Ding dong I am a Bong! :-)

I’ve been really busy doing nothing the last couple of days and lemme tell you that it is a full time job. So D is in town and he and I sat around eating, watching tv, rolling on the bed and watching some more tv whole of yesterday. We lazed around so much that by the end of it by 6 in the evening we couldn’t stand the sight of the television hahah! D is my closest cousin who lives and works in Maine and I get to meet him once in 2 years or so. He happened to sneak a break and managed really cheap tickets and hence came down all of a sudden. But as luck would have it his visit coincides with a wedding and now he is all busy trying to balance us and the other part of the family together. He and I both are completely at sea with all these Bengali wedding rituals and my Mum and aunt take full responsibility for it. I am rather ashamed of the fact that I cannot write Bengali fluently and that I had it as third language in school or that I honestly did not know what “aaiburobhaat” was until I saw someone tagged on an FB album and looked like she was getting married only to be told it’s a pre-wedding bridal shower. When I asked my newly and blissfully wedded friend Riona what the word meant she had that look of surprise on her face. I was like “ I really don’t know what it means and I am not putting on an act.” She said “yeah right you know what mehendi and sangeet is but you don’t know what aaiburobhaat is.” Yes I don’t but I do wanna know more. I did grow up in Kolkata and spent 8 years there but it was just different in our house. I speak my mother tongue fluently but I can pass myself off as a non-bengali effortlessly. I often come across people who poke fun at my ignorance of Bengali culture. I am just not conventional bong and come to think very few of us are typical of our region or typical of our part of the country all thanks to our upbringing and the wandering lives we have lead. But that doesn’t mean I am not proud of my roots or that I don’t enjoy all that comes along as a part and parcel of being a Bengali. I love my “machher jhol and bhaat” but I can live being a vegetarian for months. I adore the old “Uttam Suchitra” movies but cannot stand the new age "running around the trees variety" of bong flicks being churned out. Those are an absolute insult to the legacy of the likes of Satyajit Ray and Bimal Roy. My biggest regret is that I cannot read Bengali properly and thus couldn’t get a first hand taste of Bengali literature. Reading the original classics cannot be compared to reading translations and I don’t understand the language half as well I would have liked to. Growing up my Mum had made it a rule to speak Bengali at home cos in school one got to speak only in English and socializing with the other army kids we spoke a lot in hindi. I use to be appalled at those Bengali families where they spoke hindi at home despite coming from small towns in Bengal. They took a certain pride in doing so and Ma and I found that hilarious. Forgetting one’s roots is downright shameful.
Now that I am grown up and been living away for a while I think I crave to speak Bengali sometimes unlike in college where I confess I kept away from the Bengali clan. That was also cos they were Bengali with a vengeance and that definitely turns me off. Am I a hypocrite? Maybe I was but now me thinks I have made peace with my identity. I do get defensive when the bong jokes go over the top. I remember this one time in Delhi when I blew my top when this guy started criticizing Kolkata saying “There ain’t too many malls in Calcutta like Gurgaon and happening party places.”:p I said something nasty like “Yeah with you Delhiites it stops at malls and party places. That is how far you care to use your grey cells.” No offence meant to anybody please I lauuuu Delhi but hate such insensitive people with a frog in the well attitude. Sigh! I haven’t even dated too many Bengali men ;-). Or have I? Hmmmm I have had crushes on some dozens of them hahah! Naaa it has been a while that I met an interesting Bengali man or it maybe otherwise. We shall leave it at that. ;-) Talking in Bengali isn’t a problem now since my closest friends understand it fluently so there have been times when I wanted to bitch about someone so have done so in Bengali to She or Finoo and they understood every word to the last T. Naaa not that Calcutta did that to them but Pune did. What to do half of Calcutta landed up there and we polluted the city with our Bengaliness and Bengalisms hahah! Yeah so I guess I’ll never ever be the conventional archetypal Bengali and but a bong I am and always shall be nonetheless.

Leap of Faith

So three of us resigned on three consecutive days and man was it a bolt from the blue for them or not. They don’t know what hit them especially cos it is a small organization and we didn’t plan it out this way but it just happened that eventually we dropped like skittles one after the other on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Hahaha! I look forward to a month of lazing around before I am back on board and this time around I really hope my innings are more exciting, challenging and yeah way longer.

“When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly”
Patrick Overton

The Best Laid Plans

Once upon a time we use to have concrete plans now all we can is to float around and go wherever life takes us. So here we go again and hope that this time it isn’t as much of a rollercoaster ride that it was before. No we never get what we want when we want. But this wasn’t the life I had envisioned for myself and in my head I was supposed to be someplace else. I did try, I tried real hard to get it all back but alas I could not. Every time I came strikingly close to it the picture vanished almost like a mirage. It was a mirage all along, all of it and to think I had mistaken it for the real picture. No I never really had a choice cos this is where I was meant to be. I have no idea how tis gonna be this time around so I am bracing myself for a relatively quieter stint. But then like someone had said “The best laid plans of mice and men go awry.” So yeah "Come January" or most importantly "Hullo Delhi."

Trust Issues

I have learnt not to ever trust prospective employers and prospective suitors. You never know when they change their mind. :p

I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open.

Weekends do not qualify as weekends if all you get off is a Sunday. These miniscule weekends definitely do not suit me. Suddenly I seem to be all geared up for what lies ahead. If anything lies ahead at all that is. For the first time in my life I don’t have a plan. Honestly now if people ask me so what are you planning on doing I don’t know what to say except for well I want a new job and I refuse to look beyond that. I made too many plans and too many of them fell apart. Me and my big and dreamy plans of wanting to study some more. These days I almost feel like maybe I let myself down or maybe I never had that tenacity needed for me to persevere and do something about all those plans. Just look where I am today. I know I went wrong somewhere. I shouldn’t have this self depreciating attitude but I just do. I am not looking for sympathy or for people to reassure me saying that I will do well for myself or that it is just a matter of time. Right now I feel the other way around. I don’t wanna talk big and do nothing about it. Seems like I did a lot of that after passing out of college. Well apparently I am not half as ambitious as I thought I was cos I wouldn’t have been stuck at this point or I am just not good enough. I refuse to believe the latter though. It is not about being “not good enough”. Maybe it is the timing or just plain bad luck. I don’t wanna believe that I won’t make it or that I’ll be stuck being mediocre for the rest of my life like I have been for a long long time now. I hate this tag of mediocrity that has built itself a house in my life.
There I go again. Ranting and raving about the same old. I am very very patient these days. Where did all this patience manifest itself from? The last paragraph is a consequence of some telephonic conversations with prospective employers. Yeah I never got that call back. Am I being acutely pessimistic? I don’t think so. You would judge yourself right if something looked so close and then you realize it bloody far. That’s how close I probably came to getting back my old life again but for me and my shortcomings. That’s why now I am gonna try keeping the expectations to zero. I do not expect anything cos even expecting is a sin. Yeah these days I don’t make any plans for the future anymore cos you know what life just turns it all around and I am left with zilch in hand. But I can’t help but dream but this time am only gonna dream with my eyes wide open, wide wide open.
“I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open, and I'll do my looking back with my eyes closed”

