Dilli Meri Jaan...

So I am off. Yet again. Another journey comes to an end. A journey that began one chilly winter night in Morri with an acquaintance who went on to become a flatmate, a drinking buddy, a partner in crime and most importantly a friend who traversed a part of this journey with me. I remember how sceptical yet happy I had been when I came to Delhi. I had no illusions about how it was gonna be and having lived alone since 18 I knew I could handle most situations. But yeah I definitely did not know that this was what there was in store for me. Strangely it is only when you look back you realise how different reality is from the picture conjured up in your mind. You think this is gonna be a particular way but it turns out fundamentally differently. You chalk out a plan and want things to work out accordingly but things have a way to work out themselves. Otherwise how could I explain the comings and goings of people in my life and the funny course it took? How could I ever explain how desperate I had been for a change in job and looking around for over a year proved to be futile until I gave it up and said enough is enough and I am gonna apply for a Masters and that’s precisely the reason why I went to Pune, to sort out the documentation needed for applying for an LLM. But the bigger picture was slightly different. So here I am with a new job and a brand new city that I quite like coupled with Finooooo and my wicked younger sister and I am sure this is gonna be a heady combination.
What do I say goodbye to? I say goodbye to Delhi, the city I wasn’t born in, or grew up in, the city I never went to college in and except for an internship and two of my closest friends from college, the city with which I had no association with. I landed up in Delhi quite unexpectedly almost two years back and to be honest I haven’t felt out of place even a moment over here. I fell in love with it that one winter month I spent here over 3 years back and I continue to do so. It is not home cos home will always be Cal, can only ever be Cal. I wouldn’t have as poignant recollections attached to it like I do with Pune but I do have the most colourful tapestry of memories painted in my mind whenever the word Dilli will come up. I do know that I found a part of my self identity in this city and I wouldn’t be me without having spent some of the formative years of my twenties in this city.
I can’t possibly write about Delhi like a native Dilliwallah but I know that the most alluring quality of Delhi for me was the bouncy feeling it gave me every time, each time I came back. How happy I’d get when the cab would take me back to GK 2 through India Gate and the pang of envy I’d feel when we’d cross the High Court. How longingly I’d look at IIHC and the promises Khan Market always held. Morrisson became a second home after the initial disappointment of Turquoise Cottage shutting down faded away. I’d become such a South Delhi girl and I cribbed about travelling to Gurgaon or even CP saying “ Dude why can’t we meet at Def Col. Why CP? Tis too far.” Midnight drives from the Savirtri flyover to the airport, getting lost at the Noida toll road with barely any fuel in the car and praying to God that it lasts till the next petrol pump , the car breaking down on Lodhi road at 12 at night and putting the car windows up and chatting nineteen to dozen forgetting to keep a check on time as we waited for the mechanic to come. Those farmhouse parties at Chhatarpur where one could get totally talli on Patiala pegs and countless colourful shooters and flirt shamelessly with your forgotten crush knowing fully well this is not becoming with the sober and sedate image you have created but also knowing that worst comes to worst you will be taken care of cos there are countless people keeping an eye out for you. This is the place I learnt how to party till weee hours in the morning and still make it to office by 9 but what I also learnt was that living this lifestyle could also mean the death of my professional life and so I chose to lead a more peaceful existence. This is also the city where I met my almost mirror image, had the sweetest and the most bitter time of my life. But I had to let go cos sometimes that’s the best one can do for oneself. Evenings spent around the bonfire, winter time and the heater we carried from room to room as we changed our location. Meals at Pandara road, shopping at Sarojini and Janpath, M, Block Market, Kasbah, Cafe Fair Child, Cafe Turtle and Big Chill.
I could go on and on and on. Delhi is my comfort zone and I am quite surprised myself that I am ready to leave it and move ahead well aware that I leave behind a life I cannot come back to. I am being so clinical about this decision without a fear in my mind. But isn’t it always like this. We embrace something new with an inkling of what it can be like or maybe not even that. We move on and we don’t look back with any regrets. We don’t have that luxury. We’ll face whatever adversity comes our way and we will make our way through cos this is the beginning yet again.

