the progenitor counted three reasons to feel macho. top of the list - near death experience, tied for second place - the skull cup of bandages to cover up his split head which makes him feel like a gangsta thug and the shaved chest which makes him feel like a "classier" salman khan.
so far he's cribbed about the diet, the tv remote, the poor little resident medical thingy's lack of fashion sense, the tea - make that thrice, chinese food (unconnected, but that doesn't stop him) and life in general.
if my mother doesn't go to work tomorrow, he might just get into a situation that's even more life-threatening. so far i've been lying about visiting hours being shorter than they actually are. but she got the full blast today and passions ran high. blazing eyes, gnashing teeth, monosyllables and the whole works. well there were polysyllables too, but necessarily contained to the sibilant variety.
god, or anybody else, help.

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alone. scared.
very.

every day i live in fear of someone asking me the simple question "what perfume are you wearing?" i either duck my head and pretend not to have heard the question at all or i look blankly and pretend i have forgotten it's name. this blasted thing is going to see me dragged to the hr bitch one of these days and heavens help me, there's worse fate yet if the khaki and the navy and the charcoal dorks think i'm coming on to them collectively.
my new perfume's called:
that breathtaking moment when the heart stands still.

i've been having very morbidly fascinating dreams lately. the latest seems to be series - a story unfolding in my dreamscape.
i woke up very sad the other day and when i tried to figure out why, i remembered that dead people had to wanted to talk to me desperately. their desperation was still almost palpable. i knew they were dead. i knew they wanted to talk to me. but they couldn't. i couldn't understand what they were saying. but they seemed to be very sad. and i was sad for them.
probably because i couldn't stop thinking about it, i dreamt of a conversation with these same dead people again. except, i couldn't remember what it was about and had a feeling that even in my dream i knew i'd not be able to recall it, once i get out of the dream.
but i want to.
it is strange to be waiting for an unknown moment, for a largely unknown state of mind, for unknown, unalive people, for a conversation to happen about an unknown topic. but at the moment, it seems eerily urgent.

i have thrown up seventeen times. S said "she's feeling slightly nauseous".

oxy has put herself in a position where she has to choose between being a good friend and being a good person and both choices yield damage. major damage. what is scary that it is a pretty black and white situation with just one logical option. yet, oxyacetelyne thought there is a choice to be made here.
this one slip is going to be a heartbreaking mistake.
no matter how i look at it, i can't help feeling like a base person.

for all of three and a half days this week, i got to live in my yellow submarine. coming back to surface is something i didn't like, i hadn't quite anticipated the extent of which. but i did come away a little richer, knowing my friends - old and new - better, knowing how strong they are. i also came back with reinforcements for my long-held belief in what goes towards building my own yellow submarine.
mine differs from yours, yours differs from the next person's, but it is very necessary that you have your own submarine and refuse to let it go. even when it hurts to fight for it. even when it hurts people you are fighting for. it is very strange, but the only people who you can hurt are the people you care for. the chaff doesn't matter. you don't need to convince the chaff, you don't need to win them over, you don't need to agonise over being heard and understood. the heartache is meant only for people whose hearts you care for. but you still have to do it, don't you?
for, a life without an yellow submarine is surely not worth living.

colours of the day : pink, yellow and grey, sunny, green, KFC red, white, grey, steel grey, black.
i watched the clouds closing in, the rains coming to a distant hill, sending the storm our way and then lashing rains coming out of nowhere. the first raindrops of the season on an upturned face, feeling the wetness on the tips of your fingers, piercing rain that soaks through your skin like mini-shafts of happiness - could you have enough of it?

the tiger came again last night. not the dusty, tan sort of tiger, but a bright lemon yellow and jet black one, much like the ones that used to be on the cover of camel water colours. it had come into the house and i tried to shoo it away with some gardening tool and when it backed into the staircase, we shut the door and called the police. the irritating policeman (with a moustache) refused to believe that a tiger could come into a house in the city and i was extremely frustrated. for i could also sense how unbelievable it was, but it had happened.
then i don't remember much, but i was in my (another) white and dark blue and darkwood house with a big kitchen and glass windows and a garden. i knew if i went out through the door i'd get to the backyard which overlooks the sea. but i had to give them water first. it was very sunny oustide.
i woke up feeling terribly tired today.

it's not funny. i am dying. how can this cause so much mirth amongst so many different people? if i die, i'll come back and haunt everyone with a vengeance, i swear. today i produced multicoloured snot, copius enough to equal in snot-litres the yearly per capita water usage of some of those strife-ridden angsty ghetto-teenager type african nation.
and my mind indeed is dead. my body craves vegetable soup. like vegetables. not two-legged, four-legged, multi-legged, multi-boned creatures. vegetables. despite my attempts at reasoning, my recalcitrant body tried to drown itself in hot slimy liquid with green, orange, yellow and limp botanical exhibits, half of which i couldn't identify. there was some mushroom, some baby corn and something that looked pale green and ribbed and crunchy to eat in it too.
but before i log off and die (with fanfare, i don't think i'm the quiet, classy exit sort today) tell me what is the difference between mind and soul?

i have fever, backache, blocked nose, sore throat, a/an yearning to be a prima donna and order about everyone in a feeble voice and see their faces light up to see they can provide me with the slightest comfort like fluffy pillows and jimmy nail numbers and something drippy and cheesy.
instead i was made to do a story ideas session with the toad who's conveniently taking time off and going to nether ends of the world with everyone and everything including the tadpole's stuffed toy.
i was also made to drink warm milk and handed out a pill that i know has an expiry date marked 2006 and told not to be paranoid.
i have a good mind to throw a tantrum. if only my throat didn't hurt so.
i am a poor baby. i am a poor little baby. oh i am soooo sick (like ill, not that kind of sick) and suffering so much. i want fawning attention, cloying sympathy, a new rubic's cube and mtv to show that sania badnam number once more.

i am tired of stonewalling people. so now i am stonewalling my blog.

my mother tried her best, but...

You Are 84% Spoiled

You are a total spoiled brat, and you're probably proud of it. You always get want you want - even if you have to whine to get it.

Are You Spoiled?

and this is not the reason why i am up till two in the morning. i just can't sleep.

confused.
it's a matter of order that i stonewall (at times, only very infrequently). if i do not stonewall, then i wriggle out of the conversation. if i do not wriggle out, then i give out the wrong impression and determinedly neutralise and distance myself.
however, when it has the desired effect, why do i end up being the unhappy party?
but that apart, vacation rocks. i think i've found my life's calling. i want to be unemployed.

georgie peorgie pudding and pie,
kissed the girls and made them cry

i was subjected to another one of those personality thingummies. and this rhyme has been playing in my head in a loop. snigger, snigger, snigger.

while i am not in the mood to ascribe any particular state of mind to myself, the following brought it as close to mellow as it could get under the present circumstances:
i ate crabs and didn't get allergies. yet.
i got a white linen tunic top that's fabulous and sets off my silver clutch to perfection. (FYI, clutch is a kind of wallet that women carry). *
i went and watched a movie. i was fed lemon butter masala corn too. however,when that mandatory idiot with irritatingly loud ringtone and louder voice simply had to take a call from whichever pathetic lifeform cares to socialise with him, i was not allowed to throw the cup or the spoon at him.** but i elbowed someone in the gut, so it all sort of balances out.