I wish cleaning up my cupboard could amount to cleaning up my mind

I am a bad bad girl. I am supposed to be working on some environmental legislations that are oh so monotonous and that do not inspire me at all to wanna work so here I am blogging. Please pardon me if the blog post in its entirety does not make sense. I have all these thoughts floating my mind and I am planning on penning it down even if it ends up sounding a lil disjointed. Sigh! It takes an hour and a half of travel each day to reach work that includes travelling by a cab, then shared cab that we call “shuttles” over here and then probably an auto. I am exhausted by the end of it or maybe it is just a mental block. The only incentive being I get to listen to a lot of music and I come across a variety of people. For instance the other day when a complete junkie got on to the cab with his bag and baggage that included his tattered backpack and a guitar. He looked soooo doped out and lost in his frayed jeans and faded tee and I did wanna make a conversation with him but for the prim and proper office going crowd sitting in the cab who’d think I must be a wee bit crazy wanting to talk to him.  He was in one word “so college going pune hippie types” the kinds we have spent hours smoking up with and singing along with and even been attracted to once upon a time.
I even got on to some cab the other day thinking it’s a shared cab only to realize it was actually owned by some factory and they were transporting goods across the city. I got a lift till my destination since it was on the way only to be shouted at later by my Miss lemony Pie saying “How could you take a lift from a bunch of factory workers?” I didn’t know what to say. They looked perfectly harmless besides I didn’t know that it wasn’t a cab and I saved 15 bucks. Ok that is a lame one. In future I plan to be more careful.
I am so so confused these days about a variety of things. I have stopped thinking or at least I try to. Oh and my sister drives while I don’t and I do feel like quite the looser to be honest about it. Last night I really wanted a smoke so we went downstairs on the pretext of an after dinner walk and I made her drive me down to Park Street to pick up smokes. Hmmmmm!
Last evening Ma and I finally got down to using the new oven and we tried our hand at cooking a stuffed roast chicken. To our utter disbelief after reading and re-reading the manuals we made a half cooked roast that had to be set aside for some normal dal chawal. I remember different days when I could dish out a divine roast. I just do not feel inspired any longer and I don’t want it to be like this. I want that zest for life again. I want that pep and that extra zing in me. I wonder where all of that went. So many times I feel like hell I am just wasting time waiting for the rest of my life to begin when today is all I have and I don’t want this to go for me to realize this is gone too. I don’t even feel like exercising anymore. This is not the way it is supposed to be. What is this and what have I become? I am so negative that I could make a living out of the negativity. This post wasn’t meant to sound bitter. Hmphhhhh! Can we move on to happier things please? :-)
I cleaned my cupboard after eeons yesterday and arranged every piece of clothing systematically, in its rightful place and it did a world of good to my peace of mind. Does that sound strange? It is the same satisfaction I get at work after sorting out my “Desktop” and putting all the files in proper folders, neatly named, renamed for my convenience. I wish cleaning up my cupboard could amount to cleaning up my mind and my life too. Wishful thinking indeed.

To all those candy floss dreams woven years back...

So the server in office is down and I have absolutely nothing to do. I can’t even pretend that I am working and read the New York Times on the sly like I do very often. ;-) Thought I’d blog so here I am. Last week was eventful as we finally shifted to our new apartment and that was a gargantuan effort on our part. Mum, Sis and I were exhausted by the end of it and the sight of the entire unpacked luggage made me wanna cry. I couldn’t move an inch after all the packing, unpacking and drifted into a state of dreamless sleep. Though I do love the new place and the best part being that it is on the 10th floor and we get a splendid view of the city not to forget all the noise of course that comes along with shifting into the heart of the city literally from a relatively peaceful corner.
The job hunt is dragging along and within a span of two days I bugged enough people across the country for something to materialize in the near future hopefully. Sometimes though I wonder when, how, where and then I am like “Shooooo! Don’t think about it.” Digressing from the topic but Fino has told me to completely stop obsessing over wanting to be with someone or waiting for the one and yada yada yada! It is easier said than done man cos even if I am busy working all day or even if I am at home chilling with Mum or studying peacefully and even if I jabber twenty four seven on the phone but when I am alone at night before sleeping I wanna talk to someone and it could be about anything be it something as debatable as foreign invaders destroying Indian temples ( yes I had such a conversation late last night) or something as inane as “how was your day and how was work or how bored were you”? The latter has actually become a habit now and it is a bad bad habit I say.
Okie so I finished reading “Eat, Pray, Love” two weeks back and maybe cos I was in the state of mind I was or maybe my thinking was on the same lines at that point of time but in someways I could so relate to her angst. No wonder women around the world have been recommending this book. I know it isn’t the best piece of writing doing rounds these days and at the end of the day it is just superior chick lit but hell its damn good chick lit I say and better than the “Shopaholic Series” though yes Becky Bloomwood was endearing too what with her over the top spendthrift ways and her weakness for Denny & George scarves. Sigh! This reminds me that I made the cardinal mistake of handing “ A Shopaholic’s Confession” to my Mum on the train Journey to Chennai and oh my god she drew complete parallels between Becky’s insatiable appetite for shopping and my offbeat shopping habits. She’d keep giggling and reading the passages out aloud saying “Oh my Gawd that’s soooo you. Oh my Gawd that’s how you picked up all that stuff.” No I am not a shopaholic at all but I am an impulsive buyer and that’s what ran me into some huge debts a couple of years back. ;-)
Oh I completely forgot to mention that She is getting married and the description of her “Roka” album on Facebook was something along the lines of “ I finally found someone just as psycho as me” hahaha! I couldn’t stop laughing cos only She will say something as neurotic as that on a public forum. Apparently she and I hadn’t cumulatively together thought that something like this would happen to her but it did. Yeayyyyy! So my congratulations to the couple and God bless you both and lots of lauuuu womannn! Here’s to all those candy floss dreams woven years back. 

And Maybe I Missed the Bus....

I have been frantically job hunting last couple of weeks. Hmmmmm! It is such a tedious process begging people to give you so and so’s number or so and so’s e-mail ID and then mail them and introduce yourself and beg some more. I hate this begging game. But then such is this world. This job hunt sometimes is all about how well you beg baby. I am also right in the middle of shifting offices and houses simultaneously. What luck that the new apartment gets ready the same week the furnishings in the new office are completed. Though this new office is gonna be far far away and travelling is gonna be quite a problem.  Hmphhhhhh!
I keep looking all over the country for jobs though I am hoping Delhi works out while heart of hearts I wanna go to Bangalore. But the only incentive for both would be a good job only yes. I promise I don’t wanna land up in certain cities for specific people but of course that would definitely be a cherry on the cake hehehe! Come on I am being honest atleast. My mind is always wandering these days. Sometimes when I look at overachievers it hits me that damn maybe I missed that bus a while back but its never too late is it to make the best out of what we have and dream a new dream.
When I try opening those books in the evening and settle my mind and concentrate on what the printed word is saying there is this sense of power and hope that comes out of nowhere. I know I probably didn’t get down to doing exactly what I wanted to but I can try this wholeheartedly and see where this takes me. No more long term planning please. This is gonna one day at a time, one day at a time. Even one day doesn’t seem to be as easy as I made it out to be. My mind is a veritable maze of thoughts, all higgledy piggledy and I wish I could sieve through them and cast all the negativity away.
I snapped out of something recently. Lets call it a distraction that saw me through a rough patch. But then I guess it assumed gigantic proportions and wasn’t fun anymore and even if I knew exactly where I was going wrong I wouldn’t do anything to rectify my aberration. It took one 10 minute conversation for me to realize that I see you exactly for what you are and I am not gonna be deluding myself any longer. I realize each day that only when I think I deserve more shall I actually get more. Till then I can keep fooling myself and be happy with whatever little scraps I get. Am I talking in riddles or not? Hehehe! I am not gonna be waiting for the wrong train in the wrong station this time. Period! The bottom line being baby if you are as stingy as you are then I am just not that into you. Sowwiee!

