meaningless collage

i don't know why or how i ever came to be the person who never takes or keeps photographs, saves e-mails, keeps old cards or shops for mementoes. tonight, i wish i was more normal. keeping it all in the mind is tiring- it offers me a kind of kaeidoscopic view of events, which changes by the second and also, i'm scared of getting alzheimer's and forgetting everything worth remembering.
my recent-most break is the object of my obsession now. it was the first and the last break i had in a year and now all i can remember, after two weeks, is sort of a bricolage of mini-scenes.

#1 a very harried afternoon, trying to get a print-out of my ticket, with C calling every half an hour to impress on me the importance of checking-in around fourteen hours early; me dutifully doing a trasferrence act on the SW, who to give him credit, bore it all with magnificent grace.
#2 being hyperactive with excitement at my first flight in India, so what if its air deccan.
#3 checking in - the SW's backpack is taken out, a bashful lady with a half smile moves over and a grinning guy takes over. the bag is unzipped to reveal a hoard of fresh clean undies. we start laughing extremely loudly, the SW quips - janaab fauladi hai. the guy blushes, looks at the Cow and me and says, "madam, yeh andar ki baat hai"
#4 excitement continues with trolley racing
#5 excitement subsides with realisation that the flight is delayed by a couple of hours.
#6 SW and Cow go white because the flight takes off during a mini thunderstorm and glare at me when i laugh at them
#7 inedible food, zero service, falling asleep on the way back from the loo and being taken as lost in a plane causing some panic to the Cow and the SW.
#8 reaching mumbai, soooo glad to find the airport loo.
#9 being taken to a dhaba where Mr S solemnly told us amitabh bachchan and shatrughan sinha ate in the 70's.
#10 interminable journey into the night in a car that had an ac set to arctic temperatures and a single CD containing all the songs by a loathesome creature called Himesh reshamiya.
#11 blinking and then opening my eyes to find the car going off the road, R reaching out steering the wheels with manic expression on her face.
# 12 three hundred quests to find a place to pee in.
#13 getting there
#14 getting into the sea. this is more complicated than it sounds. i love the sea, but i'm scared of it. i need people to hold my hands and tell me at the crucial moment to jump. then i get fully hit by the wave and grin like a maniac. it was no problem. i have good friends. except , one morning, just when a bggy hit, M let go of hand. his shorts fell off. almost. thought it was hilarious.
#15 thinking that i have a warped sense of humor. MY pants almost fell off, turned to find Mr S clutching at the back pocket of my denims for dear life.nothing funny about that. really, i need to grow up.
#16 R and me going in to check out a nightclub, leaving the rest of them on the street and then totally forgetting them to dance like devils, and then acting very contrite the rest of the night.
#17 three breakfasts on the beach
#18 pictionary on a hot afternoon with a bottle of bailey's and the most heinous criminalistic tendencies in people who would stop at nothing to win a game
#19 M's snoring, the Cow's special powers that are tied to her specs
#20 a beautiful dinner, courtesy M
#21 watching R relax
#22 piano massage
#23 throwing a tantrumling because i was feeling sick, everyone else throwing a tantrumling because of the presence of a perfectly inoccuous and otherwise nice family member of the S's. being human takes too much toll on us.
#24 the beach in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night
#25 being hit in the stomach realising that even a kid like SW gets it that unloving a person is the hardest act.
#26 weird lazy afternoon conversation with each of us trying to figure out our lives
#27 SW's delight at being in the same bed with 3 women
#28 US Club, Tajmahal Hotel and Little Idlis
#29 SW's remarkable self-restraint and insistence that we do NOT change our tickets
#30 the first view of bombay skyline and THEN being hit with the mother of all traffic snarls.
#31 reaching the airport about 10 minutes before takeoff to find plane has been delayed.not deccan though.
#32 the sense of rejuvenation that only friends can bring about, which hasn't left me ever since