i want something very badly. it will help me keep two promises i made to myself and one promise i didn't make to someone else. i am too tired to think of anything else now.

wake up at 4 in the morning.
sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
take a up a new hobby or enroll for a class.
be productive, repsonsible and generally, with it.

now, what about a couple of kids and cake mix while we're at it?

why is it so hard to take a decision even when you have all the pros and cons before you? and pros outweigh the cons, which are actually only three in number - ending up unemployed, homeless and starving to death. actually not the last two.

what the hell did you think you were doing? yes, you. GOD. PAY ATTENTION WHEN I TALK TO YOU. AND DON'T GIVE ME THE CREATOR AND MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE SHIT OR ESLE I'LL READ UP PHYSICS.

one day. just one day i need to be myself. and zoom. i morph back three lifetimes and have double limbs, triple tongues and zero grey cells. GAAAAH.

just one day.

god, did i not tell you not to fuck with me any more?

no. calling me an idiot and blaming me for my own mistakes is not a defence good enough. at least not divine enough. straighten up your act dude.

all's good. october is really behaving itself.
the Adeela event was a hit. we made money. we made business and the long term kind too.
and all sorts of people have been heaping praise on my work - and i can't stop wondering why. hell, i wouldn't know i existed if i weren't me.
but doing new things at work, always very entertaining and the new project looks a very doable one.
the order of the day is to get out of the black and white zone of is change good or bad and just chill and see what happens.
saw a movie called wake up sid today. didn't like it one bit. when you're preaching, you're peaching. pretty colours and music and magically easy celluloid life doesn't make it one bit palatable. why do the buggers need to exaggerate everything - good, bad, people, situations - and make it so unreal in the name of commercial success. you don;t have to cater to idiots to make money. what about dev d? see, watch, learn.
i wake up to slight nips in the air, colourful little flowers amongst the weeds in the backyard, the patchwork quilt is comforting and not an eye candy anymore and then i can lie back in bed and read some.
i got wolf hall yesterday.

while violence may not always be a good thing, the threat of it definitely is. went through one of the worst days at work, though it was not day, it was night and that too last night. when reason failed, calmly stated threats and banging the phone down succeeded. then i went in and stood and smiled and it was such a fucking kick to see them cower and give me the paper i wanted.
i would have taken on the slimy little lizard too later on, but he actually busied himself on pretend phone calls and the nice guy took over and gave us his folder of music too. (ever since the retarded morons put in those blocks, we've lost all pretense of having standards and hoard, beg and share all bits of music, movies, e-books and likes. it's a matter of principles. then they come and delete them only to find the files back the next day.)
being mild and sunny and "hello, i am your 1-800-HAPPINESS number" works, but being angry -- it fucking well kicks ass.

blue walls - cold and smooth. like crystal. sometimes the colour goes away. you touch it and find it giving way like water that's not wet. you cross through and see the world. you cross back when you want. it ceases to exist.

then you wake up. it's still there. the colour comes back. the laughter recedes. you can't see beyond it any more. and then they close in.

how do you know how many breaths you have left?

what is the best way to end a friendship? closure, acrimony or drifting away with unclaimed baggage, unexpressed emotions?

the southern wonder is getting married. (even to type it with a straight face is an effort.) but it was in this context a conversation happened reaffirming boundaries of "us". i wondered.

and then the end of the day brought it back in context of someone else. for all my lip service to violence, i don't fight with people in my life*. when i do, it's because there is no option left to me and i am mentally prepared to let that particular person go. or when i have already left that emotional space.

i don't understand deep rifts. it unnerves me to see someone ignoring them or expecting them to be bridged. it makes me feel like they deliberately refuse to understand the emotions behind it. then it becomes even more pointless to keep that person around.

*except three.

worried about Adeela's next exhibition. people haven't responded. a decline wouldn't feel this bad. we don't have money enough to advertise. we don't know people enough either. we are experimenting with social media in all its forms. popeye came up with an awesome idea of a video snippet we can use as an invite with the youtube link.

i want to be there. i don't want to be there.

have exactly 9 days to figure out where to take my begging bowl. give me a chance and a bit of your time, universe.

Mary Renault and Paul Waters.
Baudelaire.
Auden.
a hideous city trying very hard like a clingy ex-lover.
a bad idea to go to bed at 6:30 in the morning. it makes you cranky about the entire week to come.
remembered a line from Matthew Arnold ( i think):
"come to me in my dreams/ and then by day i shall be well again".
in what context i was thinking this, i don't know. lack of sleep makes people stupid and woozy too.

drunk. beyond belief.

it's all the progenitor's fault.

and then his wife said she had tested the burglar alarm system of each and every car on our street at three this afternoon.

i didn't even have it straight enough to ask her why.

the puja committe budgets are running into crores. there's been flood and drought in the state.

people are paying thousands for a slim little handbag. a boy committed suicide because his construction labourer father couldn't buy him new clothes.

spend, splurge, splash it around if you have money. starve, stare, stay away if you don't.

four days of vulgar exhibitionism and they're trying to find the true spirit of pujas. it's such a fucking farce. it's such a shame. come and live it up unseeing, unfeeling, unalive deity. come. the bastards won't get richer otherwise. they're waiting. like vultures.

the persona you're trying to reach is outside the coverage area right now.
a pity you can't leave a voice mail for your own self and ask it to call back so you can chew its bloody ass off for being so disconnected from everything.
why is it that the only emotion that i actually experienced in the last 18 hours is rage and the only colour that registered was blue, when the day has brought a lot achievement-wise.
this is unreasonable.

someone called me over when it was raining.
"hello, my daily dose of sunshine."
and then it struck me how the pattern repeats. always the daily dose. not the day. never the day.
even aquaintances tell me that. they don't leave it unsaid

bottling it all - depression - aggression - lashing out - bottling up. and so it goes round and round. you watch from the sidelines, pick them up when they fall, stand quiet to take the blows. you can't let them spin out of control. you're just one step behind them, knowing you can't make things right. but you can stop things from being worse. so you think. some days, you lash out. some days, you internalize. before you know, it's a shadow dance. you're part of the pattern. you have your own blue bottle.

cut off your tentacles before it draws another puppet in. how could you have not thought of that before? because you were watching from the sidelines. you were standing guard.

golden slumber kiss your eyes,
smiles await you when you rise.
sleep, pretty baby, do not cry,
and i will sing you a lullaby.
care is heavy, therefore sleep,
while i o'er you watch do keep.
sleep, pretty darling,do not cry,
and i will sing you a lullaby.

what a fucking joke.

not being able to shake off that feeling of running out of time. three-quarters of the year disappearing in a blink of eye makes it even worse.