Come Walk With Me Down The Memory Lane

Last Night I dreamt we were back to where it all began. That Red Head had long black curly hair, piercings all over and her irrepressible sense of humour was intact( she was yet to meet the cute boy) , Fido Dido was still the tall thin beanpole of the distant guy I fell in love with and Fino her usal confident self the one who would make a difference , while She was one of those friendly seniors who’d help you out and show you around as you entered this new world and an even more bewildering city. I saw Motu as he was when I first met him and the darling he had been and continues to be 7 years down the line. I saw Miss Touch Me Not as reserved and icy she seemed to be back then and can still be today. I saw Goldilocks, the simple girl she had been, minus her designer airs and not the Miss Bling Bling and diet control freak she has turned out to be. I saw myself all shy, naive, eager to please and a little apprehensive, not quite sure of myself and wondering where had I landed up amongst this mixed bag. There were others too, those we lost on the way, who never walked the entire length and didn’t play that important a role in my life. But these few people did and in some ways continue to do so.

Why the sudden nostalgia? The reason being I was in Pune for a week and it opened floodgates of memories. When I left Pune two years back I didn’t wanna come back to the city ever again and this time when I visited it I couldn’t have been more happier. I was running away and needed time off on my own, do what I want to, when I want to, not be bogged down by social commitments, not having to share my space with people, not worry about the bills, the groceries and yada yada yada and I got all of that and much more. I got to spend time with Red Head after such a long time and tis was lovely. Miss Touch Me not , Red Head and I spent hours and hours reminiscing old days, our infamous episode with the cops, living together with a psychotic flat mate, me making Miss Touch Me Not take me to the loos of 5 Star hotels just to take a dump at the most unearthly hours cos we had no water at home, watching the silliest of movies with Red Head at Rahul ( which btw is so jazzed up and has been redone and doesn’t look like the derelict old theatre it was) and Cute Boy( her fiancé now) would drop us to the theatre and pick us up after the show was over as he wanted to have nothing to do with movies like “ Padmashree Lalu Prasad Yadav” . Yes Yes there was a movie like that a couple of years back. Red Head and I got seats in the stalls and we laughed and laughed to the utter astonishment of the locals and we were the only two girls in the hall .
Once Fino, Red Head and I had gone to see Munnabhai and that one scene when Sanjay Dutt is asked to dissect this starved and emancipated body and I couldn’t stop giggling at the body cos I found it so funny and I laughed out of my wits until both of them got suitably annoyed and walked out of the movie. Another time we guys went for some college fest where Salman Khan was to be the guest of honour. We waited all evening patiently as they kept saying “ Sallu aaya rey”. In retrospect how could we do so? Salman came and went and all Red Head and I had done was to express amusement at the reactions of the star struck girls as they screamed and oohed and aahed. Salman wasn’t half as interesting as his fans were. Sigh!

I digress time and again. Nostalgia can be oh so very tempting. This trip was quite a whirl wind affair cos we were there for a specific purpose. I needed to collect some documents from college. The whole day would be spent running from pillar to post in college trying to get my work done. The evenings would be spent with Red Head and Nik as both of us waited for them to come home we’d chill at home, playing cards, checking out pictures, reading my blog, and exchanging notes about life and how it has been treating us. We even saw “Grudge” as I convinced them saying it is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. We’d joblessly sit around watching Big Boss as Red Head made such a big fuss on how she wanted to save Sanjay Nirupam and not Raja from elimination and how hard she tried messaging but failed to do so and in exasperation said “ Sorry Sanjay I could not save you”. We had lunch at Zaffran which is the prettiest open air restaurant I have ever been too and serves an amazing buffet for lunch on weekdays. It was windy and beautiful as we gorged on delicious food and an even yummier dessert of chocolate mousse that Nik ordered. The day we landed we had been taken out for lunch by Miss Bling Bling to Malakka Spice and I adored the casual and laidback ambience of the place and the spicy Thai Curry, the brown rice and the Khau Suay which was surprisingly cooked in a fundamentally different way from the way it is in Delhi. I should also mention Post 91 another joint where we had a lazy Saturday Lunch. The Irish Stew was mouth watering and the desserts were to die for.

We wined and dined and I shopped quite a bit as we women went a little berserk at Body Shop cos there was a sale on. I bought the sweetest smelling Chymara Eau De Toillette and the Moonflower body lotion. ( Naiceee) . Oh and not to forget I bought books and books from Odyssey and Crossword and I have 7 books waiting to be read. Nah 5 now as I read 2 on the train itself. I simply lurveee the Apple Martinis we had at High Spirits and the cutesy trinkets, beads and hair bands they were handing out cos the theme was retro. We checked out the boutiques at Koregaon Park that had some appealing stuff from Thailand and each one of us picked up something that we wore the same night to High.