*i need new shoes. shiny silver slingbacks or matte ballet flats with the neat strap and mini-bow around ankle?
** it was quite interesting to see a friend remove his own cup and spoon with such speed and then grab mine before i could turn and for good measure, sweep up S' discarded cup as well and deposit it all on the aisle. under three seconds flat.

the toad and i had so far had a relationship that parallels a bad marriage just days before the D word has crept in. one where neither party are energized enough to call it a day. yet they fantasise about other people. wonder how life would have been if they hadn't met the other. and think. of options.
he lies. i fall for it. sometimes i see that he's lying yet i ignore it. he breaks promises, i hope there will be a next time. sometimes he keeps promises, i couldn't care less. it's an emotional drain, trying to believe one day it'll all be better. just when i reach breaking point, it does get better. and then he does an about turn with the speed of lightning.
today was the pits. i was tempted to pack it in then and there, but settled for a week off (it was a rare treat to hear him plead), wished minor disaster and major discomfort on the new bitch and walked away.
toad needs to exit my life. pronto.
is a good boss a myth?

if karma were on my speed dial 2 (#1 would obviously be shiraz for chicken biriyani) then i'd just call for a casual chat and promise to exchange my synthx Cd for something else and make him do the following to these people:
first caller today: make him listen to himself for 24 hours, non-stop and if he wants a break he gets a 3-hr detention with himesh plugged in his ears.
taxiwallah: nothing drastic, but needs a lesson so as to remember not to be so eager to please and return the loose change down to the exact rupee, just when one is spoiling for a fight
fatman: make him smell his socks, t-shirt, and general self and bottle the whiff and spray over him every half hour; consider full body waxing ( his body-hair is so lush that they have their own dandruff)
chipmunk: take away his speakers and watch him shrivel; gag and duct-tape him to the chair for four hours each day for two months
new bitch: wrap in a blanket, beat with rubber hose, administer forty pages of derrida each day and put her in the bihar polls
panwallah: heaps of money, bevy of women, any three cars of his choice and any six dreams of his coming true
random fuschia woman at three in the afternoon: two years of mandatory dressing in monochromes, make eat a large carton of charminar or some such strong stuff without water if facial expression directed at smoking junta is repeated
toad: there's nothing i can do. he's a toad. he has to live with himself. that should be enough by itself

B gave me a stepehn king. i read it. grew uncomfortable. read some more. then decided against getting out of the bed to switch off the light, because the clothesline outside on the terrace seemed too close, and there was an owl i'd never seen before. couldn't sleep with the lights on my eyes. so perversely, read on some more till i finished the library police. closed pages, turned turtle. what do you think caught my eyes? not one, not two, but three overdue books from the library - i can't find my card, it's 30 days overdue and my membership ran out on 9th march. and i lost the fourth one and can't remember what it was. mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
i wanted to think if there are any famous last words i'd like to tap on, but my inner whines are too strong to be ignored. so know what bothers me before the library police come - it's frikkin' baking outside; i have to go to work and deal with retards till ten tonight; the bloody marketing idiots have stopped supply on normal silk cuts so the bat shit purple ones catch on; S slyly gave me the a dvd marked 300 and it only has the audio track on it, i mean WTF; i am hungry; i have nothing to wear; i have to buy a thoughtful gift and birthday cake; i haven't had coffee in eight days, i can't get more than 2 cigarettes a day; i have to take a shower that's scalding hot; i have to make my bed; i have been banned by the local dvd rentalwallah; i am late and i hate 90% of the people i interact with on a daily basis. some days, i hate all of them. particularly the ones with less facial hair than me.

have you seen people disintegrate piece by piece? have you seen people give up bit by bit, every minute? have you seen them lose what's left of the human they once were, in a constant, gradual process that never reverses? have you seen people lose their last shred of sanity? have you seen people abandoning the last touch with love? have you wondered whether there's a difference between the person and the personality dying? have you waited, watching on, wondering when it'll be your turn to join the ranks?
there's book out on the sale racks, dwelves on how many people will cry when you die. have you ever wondered about the answer? have you ever wished and wished it would be a null set, so you don't have to be so watchful, so vigilant, so guilty all the time?

what is the right way - do you express your fears for someone you love or do you express your hopes for them? why does it all seem like the wrong answer no matter how carefully you think it over?

i need new clothes, new shoes and those metallic bags, two weeks off from work, a windfall gain in six figures, a decline in temperatures by at least seven degrees and several things more that i decline to post here.

"due to technical problems, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off."

no. i haven't gone over the other side. i also bought a tom holt and a madhur jaffrey cookbook.
i bought a cookbook.
i. a cookbook.
i. cook.
i ...

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.

there should be a ban on old dead poets.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

(disclaimer: nothing topical, just found the dusty volume. there is something about neruda that makes you want to share what you read.)

it was a shame waking up to the headlines today. it was a shame realising there's no recourse. it was a shame to acknowledge that this carnage over land-acquisition is still a non-issue to the average citizen. we are apathetic, amoral, apolitical creatures who just exist, feeding on the benefits that passivity throws our way. it makes my blood boil to think that this incident too will go unrectified. there is absolutely no meaning to the word justice.
the muzzled bitch whose owner feeds on scraps thrown his way by the reds will go to work today and comment on the style quotient of giordamo watches. and will she gnaw at the muzzle? hell no. comfort comes first.

it's going to be a horribe day. just you see.

it's monday tomorrow. life is so unfair. moan, moan, whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.
i think they shortchange us on at least a couple of hours on sundays.

as usual my retardation comes to the fore. in case you're wondering, i tried my hand at global warming, then moved on to HIV and finally thought i might get the badge right if i support the cause of music. you can't say i'm picky about extending my supoort. all i need is a cause. and if i'm pushed i can believe in as many as six and that too before breakfast or after a vegetarian dinner, as it is.

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on second thoughts, its becoming more common for me to dream without images. i wonder what that means. the last dream i recall was this vision of a dark night and a pond beyond a church or a chapel. i was scared that my brother had drowned. but then i saw that the two of us going into a distant graveyard to find the man who tells stories to the dead. it seemed very urgent to find that man. did he have a story to tell us? probably not, we were both alive or so it seemed.
when i called him next morning, he listened solemnly and copyrighted the idea arguing that the dream would be nothing without his "starring role". he's going to write a very difficult-to-understand-and-hence-critique novella on the storyteller of the dead.

i dreamt of a smell again. i smelt that wood and sulphur smell of a fire lighting up. then i woke up. i switched on the light and could only smell the bud of beli on the side table. now i can't go back to sleep.

the hat fell into the sewers.
the cat and the hat discovered something fascinating (which is a state of mind when you think something is so interesting that you can't stop thinking about it, but preferably it shouldn't be something like dorritos or red crayons). the gardener was telling the cook that in new york, where the angry bearded man who regularly smashed up his old fiat had moved to, huge alligators live in the sewers and have a parallel city under the city.
now neither the cat nor the hat knew what an alligator was but it sounded like they could be some glamorous golden-scaled, rainbow-winged magical creatures. they were actually thinking about a dragon, but they didn't know that since both of them are very ignorant about certain zoological and mythical facts.
the two of them raced excitedly to the spider who was in the middle of a deep conversation with the crow. all the conversations between the spider and the crow tended to be deep. the crow was very intelligent and got very angry if people failed to recognize that. in order to keep his BP down, he devised the strategy of talking on intelligent-sounding things so that no-one would slip up and consequently make him angry. the cat and the hat sometimes thought the crow made no sense, but kept quiet since they didn't want to hurt the spider.
now the crow and the spider were talking about alphabets that sounded complicated like SEBI and SEZ and whatnot. so the hat and the cat grinned and waved and left without saying anything. it was really a pity because if they stopped to talk, they'd hear about urban legends and a lot of the trouble that followed would be spared.
the cat raced straight to the back gate that led to road and took up position on top of the sewers and the hat who didn't like being the second bravest (actually neither of them were very brave but didn't like to admit it) ran right after and peered underneath the iron sewers. that's when the bat came swooping down to see what the fuss was all about and the startled hat fell right in.
the cat and the bat were both stunned. then the bat started laughing and the cat started yelling. it went round and round the sewers, alternately yelling at the bat and screaming down to the hat. now the hat was very scared. it was very dark and smelly down in there and the hat could hear scraping noises, which could be alligators that suddenly didn't seem all that glamorous to encounter in a dank hole with no way out. and when it heard the cat making all that fuss, it became a bit more scared. after a lot of yelling back and forth, they decided that the spider needed to be called. the hat wanted the bat to go fetch the spider and the cat to stay. the cat didn't trust the bat and wanted to go on its own. the bat was a bit hurt, but it was also feeling a bit scared for the hat. so it agreed to what the cat said and stayed back. but that didn't stop it from looking down the sewers and making faces at the poor hat.
the spider came running along. though it did take some time to tick off the cat and the hat and point out that alligators do not live in sewers and nor are they particularly glamorous or magical. (it was wrong of course, but you can't expect a spider to know everything). it quickly spun a web and went down to talk to the hat and calm it down. the hat acquiesced and settled down to wait quietly. it also spent some time thinking how much better the spider was than toby maguire.
then the spider called out to the crow. the crow was smirking nastily all the while. it came dragging it's feet and a thin branch from the lemon tree. it held the branch on its beak and lowered it down the sewer. the spider helped the hat to get hold of one end of it and the cat helped the crow to pull it back up. finally, the hat was rescued and before anyone could turn nasty the bat fled.
anyway tired from all that excitement, the cat and the hat went to the back garden to take a nap and this time they didn't even have to count anything. they just fell asleep as soon as they closed their eyes. but before falling asleep, the hat told the cat that it had seen a pair of beady eyes and it thought that alligators do have a small village, if not a city, down in those sewers. what neither of them knew was that it was not a village, but a small municipal town with its own elected representatives and an 8-station subway system.