is it age or is it the onset of SAD that i thought i'd left behind in another place, another time, with other people?

mortality used to seem like a deliberate decision. a controllable factor. a self-inflicted choice at most. it has begun to seem closer, more alien and unpredictable. i am beginning to get worried. i am not being able to get out of this space. i wondered if it is THIS that shows in my voice, when my colleague asked me why i sounded so weary and resigned. she thought someone else had picked up the phone and she said it wasn't the first time in the last few weeks.

a freind's friend has commited suicide. nobody knows why. it made me uncontrollably sad.

i am not ready for all that i am trying to be so excited about. i am sorry. not people, not events, not even the way the mid-morning sunshine has changed its angle when it comes to my room through the red curtains.

tired. unexpectedly so. no time to be so for at least another three weeks. kernel of a demand for a holiday uppermost on my mind.

hills? beach? nowhere? short break? long vacation?

too tired to decide now.

but let me out.

somebody was almost on the verge of dying today. his friend got a call from the hospital. she didn't know any of his family or friends. she lives in a different town. i held her hand.

somebody had died, before his friends got around together on the weekend. i heard them talk.

somebody suddenly remembered a long lost friend. i watched them change expressions trying to figure out when they had ceased being part of life.

i can't get over the blues. this feeling of running out of time -- though it has been at the back of my mind for the last three weeks. there was much unfinished business that is irrelevant now.

earlier on, we had been taking turns baiting the southern wonder and losing handsomely. suddenly it doesn't seem so funny. i want to see my best friends, i want to see the boy, i want to see didi, i want a few more peter pan days. while i can.

this is ridiculous. i'm not old nor depressed enough to feel this way. it's not fear. but this idea that there will still be much loving left to do, but the curtain call may come too soon.

the only thing: i've never been clairvoyant, ESP is new fangled car gadget to me and two of my five senses are already a bit damaged, so there's no question of a sixth one.

ungrateful dead

my negativity towards organized religion and its rituals leave me drained with each encounter. particularly so with the circus called death rites.

i made my funeral plans today. there will be none.

live a full life, eat a good meal, have a belly laugh, reach for that tall drink. and while you love somebody, if you happen to miss me at an odd moment, it'll be an added bonus. or maybe not. i'll be dead beyond caring. but please spare my death the indignity of a public drama, if i still matter to you.

a whole day amidst rich, shiny, opulent clothes - scraps of colour, bits of jewel - unnecessary and expensive. end of the day, a mad woman stops in front of us and runs her hands on my kurta. she wanted old clothes. i promise her i'd get her some tomorrow and keep it with the chaiwallah. she turns and asks him if it's true. he says yes. saris and clothes f0r people are kept with him. he gives it to them when they remember to come back.

she told me she'd bring me something.

does anyone love her?

Thank you

grief is the most personal of all emotions. and i don't know how to share it, except in this form. and to a great extent i don't want to either. please know i am not shutting you out when i take the conversation out of your hands.

it's enough for me that you care. you don't have to share it too.

something inexplicable happened.
my aunt passed away on friday night, actually saturday morning - the wee hours.
i was in bhutan on a travel asignment at the time, my phone had no signals.
yet i knew.
i'd felt her in the room. i didn't see anything but i knew it was her. in my half dazed state i also was a bit irritated. she said she wanted to see all of south india after she got better, surely she needn't have come to bhutan. i checked the time and fell asleep.
i came home and when my father opened the door, i made it a point to ask him if something had happened at that particular time. it had.
he gave me an odd look, but didn't find it very strange.
i did. i do not what to think. i've always thought my disbeliefs are too strong. supernatural stays out of my way as i stay out of its. but this i don't know how to explain.

she was a busy mother, yet she felt compelled to compensate for me, what she dubbed as my young, harassed working mother's "neglect". i was forever the "neglected child", who had to be given presents, constant assurance and who could ever do no wrong. bloomers, penny frocks, rubber sandals, lunchbox, all that i needed and all that my mother always forgot to check upon -- she'd invariably notice and hand over to didi.
when i was growing up, thanks to her, exams were somewhat a festive occasion. cash, at least one set of new clothes and a tuck box with mood-enhancing food -- chocolate, wafers, crisps, dry fruits, biscuits and whatever else she could find in the store outside her hospital. even later, when i decided to move, move back again, got in a relation, got out again, needed support and at least one token of acceptance that my life was not a mess and if it was, it wasn't of my creation, she made it a point to give me that and more. all my life, she was the one person who'd plugged in the gaps. but not too quietly, unfortunately for my mother at times :D.
she was the person who also taught me how to love - life, friends, lovers and family. but that will be another story.
i am fine. so is my sister. in fact she is so steady, that she took away my guilt for not having been there. but then again, characteristically enough, she turned around and accused me of being the more loved one and hence spared the ordeal. for once, i was mature and didn't point out that it was indeed the truth and no, i wasn't taken from the dustbin and so treated special. i started crying instead. if you are reading this, i'd appreciate you not asking any questions.
but we salvaged a few things from under the hawk-eyed watch of my nieces (particularly the two-year old, we can sell her for a fortune as a ferocious watchdog) and my sister and i are wearing identical bangles that she used to wear on both hands. we find it oddly comforting.

i am doing a fun piece of work this week and hope to do another next week, which kind of makes up for the prolonged exposure to the Toad.
i did something i'd never done - mended fences - and i'm uncertain about it.
"you expect too much from me."
now that has been a burr on my side, except i can't remember the exact context.
anyway, water under bridge, bridge under water.
the best part of having people is that you can be friends with them. so...

august needs to end fast.

it's one fucking farce. that's what the system is.

i had the day off. i spent the whole day lazing about and finished two books by david liss. the best find in recent months. when i got tired of looking at the pages, i looked at the rain falling against a backdrop of trees. i also managed to watch the curse of the golden flower. and then went and had dinner.

oh!

north west frontier cuisine was made for rainy days and maudlin minds.
i do not remember the last time i had kebabs so wondrous and the fish kebab was unlike what i've ever eaten anywhere.
melt in the mouth fresh fragrant pieces of pure pleasure.

makes me even more resolved to open my own place. giving people just that right food and drink that raises spirits IS a noble mission. it has much social value.

i even thought of a name for a our seaside bar ( and like all good pubs, it'll be known for its honest grub as well). i'll call it Three Dirty Wishes. one could be the filth and muck kind of dirt, the second would be really dirrrrtyyyyy and the third would depend on time - what is considered trendily dirty at the moment.

if only there were a good dry bottle of red, the night would be perfect. but even without it, life seems good.

saturdays, come back. i miss you. you complete me. help me devise a way to make my life accommodate you. i heart saturday.

a lazy, rainy saturday morning with a good book... and now i can remember why i used to be in love with saturdays. now should i jinx it by going out?