All in all I had a lovely time. On the way back we drove down to Bombay and took the Rajdhani back and I was feeling Pune Sick. Lord I haven’t felt Pune sick for years now. What’s with us meandering, running away, trying to form different and newer ties but ending up strengthening older ones? What’s with us not realising that we’ll never share the same bond again with other people? Yeah maybe sometimes what you want is right where you left it.

And something did happen to me as I happily made other plans :-)

And what have we been up to lately? Lots and lots. Not quite as exciting as I would like to make it sound but tis been good. Weekend wasn’t so great although for a change I had two whole days off and not just the odd Sunday. But the maid didn’t turn up and all of Saturday was spent looking for ways and means to make the house look a little respectable and not like the pig sty it had started resembling. Batty Woman hadn’t been well and so I stayed over at her place. We watched a lot of TV, mainly Travel and Living, ate yummy sambar, chawal and poppadum as she moaned and wailed about what was wrong with her and how she thinks she is dying. She had this terrible cold and Giant called her at 3 in the morning and hearing her croak like a toad wanted her to sing “Smelly Cat” for him heheh! Quirky isn’t he?
I have been having the strangest of dreams lately of certain people getting married and even the idea of it did not appeal to me. I am unsure though why it did. I got up 4:30 in the morning messaging saying “ I had the funniest of dreams and you were in it. Strange.” Yes I did get a call back saying “ Stop having wierd dreams about me. :-)” Batty Woman just looked on at the TV as the expression on my face brightened up and said “ I am not saying anything.”
I am looking forward to certain things. Actually just waiting and watching and hoping things fall into place. Maybe then I would have that new start I have been wanting for the longest time. There I was so sure about how life was gonna turn up for me and there went all my plans woossshh as if someone just waved a wand and opened the Pandora’s Box of endless possibilities. She called me a nomad the other day cos I don’t seem to want to settle down in one place. But I feel I am not ready to strike roots at a particular place as yet. Thus here I am, if you happen to get a glimpse of me anywhere you’d notice the spring in my step and the song on my lips and yes I hope to be on a high.

Mostly we gushed about them together and forgot about them together!

