from me. Aunty's husband has come. But she looks at Swatch and decides to wait until Aghori comes to fetch me.  He's looking serious, tapping on his Swatch as if to say "your move." I pick up my bag and walk towards him. Past him. 

Onwards to detox. 

Day 2

Manipal

We are sitting with our feet dangling high over the river. It's sunny one minute and raining the next.  It's misty and windy. And, freaky. It's perfect. Everything in our damp, little alcove rattles as a train passes overhead.  We sit and talk. She tells me about Falooda. I tell her about Smugface. I don't even have to explain. She gets it. Then, it dawns on me. I'm here. With Aghori, my travel sister. 

Udipi

Eat at the Udipi temple, Aunty said. So we packed and ran. Completely sure we were going to miss the daily meal. But we made it just in time. Never was there/nor will there ever be Sambar rice or Payasam I'll love more. It's decided. I'm marrying a Kannidaga. If god wills, maybe the temple's poster-boy who stole my heart. 

Day 3  

Gokarna

I'm weary to the bone. If I have to sit in a bus one more time, to have one more man lech at us, to not be allowed to think about peeing, I'll kill myself. But we have to. We have to head on to Goa this evening. But I'll think about that later. 

Our "shack" is an unapologetic euphemism for shit. Its only saving grace is that it (literally) opens out onto the beach.  Which, by the way, didn't look like much last night. Still, until it's time for the train, we are going to walk along the shore.  We walk the > shaped stretch, waiting at the fisherman's cove (the tip), entirely unprepared for what lay on the other side.  

Bear with me, dear reader. How do ones explain stepping into a Monet? The feeling of being the sole person on an island? To walk in the sand, lie on rocks, sleep under blue sky, swim in the sea,  feel like the warm lick of the sun on your skin,in this universe that's all your own? To do as you wish. To not see another face for a few days? To have the voices in your head switch off. To simply cease to be?  

Laugh at me all you want. But its true. Near this tiny temple town, on this beach, my soul comes to rest.  

Day 4 

Goa

None of us seem to have the stomach to travel some more. So we throw anchor at Anjuna, the very place that Aghori and I so dreaded last time. The beautiful lantern-filled places are gone. So are the markets. With them, the crowds. So we find a nice inn by the beach with a fancy restaurant next door that serves great food. And spend our time climbing up and down the rocks to the beach.  And later, sit by a tiny shack on the top, overlooking the sea, feeding sparrows, fending away crows while stuffing our faces with hot vada-pav and mirchi bajji.  

Day 5

Panjim

It's my birthday today. We are at Titos or Mambos or some such. I can feel the thrum of the music in my bones. But I don't dance. I'm sitting outside. Answering calls on autopilot. "Thanks so much. I'm still in Goa. Ha ha. Yea, its great. No, quite sober actually. Listen, I have a call waiting. But I'll definitely catch you later. Thanks for calling. Means a lot." I do this over and over until I begin to sound like a broken down record. Smugface saves me even that. Sends me a text instead. I throw the phone away.  But then, I forget it all when Aghori and Falooda do a  YMCA style Happy Birthday gig for me and I suddenly feel a rush of love for them. Given a choice, I wouldn't be any place else.  

But I have to say it. I am melancholy. 24 sucks.

Jump

Inspired by this

You are sitting a safe distance away from the wall.  You have been sitting there for a while, taking in the air, waiting for the rain to come.  From time to time, you look at the wall and remember. The last you tried jumping, you didn't fly. You fell. And hurt yourself. It took you all this time to pick up the pieces and glue yourself together. Now, you are slowly beginning to mend, resemble a bit of your old self.

Then there he comes. Tempting you. Teasing you. Luring you into trusting him.  He shows you dreams of flying. Says you should jump together.

You tell him that you don't want to jump. That it's painful. And it hurt you. And everything. He promises it will be okay.

So you ignore all the warning bells in your head. The sickening blackness in your gut. You throw caution to the winds.  Walk to the ledge and look at him. He smiles reassuringly.  So you take a breath, count to three and take the plunge.