Full stop.

there is a reason why periods are the most important punctuation mark.
no longer part of one unequal emotional exchange.
disturbing and distressing. but i have finally learnt the art of walking without looking backwards.
note to self: apply this to all other walks of life.

unrelated to this, it has been the worst week and it is hardly over. the fact that i drag myself out of my bed and retain a modicum of functionality is something i should be congratulated upon.

i take people at their face value. i believe what they tell me. but over the last few days, i have been keeping a close watch over my social exchanges. it was very draining to be on the receiving end of casual lies from most quarters. has this always been so? how come i never noticed this before?

co-worker, close friend, casual acquaintance, family -- do you think i do not get it when you slip in that one about work, money, life? and for no need.

why is it too much to ask for reciprocation of a simple courtesy? i do not lie. to you or to anybody else. not because i cannot. but because it is disgusting, disturbing, demeaning, degrading. because i choose not to. i do you the courtesy of being honest. be an adult and do me the same.

i feel sad when you don't. i don't know why. but you make me sad and take myself away bit by bit from you.

i dreamt that i had recieved a package in mail. it contained my divorce papers. except i didn't know who i had married. so in my dream i tried going through my comp and my online life to find some clue. any clue.

when i told people about it, they said that it is something that could easily happen to me. and then tried getting blow-by-blow accounts of my last three holidays to figure out if i had indeed got married without realising it. i don't think i have, but i still put it on my status message, just to be sure.

so far, nobody has stepped forth.

i am scared. my aunt fell down and broke her hips today. she is in an advanced stage of Parkinsons disease and in all probability will not survive the surgery day after. as one of the two remaining functional adults in my extended family here, i spent the day doing the usual rounds.

the kids ( my nieces) were terrified. my sister ( her mother's the one i'm talking about and no she's not my cousin, that's not the way my family works) is trying very hard to keep it together. except she's already asked thrice if we can sell all the houses and apartments and buy a huge place so we can move in the remaining geriatrics, the kids, the mentals, the nasty relations-by-marriage and yeah, basically everyone. and really BE THERE.

i gently reminded her she WAS there and she is doing a fine job.

i spent the whole day calming down person in pain, persons in panic, persons who are distressed and personlings who made random phone calls from my mobile.

i am scared. i am not adult enough to handle this. and i am tired of being the tough cookie.

and i feel incredibly guilty for having made plans for people and a life who are far away from this. i am sorry. and i can't stop crying and i don't know why the hell i'm typing this.

i am sorry.

they still do.

otherwise i wouldn't be awake at 1 in the morning trying to figure how to talk to real people.

it's been a while since i have written for me. i tweet, i update my status messages, i key in fluff to kill some time, i key in words that i am told to. but i don't write.

words elude me now.

more so when i want them to reach out where i can't.

but silence is all i have to offer.

and it's filling in spaces, unhidden.

i think of things, of people. i have forgotten how to speak of them, how to speak to them. i try to remember how language felt. i keep forgetting.

i saw a creeper, rainsoaked, fat, glistening wildly, as if it's vulgarly celebrating life. i thought of you. then i thought about you. do you think of me, just so?

i have forgotten how to ask, i have forgotten how to tell.

when did i lose people to those small doses of words, visuals, bits of colours that flake off from their lives?

will language come back when i learn to talk again? will you talk? will you teach me how to?

i am losing language.
words elude me now.

a bit of a gift of the magii situation.
why do i never listen to good advice?
ebare ami ki korbo?
apart from laugh maniacally and try to guess how serious or trivial the issue is.
oh boy.

vacation hit rocky grounds.
then picked up again with back-up group stepping in. except it seems deferred gratification is the way to go. but it would be neat with this bunch. like all first times. :P
anyway since the idea of deferred gratification sits uneasy on me i bought bright red flip flops.
on top of the 100 rs denim skirt, purple balloon top, black harem pants, capris three sizes too small that i have to figure out what to exchange for.
all is good.

happy it is only

heehee haha hyehyehye hhihihihihihi. i feel zoozoo laughters bubbling out of me.
ten days leave - sanctioned.
people - three-quarters manipulated.
waves - not so distant a dream.

on a different note, somebody brought up college in an unconnected discussion. also an alamnus, some three decades and more my senior, of my alma mater. he remembered the the gravity. i could only remember the levity.
college? sure. that place where the near blind historian held a class. the end of rollcall and the last five rows were gone. the rest of us eyeing the window casually, looking to make a move. over eager fat boy (who was it, that boy from eng lit or poly sci?) wants to go next. commotion. the old professor wailing "the poor boy has fooollayn. whai aar yoo laaphing?"

or the spluttering poly sci professor looking at us aghast and then going mental yelling for the head. purple face stuck in the head's room ranting in a loop: how could people who have attended two classes in the entire year have the gall to come and ask what their attendance percentage was. how how how.

or the near hysterical socio professor yelping "oke boshao, oke boshte bolo" when a classmate tried to deal with what had happened during a misplaced kiss, by wrapping his head around the idea of freudian slip.

or the guest lecturer. actually guest lecturers. the angry one, the one who we were not supposed to mess with on account of him having had a heart attack in the same classroom the year before, the nail varnish lady, the pretty one.

canteen.

and how serious all of it and life seemed then.

and it ACTUALLY rained. the nice kind.
huge torrential downpour, hailstorms, slamming windows, breaking glass, the poor pink tree gets a branch ripped off. it never fails to amaze how something so chaotic, frenzied, energetic could have such a calming effect.
and i hatched a fantastic plan/daydream. lessee.

i dreamt of rain.
not the pretty one, but the irritating city kind. when the clouds hold great promise and you can't take your eyes off them, yet it peters down to a small, steady dripping that turns everything murky, slimy, inconvenient. the grey overtones encompass everything and seem to be unrelenting, quite unlike the torrents.
black umbrellas. colleagues in white shirt. the metro station. the little electricity cable box. a cramped house. dull clouds and the constant dripping of rain.
sometimes waking up is as pointless as sleeping it in.

it's been a difficult day. i had to keep at bay a red haze of anger just to be barely functional. it was one of these days. it just refuses to go away. the only thing that kept me from pulling the final punch was the thought that if i am angry at one person, maybe the person is at fault, if i am angry at fucking everybody under the bleeding sun, then it must be me.
what happened to the soft and subdued, milk and honey person i set out to be?
well fuck that.
except for how tired and drained you feel when you're angry, it's really pretty gratifying to find the world parting like red sea at the receiving end of a moses act, just to get out of your sodding way.

i have got a psycho stalker again.
yes, hit me baby one more time. the loneliness was really killing me. but this time he just stalks my office phone, till that time when some kind soul* gives him my number. i can just see it.
i have mastered the art of changing my voice even as i pick up phones, i say that oxy hasn't come to work/ oxy is in a meeting/ oxy is out on assignment/oxy is on three days' leave with a straight face even while people around me are cracking up.
he cajoles, screams, tries to be sarcastic and then my baby gets cryptic. he left a message for me today. actually two. the first one was a rather chilling, conspiratorially whispered " i've been getting messages". the second one was "ha!" short and sweet.
so far he hasn't been abusive. not majorly. chho chweet.