I Have Come Undone....

I have wanted to pen a post down for so long but just couldn’t get myself to even start typing. My laptop at home sucks and I mean it. How I wish I could get that shiny new thing that excited me to no end two years back. Sigh! Anyways so we took that long awaited break that I had been looking forward to for the longest time and can I please say it didn’t live up to my expectation, Batty’s expectation and both our expectations cumulatively. I don’t even know what this trip was all about. Yes I had planned it out cos I wanted to be spending time with family in Chennai and friends in Bangalore. At the end it just turned out to be some bizarre waiting game where one just kept waiting for the phone to ring and the plans to be made and until then life just came to a standstill. Batty’s bud day was lots of fun though. We were at Zarah with Giant, Batty’s brother and her friends and Batty and I got happy high on pitchers of Sangria. I don’t remember my glass being empty for even a split second as the wine flowed endlessly and not to forget the pungent taste of the fruits. Hmmmmmm! We got lost on the way back home as a cute junior of Giant’s from college was dropping us and I was too drunk to comprehend that he had in fact gotten us to the right road. Moreover it was really dark and I was palpitating cos Mum had started with her SOS calls. I ran helter-skelter with this huge box of cake in my hand until I made him retrace his route back and finally found my house. I have no idea how we made such interesting conversation with my Mum and Aunt in our inebriated state. The whole evening was discussed and so were our existing/non-existent love lives. On second thoughts I believe they just turned a blind eye to our drunkenness.
A day later we were on our way to Bangalore and Batty was travelling un-reserved. My brilliant idea and of course hats off to her for readily agreeing to travel on such a short notice. We were up at 5 in the morning as we had to stand in the long queue for buying the unreserved ticket that came for all of 80 bucks. If it’s a short distance may I suggest travelling unreserved ain’t all that bad especially if you have the good fortune of encountering a kind TT who indulges you with a seat in the AC compartment as long as you beg and plead and make big big eyes saying “ My friend is a student Sir and this assignment came up and have to rush back to college.” Hahaha! It didn’t seem like I had left Bangalore 4 months back. For a moment I felt I never left. The first night we guys were at Cirrus meeting a friend and to top it all my sister was a lil tipsy and spoke non-stop much to my embarrassment. Though I think my friend was plain amused with her as she told him one funny story after the other about me hahah! The next day was spent lazing around, lunching at La Vigna and later at night I met up with Meggy and the Economist’s brother at Take 5. By then Batty and I were on our own lil trips. I was in a bad mood for whatever reason though I was trying so hard to get out of it while I am convinced some of that rubbed off on Batty who also turned sullen. In fact on Sunday everybody around us including us fought. Sigh! I think there was something in the stars when you plan out something so excitedly and happily and yet nothing falls into place. Though it was lovely spending time with Saggy and Richa. My old house had turned into one open house with us parking our asses there besides Hazel Eyes too who refused to budge an inch out of the house throughout the weekend. We were one merry bunch yet I was sooooo lost in my own quagmire of thoughts.
In some ways we were only too happy when the three days ended and we were back In Chennai. I got time to think, ponder. Sometimes I don’t wanna think as much as I do. I don’t wanna think at all. So I am back home and back to my boring old job. I miss Batty, miss Saggy, miss Chennai, miss my sister and suddenly it feels like I have nothing to look forward to. What now???????? Oh did I mention that all of a sudden I seem to have surrounded myself with self help books and they only make sense as long as I am reading them and after a while its back to square one. Hmphhhhhhh! Plus I finished reading the most depressing book of all called “ She Has Come Undone” by Wally Lamb and with God as my witness in the process me thinks I came undone and had such outlandish thoughts in my head. I definitely suffer from the after effects of having an overactive imagination. Pssstttttttttt! I should just shoooo those thoughts away.

"I think... the secret is to just settle for the shape of your life takes...Instead of you know, always waiting and wishing for what might make you happy."

Wally Lamb(She's Come Undone)

Just get back up when it knocks you down

Utopia hasn’t been a good girl lately. I mean na not the archetypal bad girl she can be but considering the fact that she has become quite saintly compared to what she was in the past her recent behavior is unbecoming of her newly set standards of sainthood. Actually Utopia knows that she is typing utter rubbish at 8:30 in the morning while her Mum screams at her for being the lazy bum that she is increasingly becoming. Utopia and her Mum are supposed to be cleaning Dad’s closet out and they are dreading the entire experience. But happier things first like they are taking a break for the first time this year and really looking forward to it. Mum is definitely looking forward to it but Utopia is quite apprehensive. If Utopia ever gets around to writing down the peculiar self made situations she gets herself into then that shall be quite the story even if the ending might quite not be the way she wanted it to be.
Okie enough of writing in third person and yes I am on a break from today. Yeayyyyyy! I get to meet Batty finally after 3 months and I get to go back and pick up my precious books and chill out with Meggy and Saggy besides my silly younger sister who is gearing up to empty my pockets. I’ve gotten into this habit of hanging around alone cos my only friend in this city Miss Lemony Pie is on a month long sabbatical to Canada. We bid each other a rather tearful goodbye wondering how am I gonna be surviving for one whole month without talking to her 8 times a day since my other lifeline is in Finland ( Hence should not call that often. But I still do mind you. Heheh! ) and Batty has vanished into the backwaters of Goa until I reminded her that God has planned it out almost perfectly as Batty returns to civilization the same time as Miss Lemony Pie leaves the country.
I happen to be haunting Someplace Else almost every evening having a drink all alone and smoking a couple of cigarettes in the dingy black smoking room. Hmmmm do you think its strange? Its not cos I love being alone but just that I’d rather have no company unless its my kinda company. Maybe that’ll change too with time but right now “The Solitary Utopia” is what I have become. I spoke to the Economist last night and every time I speak to him or Batty and Fino I realize damn I miss them oodles and oodles and I wish we were in the same city. Hitting rock bottom wouldn’t seem half as bad as it seems today cos these guys ain’t around. Actually its when you are all alone on a Saturday night doing nothing but sitting all by yourself smoking a cigarette, listening to music on your headphones and watching the world pass by making plans, meeting their friends and family while you finish your drink and head home to an empty house, that is when you miss all the people that were, that use to be and still are but aren’t there for some reason or the other.
I keep looking for my people everywhere I go and somehow as I am getting older it seems more difficult making friends, finding that camaraderie that came so effortlessly when we were younger. Yeah guess it is also cos I have seen happier days that I keep comparing yesterday to today. Today pales in comparison to all the days before. So last night I started reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” . It was a gift from Nish Mish on my Bud Day and I’d instructed her to pick it up for me as I had been wondering what the hell is Julia Roberts ranting and raving about. Apparently this is the book she has been gifting all her girl friends and now she is even starring in the motion picture of the same name. It starts off with the protagonist having a dialogue with God at 3 in the morning and asking him what to do as she doesn’t know how to get out of the present circumstances. She asks him for answers and all she hears is a voice from inside that says just go sleep and it’ll be alright. You’ll get the answers when you have to. So do we get the answers ever? What if we get the wrong answers? What if we keep looking for signs and the signs ain’t convincing enough and we still walk headlong into that wall knowing well that we are gonna crumble into pieces yet again. Do we you get back up when it knocks you down?