my heat rashes had been complemented by flaring red allergic reaction to peanut butter (or it could be bread, i'm not sure). now i have a matching set of inflammations triggered by the holi warpaint too. i am waiting to see if the drug allergy will come forth as well. not mood altering substances, but medicines - that kind of drugs. it keeps me on tenterhooks with a tantalising display of pre-symptoms and then disappears bashfully when i sit up and take notice.
but talking of mood-altering substances, i wonder if the toad would qualify as one. till date, all it takes is the subject of person toad, let alone a mail or call or his actual presence, to cause my mood to do a nose-dive.
but completely unrelated to all this, i want a beanbag and some good chocolates and that tom holt. and i really want didi to switch off the tv. if only i (and everyone else in my family and extended family on both sides) were not so scared of her, i'd watch vh1 instead of bengali megaserials. actually, that was a bit of inverted snobbery - i'd probably watch tom and jerry. i'm not too sharp that way.

i was very disturbed about certain things for the past couple of days. mainly concerning the idea of boundaries as far as friendship is concerned.

the idea of space dominates fairly largely in all my relationships with people, so it always stresses me out if i have to do something that i percieve as an encroachment on other people's space. i usually vascillate between being a detached bystander who keeps hoping that the adult in the other person will surface and being an overly protective mother hen.
so, in order to gain a perspective on things i decided to wiki friendship. here's what they say. its the third point at the end which is a killer though.

Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behaviour between two or more humans. This article focuses on the notion specific to interpersonal relationships. In this sense, the term connotes a relationshipknowledge, esteem, and affection. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them. Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating on a consistent basis: which involves mutual

• the tendency to desire what is best for the other.
• sympathy and empathy.
• honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth.
• mutual understanding.

it really freaks me out to find that sometimes people take me seriously.

woke up at some goddamed hour when it was still raining. vegged for two hrs trying to figure out something so insignificant that i can't bother to retrieve it from my memory now.
my neck hurts. i have an aching back. we've run out of coffee. i have committed myself to 3 holi lunches. alcohol consumption in last two weeks- nil, niccotine consumption - increasing in an upward graph that has an 85-degree incline. my teeth are going to fall out soon if i don't go for my dentist's appointment. i have to calculate my income tax AND pay it too. it's so hot that are my allergies are in three-quarter bloom ( it'll take an april to get to full bloom). my bloody wrist has a cramp. i have a grand total of fifty three rupees left. somebody's pre-empted my bid to steal that copy of tom holt. i can't take a single fucking day off till forever. the toad's gone raving mad and is blissfully unaware of it.
i don't have money, i don't have peace of mind, i don't live near a sea, i don't have flat abs or sculpted upper-arms, i don't have a single white t-shirt, i don't have a life-altering problem and while we're at it, i still don't have my own copy of the life of brian and i don't have the faintest desire to go in to work today.
though i have a very rare personality, i feel like shit. no, seriously.
and someone tell me, why the fuck should a label for this post be either scooter or vacation? dickheads.

no i am not a deranged person as i had point out fairly emphatically twice today, i'm just a very rare personality. FYI, this has been corroborated by blogthings

Your Personality is Very Rare (INFP)

Your personality type is dreamy, romantic, elegant, and expressive. Only about 5% of all people have your personality, including 6% of all women and 4% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

will somebody get me an irish flag? its two parts creme de menthe, two parts bailey’s and one part brandy. pretty simple.
but life has a way of denying simple wants.
now if i had wanted a happy ending to a love pentagon with an odd homosexual thrown in or the miraculous overhaul of the kenyan infrastructure or a film where tushar kapoor finally learns to act or a consensus on the kiyoto protocol or maybe an applicatory study on world bank data using a probit analysis model - that would have been a different story.
but my yahoo horoscope did tell me to follow my mood. an irish flag would have been sooooo convenient rather than going out to find a victim whose limbs i can hack off with a blunt saw, whose ribcage i can break with a hockey stick, whose head i can mash up like stoneman, who i can then put on an anthill and then later maybe douse with petrol and set to fire. and while i am doing all this, the victim can listen to himesh or crazy kiya re on walkman. i'd expect it to bring it's own of course. i can't seriously be expected to provide all the entertainment, i am sure.

a day is just another thing to get through - some cheesy line from a 90's movie keeps playing in a loop in my head. 3 things about my day stand out -
suddenly remembering perks of being a wallflower, snooping around facebook and finally watching borat.
the rest of it was stuff that might have saved itself the bother of happening at all. i wonder if real people ask each other how their day went. must try it on somebody deserving.

my spam mails and i have had a very fulfilling relationship. low-maintenance and relaxed, not inducing wild passion maybe, but tuned highly to my needs.
like when i hit rock bottom, spam always gave me mails from the nigerian lawyer who wanted me to inherit a million dollars. when my grades were slipping, spam gave me mails from online institutions that promised to make a competent psychiatrist out of me. there were also extremely supportive mails to assure me that my penile dimensions could be magnified (though how spam knew it needed magnifying is a wonder still, i am not THAT sort of a girl). it was a peaceful co-existence. of late, it has been entirely concerned with the libidinous aspects of me. but i treated that as a part of being in this close a relationship.
but today, the subject line in my spam has started reading liposuction instead of libido. i think the best by date has gone by for this relationship.
sigh.

allergic reactions, anti-allergy pills that make me hyperactive instead of sleepy, co-workers (of both genders) with fascinating degrees of obsession with facial hair styling, incessant drizzle, a million bucks in overdue library fines, a ban from local dvd rental people, valentine's day crap sprouting out of everywhere including a sanitary-ware shop and i'm not fucking kidding,switching over to milds from silk cuts and being proven wrong there, autos and fm radios, reading dalrymple and not being able to take a week off to go on a walking tour of delhi, flashing(unknowingly) my blue underwear to diners at kfc on sunday, three grey hairs, residual memories, stolen lighter and three glitter pens, lost copy of the memories of my melancholy whore, toad, toad again, toad one time more - and a few more things make for my current grouse.
not necessarily in this order though. the magnitude of the contribution of each of these factors fluctuate.
one day if i can manage to wake up very early, i'll walk out and keep walking till i get to the sea. but if i get hungry, i'll come back home and eat a pb&j sandwich. then i'll start out on my getting lost for life mission once more.

i think i did something very horrible to the comments settings of this blog. but i think i've set it right now. i wish though communication was still a simple thing like when you'd get out of the house after spending 15 minutes trying to get the latch to open, go and yell for someone below their window, put your point across and head back with a sense of job well done.
anyhoo, what is not be is not to be.
meanwhile, i live my life or just experience fragments of it that jut out like shards of pottery from amidst stretches of muddy chaos.

A sentimental blues
Will wet your eye
You wonder why
You heave a sigh
You start to cry
Each time that you
Hear these blues

i cried for an hour. then i realised the futility of choosing to feel sad instead of angry. then i cried some more.
its raining outside. round drops of rain suddenly find themselves squashed flat against the pane. they make a soft pop. grey days and wet winter nights make me feel very lost.

i got a miles davis cd and an italian movie. and the normal quota of existential blues and random flak and tummy cramps.
and i finally confessed that i'd always liked madonna, oh the relief of getting that off my chest and then laughed hysterically when chipmunk told us he likes kenny rogers. hee hee har har. BUT what i haven't told anyone is that i kind of liked paris hilton's thing too.
i hate the thought of tomorrow and day after , but of course not sunday, and most definitely monday. once that is over, i'll have a whole new week to hate. but there's always zoning out.
in the meanwhile, as an oasis of constancy in my life, my irritation with the weather continues. my next home will be somewhere that has a decent winter, maybe a couple of weeks of snow (only if there is central heating) and a coffeeshop at the end of the block and a pub with reliable grub for sunday mornings. proximity to sea is optional. if i can afford the home, then i'd bloody well be able to afford a beach holiday now and then. i hate seeing people dress up in 13 layers of mismatched clothing in this pathetic excuse for a winter, hah, winter, that the weather gods or the scary schizoids at alipore weather office has thrown in calcutta's way.
there was actually a man who wore a cable-knot sweater AND a fleece-lined parka walking by the office. he stared at my cigarette, i stared at his outfit. eyeball for fucking eyeball man before the heat makes the fluid evaporate and the shrivelled eye falls off the socket i thought. but then the paper truck came and spoilt my view.