* ( when you work where i do, you're not kind, but if you ARE then you're an ocxymoron. can i call someone an oxymoron without sounding like a moron? never mind. oxy and moron next to each other makes me look over my shoulders)

confusion reigns supreme.
in every aspect of life where i thought that some sort of breakthrough has been achieved, things have slowed down frustratingly.
now adeela. i've been a bit away from all other people in my life in this, seeking to pull it off. i needed this weekend to figure out how absent i have been from friends. some of them good ones.
but this is a very crucial phase and we have almost put our friendships through endurance tests the last time we tried to be inclusive. we are all reluctant. we are all reacting, we are all resistant. yet there is no other way.
and at times i feel like asking for some sort of divine intervention. i can feel the ostrich instinct kicking in, i just want to bury my head in sand till this blows over. and everything else too.

god, stop being an asshole, is the prayer i sent up. not the most effective or positive one, on hindsight.

i went out after a long time this weekend. so long in fact, that random hot guy asking me to buy a drink gave me enough of a high to last me the night. i promptly sent out texts seeking more positive reaffirmations and came home at four. i feel satiated.
now if only some people would stop being jerks it would make my day.

i dreamt of a cloudy day.
i was standing at the gate, waiting for someone to come home. i looked towards the sky and i could see a small plane. it was doing all kinds of tricks, corkscrews and doughnuts ( if a plane can do one) and figure eights and making heart-shapes, and then the sky turned dark and the plane started to swoop down and then go up again. at this point of time, the horizon was a bit puzzling, because the sky melted into the sea instead of otherwise. but even then the sea was a nice shade between slate and deep aquamarine. the plane would skim down on it and sprays would spalsh up in its wake. it was the most beautiful sight i'd seen. then i came back in. and the next day i read that a plane had crashed into the sea. i knew it was this plane. i had tis strange sense of compulsion. i HAD to go and see the pilot. i knew i just had to. i was the last person who saw how beautiful it had all been.
but before i could find out how to go to the hospital and see the pilot, i woke up. the sense of urgency remained with me throughout the day. must do something before it is all destroyed? no, that's being dramatic. but i can just see the plane and that skysea. it was beautiful.

i am not in the sunniest mood. i tried not to spill it over to anybody, so i switched my phone off, stayed at home, kept to myself. trying to make human contact in the evening, in form of a half hour session with near and dear ones, make me feel suicidal or homicidal or both.
i am swimming through a haze. all kinds, for it's insanely hot. that kind of white heat.
red rashes.
even as flowers wilt and die, allergies flare.
progenitor casually mentions "oh you tested allergic to 18 different things."
"oh yeah, you know giving me the list would have saved me a lot of trouble."
"yeah well, you managed fine."
yes, except i have stopped breathing on more than a couple of occasions, exhibit a great set of oozy rashes in any random part of my body year round, get itchy, scratchy, dizzy, wheezy and under great sneezing fits without any rhyme or reason around arbitrary things including cotton. cotton! whoever has allergy to cotton?
"do you want some coconut?"
"no"
"yeah, you used to get breathing difficulty from coconut. you sure you don't want some?"
and i fail to understand why everybody is so excited about the michael jackson tribute night and stare at me with great hurt mournful bovine eyes when i express my views on the matter.

what was formerly karmic accents is now adeela. adeela delivered it's first corporate order. our beautiful testimonies to a thirst for sheer survival by a group of women will be up for display and sale at oxford bookstores. two of them to start with.
i've been spending sleepless nights thinking about how we'll go forward. we will. the goals are pretty clear. except mapping out the route is not something that easy. but however impossible this may seem, right now, it seems like this i'll to see through.
much like another aspect of life that's leaving me clueless.
things are falling into place when they have no business to.
then again this is the way life works out. plans fail. but life works out. always.

i am very tired.
i spent a long time thinking about a piece of news yesterday. then there's been stuff that's been happening with friends and family. and i can't help realting it to a larger pattern.
i don't have it in me to be analytical about things right now. it's just a knee-jerk emotional reaction that comes forth. being a woman is getting the rough side of the deal. being a woman in india - even more so.
i am ashamed to put it down here, i am ashamed to think this way, but i need to remember this. at a phase of my life, when i am independent, successful by meagre measures, wanted and appreciated, seemingly secure, in an era that pays lip service to the idea of strength, i can't celebrate life enough.
all around me i see tiredness, deprivation, exploitation. emotional abuse, physical violence, a manic attempt to keep the plaster form peeling. comes with the territory.
when will they learn? yes, them.
it saddens me infinitely to think that almost all men in my life really don't get it. some women too.
i have always felt a part of me going stone cold for a while when people talking about leaving this country for good. for a better life. over the last few weeks i couldn't help thinking that there is some merit to that plan of action.
defeatist, escapist, unreal, betraying my own line of thought - yes to all. but being a woman here is frightening at times. and those times are getting to be more frequent.

I don't feel like typing. Three things I needed to jot down, but I can't do that. Everything has taken second, third and fourth place to the thought that sometimes I am too wrapped up in my own world to care who ends up getting bruised. It was gently pointed out. And I am scared that there might be more than a grain of truth in it. In the particular context it was told, if that holds any truth, I have done something seriously damaging and I don't know how to set it right.

And now I would probably end up making my own list like that stupid TV series.

Yes, I am evading the real issue by making a crappy joke about it. I don't know how else to react. My idea of being an adult today was to do three loads of laundry and decline invitation to hash and bhang holi party.