"Sometimes when it comes around and it knocks you down.
Just get back up when it knocks you down...."

Let go...

When I set out to meet Pinocchio last evening I had no idea that a couple of hours spent with an old old friend would be the answer to my self made agony the last couple of months. I had been bottling it all up since December. I had become a control freak and I refuse to let alcohol get the better of me cos of my past shenanigans. And of course life hasn’t made it any easier and I was always scared that if I get drunk it’ll all come out, all of it and I don’t want it to come out with complete strangers and my own people are scattered in different places. I actually could not remember the last time I got drunk and let my hair down and acted stupid. This year I haven’t had the luxury to let my hair down and let it go. I wanted to let it go, all of it but found it so difficult and I was loosing myself completely cos this sorrow was consuming almost everything good. I’d cry myself to office each day in the morning and I wouldn’t even know why my eyes filled with tears when apparently it should be over by now. I am supposed to be coping with this better than this. I did a bloody good job of putting on a brave front initially but after it was all over and the friends came and went and I was left to deal with it alone minus anything to look forward to I failed miserably to the point that my Mum had to sit down and speak to me telling me that I shouldn’t think that I am stuck over here and I can leave when I want to if I am not happy. I wasn’t happy. I was just plain miserable and God knows that I did try finding ways to distract myself until that one happy distraction became an obsession and it started hurting so bad. Of course I refused to let go. I wouldn’t let go and I wouldn’t budge an inch. I wanted it my way and sometimes its not your way, most times it isn’t your way and to accept what I had, for what its worth is taking time. But now I think I have started to accept the good. Yeah it has been really really difficult accepting the good cos you keep questioning it time and time again and I am petrified I’ll loose whatever I have now including my Mum, Sis, my job, my friends just like I lost my Dad and the life that was. We have this today and I am here now and I make the best of this cos living in my own make believe world isn’t as much of a respite and living in denial doesn’t help. Last night after my five large vodkas and a lot of quarreling with Pinocchio at the shady Oly Pub as I sat in the cab I made that fateful drunken dial to, hold your breath, we don’t call up ex-boyfriends or lovers on a drunk dial, we call up best friends in Helsinki hahah! Yeah I called up Fino and I babbled utter rubbish for half an hour. I know I have been bothering you too much these days for whatever reasons but at that time I didn’t think of anyone but you I wanted to talk to. Of course the call being interrupted also helped. Yeayyyy! I am so glad that at least someone proves me wrong time and time again. I know I have to let it be, all of it and hope that it turns out fine. I don’t know how and when I am gonna get out of here but I do know I shall someday when it is a different time and day.

Whatever will be, will be

I wanna run away, far far away from everything especially constant deadlines. Damn I am disinterested already and it has only been a month and a half. Is it normal or am I abnormal? I don’t feel like working for anyone and I am growing weary of being answerable all the time to people higher in the ladder. I don’t like wearing this crown of thorns and I didn’t even know what I was getting into. I so wish I could work at my own pace, do my own thing and the money could still keep coming in. That is a futile wish of mine and this is anything but an ideal world.
I saw someone’s birthday pictures the other day. A bunch of people I don’t know but all of them looked so sparkling and sprightly and I just plain envied them. Pictures can be very misleading they say but the happiness was just radiating through the screen. The bottom line being I don’t think I am fun anymore. When was the last time I even uploaded any pictures? I can’t even remember. Okie moving on to something jollier it was my burrrrdayyy last week and I officially entered the wrong side of 25 hahaha! I got sooooooo many calls/messages and I confess that I hadn’t expected soooooo many people to call me. :-) Of course social networking sites really help the cause. But hell I still felt special, exceedingly special.
I have been having a lot of imaginary conversations in my head these days. I’d be surprised if they actually come true. Though I try not to build the demons in my head but on bad days the demons overtake and surpass everything almost like the Death Eaters. On days like that however much I try to steer my thoughts away to a different direction I fail. Sometimes it’s like I don’t even know what is worrying me and where is this anxiety coming from. I don’t want to have made it all up in my head. That’s my biggest nightmare. I don’t wanna be wrong time and time again. I want it to be real, tangible and not a figment of my imagination. But I also realized what has to be will be and there is nothing I can do but wait and watch. It is the waiting that kills me. Sigh! I was born impatient. I just have let go I guess, yup just let it go.There is a certain peace that came when I let go. Whatever will be, will be. The future is not ours to see. :-)

Everybody is going to the party, dancing in the dessert and blowing up the sunshine...

I don’t seem to be able to put my thoughts and feelings across on a blog as eloquently I could in the past. It is also cos I don’t want it to be out there for the world or my tiny little world to read. Sometimes I am amazed at the amount of information on my personal life I have put up on the blog in the past especially the comings and goings of the objects of affection. Damn were they seasonal or not. I mean I could actually sit and write post after post on someone who just let me walk away. Is this how much we grow up in two years that you finally see something for exactly what it was worth? They keep coming and going, coming and going like ships sailing in the night my Mum said once and apparently if you are lucky someday someone while choose to stay on. No I don’t want this to be a “nobody loweeees me” post. Haven’t I written enough of those over the top looney looserish posts on loneliness and yada yada yada!
Work is good and I am happy. Yup I don’t cringe at all when I get up in the morning unlike my old workplace where Walrus use to keep us guessing how his frame of mind shall be and what shape it shall take by the time the day is over. Our Bosses let us be as long as the work is done. I think that is the best part of working here and that we are not constantly subjected to their bad moods and whims and fancies. Weekends are quite lackluster and unexciting as invariably we end up going to the same pub and its just three of us and the same old middle aged lecherous bastards or school boys. No you can’t even dream about striking up a conversation with any one of them and to think I’d even crib about the crowd in B’lore cos Calcutta officially has the saddest crowd. I don’t know where all the men went and honestly there isn’t even any eye candy. How I miss Delhi? Hmphhhh! I miss dressing up and going out and knowing I can come back whenever I want to be it drunk or sane or something in the middle.
I love living with my Mum but Dad is missed a lot. Saturdays were never insipid with him around as something or the other would turn up and all three of us would be out having a merry time. Yeah I miss him a lot cos sometimes I assume he is still there until it hits me no he isn’t and that he is gone forever. No more drunk dials from Dad each night narrating some ridiculous joke or making fun of Ma’s eccentricities. No more Dad calling me a lazy bum and urging me to go for a jog. No more reassurance that he is right there and I can reach out to him as and when I want to. I try to feel his presence sometimes when I am in a dilemma and I want him to show me the right way. I try to savour each day more so now cos I realize how sudden and unpredictable this life can be. But happiness is not how happiness use to be. It just doesn’t feel the same. Its hollow, empty and lifeless. But times have to change right. That bubbly feeling will be back someday. Life can’t be static and frozen in time forever. It will change and maybe it already is and I don’t realize it until the sunshine hits me on my face yet again. Alas sunshine I seek you now and forever and ever.

