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?