Karmic Accents was dismantled yesterday. We are going to shed some people and move on with new name, and newer approaches. On one hand it feels like the effort is culminating into something more professional and viable, on the other it is infinitely saddening to have given it to unreasonable demands that led to wasting a lot of energy. Let's see what the future holds.
But it is good to have friends who don't need you explain visions, they just know and expect you to know that too. Thanks to two in particular I am nursing a huge hngover, feel like my eyes are going to get glued shut in three seconds and generally feel that world, despite six hundred monsters hammering the insides of my skull, is a good place to live in.

life on the lazy lane

i spent a long, lazy morning that turned into an early afternoon, lolling on my bed with my best friend, with calvin and hobbes and peanuts. the sun was streaming in ever so nicely. a bright yellow kind of day. we went to eat biriyani afterward in their shiny new car, met smiling cops and got accommodating parking attendants who collectively left us reeling with all that positive vibe. that was right before we hit the dirt with the pathetic excuse for a book fair that we've got going. but everything in life can't be perfect. and of course m tried a bit of his karaoke along with i shot the sheriff on chingrihata. i had a good day.

it's important to remember this.

exactly ten days back something we'd discussed years ago came back in my head very unbidden and unconsciously. we had been discussing deaths and ends and i think i told somebody about two things that i'd like to see accomplished before i can call it quits without feeling guilty. then ten days back i suddenly remembered those were done. i was disturbed. today i felt differently about it.

i also had a very emotionally charged discussion with someone i hold very close to my heart. except, try as i might, i could not do her the courtesy of reciprocating, i had to bottle up. i had asked her before if not talking would ever come between us. she said it would not. i tried today, i couldn't. but i tried. sometimes it's enough to just be, sometimes it's not. and i dread those days when it no longer would be. enough.

but this is turning out more maudlin than i thought it would be. not a fitting piece for a yellow day, a yellow month. i got to see a lot of people this month, got to see the sibling married, will get to see the ear-waggler married (toad permitting) three weeks down the line, got nice new brown kitten heel shoes, new clothes, new necklaces - three of them, new books, and excuse to buy more. and i'm planning on doing something i shouldn't be doing, but i won't tell you what. it's delighfully wicked. actually make that two.

life feels like doing a jigsaw puzzle in a room with a strong draft of wind that keeps sweeping the pieces away. just as i turn to one end of it and move away, i find the other pieces jumbled up. life getting in the way of life.
i have been getting the feeling of being absent from my own life for some time. everything good, surrounded my people i love without condition, secure in being unconditionally loved back. yet, being around them, being in the midst of them, i feel away. it takes a great effort to unwind and be there and then i find i've forgotten to tell them how much i love them. i would describe it as feeling like an outsider to your own life, except that's too ridiculous.
i guess just another manifestation of all the chaos.
i have been trying too hard to be normal, just like everyone else. beats me how they manage to get there.

it feels like that unexpected hint of perfume that has lingered for too long. your breath catches, you feel it. underlying all those other things - the smell of warm bodies and cooled off coffee, fresh ink in the printer and a glue stick, leather and new book, sweaty smells of the day drawing to an end - and you smell that perfume you put on so long ago. then that is all you can smell.
the blues feel like that. all pervading, unyielding, unwilling to let go.

got even more birthday prezzies - tshirt, votive and the book thief.

it looks like my birthday celebrations are going to be a two-week long thing. i had the fourth birthday cake today. life rocks.
except for one thing.
shutting out. this time i was on the other side of the door and didn't know what to do. i decided not to knock. i can't remember a single time when there hasn't been anybody knocking on mine, when i try to go away. i don't know if i did the right thing. probably not.
did i ever thank you for being there? probably not.
i am sorry.

i got even more presents today. wrapped in orange paper with bright fuchsia ribbons.
popeye mailed us some very silly pictures. we WILL grow up some day. it is simply not possible to grow old without growing up and that is our only hope.
i read through some old blogs that R had posted.
i suddenly want an evening with my best friend(s). just one would do. for the time being.

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. not even the old bible vindictive jehovah could rain on my parade today.

i or rather we are looking at being financially viable after these many months. well not in the strictest sense, but this time, we are getting back more money than losing it.
for the first time in my life, i haven't given up. it never occurred to me to give up, unlike all those other things, places, people that i gave up on.
we are looking at taking the first tentative steps. and i think i am going to do a separate blog for this one. lessee.
for now? walking on sunshine.
:)

it's been the worst day. i was so angry with everything, at work and outside of it. i had my reasons but i could have dealt with things more maturely. ended up internalising the wrong things. and probably for the first time, my anger with stuff outside my work spilled over to my day. it's usually always the other way round.
it made unnecessary delays, frustrations and left me feeling absolutely washed out.
am i really a very angry person?

i went into a fascinating neighbourhood today. this was somehwere beyond surya sen street - where the entire area is filled with shops that deal with paper - embbossed, handmade, printed, plain, coloured, wrapping paper, art paper - everything. and then there was this middle aged man with spectacles carving something into a small piece of wood. he was making a seal, the kind you stamp something with.

i turn 30 in two weeks. since it's beyond me to be a fully functional adult, the 30 as a benchmark thing is looking like a long-awaited chance to claim one or two trappings of being a grown up.
i have zeroed in on three things:
i will make some money exclusively for me. money has its uses.
i will do a job that will help me gain some experience related to the work i ultimately want to do. unfortunately, a non-profit job and making money are not exactly compatible.
i will not take crap from people. i am finally going to be old enough to live without faff.

How can you want to run away from the same people you sometimes want to run to?
What is with women that every single thing they do for themselves, no matter how small, is capable of inducing the greatest guilt trip? I have yet to come across a man who feels the same way. It is strange but just claiming a little space, that something that makes you happy without making anyone else unhappy in the process still can make you feel like the greatest bitch on earth? Why does it never happen to men? Why?
They have other advantages too, like peeing standing up, being entirely ok with the idea of losing hair from the head and farming it elsewhere in the body, having a perfectly civil, if not warm relationship with their mothers and the ability to go topless even when they obviously need a corset to hold their guts in and a sturdy wide strapped bra to hold their needlessly expanding mammary glands.
But this ability to live guiltless is really unfair.

it's beginning to get pretty. i get to see wispy little mistlets that could also be smoke, the air seems a little bit nicer, there's shakin' stevens singing give me your heart tonight and life is such a beautiful toy to have.

my niece random dialled numbers from my phone. resulting in three most awkwardest conversations in the entire week.
and for reasons unrelated, i feel a wee bit bluish.

i lost my emerald ring and found it again.

brown paper packages tied up with strings

lotus perfume, drumling, purple glass lantern, silver star shaped candles, candle shaped like chnapa phul, purple tshirt and green beads. more to come. present. presents.

