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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i lost my emerald ring and found it again.

brown paper packages tied up with strings

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

lunch

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

note to self

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

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

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

happy dussehra

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

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