You are on the floor again, smashed into a thousand pieces. Just like last time. You look up and see him still up on the roof. Why? You want to know. It was for you.  So, I could protect you, he says.

You laugh, until your insides hurt. Until you can feel no more. Until the blackness takes over. Until it starts to rain.

Until it's lights out in wonderland. 

Inner Peace

Okay, so I'm really not supposed to be doing this.  I'm ten hours past the deadline for filing my story and fast approaching crisis mode. "All the time you spent in the slums will all be for naught. Concentrate, concentrate, focus, ho hum," I tell myself. Except my head, like  all the people I know, won't listen to a word of WHAT I'M SAYING. 


This was NOT how it was supposed to be, dear readers. 


Jughead and I, perpetually on self-help missions, have just finished Day 5 of  the Zen-You-Will-Be-Mine course.  Not cry. Not be passive-aggressive. Not get involved. Not be affected. Be happy, shiny, people.  That was all. By now, we were supposed to be well on our way to inner peace.  But no.  


We are exchanging notes on boys. Like giggly, teenage school girls.  "Don't let that boy get close to me. You have to make sure of it," I text her. "We won't get any guy come close. Even if they hold your hand," she replies. "Even if they make you laugh?" I ask. "Even if they play Scotland Yard and all the interesting board games,"she says. "Even if they make your heart race and put butterflies in your stomach," I pose. "Even if they are all you think about in a day," she vows. 


I know, I know. Cribbing about boys is just about all the action this blog seems to be getting these days.  But..but...I'm trying dear readers. It's a bad time to be young and single, this.  Especially when you work all the time and have no life to speak of.  Speaking of, I need a new job.  In a new city.  With weekends. And a coffee machine. And an office boy. And a paycheck that'll last me a month. 


Also, I need to go to the gym.  At least to collect my shoes. Before the subscription runs out.


And, I need to find a way to cheer up Mad Prof. 


And oh yeah, go finish that story now. 


Not to forget, I need to find Zen. 


Grrrrr. 


PS: Stay tuned, I promise to narrate tales of action and adventure next time! 

critical mass

From a person who used to write all the time, I've now become a person who reads ALL the time. If you were to come looking for me, you'd, more often than not, find me with my face buried in my kindle. Reading at the breakfast table, chomping on cereal. Travelling to work. Eating lunch at my desk. At the gym. Back home. Trying to fall asleep.

It's the reading challenge, yes. But its also more. Sticking to one thing, anything for an extended period of time is not something I'm very good at. So the project represents commitment and conviction and tenacity and discipline -- for all of which there's a desperate need in my life. 

But that it helps me lose myself most effectively is probably really why I'm doing so well at it.  

When I'm not reading, I notice then, that times have been grim. All sources of inspiration have dried up. Winds of change bring little excitement. Burning bridges have become easier than bridging them. Return of feelings. 

A trip is in order. 

Why I'm going to die alone

For her birthday, I planned to give Pink Panther, a thick wad of ecru business cards with the title "Professional Heartbreaker" embossed on them.  I didn't, lest she sends me back a pack that reads "The Other Woman."  

On Tuesday,  Smugface and I watch Avengers.  Condescending. Insufferable. Patronizing. Narcissistic. Single. Eligible. Smugface.  Nothing happens. No frisson of interest. No excitement. No fun. We talk a bit, mostly coz we are sitting next to each other and because its break time. 

Then there is Cuba. On Wednesday. With his obsidian eyes and unkempt hair sticking out at all angles and his wicked wit and his dry sarcasm and his whistling and his calm and his...everything.  Him, I can't stop laughing with. Him, I tease mercilessly. Him, I have inappropriate thoughts about. Him, I want to know more.  Him, who, I find out after every other creature on middle earth, has a girlfriend. 

On Thursday. Time to detox. The weather's perfect. Azure sky, smell of rain, green everywhere. Decide to skip the gym (for the second week in a row). Go to walk in the park instead. Almost immediately, I run into Dark Lord.  Stupid. Self-absorbed. Insensitive. Friend of first order. Dark Lord. Our talk is forced, perfunctory, stilted. He's leaving, he tells me. I can't respond. Or reciprocate warmly. He walks away. I walk on. Time passes. Slowly, the calm begins to set in. Thoughts recede. The aching black gloom begins to lift.  A smile starts to form. No sooner, a tap on my shoulder.  It's the Surgeon. Distinguished. Suave. Fun. Married. Surgeon. We fall into step. An hour later we're still talking. He says we should do this again. I smile. He texts. I ignore. Detox. #epicfail. 