Yup Fino and I always had a thing for similar kind of men. Invariably I’d end up liking the men she liked. The men would range from 28 year old, guitar playing, confused , engineering drop outs to slightly eccentric, bloody well read, confused and eloquent contemporaries in college to the quintessential confused boy next door. They all had one thing in common the predominant state of confusion that reigned supreme in their minds. Yes now in retrospect I recognize the confused trait in all of them. But to give them their due credit all these men, boys or lets just call them members of the opposite sex were sooo much fun. We have had the funnest times with them. Be it researching for the moot court with the eccentric lawyer when we’d invariably end up taking coffee breaks together and Fino and MR. Eccentric would be arguing on the nuances of the case and me trying to grasp all that I could to try reaching a level closer to them to meeting Boy Next Door in the middle of the night in a deserted lane and chatting non stop not realising one doesn’t make a half an hour long stop over at such an unearthly hour to staying up all night with strange guitar playing boy and singing songs the very first night we met him when everybody else we knew had hit the sack. We were foolish young girls acting on our crushes and not a worry in the world that we liked the same men almost always. Not that we did anything about them ever except for going out for drives, getting stoned or just hanging around in college or at oaks drinking away merrily. The infatuations came and flitted past by with a regularity and we were happy.
I remember telling Fino “ Nothing can ever go wrong between us.” But it did and guess it had to someday. For once she fell in love with somebody unintentionally and incidentally I had been nursing a broken heart for the same idiotic beanpole for the longest time. I remember that day vividly when both of us had tears in our eyes at the NCC canteen . She had finally figured that I knew something was not right. We were crying for the same man and this time we felt it from deep down inside. It wasn’t some silly laughable crush. Things weren’t quite right for 6 months as I tried to get over the one man I should have at 18 and not wait for so long to do so. I handled things hap hazardly and didn’t know whom to talk to cos the one person to whom I could talk to about everything , all my heartaches , my goof ups, my goals, my dreams, my aspirations was the reason why I was hurting so much. It was nobody’s fault but a twist in the plot none of us expected. We kept out of each other’s path for some time until I was fine with it. Yes I found another object for my affection and life was la di da’ again and we were back to where we had left off. We had never thought we would but there we were that rainy evening sitting in Barista as I told her about Frankenstein and how Fido Dido did not matter to me anymore and this was the only way I could have ever gotten over him.
Fino has influenced me in Law School in countless ways and I can’t even begin to thank her. She was the one who urged me to take part in my very first debate and said “ No you can do it. You are taking part. No two ways about this.” So there I was stuck in the auditorium and as they closed the doors the sinking feeling in my heart told me “ Ah well you are truly stuck. You have to, have to go ahead with the speech or else you’ll let yourself down and her belief in you down.” So I went ahead and I didn’t do as badly as I thought I would and Fino went on to win the debate with finesse and they mentioned fine performance in ‘The Indian Express” the next day. . She managed cajoling me to come for Mood Indigo when we had the most cheapest and magical of holidays in Bombay. She knew I loved singing just as much as she did but hadn’t had the courage to express it so I got a chance to sing at the Antakshari. I remember that stoned night when I wanted to go for a walk on the field and she was the only one who indulged me and both of us jumped over the ditch walked a mile just so that I could look at the stars while sitting on the grassy field. I recollect songs being sung at the top of our voices, Fino playing the guitar to the best of her ability and Red Head and I begged and pleaded her to Play “Last Kiss” once more. Every year unfailingly I would get a job in a call centre to earn some extra money and every year with clinical precision she’d convince me into quitting it to take part in the moot courts. She‘d attend my every hearing even if I’d be dying from inside cos she was in the audience and what she thought of me mattered to me the most. She was my friend, philosopher and guide. When she got through London School of Economics for her Master’s in the final year of college with a scholarship I was one of the first people she called and I remember both of us running gleefully to embrace one another cos I knew how important this was for her. I met her before she went off to London. I was about to start working in Chennai and we bid adieu. I’d always known she had the passion and zeal in her that I seldom saw in people. Now she is a lecturer at a law school, think she is the youngest lecturer in college and one could easily mistake her for a student if not for her attire and stern ways hehehe! She can still make me see reason when I am bewildered and we still express amusement at what we use to be. The greatest phenomenon being we can laugh at ourselves and the absurdities that defined our friendship then and continues to define our friendship now. Yes Fino we'll always have our moonlit nights, your guitar and you and me singing.

Thank You Boss! I knew I sinned!

Ah well there are a multitude of things to be done and I have actually been waiting for this for a long long time. I remember my first day of work and those nagging doubts in my mind that I am not supposed to be here and that I probably made the wrong decision. I have questioned myself incessantly during the course of the last two years. But I didn’t find the answers I was looking for. On the contrary I discovered a part of myself that I didn’t know existed. I realised that self loathe will take me nowhere. It’ll only worsen the situation. I had been so callous last year. I would forget dates of matters to be coming up at court, I would not maintain records like I should have, I would not update the status of cases and I would not attend the hearings in court up until my boss reminded me. To sum it all up I was a poor employee. I am ashamed to say so but that is what I was. I was living in self denial. I thought I don’t wanna be giving my whole and soul into something that I don’t love. I remember arguing with my Mother about leaving this job and how she always asked me to hang in there. I’d scream and shout and bang the phone down expecting her to understand that I hated it and why should I compromise on something I cannot even relate to.
This isn’t about finding something you love. No I am sure all of us know how important it is to be doing something you love. But sometimes maybe we have to do something we don’t like in order to get somewhere we want to. I learnt it the hard way but I did. But I did change my opinion rather reluctantly as it dawned upon me that there are lessons to be learnt from the last places you ever thought you would learn. I took tiny steps at first but I did start doing a decent job and it has been a journey of self revelation. My self esteem use to be at an all time low cos I did not seem to be getting anything right for the longest time. I wouldn’t have been happy any other way than to give my best. I am so glad I realised that. I thank the people who had the patience to bear with me. Yeah I thank my Boss. I know he’ll never read this and I wouldn’t want him to read this harum scarum blog of mine but Thank You!
Thank You for putting up with my slip shoddy work last year. Thank You for not giving it off to me when I almost lost that file. Thank You for saving my face when the easiest thing in the world would have been to spill the beans and burst the bubble. Thank You for the understanding the sort of worker I am and making sure that the work delegated to me would be over weeks before. Thank You for the unsolicited advise you gave me every now and then. Thank You for teaching me the importance of detailed research and the significance of the To Do lists. Thank You for giving me the responsibilities that you did cos hither to that I had never believed in myself. I still question myself every now and then but I also know that now I am capable of handling so much more. I recollect filling up my self appraisal form and telling Boss that I know I shouldn’t expect anything in the annual salary hike that takes place every July.
I hadn’t expected anything until the morning I landed up at work and there was mayhem everywhere as everybody tried opening the HR portal that had the individual mails stating the bonus and the hike based on the past financial year and there it was those higgledy piggledy figures that roughly told me that I’d got a decent bonus and hell I got an awesome hike. Yeayyyyyyyy! Now I have the resources to make that long pending trip to Pune for the transcripts and recommendation letters from college. I would even be able to pay off a substantial part of my credit card bill that had been weighing me down for the longest time. Paying for the applications do not seem to be an uphill task as they did even a month back. I could even squeeze in a tiny holiday to Mcleudgunj sometime in September. These little things would definitely make my life easier, give me something to smile about and these lessons learnt the hard way are the ones that ultimately make the difference between what I was, what I am today and what I can be tomorrow.
That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.