lunch

ac section in sabir, where i bullied middle-aged lonely guest to move into a booth, by calling him uncle loudly thrice in a row, so we could join tables together.
chicken biriyani, non-greasy, light and fluffy with the potato done just right. mutton rezala, with even the shukno lonka glistening like it's crafted out of red tourmaline. a torn bit of the softest tandoori roti with the outer skin baked to a crisp and all moist and flavorful inside. kashmiri kabab - not bad - wrapped in egg. firni and a spoon of shahi tukra. good old thumsup. and daber jol on chandni mor.
of course people solicitiously asked about my diet plan when they got to hear about it and not so solicitiously called me 10 ton hati. but that can't be helped.

note to self

there are people who live by plans and there are people who live by dreams. if plans fall apart, you change plans. but you can't change dreams. if you choose to live by dreams, you can't afford to get intimidated. deal with it bitch.

i am zen. no, i was zen, after days of rapidly swinging phases of anxiety, stress, nerves, anger, despair and the whole works, i told myself that it matters so much that it doesn't matter any more. and i attained zen.
thus equipped i went for a pedicure to soothe the residual nerves - very neat with girlie colours and fruit massage and the works. i was walking back admiring my coral pink toes, when i bumped into the most acerbic old man. before i could apologise he yelled "paayer dike takiye hnatchho keno? paaye ki phul phutechhe?"
i couldn't say anything apart from looking at him open-mouthed and then mumbled a bit. i WAS in fact thinking right then that my toes looked like golap phul.
they do. the polish is just the right sort with a bit of something giving it a texture which makes my toe nails look like bits of petals gelaming with something like dew and the texture could easily be taken for the flecks you see in the fat roses.

i am reading the wind-up bird chronicles. at one place, murakami describes a feeling - anger seeped with sorrow.

happy dussehra

or shubho bijoya as we say. I've wondered long about the connotation of shubho - it's more than happy, less than holy, but indicates a sense of grace, wellbeing, what else?
anyway the semiotics aside, this morning i have something very precious to be thankful for.
the southern wonder called and in course of conversation let it be known that he has spare cash which can be used as reserve fund for payments. i am shite at being emotional. so i snapped it aside and asked him to concentrate on his job at hand.
friends.
they make such an easy job of chasing dreams.
one day, i hope, i'll have it in me to live up to them. apart from that, i have nothing much to ask for at the moment. life seems very full.

my new haircut is cool. i am very proud of it. when random pesky kid tugged my hair in the pandal, i, however did not bust a vein. i looked at it and made sure it was old enough to understand. and then on the pretext of giving it a toffee told it that i'll break its twiggy little arm if it did that again to me or to anybody else. and i said i'd be watching. it had an extremely satisfying expression (to me) on its face for as long as i could see it.
then i came home and couldn't go out for dinner and cooked myself the worst chicken roast in history.

not doing anything can be such a high. and speaking of highs, thanks to the wee drummer, i slept large parts of last evening, night and this morning, in a pink, i beg your pardon, ponk haze, punctuated only by the worry that something was trying to come out of the top drawer on the study table. i woke up this morning to a large pile of hard bound books, piled meticulously (and alphabetically organised) on the right side of the table, directly on top of where the drawers are.

i need to grow up. pronto.

i am praying for the first time in life for some thing(s) to happen. except i don't know if you are allowed to ask for multiple things in one go.
but if things go right, a twelve-year-old dream that S and i shared will come true.
sometimes i am really amazed to (re)discover how special my friends are.
and this is just the beginning.
yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!

i can't really write any more about it, but i am extremely happy and so there.

why can't someone else be insomniac along with me? it'd be so nice to have an insomniac's club.

i spent the day controlling my temper very hard. no raised voices, no violence - nothing. and yet, everyone at work spent the day being extremely intimidated till i couldn't take it anymore and started sending some of them home early. i did absolutely nothing. i didn't even glare at them or anything. :(

Mycotoxin found his true love. Then he found some more. Mwuhahahahahahahhahaahhaahahahahahahahhahahaahahahah

i spent all my money on clothes i'll seldom wear because they were in pretty colours. and i did not have money left for new sandals. i continue to wear didi's old sandals and everyday she threatens to take them back. the last one i got, brown suede pencil heel makes me feel suicidal the moment i look at them, but they really look good otherwise.
things that look good and things that feel good are often mutually exclusive - much like men - and i still don't know how to pick the right ones. but then again if being wrong feels so good, at least for a while, who cares?
but seriously, i have no money. what will i do? the star has promised to feed me lunch for the rest of september, like she did almost every single day we've worked together.
but there's more stuff in life that requires money than lunch. and i have exactly sixty three rupees left. i don't understand how this happens. every single time, without fail.
i need to call up that feng shui woman.

my day started insanely early. with a generous dose of the Toad in it. by noon, i was ready to curl up in the trash can or/and die. and i have balanced so many different things and people that most things got half done. as a result, even past 11 at night i am still kind of working on something. and the worst part of it is it that i had nothing to do with most of the fuck ups. it's just one of those days that the cosmos decides to screw me real bad and shows no sign of letting up.
i need out.
i need large carton with fat bubble wrap.
or even a pipe, with or without blue plastic screening off one end.
i need to crawl in somewhere and just stop. like that.
and if you need tangible evidence of how bad the day was i'll give you that too. receipt from madras kitchen - thali meal veg - and i even liked it. it was that kind of a day.
i hate all the sodding buggers who have a five day week at work. all of them.

i fought with someone. mostly one-sided, though i thought i had excellent reasons for being pissed off. and i was kinda shaken and didn't know what to expect. what i got certainly wasn't comforting, so i decided to stay pissed off. except i hate it. i can't nurse a grudge.
this is most awkward because i know i have reason on my side and yet i want this to get sorted so things can be all sunny again.
life, fix this.

my work gets a little more bizarre each day. one of the new trainees bit me.

dead butterflies

a silver golden background. exquisitely crafted butterflies on them.
then you take a closer look. they are alive. they won't be for much longer anyway. you watch life ebb out. you make life ebb out. you call it art.
damien hirst's art.
they are not from endangered species, they said.
but they still make me cry. no matter what you think, they do.
why is it getting so difficult to get what's going on? this is not the way things are supposed to be.

for the first time in my life i stopped midway through buying shoes and and and... did not buy them. but then i got blue bubble tee that i am yet to make up my mind on.