Friday arrives bright and sunny. Nothing can bring me down. Still, I choose the most non-threatening option -- Junkie. Hippie. Boho. Nihilistic. Funny. Junkie. The movie is a dud. I'm zoned out. Junkie wants go to drinking.  I don't. I want to crawl into a hole and stay put. Instead, I put up a bright, happy face. He can tell. It seems everyone can tell. So he brings me home.  

Saturday, go to work, come home. Read. Not go anywhere. Not meet anyone. 

Sunday,  Repeat. No incidents. Relief. Bedtime.  Phone rings.  

Yardley:  "You really should go out more, you know. Or you'll die alone. Really. Can you please just meet this guy, he's just your type." 

Me: "Is he single?" 

Yardley. "No, but I swear you guys are meant for each other."  

Epic Moment at the Gym

Day 3 

Me: I was told someone will take down my measurements today

Trainer: Oh, but we have to do that before the work-out. So come back tomorrow. 

Me:  Alright, thanks. 

Trainer: Btw, are you here for weight gain or weight loss?

Me: (Laughs)

I laughed for an hour. Me going to the gym to put on weight. Wouldn't that be something?  

Of Sky Lanterns, Gym Diaries & Stupid Boys

Oh, hello there.  Trust you have had a good day? Yeah, mine was fine too.  The weather in the evenings, yes, so agreeable.  What news from my end?  Ummm...let's see

* So, you know how you watch Tangled and then fall in love with sky lanterns?  Yeah, that happened to me. Ever since, I've been plucking random people off the road and asking them if they want to go to Loi Krathong with me. Just when all hope seemed lost, the festival came to me. No, really. Thanks to the Guinness-record bug that seems to have bitten gultis recently, we had, what is probably the country's first sky-lantern festival take place last month, yes, here in sleepy hollow! I went. I saw. I died. And, went to heaven.

If and when I marry, there will be lanterns. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

* Sometimes, I start my workday by catching the latest release at the movies. Then I go to a restaurant of my choice and work my way through their menu, with the chef at my service. Afterwards, go to talk to a documentary filmmaker. Or an author. Or a bartender. Depending on the day. Then, maybe go to an art show, or a play, or a party I've been invited to. And then, write about them all, just like how I would here.

On these days, I forget all the weekends I don't have, holidays I don't get to take and the money I will never earn.

* So, I go the gym now.  That is to say, I skipped two days, and went one day in the three days since I signed up.  But I paid for three months. So I suppose I'm to go. I can already tell the cross-trainer is my mortal enemy. So is that girl with the matching black-and-pink nike sweatpants and her beatific smile and her straight hair and her pesky bottom and her Rockyesque workout regime. Who I'll tell you more about in the coming days. (What do you think about a series called the Gym Diaries?)

Now, I'm all underdoggy. So it only follows that in three months, she's going to get owned. Yeah, we are all about healthy living and positive energy.

* I promised I'd write about the relationship-that-wasn't and the interest-that-be. Last things first. The interest that looked so promising even last month seems to have lost his sheen. Maybe that's what happens when you go out too times and nothing ermm... happens.

In hindsight, its obvious that the relationship-that-wasn't, was never meant to be. The other party was indeed faultless. However, to avoid misunderstandings of this nature, my ingenious mind has come up with the most brilliant solution.

Going forward, I'm going to hand a neatly-written 'please note' note to all interesting males of my acquaintance. It will read

Please note: Should you have any affections for the author of this note that go beyond the definitions of platonic, you must declare your intentions at the earliest opportune moment in no-uncertain terms or hold your peace forever and continue to behave impeccably never allowing even a hint of these feelings to be detected. If you choose the former, but happen to be shy of disposition, you can avail the option of using the unique code in the scratch card provided. During usage, the code word must be accompanied by air quotes to be applicable, so as to avoid any needless confusion or untoward mishaps resulting in unwanted bodily contact or public humiliation for either/both parties. 