One day at a time, one day at a time....

"Hi, my name is Jerry and I'm an addict. I've been clean for 89 days. My mind is clearer, and... I think it's getting better. Every day, a little bit. But I wanna talk about this dream I keep having. It always starts with me stealing silverware. Then I go sell it to this guy who I used to know who owned a catering service. Then with the money, I go to this place where I used to buy my drug of choice, and... he's not around. So I go to other spots, right, but for some reason, no one is around. All of Seattle is dry, and then I get that feeling... the dread... and I panic. And I start running, and it's raining, and it gets dark. And then I'm in my old apartment, and I'm thrashing right through it, looking for something I might have stashed away. And I think I'm having a seizure. And then I find a balloon hidden in my suitcase. So there I am... with a bag of junk in one hand, and the money for my next fix in the other... and I feel at total, utter peace. And I wake up. One day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time. Thank you."

Things We Lost In The Fire

Visions about...

'Do I sleep, do I dream, do I wonder and doubt? Is things what they seem, or is visions about?'"

And then there was the rain.......

I am sorry if I have became the Queen of sad posts the last couple of months. But now I think I have had enough of feeling bad about myself and everything around me. My blog was not all about self pity always. When I first started blogging I think I was a much happier person. I had even tried my hand at fiction for a bit only to revert to writing about the happenings in my life. Sigh! Sometimes when I look back and read about all the drunken escapades and shenanigans and the fun I had in the process of trying to get out of the self made disasters it is so hard to believe that yes that too was me. Was that really me who did all of that? Hahah! Isn’t it weird watching yourself evolve as a person and grow up even if its post 25? 
And so there was this glorious rain and these women who don’t let me be sad for too long, who manage oh so beautifully to disperse all the negativity away. I have had so much fun amidst all the commotion and running around all thanks to my girl friends who came down despite the fact that its middle of the year and no holiday season. I love them for doing so cause they have made the last one month of my life so much more bearable and there was so much to look forward to despite the grief. So there was Batty who comes down right at the beginning and hangs around with me when all the formalities were being attended to. Be it running to the courts, the banks and the post offices she was there by our side. I was so sick of attending to the guests but she wouldn’t bat an eyelid as she served them time and time again and helped my Mum out. My family totally fell in love with her hahah! My younger sister is Batty’s biggest fan as they drove around town looking for shady corners to grab a breather in the middle of all the madness. Non-drivers like me weren’t a part of that ritual. Sigh!
We’d go back to her guest house each evening and I made her travel in autos, buses and all modes of transport but the tram heheh! She said Calcutta reminded her so much of Bombay where she had worked and lived a long long time back. I remembered a time when I wanted to make a life for myself in Bombay and look where I landed up everywhere but in Bombay hahah! Her last evening was when we got some time to ourselves and we went to Someplace Else and had a drink bracing ourselves for whatever was to come our way. We were drenched from head to toe, shivering as we felt really proud of our judicious sense to take a bus instead of a cab only to get caught in the first thundering rain of the season. We ran from under the flyover to the beginning of Park Street looking for a shade and finally just started laughing at ourselves for even trying to avoid the raindrops. We entered Park Hotel looking like a couple of bedraggled crows but with not a care in the world about our appearance. Yeah Batty we have chilled in Calcutta too now besides Pune, Bombay, Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore hehehe!
Then of course there was the celebrated Professor or Fino as we call her who dropped by on Saturday and I was jubilant just seeing her beaming face get out of the big yellow taxi hahah! I could spend quality time her cos it was only us now and the stream of relatives have stopped visiting us. Shikha had come down too so we had a girly time complete with Miss Lemony Pie. I think we landed up at “The Street” every day in the afternoon and those two couldn’t stop taking pictures of the city be it the trams or the Victoria Memorial and the black and white taxis. We went book shopping too as Shikha picked up books for each one of the booklovers. You should have seen the smile on Fino’s face who landed up with a double whammy. Then we met a very cute boy and his cartoonish friend with ringlets and goggle eyes who wouldn’t stop asking me questions until I was compelled to ask him to stop interviewing me hehe!
Fino, Miss Lemony Pie and I even went to Tangra (China Town) for lunch. I wanted her to have a taste of the my beloved Calcutta Chinese food. Though I think Fino only liked the thai soup as she kept sniffling and sneezing with some allergy that is so characteristic of her. A day earlier we had gone to the club for lunch with Ma. It was raining and we were sitting by the golf course just watching the rains and it was the prettiest sight. Fino and I did a round of New Market and after a very longtime I walked around lanes and bylanes in mild drizzle, munching the brownies from Nahoum’s ( Jewish Bakery) showing her the old hotels inhabited by seedy foreigners and drug peddlers. The mustiest bookstores were the biggest and the most exciting discovery of the day. Fino was fascinated by the piping hot scented tea being sold in the clay cups and we gorged on momos in a Tibetean eatery called Momo Plaza. We did Flury’s too as we had a chocolate truffle and tiramisu that tasted divine. Fino even saree shopped with Ma for a saree for her Mum. She settled for a black and white cotton and silk creation as she felt that would be the safest bet considering how choosy the mothers can be about sarees.
Ooops I so forgot to mention there was SMM too who came home visiting me and gifted me a lovely glass ganesha for luck and it did get me luck girl.I wish I could have spent more time with you but alas we were surrounded with people. But again atleast we met up.
So quite an eventful last one month I have had and I miss these whacky friends of mine who come down all the way from Bangalore and Delhi just to make sure I am fine.  I think I am quite alright and yeah I got a job too after all that cribbing and crying I finally landed up with one when I least expected it hahah! Here’s to a new beginning yet again.

A day in the life of a nameless, faceless, jobless individual!