2006 - emotional rollercoaster. utterly exhausting, yet extremely enriching.
2007 - have a feeling is going to be even more eventful. omegawd!
only baggage carried over from last year - a sense of well-being which is also intimately connected to people who i'm learning each day are hard to lose.
and this new year's eve - no i didn't get my 16 hrs uninterrupted sleep despite manic manipulations, but it was a night memorable for its intensity if not anything else.

on the wishlist - more time, more travel, more music, longer winter, more letting in, more getting in, less of aishwaya rai, vast quantities of sketchpens and sequinned slippers, more nicotine (yeah i wanna smoke, i won't quit, i won't even pretend to want to quit, so there, what can you do?)

how can two little bits of roshomalai makes me throw up 6 times? there should a sense of proportion in things. and the next person who nudges a notun gurer shondesh my way will get a serving spoon jammed down their throat.
no presents today, smoking medium high, bullied people, million people to visit tomorrow and a million and one things waiting on monday. if i can't discard my life and get another one, then the least the world owes me is a spare clone kind of person to live parts of it for me.
i'd send the stupid clone to work and visit people and run errands and i'd stay at home, lazing in the sun on my favourite arm-chair and listen to old-fashioned acid rock. i'd read a fashion-magazine and eat grapes too, just to complete things, but i don't like the latter and the former would be too much like work.

this is unfrikkinbelievable. i sat up and made my calculations. i had an unbroken 22 day stint of getting presents every single day !!! and everything so far has been stuff i absolutely like, which is not a very usual occurrence when random people give you things. not that i'd ever concede that a normal existence is not traumatic, but this part of my life ... i'm lovvin' it.
today's booty: orange-pink cotton top, one asterix, rod stewart cd.

who do you give yourself to?
not in the virgin sacrifice kind of way, but really who do you give yourself to?
do you give yourself to you, keeping the rest of world at bay, keeping you safe and maybe lonely, a bit cold?
do you give yourself to a few, letting go in spurts, feeling warm in sporradic bursts of animosity?
do you give yourself to everything on the canvas - the causes you support, the vices you nurture, the friends you miss, the lovers you don't understand, the person at the other end of the wires, the person who's cut off all the wires, the dead and the living, the sunny mornings and warm water on your feet that try to balance on shifting sands, intense feelings, intense absence of feelings - and watch your anger when you can't pick up the strands of your life because the yarn has been woven into a tapestry you don't know how to unravel?
do you fight against detachment or do you fight for it?

i want a largish cardboard box or one half of a sewerage pipe where i can put up a blue plastic sheet and stay undisturbed and out of the world's way.

- god
-yeah?
- perform a miracle.
- fuck off.
- no, seriously.
- yeah, seriously, fuck off .
- like hell. you fuck off.
- oh ok. cool. seeya.

even prayer has lost its power these days.

colour code for the day: navy blue and blood red.
what the fuck is wrong with me?

bright, nice, sunny day; clear skies; black and green butterflies; feeling like a jellybean (waking up at six thirtyseven tsk); the easy-chair by the window nicely toasted by the morning sun.
i need to find a good reason why i have to go work today.
i also need to find a shirt, a pair of red socks, thirty bucks, my keys and somebody who'll give me something to eat.

meebo isn't working, the ym never did work on this piece of junk. whenever i type my id in, it is showing up as already logged in or invalid password. i can't even open my mail. it shows the same bloody thing.
and i have to go back to work tomorrow and i exhausted my week's quota of tantrums in one evening.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhh. pox on your polly, fate.

coffee, music, lunch, nap, tantrum, pizza, beer, music, sleepover and a repeat of the sequence today. taking two days off is so blissful. taking two days off when everyone else is on leave too - heavenly.
i heart mew.

i missed my chance today.
at the park street signals one of the urchins came and demanded two rupees. he assured me that by giving the money i would ensure that i'd get married or at least make lots of money in near future. but despite having control of my destiny, i could do nothing about it since the lights changed and the moron of a taxiwallah sped to overtake a scorpio.
when i'm old, single and penniless, i'll remember to put a curse on the driver of taxi number 8235 and the cop that was manning the signals on park street at 7:45 on 11th november, 2006.
just you wait.

amader barite mistiri eshchhilo

i live in an orange and white house now, as opposed to the gritty-greyish-creamish-pinkish-can'tidentify and lightgreen-that-was-once-pink house. you see, the workmen came calling.
i didn't know that my dreams were portent of something. now after sharing bed, clothes, bathroom and every waking minute in the house with an extremely large number of members of the extended family, i feel that i should have known.i woke up one day to find three kids - two skinny and one fat - scraping the wall outside my room. as soon as i glared at them they stopped scraping and started putting a scaffold up. i stomped downstairs to find out that these were our latest houseguests.
the progenitor's brother is getting his house constructed. now junior is a conman par excellence and generally is the sort that gets things done. he got bored of the lack of excitement that his constructions were providing and decided to infuse some change in his routine. so the paint guys were given two-hours notice and told to pack for a week (don't forget toothbrushes and a sheet each) and were brought down from some 230 km away. my kakimoni came along as well - a saving grace - she's a cook worth dying for.
junior took them on an exploratory tour around the block and my mother and aunt cooked alurdom and luchi for "the boys". suitably fortified, "the boys" started on a demolition operation. i was held up at work that first day and when i got back home at 11, i saw three beady pairs of eyes in the living-room, peering from under a heap of sheets that looked extremely familiar. the rest of the house looked like it had been hit with a bomb. and then it all began.
every morning started with the scrape of a metallic sheet against plaster and a cloud of dust. as soon as they'd hear me moving around in the room, they'd stop the scraping and freeze till i went downstairs. there, the kitchen would be a veritable warzone with suggestions flying back and forth regarding what can be done for "the boys". breakfast, lunch and dinner had to offer enough variety - since they were not at home and must be missing their mums terribly - and junior and the progenitor would be sent to the market 13 times. the fish consumption in our house alone must have done something terrible to the ecological balance. each night i'd return home to find them happily watching my telly and i'd recieve frantic phone calls in the middle of interviews with strict instructions to get bengali blockbusters with improbable names. i had to rent 5 DVDs in three days and the local CDwallah gave me a look of disdain that i'll remember for a long time when i asked for abhimanyu. it' maybe a hit philim, but it's still infradig.
then they all decided that it wasn't enough fun as it were and so invitations were sent out. our happy family was joined by five more people, with the cheerful promise that the next team was on it's way. result: we got a lurid yellow bathroom with a pink plastic mirror; a confusion regarding what my great-grandfather's real name was; eleven house guests; three visits to extended family members everyone had forgotten existed; and a great big war over the choice of colours which revealed that my father can't climb trees (o' the shame of it) and that junior's choice of friends have always been inappropriate and that my aunt is extremely scared of monkeys and that my mother had been a closet-worshipper of santoshi-maa even though she knows it was a film and there's no actual deity. her reason - you never know.
anyway "the boys" scraped and cleaned and tried to paint the house a horrible yellow before being threatened with violence. after much heated debate and barbed exchanges regarding aesthetics and artistic sensibilities, the colour for the outer walls were chosen. in a rare moment of unanimity it was decided that we're not getting any more work done and all the paint work inside can be done some other time.
much suscpicious prodding and probing got the real story out. my mother and junior had promised the boys that they'd be sent back this weekend. reason being the local club that "the boys" belong to are hosting a play with cast that's being taken from calcutta and our boys have been assigned duty at the ladies' gate on monday. it would be unpardonable to make them miss that. and of course since it's their first visit to calcutta they'd have to be shown around. so, that thankfully ruled out any more of the paint work being done. this afternoon they were driven around the city by sulky and junior. "the boys" went plane-spotting via the rajarhat highway, they went and rode the metro, they went to victoria memorial and eden gardens and strand road and millenium park and made a round of both the howrah bridges and saw nicco park as well. they were fed coffee and chicken pakoras and dinner was chicken biriyani.
"the boys" are leaving early tomorrow morning.

i dreamt of snowflakes. stinging and burning on my tongue. i dreamt of vast open spaces, except it was just knowing that there was a space. all i remember of the dream is the feeling - nothing else. not much of a dream. yet waking up from it turned it all blue.
sometimes it feels like being rinsed with that purplish liquid - a faint blue patina over the normal colours. something you can't do much about.