Due to the sensitive nature of this communication, kindly burn after reading.  

Yeah, you are right. I should go sleep.

The Things I didn't tell you

It seems that I was determined to sound depressed the last time around, because I sure didn't tell you about all the unforgettable things that happened to me last year.  Like how I lost my iPhone. In an auto. On my birthday. And how roaringly drunk we got afterwards. How I got my first-ever cigarette scar, courtesy Bor. In the same party.

How ten days later, we -- Jughead, Pink Panther and I -- went to Coorg with a tempo traveller full of crazies to the back of beyond and returned so traumatized that Jughead and I can never again sleep in a house with wooden walls. How on the same trip, we tried curing Jughead out of one of her (many, many different kinds of) paranoia --vertigo -- by luring her onto a very-safe looking bridge across the river, until a bridge on the other side collapsed right in front of us.

And, how as compensation for that horrible, horrible trip, I went with her to (what was) my favouritest place in the world, Pondi via Chennai. How it was a trip of many firsts -- first time I went drinking with Mad Prof. That we drove down to Pondi. I got drunk in daylight. I went to a spa. I got a body massage. I saw Rue Gomez in action. I got a lap dance. And for the first time ever that I had so much fun in Chennai.

I want to tell y'all about the many, many, other awesome things that you missed. But I'm afraid its once again that time of the night, I should spend sleeping. Especially considering that I put in over 12 hours at work today and am expected to be back there by 8 o clock tomorrow.

Oh, oh, but I can't leave without telling you about the best part of last year -- my trip to what (will remain) my favouritest place in the country (for the foreseeable future) -- Dharamshala.  Momos. Monks. Ice-capped mountains. Blue fingers. Red noses. Crimson Robes. Walks. Treks. Smokes. Woolens. Quiches. Ganaches. Lasagnas. Chocolate cheese cakes. Green cafe. Norbulingka. Ian. And, Aghori. She is, and will forever remain, my travel person.

I notice I didn't say anything about JNU and CP and Metro and Delhi, Dark Lord and Gurgaon, but if you know anything about Mc Leod, you'll forgive my oversight.

So there.  If this year proves to be even half as much fun as the year past, I'll be a happy soul.

Amen to that.

The Dark Mark

Hello. Trust y'all have missed me?  Now, now, no need to get excited and all. Nothing monumental's happened. I haven't received the Pulitzer or become a housewife. Yet. I want to claim I am a much, muchier me now but truth is that I'm much in the same place that we left off last.  If anything, I'm a little more subdued, a little less impulsive and a whole lot more boring.  In fact, that's part of the reason why the voice of my head went quiet. I'd feared it dead but recently realized that it's still there, only, I haven't given it much to say.

Oh, there have been changes alright. I rejoined the ranks of the employed. Scandalizing almost everyone of acquaintance, I joined a tabloid intent on building itself a seedy reputation. But of course, all that changed with the arrival of Fedora, who has transformed it into quite something. I now worry that it's so futuristic, it's not very viable. So yeah, that means that I might soon be out of a job once again. 

In other news, for the first time in the post Blue Shirt era, I found myself teetering on the verge of a relationship. For a variety of reasons, it didn't happen, for which I take as much responsibility as I appropriate the other party.  And, as practical and clinical as the decision was, it has left me with a lot of emotional jetsam that I am still collecting to dissect at leisure. But more on that at a later date. 

If around this time, you are suspecting the role of a lousy ghostwriter, I can comprehend why. If this is the real me, where is my trademark wit, my brilliant sense of humour, my incisive comments you ask. And what is with this ridiculous register?  Okay, so I can explain. One, it has something to do with the fact that its 3'o clock in the morning. Two, has to do with the number of Victorian movies I'm watching. Three, I'm sad. 

No, not about the aforementioned ahem..interest. Because suitable replacements are being tested for the post, one of which even looks very promising, which is also something I'll reserve for a later date. 