this sunday i was afraid.
sunday evening i went for a jazz performance - a bunch of people - friends, friend's friends - the kind you get. all posh and cocktail-sipping "in: crowd.
the music was very good as long as they didn't try fusion. close your eyes and you could feel the breath of a hot dark summer night, with faint stars in the distance, a little leafy-smelling fire somewhere and the primal energy of the night just outside your reach. it was good jazz. and then of course it became sort of nightmarish with attempted fusion of rabindrasangeet with jazz and it took me a while to figure out that it was real and i wasn't drunk beyond redemption. it felt like being trapped in a badly made bengali art film.
that was the beginning. the group seemed to have nothing to say against the fusion, in fact considerable time was spent lauding the effort and then thankfully (at the moment) we went for dinner.
we had a round table given to us and just the way long dinners go, the people became more relaxed and started being themsleves. which wasn't altogether a good idea.
there was obese man puffed up with self-importance who thinks only people with the "right pedigree" can be successful and the riffraff can't be tolerated nor worked with; semi-normal girl on his right who thinks the sun shines out of said man and sets best in new mexico; to her right was the spoilt rich entity with the loudest voice and manners who had disrupted the performance every five minutes, who has serious issues with life, self-perception, family and other people and has no qualms sharing them with the world and its brother; across her was her cousin - old, bald, uninteresting but could be a nice man for all i know but had horrible shoes and great degree of social awkwardness; on his right was R - distressingly nomal in all moments. on my left sat the potential communal rioter and elitist friend of mine and on my right decent Oxbridge guy who practices law.
the token normal presence from people-i-don't-know-world, the guy had impeccable manners, a good conversation to him, a sense of humour, generally the mature, understated sort of a person who still manages to have a presence.
all good, except for one thing - his habit of taking his car out at night and running over stray dogs. in serious, logical, well-thought out manner.
i have never been this scared. or so i thought till the Cow asked on her way home if she should call the guy over for dinner next week and when R started spluttering, she said casually "it's ok i guess. so many people kill chicken and lambs and eat them. this is ok."

thought of the day: i am incapable of being an adult. particularly so in adult relationships. whatever form they may be in.
i cannot deal with decision- making, commitment, responsibility and of course sanity.
and THAT makes me happy, according to 99% of people i know.
except it does not and i'd really like to grow up now. if only i knew how to.
and if, actually not if, when, i hurt people, i don't mean to. sometimes, i just don't know how not to.


and unrelated to all of this, i'm very confused about some other things as well.

i didn't realise it's been this long. i'm too sleepy to do anything else and too tired to go to sleep yet.
life is not much the same. but that's all i feel like typing at the moment.

we have to keep a life journal for our spanish class. i had two pages to show this week. all the entries were about work.
the ones not directly about it spoke of things i do AT work when i'm not working.
but then again, nothing much to speak outside of it:
had another cigarette fight. which just robbed me of my pious intentions of quitting.
the sibling coming home tonight, after two years.
trying very hard not to play cradle-snatching games.
i might go to south africa. just when the race riots are in full bloom.
it's not even ten. i can't think of having to face the long day ahead.
and i feel guilty about cribbing. even on my own blog.

like looking for viagra, prozac and LSD all over the city wasn't enough. in fact, one of the med shop people looked at me and sternly said " we are not THAT kind of a shop". i told them i am not THAT kind of person, but wasn't believed. anyway, the whole enterprise got me almost on the verge of putting in my papers and THEN when i am working at finishing the whole sordid business, really close to midnight i get to explain for public benefit again the shape, size and colour of viagra. and then a carful of middle-aged people of both genders look at me, bursting from the seams with fake innocence and ask me how i know all these things and isn't it wonderful to be young.
as somebody helpfully pointed out we'd say fuck work if we already didn't have a sordidly close relationship with it.
and no, i am not THAT kind of person and i needed it for my work which, again, is not THAT kind of work.

and speaking of relationships, i need to have a dialogue with the powers that be or the power that bes.
God, WTF? i mean, WTF? you being God should know better. seriously.

anyway, that's enough of venom spewing. but there's one more bit i need to put here.
i made a compromise today. and found out how easy it is. i'd always thought that i should be honest enough with people i love. they deserve at least that much. i wasn't honest, and i told myself that i am being dishonest about the way i feel because it could save a friendship and therefore is the responsible thing to do. and that it doesn't count because i'm not hurting anybody and not done any wrong, just faking a feeling.
i am disgusted with myself.

it's been a bit long since i got the time to sit down and sift through life. not that anything major happened.
silence helped. a lot. but it doesn't necessarily make me feel better. it stops other people from feeling worse though. but that's just one minor aspect.
learnt one thing - falling out of friendship hurts as much as falling out of love.
trying to grapple with one thing - why and how you can manage to love somebody even when you don't like them
gained one thing - a new friendship which feels great at the moment.
and then on a happier note - took a short break. went to b'lore. The Friend lives there with brand new husband and the Southern Wonder dropped in. very pleasant yellow submarine kind of weekend. it almost felt sinfully good to be with people who rid you of the responsibility to think around them.
and moment of epiphanies as they arrive in the most awkward junctures - the thought crossed my mind how ridiculously happy i am for no reason and started grinning right in the middle of Important Meeting with Very Senior Person, who understandably enough wasn't as happy as i was.
sometimes i seriously amaze myself.

silence sorts many things out. many.

and my nose is still running, my ears are clogged, my bedside table is piled a foot high with antibiotics, i have to get up at six tomorrow morning and i don't want any part of tomorrow to happen. life? i'm not lovin' it right now.

i am tired. i don't care.
this is ridiculous.
i mean, will i go through the next few decades of my life feeling miserable every sunday evening, barring maybe a few?
i need a job with a three-day weekend. or independent wealth.

estoy enferma. poor baby. sniff sniff.

we've been wrestling with the problem of making didi take her appropriate medicines. it's been going on for quite some time now. she has different sets of medicines for day and night and she can't read the labels. she is illiterate...a result of having spat on her pathshala teacher at the tender yet revolutionary age of 5. and nobody's at home most of the time to sort out her daytime medication.
i got her two boxes today - she chose, ironically enough, pencil boxes. one black for night and the other one a sunflower yellow for day. she thinks this could work.
made me think. what happens to most of the rest?
will the healthcare industry ever be able to work around that one? when people don't have the language to express their ailment, the language to seek relief, the skill to access help at hand, then how can it be reached to them?
100% literacy is a distant dream, even if the scales are tilting, functional literacy as officially declared translates to the ability to scribble the semblance of a signature. what is to be done in the meantime?