Your Sloth Quotient: 59%

You're definitely lazier than the average person, but you're able to live a somewhat normal life. All your life needs is a little more effort and variety, and you might see that doing hard things is actually fun!

How Much Sloth Do You Have?

i need to concentrate more on not doing things. i wanna 99%.i just wanna be the supersloth.

a gruesome next day is truly appreciated when u are obsessive and insomniac.
sometimes i surprise myself with the profoundity of my thought process.

i found an idea i like very much. pigs fly when i'm not looking. what's to stop them? i like it. the possibility makes my life seem richer.

how can it be that after more than two decades, make it two point five decades, of education and constant hammering of concepts like self-worth, security and success, my only - one and only - ambition is not to do anything, ever? read books and raise dogs and sit and do nothing. yes, that's what i want my life to look like. and i can't even feel apologetic about it. how can it be?
i live for the day - that one day - when i'll stop and do nothing. and i don't want to be all old and washed out before i do that. i want my retirement now.

i am happy at the moment. ok, this has been one of my trademark drunk as a fish lines. but this time, i am sober and i mean it. the last few weeks haven't been too great.
work, toad, tempatation to walk away, restlessness, missing things and people and places i'm not supposed to miss, guilt, weariness...
R's father passed away a couple of weeks back. it was heartbreaking to watch her deal with it. it was even worse to watch her kid brother trying to be a "man" about it. none of us knew what to do, how to make things better (like that can be done) and felt like utter failures as human beings.
this evening was different, more relaxed and pleasant.
it seems like ages have passed since i had time enough for myself. which is sad, considering all major decsions i've made in the last two years have been geared to one goal - having more time.the other day, me and the southern wonder were mourning the fact that no-one recognises the fact that wanting contentment, wanting to be just happy - no more, no less - is a legitimate ambition.
time, people i care for, time for people i care for, and a good book or hundred when i get a bit tired of them - should be quite simple actually. except its not. there's some elusive ingredient that's always missing. but not tonight.

none of our diyas survived beyond 10 minutes. of course this is all the progenitor's fault for he insisted on earthen diyas and made those wicks himself, claiming technical knowledge having watched someone do those eons ago. undaunted we took out chrismas decorations out of a blue reindeer-y box and set those up. it was hard to pick which one was more hideous - half-dying, spluttering diyas or erratic mini-berries in blue, green and yellow; that lit up in sporradic bouts. to complete the look, we added some dry-ish marigold strings too.
we tried to look suitably mournful to show solidarity with the man, but it was too frikkin' hilarious. we left him sulking. then psycho kid from the 'hood came calling to ask for help with her fireworks. told her to piss off since i'm too scared and as a result was dragged to the shop to go and get some, which R, S and psycho kid then let off with greatest glee. i sat on R's steps with her mum, my mum ( who abandoned her dreamy musings on how to make my father's life a greater misery for the rest of the evening), the other R and three cats.
we may not have had lights enough, but there was lots of laughter.after a long time.

i'm pissed. a) i'm calvin, which is unfair, considering i take my maturity and cultivate it with all seriousness, b) i pasted it like an idiot three times on the blog and now i can neither see it nor delete it, c) some idiot has been letting off crackers right below my window and it's already too dark to see who it is, d) i'm expected to light up ten thousand fucking diyas dressed in a scratchy orange silk kurta ( with blue squiggles and golden spirals in it) and be happy about it, e) someone's messed up my pc so bad that opera's about the only thing that works , so half my fun things are denied to me and f) i haven't had my cup of coffee nor my two o clock cigarette.
and if that's not enough, my mother insisits on blasting devotional kali puja songs on the tv and is laughing like a maniac not eight inches away from me.
i am getting progessively pisseder and pisseder.
i need something monumental to get in a better mood. i'll be back. i need to celebrate the return of my cyberlife with something pleasant.