She gets up each morning to her Mum urging her to have a cup of tea before she heads out to work. By 8 in the morning she is alone in that empty house that is filled with remnants of her Father’s bygone existence. Has it really been a month that he left them for his happy hunting grounds? She has her bowl of oats and milk and sits online looking for jobs here, there and everywhere. Its almost a routine now. She cannot get herself to read any books cos her mind isn’t at peace. She so hates not working, she so hates being the one whose isn’t moving on unlike the rest. She feels stuck in the most horrible time bubble and keeps waiting for it to burst. But it doesn’t, just doesn’t and by 11 she is in tears again, cursing her luck for having wrecked havoc in her life.
Na she cannot keep up with this so she gets out in the afternoon like she does almost each afternoon when she lands up in Park Street waiting for her girl friend to come meet her so that she could listen to her crib about the lack of eligible bachelors in the city or pre-empting the consequences of possible spinsterhood. For those couple of hours she tries to forget her jobless state and how much she misses how it use to be living before. Now it just seems like a bottomless pit of darkness that enshrouds everything. Happy thoughts have become alien cos sometimes she feels happiness has given up on her. She just wanted live the normal life, do the normal things the normal way. Life wasn’t supposed to be a movie all melodramatic where one looses everything but then it assumed this movie like quality that too a tearjerker. The hardest part was gonna be the comeback though.
She sits in the Oxford Bookstore everyday with a book in her hand listening to old Bengali songs being played in the background and realizes this city revels in nostalgia and times gone by and she had to be here of all the places now. She doesn’t like being home alone in the afternoon hence the trips to Park Street and the endless Metro rides to reach there. She likes travelling by the Metro in the afternoons because its quiet and somehow empty Metro stations always fascinated her, something about being alone in the heart of the earth and the tricks played by the sound of the wind . As a child she’d be enthralled by the colourful graffiti on the walls in the station done by unknown artists who had been commissioned to make the grey and sterile stations look alive.
She is on her way home in the crowded bus when she gets that call. Yeah well maybe there could be that one chance of the bubble bursting. The next day there is a sense of purpose in her. She has to go to the High Court to pick up a book This place hadn’t changed a bit in 6 years. Old Post Office Street is as old and grimy as ever and Emerald House is as green and ugly. Even the lawyers with their black cloaks and blazers look as excited as they use to. Back then when she was interning in one of the law firms even the sight of the sea of black and white irritated her cos she thought she’d never fit in and hell she always wondered where was all that enthusiasm coming from even in that horrible, rainy and moist weather.
Today it was different. She looked around with wonder in her eyes as she saw many running around from the High Court to the District Court or vice versa. Some Court Clerks were getting judgements and documents photo copied while most lawyers were heatedly arguing on some point of law or happily agreeing to each others points of view. Waaahh the Bengalis will never change she thought and smiled to herself. She found the bookshop and asked for Taxmann’s Corporate Laws Manual. She paid the bill and as she took it in her hand she got that thrill that was missing in her life for the last month and a half. She remembered the interviews that were disastrous, the house she left in a hurry, the packing done in 2 hours, coming home and that fateful day at the crematorium when everything changed. She saw her Mum’s smiling face and her sister’s tears when she was saying goodbye. Everything flashed past by and then she remembered how her Dad would call her up when he had a legal query and how she had finally begun to answer some of them before he fell sick. She felt this strange feeling of peace and strength as she opened the book. Oh how she missed it, all of it. She turned around and picked up that form for finally getting enrolled into the Bar. Ah well yeah she was finally one in that sea of black and white.

Lets smoke it all away

I don’t crave for smokes anymore. Weird isn’t it when at one time all I wanted was to be able to have that one smoke after work in the evening and I was perfectly content. I never was much of a chain smoker actually and I started smoking really late at 22 and I am almost 26 now. So 4 years of smoking almost continuously but not in profuse amounts and I could go weeks without smoking every time I headed home. But of course there have been those evenings when one puffed cigarette after cigarette with drinks loosing count and ignoring that tiny voice in my head that always knew and still knows how my lungs loose a little bit of life with every drag I take. But last couple of months I think I took a conscious decision to steer my mind away from craving for a smoke after work, or in the morning and even while drinking. I think secretly I was so glad when the smoking ban was implemented though publicly I have cursed the authorities for doing so time and time again but I have cut down on a lot of smoking because of the ban and I confess I am too lazy to be haunting the smoking rooms time and time again or to stand outside a club on a rainy, freezing evening and puff away at my smoke. I take the easy way out and don’t smoke at all if I need to be making so much of an effort for that one cigarette. I use to suffer from asthma as a teenager and for years I carried an inhaler in my bag just incase I needed it. Honestly smoking actually increases my breathlessness and decreases my capacity to run long stretches on the tread mill and I hate the stench of stale smoke when people come back to the confines of an air conditioned office after a smoke. I can make out chronic chain smokers by their dark lips, bad teeth and nicotine stained fingers. I can pin point those television news anchors who smoke too much cos their teeth scream tobacco abuse and it shows even in front of the camera. . Hypocrite ain’t I?
Why am I discussing smoking and the various disadvantages that tag along with it today? Well it was father’s day yesterday and my Dad won’t be around for the first time in almost 26 years cos he passed away from lung cancer exactly two weeks back. I know its genetic predisposition, destiny and a host of other factors some known and some unknown but the truth also being that it was the chain smoking in his hay days that might have triggered the cancer. As a child I remember being asked to run errands by my Mum and also to pick up a pack of cigarettes for my Dad. They have had incessant arguments of quitting the stick but somehow Dad would make excuses and smoke one a day or half a day. My Dad loved his alcohol but he never had a paunch or a beer belly. In fact he had abs cos he jogged some 9 kms every morning even at 57. I know there are stories of people smoking a pack at 70 and still being all hale and hearty well my Dad was a decorated officer (an infantry officer mind you) of the Indian Army for 32 years and the fittest 57 year old I have seen by far and all it took was 6 months of cancer and he is no more.
I don’t even wanna get into how the last 6 months have been as we saw our lives being turned upside down and all the happiness being sucked out of it. Everything we believed in was systematically shred to pieces. But like they say time is the best healer and as the days are passing by and the intensity of losing him lessens I can be more objective about this and I realize that this was the way it was supposed to be. Like Ma said its been 2 weeks now and then it’ll be a month, and gradually a year and years will pass by. We’ll move on like we are moving on but it still breaks my heart thinking he might have been around if not for the misdiagnosis and if he’d been a little more careful and paid more heed to the advice on quitting the cigarettes years back. Everybody who smokes doesn’t necessarily die of lung cancer but a lot of them do and my Father did. I am scared for myself sometimes and I know I should quit really soon. I wonder when I’ll have the will power enough to do so and till that day I’ll keep fighting this battle of restricting myself to one smoke a week or half a smoke with a drink on a weekend.

Big Girls Don't Cry

Thats what they say. Maybe they do cry sometimes like I have done so. I have cried buckets and buckets and now it seems none of the tears are left inside of me. We do become numb eventually however cliche it sounds. I wanna thank all who have been around the last 6 months walking every step along with me or some who walked a part of it but walked with me nonetheless. And people I am really apologetic for sounding like an emotional fool but maybe sometimes we have to be allowed the luxury to indulge in our stoopid, nonsensical emotions.

Batty and Fino: For being the rocks that they always have been. Guys what would I have done without you? Be it my personal failures or the adversities of life you have been there. Need I say anything more. Be it the dreams or the self made disasters you guys stood by me and I love you for that.

Red Head and Akku: You might not have been there in person but were always there in spirit and I know that. Red Head I know there were so many times you and I wanted to talk but we just did not know what to say to each other. That time at your wedding was one of the loveliest times I had and I'll always cherish those memories and I am so glad I could make it and spend sometime with you. Akku we have been living in different countries for 5 years now but it doesn't seem so cos you are always around in one way or the other. Sorry for not being able to make it for your shaadi. You know how unexpected all of that was.