It's the gaping vacancies in several other stations in my life that are causing me grief. I lost Yoda this year, the only person in my family I've ever considered worthy of association, which I'm finding impossible to get over. Then there are an unprecedented number of positions in the inner circle that have opened up. 

Amen and I, who I thought were inseparable, have drifted apart. Assy and I, with whom I thought I had conquered the odds, has moved off to the land of lilies. Dark Lord and I, who have always stayed close despite distances, have become strangers.  Bor and Paro (who I just discovered) have left for NZ. And now Jughead, who is my veritable soulmate, is moving away to Mumbai for a new job. 

Leaving me with well... no one, really.  I guess, that's why I am here. It's back to you and me against the world. 

So time to rejoice all my imaginary readers. Grouchy is back. 

"News Now"

Around this time last year, I was wandering aimlessly about Chennai while friends paced around J frantically waiting to see their names on notice boards hoping to make one of the placement lists.


Me? I was among the 'fortunate' few who happened to end Day One with an offer letter in hand.  Those who knew me were shocked at why I chose the paper I did in lieu of the `respectable' one.


First month in the paper, I got my front page. With each week, I was tucking away one more lead story into my bonnet. After six months,  I was pretty much where any newbie can hope to be.  Then, in a  move that made my Editor blow his top off,  I quit.


Turned down every other offer I got.  Chose to turn into a zucchini than work at a newspaper again.


Why?  I could opt for a diatribe and do what N. Ravi (incidentally, was one of my favourite lectures from J) from The Hindu seems to have done.   Or,  simply let Amit Verma say my bit for me.

Midnight Musings

Today, I was talking to a creature I've known for many, many years. It's not like anything this one says or does surprises, bemuses or even affects me in any way.  Yet, it got me thinking about how you can never really know a person. Like know.  Maybe because its so much of what you've made the person out to be as it is the person themselves? 


Take people in love, for instance.  Say, Harmony.  When she first told me about KKR, she described him to be Death by Chocolate meets Sex on Legs. When I actually saw him, he turned out to be a rapidly balding, mildly obese, wildly gyrating horror-on-the-dancefloor, who to me, looked unbelievably like an African Warthog.  Now, I can bet that both our versions of him are not even remotely representative of his actual self, which by the way is also my point. 


I do it ALL the time too.  I routinely fall in-and-out of love with random people, who if I know just that tad bit longer, makes me see them in this entirely new way, begging the question as to whether they were always that hideous, dumb and boring or if it was just me. 


Okay, lets suppose that's just the novelty wearing off because its new and unfamiliar mindspace.  But what about what I started with, not really knowing someone at all when in fact you assumed you knew them best. Say, as a wife would about her (cheating) husband.  A mother about her (gay) son.  A girl about her (back-stabbing) best friend. 


When you find out you don't, you wonder if they've changed so much, beyond recognition.  If you knew them at all. Or worse, if it was you all along that kept making them up in your head just the way you wanted them to be. 


Or maybe that's all nonsense,  and it's like Eliot writes in the Cocktail Party: 

Ah, but we die to each other daily

What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them.
And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

Love Virtually

When Andy Murray was asked to say something to the audience in a post-match ceremony at the Australian Open earlier this year, he looked straight at the camera and said "Watch out. That Blue Shirt, he's...an alien."  

I would have too, if Murray wasn't seven years too late. 

That Blue Shirt got married today.  Naturally, everyone who heard assumed I had died, if not of heartbreak then surely of jealousy, what with him having once been the great love of my life and everything. Assuredly, I did not.  Die.  Of heartbreak, jealously or any other emotional overdose.  I'm fine. If you must know, I have no idea why. 


My best guess is that despite my ardent attempts not to, somehow growing up happened. 


And, since he very graciously ordered me NOT to come to his wedding, (as if he feared I'd go and threaten to jump into the nearest well if he didn't marry me instead of his intended) I had no choice but to oblige.  Ergo, all he's going to get, instead of the awesome gift I would've got him (and everyone knows how awesome a gift giver I am) is this mention here.


There don't exist many people in the world whose happiness I'll put above my own. You have to be everything in my universe for that. For Blue Shirt I always have. And most likely, I always will. 