look ma, so pretty

Friday, September 22, 2006 rain, rain, go to spain. my subconscious gets a little more bizarre each day. i dreamt i was a sports car. and when i woke up, i knew beyond doubt that i'd been a red one too. i wonder if, instead of a padded cell, they'll give me one of those nice sunny grounds with a pond and benches and pottery class. or at least my own tree to sit and read under. Tuesday, September 19, 2006 i smell lilies, i think of fall colours, i think of tomorrow, i can taste raindrops i caught outside my window, i feel tremendously blue. i wonder if i have synaesthesia. not likely. the only sensation that has any permanence is blue, everything else fades away. i need a green day tomorrow. i need more colours. Monday, September 18, 2006 i blog. therefore, i am. hah. Saturday, September 09, 2006 "i feel so horrible. i have to act grown-up now. the responsibilities that come with attaining a certain age is terrifying. i can't believe i won't be seventy-seven again." at this point, my mother stopped mid-way through singing happy birthday for him and clouted my father on the head. i wish i had more adults in my life, so i'd know how to be one. Monday, September 04, 2006 while there are designated office spaces at work, there is no rule that says you actually have to work where you keep your stash of dirty magazines and the menus from the takeaways. so at any random point in the day you may find people walking in and calmly staking out on a terminal, much in the same manner of people coming to spend a day on the beach.they sit and look around and smile at people, then keep their keychains, mobile and notes scribbled on dirty napkins on the table. if its a woman they take out a planner. if its a man they start scratching. sometimes you give them a look, sometimes you are given a look. sometimes they plead deadline, sometimes you yell page release. but it is understood by all parties that it is a day trip. a very fluid arrangement and nobody makes a habit of it. except the weirdo who fastidiously eats pineapple discs every afternoon. he comes in with a coffin-like black bag at the same time, occupies the same pc, pisses off the same people, surfs the same websites and eats pineapple discs every single day. and no-one knows what he works on, who he works with, no-one has ever seen him actually sitting in another office and most people don't know his name. i was naturally very shocked to find that weirdo actually knows my name. he called me by my name to give me my phonebook today. but before i could recover from it, he yawned so widely that i could see the little fleshy thing at the back of his throat. it was so gross that it was kind of fascinating. then i couldn't stop wondering why i couldn't see his tonsils. and that did me in. every ten minutes i kept looking at weirdo to see if he'd yawn so spectacularly again. i tried the furtive glancing, i tried the absent-minded gaze, i tried the focussed look. but nada, zilch, nothing. then the bugger went and got himself coffee and ten minutes later, walked out not to return. if he doesn't return ever, i'll be left for life wondering whether or not he has tonsils and if yes, whether or not they will be visible when he yawns wide. i find this not knowing disturbing. Sunday, September 03, 2006 look ma, so pretty my own two-bit venice. don't you love it? Friday, September 01, 2006 horrible, horrible, horrible day. i deserve a sunset on a beach; i deserve a remsen cooler; i deserve a foot massage; i deserve nothing short of pure bliss. anything less will not do. no. Thursday, August 31, 2006 i don't wanna go to work today. i wanna stay at home, watch the rest of the movie on HBO, order in chinese, read more didius falco's, take a nap whenever and just chill. i don't wanna go to work arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. and then, there's the inevitable, unavoidable, insufferable presence of the toad. mehfooz mehfooz. people on telly were discussing the connotations of the word and i thought it neatly captures my life at the moment. but then i see a young girl has walked out on life. everyone else's and her's. a stranger's death shouldn't matter. how much tired do you have to be? how much alone do you have to be? how much scared do you have to be? or maybe the question should be how much more. when do the existential blues cease to be just so? Sunday, August 27, 2006 the cat, the hat and the spider had to move to the kitchen garden. the gardener is getting a new lawn and rosebeds ready for spring. ofcourse the bat tagged along to see where they were going, but they pretended not to notice him. the spider being more used to sudden changes was the first one to settle in. but then again, he's always had that cool, sophisticated, spider-around-town confidence. just along the kitchen wall there is a nice lemon tree and the spider set up its home there. it put up its sixty-four cornered web, weaved in some magenta balsam petals to give it more colour and got some fireflies upside down in his web to complete the low-lighting arrangements. he also hooked up with the crickets in the basil bush to get a surround-chirping system. the cat and the hat were very impressed with the spider's creative genius. and they agreed that unlike some creative creatures who go on moaning and throwing orders and tantrums at the same time, the spider was quite efficiently creative. however, the hat thought that the magenta was a bit too loud and would disturb the spider's sleep cycle and that stark white would have given the web a modern minimalist look. the cat disagreed. but the cat always liked flamboyance so... they spent the first two days tearing around the garden, sun-bathing in the vegetable patch, making friends with the sparrows and the insomniac crow who lived on the window sill and who was fed cheese by the cook every night after dinner. and every evening they'd drop in at the lemon tree to admire the spider's new web and carry on talking there till even the insomniac crow fell asleep. on the third morning, they went back to their old place to find that it has all been dug up. the gardener looked a bit shame-faced but told them that it'd all be worth it when the lawn goes velvety and the roses start blooming. he also promised to put in some white and pink roses to please the hat. the cat was feeling a bit lost. so the hat decided that they needed to get their own tree in the kitchen garden and stay there till the gardener gives them the green signal. the cat knew they'd have to do that. but it was feeling a bit cross for not having thought of it earlier and it was also not used to moving about. so when the hat suggested the pomegranate tree, it told the hat not to be silly. the hat was a bit put out. see, the problem was that the hat knew the names of only three fruits - pomegranate, mango and lemon (just because the spider lived on it). since the lemon tree was already taken, and there were no mango trees in the garden, the hat didn't know what to suggest. so it punched the cat and asked it to find a tree since the cat was so clever. this last bit was sarcasm - which is when you say a thing and mean quite the opposite to irritate another person. but its not like saying white for black, that's just plain making things up. now the cat was not much better than the hat at knowing the names of its fruits. it didn't even know what a mango is (and in its defence, cats are mostly not required to know about mangoes), but it did know what a pear is. since there were no pear trees in the kitchen garden either, that was out of question. so it punched the hat back and swished its tail about in a superior manner. they fought a bit more, without knowing that the bat was watching them and eaves-dropping for all its worth. finally, they decided to stay on the tree in the middle of the kitchen garden - a shortish tree with lots of low branches, narrow new-moon like leaves and a nice spicy smell.and the tree had a nice platformish space midway up its trunk, right where the branches started growing out. however, after wrapping up the fight and a round of saying how sorry they were and that its alright, not to worry to each other, when the hat and the cat got to their tree, they found the bat there. the bat being the horrible creature it is, grinned at them and asked them if they liked his new home. the poor hat and the cat were so distressed that they could hardly speak, they asked the bat why he needed a new home, since its part of the garden was undisturbed. the bat grinned some more and said in sugary tones that it was missing them and when it heard them talking about their tree it thought it would move right in to keep them company. the hat was so angry that it wanted to kill the bat right on the tree, but the cat dragged it away to the vegetable patch and calmed it down. the cat also pointed out that since the bat had got their first, it had a claim to the tree, whether they liked it or not. the hat said something extremely rude about the bat and its claim and settled in for a nap. this time they needed to count till fifty-three to go to sleep and the cat messed up twice and had to start afresh - once after he'd gotten to eleven and lost it and then the second time after having reached all the way to nineteen. in the evening, they went over to the spider's as usual and the hat started telling him all about the bat even before reaching the foot of the lemon tree. the spider listened to it patiently and asked a few questions. it started frowning a lot and hummed a tune from one of those top of the chirp numbers that the hat didn't care much about. the spider also agreed with the cat that beating the bat to a pulp was certainly not a good idea. he told the hat that non-violence (which is when you don't beat up a person but make his life miserable anyway) is a better way of living life and gave it quite a bat-like grin. since the cat was still stuck on the idea of fairness, the spider drew the hat aside and the two of them had a long chat. the cat was horribly curious and was dying to know what they were talking about, but sat with its tail straight up and pretended to be above such things. then the two of them strolled over to the basil bush and when they came back they wouldn't tell the cat anything. the cat begged and pleaded and threatened and left the tree twice to return back from halfway, but still they would only tell it that they'd been talking about fair means. when the cat was almost on the verge of crying , the hat and the spider relented and took him along to the tree. they found the bat sitting there with a sick expression on its face and a new band of crickets who were experimenting with trance and metal rock practising for their next gig. when the bat saw the spider it grew even sicker. the bat had highly sensitive ears and the when the crickets hit a particular pitch , the bat felt its head buzzing and spinning. he was on the verge of throwing up on the crickets and was waiting for them to finish so he could pick up a fight. but when it saw the spider coming, he knew it was pointless anyway. without saying a word the bat flew away from the tree, though before he left he pulled a horribly rude face at the hat and swooshed down to tug the cat's tail. the crickets who'd stopped in the meanwhile, burst out laughing. but they were mostly laughing at the bat, so the cat didn't mind. they all went back to the kitchen steps for a small party, where the cook had put out milk and cheese bits. though the spider scoffed at the milk and said it was a confirmed dew drinker, it happily packed in the cheese morsels. later on, they went back to the lemon tree for a long discussion about decor and the crickets pitched