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

i saw a sidey ad for Feel Good isabgul on my way to work. feel good factor now means a whole new thing to me.

privatization of currency

i used coins to pay for the subway fare and then paper money for lunch ( awesome - kirim palak and rumali roti, i want to marry you) and then i used some acebucks to buy a virtual skateboard and fluffmoney to buy virtual petfood and then i had to make my dragon chompa koli go out and hunt for some gold, so i could get it some potion as well. it is then that the thought struck me. i am sure moist von lipwig was nudging me along too.
this is going to be the future.
private currency.
there may or may not be stocks, there may or may not be international currency exchange rates, but there will be the MNC money. and everyone knows that the giant corporations spread their tentacles to own everything under the sun. so you'll have, say, a GE money which will be good for buying not only light bulbs and stuff but who knows medicines and a pack of atta as well. and then if you happen to live in a far flung place where the stores are such that MNC1 does not own the stakes, you'll need some MNC2 currency to get by. and depending on the currency you own, your chances of survival will fluctuate. if MNC1 is making profit, you're rich. if not, you're just a sad loser with a bunch of useless assets.
maybe it will be such that you'll have to drink tea because all you have is tata bucks and you finished all the cola money. you'll have to travel in an LPG powered vehicle because you can't own the big oil giant currency.
you'll live in one of the mycotoxin-mentioned MNCnagar and will be entitled to only that a certain kind of food, entertainment, essentials, or even umbrellas.
i can't stop thinking about it. the possibility seems so huge and so inevitable. why haven't they thought of it?
the mind. it boggles.

life - on a sunday evening with 7 new movies ready and waiting, two new books and a calvin and hobbes, piping hot dinner and new pillows, not to mention flannel pajamas - is blissful.

sob story 101

i am seriously depressed and for the weirdest fucking reason.
it's been weeks of putting together crappy mushy insane and boring v-day stuff together to fill up pages.
my mother, by way of introduction to a family friend described us as "elderly single ladies".
all the intelligent, smart fun women i know are getting crap . i am getting crap.
while i couldn't care less about v-day, i am putting together a singletons' dinner for 14th and 3 separate conversations with people and scrolling through my phone and mail address book reveals that i don't know any single men living in this city that i can even bring to the dinner, let's not even think dating.
i am having desperate mood swings alternating between feelings of i am immortal and i'll die alone and what will happen to my corpse.
drinking doesn't help.
ditto tripping.
tried making new friends and their tragedies seem bigger than mine.
this girl i met at someplace today says she thinks her corpse will not get time to decompose, the cat will eat her face before that.
if i die ( i can't bring myself to write when i die) my corpse will be undiscovered for months, until passersby notice the stench (my neighbours will be too old and they'll be dead by then) and the cops will come and break the door and find splotchy bits and the lizards will have eaten my eyes, the roaches and the ants most other parts and since this is india, no alsatians will be involved hopefully, but there might just be a stray cat or two.
no one will know i'm dead. no one will miss me when i'm dead.
but then again, if i'm surrounded by ten people when i die, i'll still be dead. and once dead it doesn't matter.
i actually called people and started making binding promises like if we're still single by whenever we'll move in to a commune (can't do the safety net marriage, puhleez) and got 3 people to commit. 2 women and 1 person whom for lack of my descriptive skills we'll refer to as person.
this is ridiculous. but i still feel depressed.

thirsty kya?

i am reading chitrita banerji's eating india. not spectacularly good, but a comforting book. however, all this food made me thirsty. i think one day i will drink up india and make a documentary on country liquor. i will follow it up with smoking india. but for now, i will record for my own benefit a simple lemon liqueur recipe. not quite limoncello, but quite a solid deal.
all you need is a bottle of fuel and about 6 lemons, ripe yellow ones. fuel is the best because i've been told it's the flatest one without any flavour or smell that could interfere. oh, you need sugar too.
so you need to put half a bottle of the fuel in a glass container. scrape the rind off five lemons and put the lemons in this container. after about half a day, strain the liquid into the glass bottle where you'll keep the thing. then make sugar syrup - heat a cup of sugar and a cup of water together till the liquid darkens. cool it and add to the bottle. now squeeze the remaining lemon and strain it's juice into the bottle. seal it up and park in your fridge for two weeks. serve ice cold in shot glasses with shrimps.
like anyone could really afford or even want to eat caviar. doh.

baby lizard.

finding voice

nothing earthshaking. but it took me all life to realise that being articulate, being in control of language - even one's mother tongue - is something that your socioeconomic position determines. you have to be able to buy language.
the autowallah was talking to his friend about arbitrary cases filed by the local cop. he took mentality and humanity to be synonymns. all this happening in bengali. "loktar moddhe kono manoshikota nei." he thought it derives from manush. and i was struck not by his usage, but by how easily we take our privileges granted. rather belatedly, i revisited the concept of finding voice, giving voice. i could understand finally why it is so important.

you are alive and safe. now. it could easily have been otherwise. it was going to be otherwise in the last few months.
i didn't know what to think of when i heard. then i realised i don't have to. but it still didn't matter. i thought about you and felt sad. not because of you. i don't have the capacity to be so humane at the moment, though i acknowledge that you need someone to feel sad for you and understand. but i won't do that. i don't even want to find out if i can do that.
i could only feel sad for myself. it's been a few years. i thought i had it all down, at last. but i was wrong. i was back in that space where i'd been three years ago in no time at all. i whispered another possibility goodbye.
i thought exorcising myself of you would do the trick. but i forgot the fear, the grief, the fatigue. you don't exist anymore. but the rest of it does. and it's still crowding people out.
i can't figure out if i've sinned or wronged enough or it's simply time to call for a review of my karmic scorecard.

one of these weekends i travelled on a train. just a couple of hours. but it totally messed me up
in just about the time it took me to finish reading the gossip columns and down a cha, the scene outside had gone all green and brown. it was just something else. i could see to the horizon and it was almost shocking. like my eye would take it in and do a double-take like it's not supposed to see that far. alive, shimmering greens dotted with yellow, a nice dusty winter brown lined with farrows, a piece of sky on the ground with the clouds slowly getting under the water hyacinths, and darker woods in the shades looking just the way the night does during summer when you suddenly wake up and look outside trying to remember what you were thinking before you fell asleep. it was so big, so alive. and it just felt like this is what reality is and the boxy cities are just blips that take themselves so seriously that they start existing and spreading on sheer will power.
and while i was tripping on this, i saw an engine. THE engine. red and shiny and had a pointed nose. sleek, powerful lines and a menacing air about it. i totally fell in love and i want to be an engine driver again. i just can't fathom how i could let that dream go as i grew up. my choices as a three-year old still hold good. before i die i want to be an engine driver. like that bulgarian or prussian king. he'd drive the orient express and then when people got scared of diplomatic deep shit if an accident ever happened, he was banned. he simply decreed that when the train would be inside the borders of his country he'd be the only one allowed to drive. i want that. not the country, but definitely an engine.