Miss Touch Me Not( who doesn't read my blog) and She: Guys I really appreciate the effort made by both of you to come down and see me in Bangalore. I love both of you lots and lots despite everything really even if I seem distant and indifferent now.

Sagy: My roomie, my cooking buddy, my fellow social worker we have to, have to go to Africa and work there sometime much to Rishi's horror hahaha! Those 4 months with you were so idyllic and perfect and I could not have asked for better roomies than you and hottie Richa. :-)

Shikha: Darn I had to take your blogger name sorry but you wouldn't have figured it was you. I know we haven't spent half as much time like we probably have with the rest of our friends. Thank you for having been walked that length be it just giggling with me about our perennially single status or advising me on my career and helping me out with it. That evening in Firangi Paani well I haven't had so much fun minus alcohol for a longtime. Lots of love and luck to be coming your way I am sure.

Jinu: For being the bestest blogger buddy anybody could have ever asked for. Twinnie we shall definitely meet again. I know I left my life there all of a sudden but you know how everything fell apart. You and I have a long long way to go and those exams have to be aced. Thanku for being with me through the times of the cherry blossoms. I had so much fun in that Tattoo Parlour woman. :D

Meggy: For being that most inspiring colleague, friend and a whole lot more. Girl we'll definitely make it and we shall be sitting across the table from Walrus and negotiating the deal on our terms. You wait and watch.

Economist and Motu Boy: I miss you both lots and wish you guys were around. I wanna spend a lot more time with you, Batty, and Finoo and the entire mad bunch together.

Finally my Daddy for being the strongest and bravest Daddy. I know I was never the quintessential Daddy's little girl but I couldn't have asked for anybody but you as my father. You shall be missed immensely. I know you are looking over us from up there and I can see that drink in your hand and goofy smile on your face and can almost hear your laughter.

You could be my someone

I wish we were built to function as single entities, independent units who don't crave human touch as often we do. Sometimes I think that feeling of so near yet so far is maddening. I can see you, hear you, almost touch you and I'd like to know you and so would you but I know we never will. I don't wanna be meeting the likes of you any longer. I don't wanna be meeting the kinds with whom I can instantly relate to, have so much fun with during the course of a couple of hours but realise I can't have more for whatever reasons. Yes I really wish I could be custom made to operate as a single unit who can survive completely on her own. I can see the loneliness sometimes. Its amazing how many of them are out there. I am scared they shall be able to see through my veil too. Yes wouldn't it be so much easier if that very need of wanting to be with someone was erased?

"Alone, all alone nobody, but nobody can make it out here all alone."

Maya Angelou

All thats left has gone away

I never thought I'd say this but I am so gonna miss this quaint lil lawyer's office with its traditional wooden interiors and leather upholstery. I am gonna miss the sunny rooms and the fully stocked kitchen and the patch of small garden where we got out to answer our phone calls. We were even getting an aquarium each and were gonna choose our own fishes. I am gonna miss the books soooo much and I loved the funky book cases Walrus and the Preety Maid had designed. You name the book and they'd order it for us. I know most law firms function the same way but I ain't gonna be working in one very soon and maybe thats why I am feeling a teeny meeny bit nostalgic leaving all of this behind. I also realise that one tends to romanticise the past and sometimes we completely overlook the bad times. But the bad times for what it was worth over here have taught me lessons to last me a lifetime. I would have never ever learned the intricacies of researching or drafting if I hadn't worked over here and being a lawyer these two are the intrinsic skills required to succeed in this field wherever I go and whatever legal work I am involved in. I discovered that I am good at researching and I know I can find out those sections and a particular statute faster than my colleague and Boss. I so love this MacBook and even the thought of working on the Dell is giving me jitters. Hmphhhhh! I am gonna buy an Apple as soon as I save enough money.

If I want I guess I can make these 7 months sound like the worse time of my professional life but I choose not to do that. We take away something from every experience in life however brief or long it would be and I am carrying back a treasure trove of skills with me that shall come in handy tomorrow. And also that will to survive and the urge to prove them wrong. I know someday I am gonna be sitting across the table with Walrus proud of what I achieved in life and to think I probably took that first real step towards my dreams because he didn't have faith in me. :-) Its not that I don't have my bad days when I lament over the state of my life both professional and personal. Just yesterday I was speaking to my Aunt and I was choked with emotion wondering yet again why us, why me? I put the music on loud so that my roomie could not hear me and I howled my heart out cos thats exactly how far my dreams seemed to be and the road ahead isn't gonna be easy.

I know I'll have to work harder than others at that particular exam. Someone said I'll breeze through it but I know I won't. I know I'll feel dejected now and again and sometimes shall be on the brink of giving up. But I always pray that I don't loose that end in sight and this is just the means to an end. There isn't gonna be any space or room to be doing what I want to in my own sweet time for a longtime now. I am not going back to a happy home and things have taken a complete turnaround. But they say life also gives back to us all that it takes away. So last morning while I listened to Kelly Clarkson's " My Life Would Suck Without You" and shed some tears I told myself exactly how life would compensate for its unfairness. I keep waiting for that one sign that it shall become better. I keep praying and longing to see that miracle.

No I don't get any answers at all ever. The funniest is when people crib about the nonsensical things in life and I am amazed that those things stand nowhere in my life any longer and just 6 months back all I did was to complain about the very same things. I can't relate to that thinking any more and it just seems to be a luxury now. I realise I have grown older in my head and the change is glaring to me although unless you know me really well you'd never figure. It is still me though, the older frivolous me is probably hidden somewhere in the nooks and crannies in some dusty corner of my mind. I don't know if she'll get a chance to come out in the near future but I can live with that. All I want is that other life I yearn to have. I know I will, yes I know I will.
“ You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world. I had to feel the exuberance that comes from utter confidence in yourself. Without it, you go down to defeat. ”

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
comic actor, filmmaker, writer

Nobody said this was easy....

It took 25 whole years for real life to come knocking at my door and now I can't wait for it to get over and for the rest of my life to begin. Why am I talking in riddles? Today while making dinner (methi chicken) I realised that cooking is one of those rare things that comes easy to me. I have forgotten how the word "easy" use to sound like or how it feels when it isn't too difficult and everything falls into place miraculously. Yes I have been on one of those pensive moods. But so would you be if you get up on a Monday morning realising well I don't need to go for work any longer and that I have actually given my resignation letter but why am I still feeling guilty for sitting at home for a legitimate reason? Thats what the last 8 months or so have done to me and I can't even sit at home for a day without work and not feel guilty.

Why do I have to pack up time and time again and start from scratch? So this is the price I have to pay for the life I lead before and all my past shenanigans. I don't drink at all these days and its hard to imagine a me that drank copious amounts for the longest time. Jinu and I went to Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday and had 2 glasses of fresh lime soda and spoke and spoke as if the world was about to come to an end and this was the last time we were meeting. Now who goes to Hard Rock on a summer afternoon and drinks fresh lime sodas instead of guzzling a beer except for the likes of me and Jinu hahaha! There is always so so much to discuss and so much to dream, to plan, to hope and the castles in the air we build are too enticing to resist. I am gonna miss her a lot when I leave. Hmphhhh!