So on this midsummer day. Him I wish, to find sense.  And her, the sensibility not to kill him in the meantime.  But for both, all the happiness in the world. 


Yes, reader. It's still me.  Don't let all the grace and touching prose confuse you.  I can get like that sometimes. 


And, while we are here, a special mention to the girls. Though all the incessant "how are you doing" calls and tubs of ice-cream were unnecessary and ultimately wasted, it was all still so much fun. 


Jughead, you big bear, don't cry.  Yes, but you liked Blue Shirt and he was "cute" and its "so sad" and "he's such an idiot to let me go."  I promise I'll find a boy who's as cute and who you will like as much and who's not an idiot and then, you can marry him. 


Harmony, for leaving your 28 degreed Bangalore breeze to come down to Fires of Doom that Hyderabad currently is. Even though you couldn't see or hear most of anything I said or did, we still had a ball. 


Smurfette, your escapades with lungied men in Chidambaram cheered up me as nothing could have. 


Samwise, if we didn't do our daily rants and discuss dirty dreams and dissect past, current and prospective love/lust lives, how would we possibly remain sane? Or ever write our books? 


Cud, if it wasn't for you, crew-cuts and blond streaks, classroom smokes and terrace drinks would've been almost forgotten. 


Aghori, for offering to take me along to zendom. 


Amen, whose solution to the problem is to put a ring on it.  To your question, yes, I like sapphires.


As for me, I now have hope.  If Blue Shirt's able to convince a sane creature to have him for keeps, I'm not a lost cause after all.

Liar Liar

So the past few months have been about professing interest in random jobs, going to interviews, answering inane questions, being made offers which I then have been gleefully turning down.  Explaining to mother why I haven't found one job that's to my liking is tricky but essentially simple.  If there's one fundamental truth in the universe my ma believes in besides MTR Bisibele bath mix, it's that the world is out to get her husband and her little bambinis.  And it is up to her to protect us hatchlings from the dangers of this cruel, cruel world. 

Ergo, she has spent most of the last twenty-years identifying our probable threats and consequently honing her skills in counter intelligence, pre-emptive tactics and asymmetric warfare. 

A couple of years ago, for instance, her biggest fear was that Demon Kid (what with his lean frame, gaunt cheeks and love for paradise biryani)  would be mistaken for a youth leader of the LeT or worse, the Indian Mujahiddin whereupon he'd be jailed and tortured/brainwashed so much that he'd end up a real terrorist ala Hrithik Roshan in Fiza.  And then I'd have to go petitioning corrupt government officials trying to find him/prove his innocence while mother stayed at home and wept.  So she figured she was saving us all the trouble when she launched mission "My Son Is Not a Terrorist." For two years, Demon Kid was forbidden to remain underweight, speak hindi, wear a sherwani (any variation there of), grow a beard, wear white, eat Biryani or travel without his passport. 

Numero uno on her list for me, on the other hand, has been the same as when I was sixteen, eleven or seven.  Ma's theory is that ALL men, maybe excepting her husband and not-terrorist son, are perverts who just become more and more creepier the older (the more impotent) they get.  So, she drilled it into me early on that all of them men lived for one reason only -- to rob me of my chastity, not because I was a catch or anything (which she assured me I was not) but simply because I was a girl. And why, everyone knows what happened to that silly Little Red Riding Hood who didn't listen to her mother and walked alone in strange woods anyway. 

Also, the things that could happen to me if I disobeyed mother were (i) be kidnapped and get sold to sheiks in Saudi-Arabia who'd use me in camel races or add me to their harem (ii) be made into a child actor who'll endorse Rasna and Cadbury but never be allowed to have them (iii) turned into a nun who'd have to spend her life among sexually frustrated women lusting after a deeply troubled and imaginary man (iv) get adopted by a milk-man (v) be sent to jail for setting grandmaw on fire. 

So I spent my first fifteen years terrified of young men, old men, milkmen, women,  sheiks, camels, nuns and grandmaws. Don't you just have a bright, new, shining respect for me that I turned out so well despite the horror? Naturally, you would. It's okay, so do most others really. Modesty keeps me from telling you how many. 