in with a lot of suggestions because being in the entertainment biz they knew a lot about what's cool. Thursday, August 24, 2006 everything i want to say in this blog or to anyone else in the world right now can be summarised in one word - HOWL! n.b. not growl, but HOWL Wednesday, August 23, 2006 harassed by parents obsessed with the idea of support, harangued by neighbours in their car-pool-to-school santros, crowded out by young parents hogging the best tables at your favourite restaurants, looked upon by concern by acquaintances who are on the verge of popping out the progeny by the time they hit the next traffic signal, deemed as unsightly adult-acne like blemishes on the society by potential landlords and employers - life is hard indeed for the singletons. we need to stick together to survive the onslaught. yet it is those very people who undermnine the cause giving the the smug-marrieds their unfair advantage. shaadi.com and 8-minute dating services, times matrimonial and casual hook-ups, enduring abuse and living with neglect, ceasing to be meaningful to another person yet clinging on to the EMI-enabled shared life - just how much do people fear being alone? there is something very sad when a person begins to think that by himself or herself, they can't claim a complete life. not that they have to be resigned to being lonely for the rest of their lives, not that they have to forget how nice it is to get an unexpected daisy, not that they have to deny how nice it is to wake up to someone holding them. but to think for a moment that you are not good enough for you is a great injustice to life. and no, most people are not likely to end up dead on the durry with red ants eating their left eye. i wish i could make things better for the superwomen and men (not supermen, there was only one superman and he wore his undies on the outside, so less said about that, the better) in my life.yes, i have quite a few of them and i rely on them to make my existence as a mere mortal better. do i thank them for it? hell, no. it's their job to take care of me. they are intelligent, sensitive, articulate, creative and mostly people that are very nice to know. not for them is the bland cover-all phrase - great personality - they are super-fucking-awesome people.they are vibrant, interesting and as warm as melted marsh-mallows on cocoa. they know how to balance ambitions with dreams. and they are a reservoir of knowledge on pop trivia and coolest club wear, they can dance a mean salsa and can make sense of george orwell, not to say anything about steamed pomfret maach, tax returns, mutual funds and equities. yet, sometimes they get handed a raw deal in life. happens. but what bothers me is that these women and men have a complete inability to look beyond themselves when it comes to figuring out what went wrong. why they can't stop apologising for mistakes other fuckwits make, why they can't stop feeling inadequate because of the lack of perception of some pea-brained moron, why they can't recognise the fact that they do not HAVE to put up with shit - is completely beyond me. i wish for once someone would have it in them to say it oud and clear "look, it's not me, it's you. that's what the problem is. you are just not good enough and i know it." people should never be apologetic about being nice. god knows and they know, there's not enough niceness around. Saturday, August 19, 2006 i saw a stranger smile to himself; the auto-wallah bought jasmines at the traffic signal. there's something incongruous about noticing the smell of rain on earth after it's been raining steadily through the day. there's something incredible about smelling the faint fragrance of lilies in full bloom through the rain. there's something inevitable about life. there's something ineveitable about how fulfilling life can be, for no good reason. i don't want no respect There are women who age gracefully and there are women who spend their lives trying to look ten year’s younger and end up in the opposite direction. Well I thought I didn’t have to think about which group I fall in, at least not yet. I try not to gouge out the eyes of the odd person who calls me baby or baba. And people certainly do not score points with me for telling me I look some odd years younger than what they think would be a flattering figure for my age. I’m happy enough being me. Occasionally I regress a bit, but that’s allowed. However I admit my parents got a bit shortchanged when it came to the intellectual capacity of their youngest offspring. My mental growth is a bit stunted. What to do? I am like that only. OK, so the brother was here and I reveled in my younger sibling role, got a lifetime's supply of fantasy volumes, stole a plastic glow-in-the-dark sword from a child's birthday booty and was feeling what the Cow would say "securely ensconced" in my peter pan complex. Then, THEN, on my way to work the taxi driver called me auntie. Bruised and battered in spirit, I smoked my last YSL menthol from the secret stash, had a cup of extra strong coffee and dragged myself upstairs to key in a short, pithy email describing my trauma to people who should rightfully care about me. Its only fair - if I care about you, you care about me. Except life doesn't follow such simple rules. The buggers started a laughathon and my plea for psychological support was met with helpful and kind responses in the line of "Aunty Aunty... as in tht Hair Dye ad...." "you have now officially become part of the generation that doesn't understand people like you" "The minute I read that the taxiwallah called Rhea aunty, I laughed out so loud one of my colleagues had to apologise to someone he was talking to on the phone. Ooof...Rhea Aunty" I preferred to make a dignified retort. So I asked them to piss off. Needless to say, this also fell on deaf ears. I was also told that it’s been a long time since I was last insulted, not counting the beggar, and it was high time I had another one coming. Well thank you very much. More hilarity and what certain people think is a dazzling display of wits followed. AND THEY STARTED PICKING ON MY NEW HAIRSTYLE!!! "Your haircut made respect emanate out of the taxi driver, which is why he called you aunty. You're still a goddess to us in mind and spirit, irrespective of haircuts" "Yes, Rhea, you are my favorite goddess Aunty. In mind, spirit and haircut, you are the auntiest of all aunties. The epitome of aunty-hood is found in you, and your haircut. When I think of women in ill-fighting nighties, cooking mangsho and bhaat for Laltu (Shona) and Bulu (AKA bablu), I see you." I decided that maybe I wasn’t being able to put across how traumatised I was. Still expecting the better of people (I AM dumb. I said so!) I laid bare my tortured soul. ( I also told them they are not going to be invited for my bablu’s onnoprashon). I conveyed to the best of my abilities that I was now being reduced to a quivering bundle of nerves now and how I can't stop looking at mirrors. What next? anondobajar alliance, digha for honeymoon, sea-bathing in salwars, and of course the ill-fitting nightie with a dupatta across if someone comes to the house, standing guard in front of nursery schools and tutorials, pujor bajar at hatibagan, a little flirting with pintu the cablewallah, dokkhineshwar every now and then and city centre for a special treat... it’s all flashing in front of my eyes. I was told i'm funny. Funny? Man, I’m bleeding here. I was also told not to forget to include in my vision of future "getting the parar women together for pujo celebration and group meals, taking overt interest in the young women in the neighborhood ("Sonali, Tor ar amar boyesh beshi difference nei. Tuir amar kotha shon, Raju toke bhalo bashe na. tor mon ekhon poda-sona e thaka uchit"), getting all excited about watching a hindi cinema in the theater ("oof, Abhishek Bacchan ki acting korlo. Bablu, tor babar hairstyle ek-dom Abhishek-er moto, na?")" Ogo amar ki hobe go? Wednesday, August 16, 2006 i saw a lot of broken things today - broken people, broken dreams, broken promises to a broken child. there was nothing i could do except feel helpless. the unfairness of life and the baser side of human nature always win. and it seems so futile to try and repair the damage, because you know, more than anyone else, you know some things can't be mended. no matter how much you try. yet, you still have to go through the motions, you still have to pretend that you hope things can be better, sometimes you even fall for your own pretenses. but i stopped short at feeling angry. even before i could realise the futility of it, i was asking myself how many people and promises will i walk away from, when its my turn. Monday, August 14, 2006 can i have a rerun of my favourite tuesday? can i get a nice second hand gondola? can i get my own river? will my river take me to the middle of the deap seas? will it tell me tales of pirates and noblemen and dragons with a butterfly hoard? Sunday, August 13, 2006 i didn't realise how long i've been out of my usual groove of things. every unread e-mail, every unanswered text, every unreturned call kept piling up. i never felt the tomorrow bit of "i'll do it tomorrow" passing me by. and then when i got back to my usual pace, i find i've been causing some alarm. but before i could be properly apologetic about it, i felt a teeny bit happy that i AM actually missed. not that i am reluctant to take my friends for granted or vice versa, not that i don't know where i stand with them , but once in a while it feels nice to know. like an unexpected present. and while i'm on that topic, i read a blog. i'd ask the blogger to check her facts twice. the blogee (i.e. the object of the blog) matches nowhere near that description. i'm embarassed, concerned and overwhelmed. and doll?????? puhleez. i wanna be a ninja. Saturday, August 12, 2006 what's happening to me? managed to salvage a part of my life by walking away from work early and felt horribly guilty. what's happening to me? anyway, went and had a haircut. just when i was getting used to the compliments, certain people with a saturday off and an afternoon of shoe-shopping out of the way told me that i look like a kid with a 70's rajesh khanna hairstyle. and instead of blow-torching them as i should rightfully have done, i was so pathetically glad to see my friends that i couldn't stop grinning the whole afternoon. what's happening to me? couldn't take more than ten minutes in the pub, came to barista to have a cup of coffee and beat it - felt all the better for it. what's happening to me? and after i came home, i looked in every mirror in the house trying to see if i look like a baby-faced imbecile. it bothers me. what's happening to me? Tuesday, August 08, 2006 i can't believe i have been this time-starved. i feel like hanging me head low in shame and whisper softly - from thee i have been absent in the spring or something in the same vein to put across how miserable i feel being a stranger to my own blog. but a) there are too many people - real, live, non-virtual people - who i need to tell the same thing (less dramatically) and so i can't let a blog take precedence; b) it is not spring and c) for the past few days i've been living a botic existence. so for the time being i remain unapologetic. i will instead record for posterity how much interesting it is to take a day off from work and get to have your senses tuned at a superhuman level. ever noticed how a fever accentuates all sensations - colour of the leaves, sightof a first orange rose-bud, long-ignored sounds of the resident sparrows, geometric patterns of damp spots on the ceiling, feelings of sadness during a long evening with no-one to smile