Sunshine

                               Painting by Dreama Tolle Perry


She went running from one end of the building to another. It was all a maze with every floor having at least 6 court rooms and the building having different wings. She couldn’t quiet remember which court room number was the case in or even which floor. She was running short of time as the Judges began their proceedings for the day, sharp at 10. The court rooms smelt of a curious mixture of old paper, that decaying smell that comes from the stacks and stacks of dusty files, piled one on top of the other and a clinical smell of the disinfectant that strips away every bit of the individual character of the rooms and brings them all to an equal level, much like a Court wherein the barriers and divides between the two parties are broken for just that short span of time before the Judge.

It was a cold winter morning in December and the court rooms were draughty with wind whistling in through the cracks of the window panes and one could see the city shrouded in fog. Winter was late this year and the predictable meteorological department had not been able to predict the sudden offset of winter. She still hadn’t found the correct court room because all the rooms looked identical in every floor. All she remembered of that particular court room that day had been the sunlight that had come flooding in through the west facing windows. That court room had been oddly devoid of any dampness and the Judge had seemed particularly vigorous and lively.

Just five minutes to go and there were 6 rooms left for her inspect and find out the correct court room or had she mistakenly missed it when she saw a shaft of sunlight being reflected on one shining wooden door. She ran inside through the half opened door and there it was, all brown and warm with polished wooden surfaces, the sunniest Court Room of all, in the dark and dingy District Court Complex.

The one in which it feels like 2006 and we watch some more television and crib some more.

By the looks of it, it seems that, this just might be the first December in 5 years that I don't mess up, rather  ***K UP royally. Wow! Or am I reacting a little too early. Hahah! I don't know. But for once I am not in the midst of some random romantic entanglement with one of those vague yet obnoxiously attractive("only to me") men. My status in life right now would be "Not looking for another romantic disaster. I need time to breathe pleaseeee!" Don't I say this everytime and every single time I get into something worse than the last time. Hmmmpphhh! When am I gonna get it right as in not try at all. I don't need to give everything a shot, okay not everything but even almost everything a shot. I need to sit around quietly doing my thing and not look for romance at all. How do you that? How does one stop hoping completely? That is never going to happen, the not hoping part.

Oh and I received useful advice from someone who earns his living doing something which is a glorified and a much fancier version of what I do or the kind of role he has is what I see myself doing ten years down the line. He agreed that I wouldn't want to be so very specialised with my knowledge at 28 but at the end of the day everybody needs to master some domain knowledge and that was what struck me. I am gonna keep this little piece of advice in my head.

My evenings are devoted solely to my new LED television. I watch 3 solid hours of television and the highlight being the one hour of Masterchef USA. Somewhere in the middle I manage to rustle up dinner and exercise but all of that is done with the television on. Reading has taken a backseat but I am sure it'll be back with a bang. It always has and always does. Oh and with the new tv and the new geyser I have spent almost all my salary so I actually have no option but to sit at home and watch TV and eat home cooked meals.

Batty and I watch the same television programs, she at her place at fancy Bandra(forever cribbing about I only have one room ya) and me in my empty, large apartment in akin-to-satellite-township so not fancy Dwarka, while talking on the phone and we talk about the same thing at least 3 days a week and it feels so 2006, just that we are like 5 years older now and we really need to grow up and move on but alas something will never change. The cities have changed from Chennai to Bombay and Delhi respectively but the singlehood blues have only taken on strange proportions now. Hahaha! But a large part of it is just spent laughing at ourselves and I genuinely feel that laughter cannot be that bad. :)

"Lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it. If you are happy in your head, then solitude is blessed and alone is okay."

Tanya Davis

And I am a fame whore.

                                Coutesy: http://www.popartmachine.com/

I was talking to an old college friend of mine last evening about the recent happenings in my life namely the deal that went awry. He listens to my whole story in detail and chuckles and says “After having known you for 10 years and having been witness to some of your shenanigans and heard the rest, this was the only one that was missing. This is like the cherry on the cake. “ I was like how can you say that? You think I like doing these things to myself or I like the fact that these things happen to me knowingly, unknowingly or voluntarily or involuntarily. No I don’t, at least not all the time. When I was younger and something/anything amusing would happen it would be one story to be told to the entire gang even if they were sitting across 7 oceans. I remember calling up P in London and keeping her up to date with stories of my misdeeds. This particular episode wasn’t that. It is not something I would add to my repertoire of stories fondly. I wasn’t getting cheap kicks even relating this incident. Emotionally it was exhausting even if I wasn’t exactly in love or anything remotely to being in love. It was just relief and whew when it was over.

I know when I am old and look back on my twenties,  it would be a youth well spent, chequered with the most bizarre and funniest happenings, but all my mistakes, well I am still embarrassed about some of them, the wrong judgments and all of that. There would be a couple of incidents I would want to go back and change and no they wouldn’t be the ones dealing with unrequited love or failed love affairs but the times when I made a terrible judgment or a stupid weak moment and so much was lost in the process. The only other thing I would obviously change would be to have my Father back in my life. The more I grow older, the more I miss the man. I didn’t think I would think about him every single day, not the fact that he passed away the way he did but just the simple truth that he isn’t there to laugh about something silly or that he isn’t available to just call and bug and crib about nonsensical things or even throw a tantrum. Even in my most weakest moment just before I made a terrible terrible fool of myself I have thought about him and missed him. The truth also is that after Dad’s passed away and if I am single I cannot handle more than 4 drinks in my system.

And I am not a fame whore. I like attention only from the closest people in my life. I know I have a colourful past but yeah it is just that. I am anything but complacent about it nor can I deny its existence. It is just there and always will be there.

Self Pity Is A Dead End Road

                                                    Painting by Mark Schwartz

You were gonna be in LA and I was going to Boston and we would’ve met up at New York. Hahaha!

Last night you told me you were tired of listening to the same thing I have said again and again over the course of the last 5 years and I agreed. On my thirtieth year I had better live up to that promise or else it’ll be one of those things I never ever did in spite of wanting it so badly, like my insides ache badly.

And yes for the last 5 years we have spent an enormous amount of time apologizing or feeling dejected for the people we are, we were or have turned out to be. No more. This is me. Take it or leave it. Yes I goof up sometimes, be it in my personal life, my relationships, at work and even if you don’t believe me but the goof ups ain’t always intentional. I am an idiot to have worn those goof ups on my sleeve but please point out another person who’ll accept the fact oh so readily that she can be wrong, frightfully wrong and acknowledge that it could’ve been done another way, a better way. Believe you me I try and I won’t become that changed person in a day. But I am getting there. I know I am. :)

Cheers to that.

This is something I read which expressed so articulately what I should tell myself when I am down and out.

“I’m a socialist at heart, but when it comes to the actual, individual way we live our lives, I adhere to an entirely pull-oneself-up-by-one’s-bootstraps creed. Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.”