Drat! Where was I? Yes, providing you context. So what I was saying is that fooling mothers is boring business. Apparently, they don't even need details, which is the most fun about telling lies anyway. Any variation of -- ma, the interviewer looked so shady/was old and touchy/ called me to a hotel for the interview/asked me to work night shifts/wanted to post me in Delhi -- seems to work. 

I really need to get myself a job, man. 

Before Sunrise

At 16, relationships were simple.  You liked a boy. He liked you back. That was that. You threw yourself headlong into a relationship without so much as a sense of self-preservation, so sure "love" triumphed over everything. All the way it lasted, it was hyperreality. When you were happy, it had to be euphoria. You lit up like a candle every time you were with him.  Owned everything that was `you and him.' And, when he made you sad, pathos didn't quite cut it. You walked around looking like death warmed over.  Or curled into a ball and cried yourself to sleep. And, when it ended, which it inevitably did, you died a little with it. 


Or, at least I thought I did. Of course, I didn't.  All my angst was so beautifully choreographed in my head, I marveled at my own sense of drama sometimes. 


At twenty-two though, it's so very different. Now it seems, liking someone and having them like you back is not enough. It's not even a start.  Relationships, I'm finding out, are about everything else. Some of these I get, most I don't. My fears now are not the teenage insecurities I had then; they are more real, more rational.  Which in turn are compounded more and more by those I see around me. The bickering, the break-ups, the cheating, the compromises, the pain and the drama -- I'm not sure I even wanna go there.  


So, it's a weird place to be in, this.  On the brink of something new, at the tipping point.  Forced to choose whether to draw back from the edge and retreat to safe ground or let go and take the plunge. I'm scared senseless. But there's something else too, something that feels annoyingly like... butterflies?

New Arrivals

You know the good thing about my cousins? They are all techhies.  The good thing about tecchies? They either (i) end up going to the US to study or (b) pass out of mediocre colleges here and get placed in companies that send them to the States. (Mine, btw were all a) The good thing about the States? Amazon sells my (late) christmas gift for $189 there.


It was awesome, really.  I woke up one morning to see a cousin hand me a neatly wrapped package with an amazon sticker on it.  My mum had ordered it. I opened hopefully and there it was, my brand new shiny Kindle. I can't be sure yet but I bet this must be exactly how mothers feel when they are first handed their baby. I've christened him Sheldon Cooper. You know, like after Sheldon Cooper! He's quirky et all but I love him to death.


This, by the way, looks like a good year for me. Technology wise. Not three days  into the 2011 and I bought myself this. It's not exactly what I'd call pretty or for someone currently out of business but its very no-nonsense and adds to my new I-am-a-grown-up-so-take-me-seriously-and-pay-me-well! look, so thats all that matters.


Actually, something a lot of people don't know about me is how much cool technology turns me on. Almost as much as Brandon Routh, if you want to know.  And, don't make me tell you how much that is. Between Devil kid and me, the things we bought ourselves till now?  An iPhone, 3 Nokia (1 drowned, 1 lost, 1 stolen), a Motorola (lost),  a Blackberry, a Kindle, a 42"LCD, 2 iPods, 2 Laptops, 2 Cameras (1 lost), 2 Desktop (1 conked), an Xbox 360, a PS, a PS2, a PSP(lost) and my looney tunes battery operated toothbrush. And, they don't make for even a quarter of our needs.


Now you see why I desperately need that well paying job and that rich husband?  But let's not talk about either until we've found both, yes? Yes.


In other news, life changing decisions have been made. Some of which you will find here. I will speak of them in detail just as soon as I decide whether they were the best or the worst I've ever made.  Having said that, going against every grain of character, Grouchy has embraced the "every thing happens for a reason" school of thought.  Superimposed on an existentialist frame of mind, it's been going very well so far. So, no matter what happens, happy she's determined to be.


Pip Pip! Brand new new-year resolutions, book and movie lists are coming up.  So keep checking!


PS: Oh, and sorry about the highlights of the trip thing. I swear it will come up as soon as I can find it.  And that might take a while.  Internet is a big place, no?