at? i have. Monday, July 24, 2006 there was a cat and a bat and a hat. the hat and the cat were good friends, but the bat was just a bat. nobody liked the bat. there was also a witch. ofcourse it was a wicked one - the witch hoarded pencils and scented erasers and shiny ball-point pens. it was mean to small children too.but then again, i know for a fact that some small children deserve meanness and their knuckles rapped. but, this is not a story about small children.nor one about witches. the cat and the hat were catty and hatty and orange and green. i mean the cat was orange and the hat was green, having a green cat would be very silly indeed. and to make things easy, when they were awake the cat would put the hat on. just like the paperboy puts on a plastic bag on his head some mornings. but when they tried sleeping, the trouble began. the cat and the hat would find a nice shady corner in the garden and lie down for a nap. now, everyone knows that a nap makes you a nicer person and much more clever too.they'd snuggle together and shut their eyes and count till twenty-three. this was a small problem to begin with. they didn't know their numbers beyond twentythree. if they didn't fall asleep by then, then they'd have to count till twentythree again and this would make them very tired and cross. the cat would try sitting up and counting , but the hat hated it. see, the hat couldn't take a nap when somebody was sitting up straight with tail in the air, loudly counting seventeen, eighteen... and so on. and the cat was rather loud, it believed that talking really loudly helps things happen faster. the poor hat would keep quiet most days, but sometimes it would ask the cat to stop counting, but the cat would get confused, mix up his eleven with thirteen and scold the hat. then the hat would get cross. and on days they managed to fall asleep by twenty-one, the bat would come and wake them up. the bat loved picking on the poor cat. it would come and sit on the cat's tail, or brush its wings across the cat's face and on some days it would even tug at the cat's moustache.the cat couldn't do anything. see, the bat was so much smaller that the cat couldn't hit it. and the cat was also scared of waking the hat up if he tried to tell the bat off. one day the bat even put a feather up the cat's nose. the cat tried to sneeze quietly. but then its sneezes made the cat feel like its brain would explode. so the cat started sneezing loudly and the hat woke up. the cat was very sorry, but the hat told him not to be silly. then the hat went to the bat and told him to leave the cat alone. the bat was a very naughty bat. it just stuck its tongue out at the hat. the hat got very angry. the hat then went to the spider that lived in the alamanda tree. they wouldn't let the cat hear what they were talking about. the cat got a little sad, but just a little. then the hat came back and told the cat to go back to napping. the hat also promised to count this time, though honestly speaking the hat was quite horrible at counting and went straight to eleven from eight. the cat fell asleep and slept and slept and slept till it was time for the gardener to come and turn the sprinklers on. when the cat woke up it saw the bat was hanging from the alamanda tree, tied up with spider web. the hat was waiting for the cat. together they went up to the tree. the hat told the bat that they would ask the spider to let it go if it promised not to bother the cat again. the bat didn't want to say that, but it was getting dark and there was lemon tart for tea at home. so it promised not to bother the cat. the hat wanted the bat to say it was sorry too. but the cat was slightly scared ( it didn't like fighting with anyone except the hat, but that was alright). the cat was also a bit sorry for the bat. so the spider and the hat had to let the bat go. but from then on, the bat never woke them up. and later on, when the summer evenings became longer, the spider also taught the cat and the hat to count. it had eight legs and made sixty-four corners with his web. so he was very good at counting. and they became quite good friends after that. Monday, July 10, 2006 get me a king size four-poster, a winter day, a light down comforter and six pillows. that's all i want out of life. preponing monday morning blues to sunday night doesn't help anyone any. one still has to get in an auto where the plastic sheets screen off the rain to let the co-passengers sweat profusely into one's left side, one still has to go to work, one still has to listen to the soccer post-mortem from the old bald guy who has a lingerie designer girlfriend despite being weird and mild, one still has to humour morons predicting mumbai-like monsoon disaster with every droplet of rain, one still has to balance umbrella, mobile, loose change and soggy cigarette with much acrobatic effort to get three seconds' worth respite. Sunday, July 09, 2006 we went lounge lizarding and enjoyed it immensely. but it brought home the realisation how old i am. sitting in a corner with friends listening to music (though of hideously pathetic quality - the attraction of the evening being jungle life, remember tarzaan?) is one thing. actually a very pleasant thing. the mojito was perfect, the old people were tucked away into a corner and the bartender was an awesome kid. the mjusic made us feel like we were back on those long ago summer afternoons with musical bandbox on the radio. but then we went club-hopping to notch up our cool quotient. and THAT was an eye-opener. crawling into a floor packed with thirty thousand seventeen year olds with ear splitting bollywood music and a non-waning affection for himesh is something i do NOT want in my life. The Southern Wonder and Cow salsaed some, half heartedly - but it still was a very pretty sight. Attempts to teach me the moves failed somewhat, though i slithered and twirled with some grace ( i thought) before tripping over my right foot. watched the last bit of the game perched besides PDA aficionados who were trying to trace patterns on each others tonsils. anyway, feeling tired, disgusted, claustrophobic and paying for it just made no sense. crawling back home at ungodly hours saw to it that my sunday was spent in a daze and there's only so many hours left to blue bloody monday. if there's any justice there should be a mandatory five day week in India , and a chip installed in my brain that shuts down my physical processes when i attempt to do whatever would have been a "cool" thing to have done ten years back. i have grown up and the realisation makes me smug, but what is left is for me is to catch up with myself. Thursday, July 06, 2006 childzilla I staying up for soccer or anything else is all fine when you are not woken up at six in the bloody morning by an insistent four-year old with natural talent for pestilence. but if you are, then mindless violence seems to hold an enormous appeal. it magnifies by the second when the childzilla demands an orange icecandyand tea too. i need to barf out my whole rant right now. wonder if it would sufficiently recreate the mid-week horror if i use a minimalistic style of writing. like saying this week began on a monday. strange people and ideas took up tuesday. then on wednesday, childzilla happened. shrewd customer that she is, she fell back on her i-am-a-cute-little-baby-with-a-cuter-lisp till she got her presents. and then she morphed to her usual i'm-four-going-on-thirty-four self. she told her mother that she wanted a waxing, at which my absent-minded father responded by saying "i'll buy you candles", she also ticked off my brother for taking pictures when she was not looking cute enough and for getting her a skipping rope which she felt she is too young for, she smashed my play-dough lizard and told me i need to wear yellow dresses with flowers on them, stuck out her tongue at a visiting child next-door, picked up three more four-letter words from untraced sources, conned my mother AND father into giving her three ice-creams, and recounted innumerable tales of how she gets slashed with knives at school.the fluency with which that child lies left us all feeling dazed, though in our weaker moments we tried to convince the each other that she is imaginative. thankfully i left for work, which was another kettle of fish altogether. i thought wednesday couldn't turn any worser than it already was at one in the afternoon, but like in everything else i was wrong in this too. anyway after i crawled back home, my work wardrobe was carefully scrutinised, every item in my tote strewn around ( and to give her credit packed back after intensely examined), i was subject to a half-hearted tantrum on the subject of jiggly-wigglies, and made to mockfight vampires till midnight, with proper karate-like moves and sound-effect. apparently three rounds of solid thrashing when the doting grand-parents were not looking hadn't been as effective as my sister would have wished it to be. she just confessed very unhappily that these days she can't summon up wits enough to win the much-advocated power-game with childzilla who leaves her two steps behind, at which my brother helpfully pointed out that she has never been very bright and was given the flick across the ear. both of them would like to believe they are poster children for efficacy of corporal punishment, and when i explained to them that looking at either of them now would leave people to conclude just the opposite, they fell back to bullying. BUT there is some sort of cosmic justice and France won, so that evens things out. we are expecting childzillaII in january. Tuesday, July 04, 2006 why should anyone take offence when asked how to distinguish between straight man hitting on someone and gay guy making friendly overtures? it is a very legitimate question and there should be clear stated rules on this. appearances are often deceptive. Sunday, July 02, 2006 tamam shud. the phrase with which khaiyam ended rubaiyat. a rough translation would mean the final dispensation of all debts. a fitting end, when you owe nothing. i live for a sunday evening when i can close my eyes and say tamam shud, no longer owing my time to the days , the weeks ahead. Saturday, July 01, 2006 i am exhausted from being nice, missing the most important game of the week, talking to gay-ish men with embroidered AND sequinned butterflies on their shirt and generally its-saturday-morning-i'll-have-to-go- to-work kind of exhausted as well. the best part of last evening was listening to the Bloodsucking Leech. the Leech went to mauritius and was immensely impressed with arrival lounge, general beauty, scantily clad women with nice figures and his first limousine ride - till the chauffeur put on the music and with what nick hornby would say "a cavalier disregard for cliches" played aashiq banaya aapne. the best part of this evening looks like the sibling's anticipated arrival hopefully with all the specified liquor. but that is still a solid fifteen hours away. and then i have to bring the said sibling home and see all hell break loose. and this time god help the man who tries humming leaving on a jet plane in the arrival lounge. you do not do that. you do not do that in arrival lounges. more importantly, you do not do that at dumdum when 99% chance is u'll take a shuttle back to nager bajar or deshapriya park or beleghata or mominpur. a) its very irritating, b) the song takes a very long time to get out of the head, c) its traumatising to find the meshomoshai crooning in a whisper three inches from one's left ear. with all my residual niceness flushed out of my system last evening, i will do something very drastic indeed. 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