Seems like I have to be making the right friends just before biding adieu to this city. I made another really good friend in a space of a few weeks and I have known her forever and both of us are amazed that we never chilled before despite knowing the whole world in common. We share a love for food and we meet every weekend and try out a restaurant and a new cuisine each time. Its such good fun discussing work, love and life over a plate of tamarind chicken or dum pukht biriyani. Something very very comforting about thai red curry cos the last 3 consecutive weekends I have been having that for sunday lunch.

Batty and I have yet again charted the course of our whole "new"life out (sans lecherous, eccentric, slavedriverish employers) right from the degree, to the new country, the job, the boy to her wedding, to the new house in California and vacations to be taken together with our better halfs and the dogs and even the jokes on my better half. Yes we are definitely suffering from an insanity that comes from talking late hours on a Sunday night knowing there isn't any office to go to on a monday morning.

Yes the nightly conversations are surely gonna be missed and so is the switch from the Brit English to native tongue and back to Brit English. Its so darn easy getting use to having people around. They seem to come and go and this wretched life doesn't keep an account. Or does it?

I turn my head and go away.....

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.”

Miguel Cervantes

And thats why I got a tattoo of a phoenix when I did get one. There is so much I wanna say and so much of this has been left unsaid.I wish I could write exactly what I feel. I wish I could produce the riders just as they are on paper, the loopholes, the jagged edges that need to be evened out. But this is a blog at the end of the day and not my personal diary where I could possibly put my heart out. I wanna tell him that I could have been as good as you wanted me to be with time. I know I could have but life and circumstances had made up their mind way before. I had wanted so much and I got so little. I hate such unfinished chapters and parting in such a hurry. But we'll meet again and it'll be a different day.
This post is also for someone else whose having to quit a job she loves for the most uncomfortable of reasons. You remember the day you took this picture of my tattoo. We were so excited about meeting up on the pretext of your work in Bangalore. We liked the way life was shaping out however bumpy the road seemed to be. We never thought that this is how the journey would end. You do know that you and I will find our own little niche someday. We'll be happy, doing what we love and without compromising on your dignity and my self confidence.

One day.....

"One day, not today, not tomorrow, not this season, probably not next season either but one day, you and I are gonna wake up and suddenly we're gonna be like every other team in every other sport where winning is everything and nothing else matters. And when that day comes, well thats, thats when we'll honor them."

['We Are Marshall']

Romeo save me, I've been feeling so alone...

And the song just stuck to my head so much so that I played it a million times until I have been forbidden to play it again. Romeo never does come to save you though. Take it from me even if you hit rock bottom and think it cannot get worse it gets worse and nothing but yourself and your spirit can make you get up and start from scratch all over again. Would you want that one person to save you from the demons and shield you every step of the way? I wouldn't and I don't know about you. Sometimes though when I get glimpses of peoples lives I realise yes some of them have had it a little easier than the rest but life is a great leveller and I truly believe that. We more often than not choose our own lives and I chose this and everything that comes along with it. Well almost. I can't blame others for my fears, my inadequacies, my failures and I am standing where I am right now for I let my fear of failure play havoc in my life and now that the worst has happened I seem to be almost uneffected. Its not that I don't care. Yes I do, ofcourse I do but I cared too much, I tried too much, gave too much and sometimes the trick lies in being a tad bit indifferrent and exiting gracefully knowing nothing more could have been done and you couldn't have done it any differently. This wasn't meant to be ever. This was only how long this journey was supposed to be.

Besides I feel unless this decision had been thrust on me I would have never ever chosen to opt out of this situation. I guess I don't really have the option but to go for it now. :-) I kept pushing it back year by year but now I won't wait too long. There is a time for everything, every bloody thing. Sometimes I feel damn is this how it was supposed to be? Then why the hell was I trying to fight against the wind? If something was right here in my backyard why wasn't I aware of its existence? Eeerie this is, all of it. :-) So where has it come from and where was it all this while and why the appearance now and why does it feel so familiar? Not the scary familar but the comfortable familiar, not the you gimme the creeps familar but the warm familar. No this isn't gonna save me cos no one but me saves myself but yes it might lead me to a different road and a new direction and I like the sound of that.

Stranger Stranger Lover of Unreachable Heights

And now it was evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfilment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day. Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers.
And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing.
But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me.
It was boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His mind binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistency.
Ay, you are like an ocean,
And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides.
And like the seasons you are also,
And though in your winter you deny your spring,
Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended.
Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good in us."
I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought.
And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?
Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays,
And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself,
And of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion,
Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom:
And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.
It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,
While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.
There are no graves here.
These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone.
Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand.
Verily you often make merry without knowing.
Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have given but riches and power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.
You have given me deeper thirsting after life.
Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward, -
That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty;
And it drinks me while I drink it.
Some of you have deemed me proud and over-shy to receive gifts.
To proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.
And though I have eaten berries among the hill when you would have had me sit at your board,
And slept in the portico of the temple where you would gladly have sheltered me,
Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?
For this I bless you most:
You give much and know not that you give at all.
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,
And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.
And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness,
And you have said, "He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men.
He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city."
True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places.
How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance?
How can one be indeed near unless he be far?
And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said,
Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests?
Why seek you the unattainable?
What storms would you trap in your net,
And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?
Come and be one of us.
Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine."
In the solitude of their souls they said these things;
But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain,
And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.
But the hunter was also the hunted:
For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.
And the flier was also the creeper;
For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle.
And I the believer was also the doubter;
For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.
And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say,
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.
If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.
But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.
After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.
And he said:
Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;
Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,
And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.
Forget not that I shall come back to you.
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist.
And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying,
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.

Khalil Gibran ( Originally called "The Farewell")

Hope

While cribbing about the fact that I shall have to give up my MacBook Jinu told me that someday I am gonna have the money to buy hundreds and hundreds of MacBooks.
While cribbing about how bad I was feeling about the current situation Fino said "This was a good experience, but something you forced yourself to like and get used to. Maybe you will effortlessly fall into place in some other set up- making life a lot easier for you."
Mom says " Don't let anybody take away your dreams from you."
And I say that I wanna remember this day forever and forever. Today's one of my lowest days. But someday far far away I am gonna look back to this day as the day when I took that first step.

"Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has finally come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to be. You will look back and laugh at what has passed and you will ask yourself... 'How did I get through all of that?”

I needed inspiration and not just another negotiation.

I can probably think of a thousand different reasons stating why I'll never get there and how impossible it seems right now.I can stop thinking about it like I hadn't thought about it for such a long time. No I don't want just this, no this isn't enough. I want more, lots more. To think it was some silly song and a certain Coach in Indiana inspiring me and to think that the person who inspired me doesn't even know so hahaha! Sometimes when you get that one glimpse of somebody else's life and you are so tempted to venture out again cos it looks so happy. Maybe it'll never be just like you had imagined but close to it I guess. That would be enough. Yes that would surely be enough.The bottom line being sometimes the most outlandish things inspire us and for me that happened during the wee hours of the morning last week. :-)