Sulk sulk ! Hmphhhhh!

I wonder where I went wrong. I am the one who goes wrong all the time. And apparently blaming myself is a fault to. You think I should be responsible for my own actions. Whatever made you think otherwise? You said you don't try too hard well I try and I am glad I do. If I didn't try I wouldn't know what it is and would have been left with a bunch of "could have beens" and "what ifs". You are happy with whatever comes your way but sometimes I want more than what comes my way. Thats only human to. I detest silly and stoopid arguments and most of all I hate the silence.Tis so easy for you to say you don't wanna talk cos you don't wanna fight since it disturbs you. So we have these periods of silence when I have to act like you don't exist until you are alright with the idea of talking to me again. It didn't bother me half as much before but now it does and I know you'll go about doing your own thing until you feel like it.
I wish I was like that. I wish it was like before when I didn't care. It didn't matter if you didn't call me for months and months. I was happy in my own make believe world. There were other things that were more important to me, other people who effected me more. I don't even know exactly when I changed my mind, but I did. I don't want these misunderstandings to come in between us especially if someone is sitting thousands of miles away and one can do precious little. I hate not talking to you. I miss you, I really do.

The likes of us lowwwwwwwweeeeeee surprises!

What a quiet weekend it has been except for Friday night and Sunday night! Well that’s almost two thirds the weekend. Isn’t it? Hee Hee! Friday evening Batty Woman and I went to Lajpat Nagar cos I had to drop off a file at a lawyer’s office and her ladyship needed to find a photo studio that would transfer her much treasured films ( the ones she’d made ) from the video tape to a DVD. We were hopping skipping and jumping from one shop to another when she finally found a Kodak Studio that would do it. Batty Woman kept hankering about having Chaat because only a day earlier we had been sorely disappointed by the Chaat at Chatak Chat in Aurobindo Market that had turned out to be insipid and minus any zing. But my eyebrows were of supreme importance to me and I was sick of looking like Kroor Singh for almost a month now. I was looking for a beauty parlour to get my eyebrows done. We found one hidden behind the momo stall in one corner of the market. I heaved a sigh of relief and ran inside but darn this was an old old place with purple walls with peeling off paint. The last time anybody would have come here must have been the early nineties. I let the woman handle my eyebrows and left the rest up to God. Batty Woman giggled and was secretly hoping I wouldn’t end up minus any eyebrows. But wonder of wonder she did such an awesome job. One shouldn’t always go on appearances i guess. Atleast not when you don’t really have too many options.
We had Papdi Chaat, drank Banta, and then Milk Shake from Keventer’s and finally Kaala Khataa Chuski. Having chuski was a novel experience altogether as Batty Woman and I between us passed the funniest and the nastiest comments on all the women walking around us in the market area. We literally ripped them apart. Felt like quite the bitch by the end of it but we were only having stupid girly fun. Our lips were bright purple and we were laughing like there is no tomorrow. I am sure the people around us would have thought we were more than a lil loony. Apparently amidst all the laughter Batty Woman was quietly also thinking of a time when there would be no chuski in the foregn lands and nobody with whom she could make fun of the whole world with. It started raining as we hurried to N block market to meet up with the Economist, She and her Boy at Kasbah for coffee. Was good fun. Later the Economist treated us to a drink each at Shalom rather tempted us with promises of cocktails and we gave in. So I had a Cosmopolitan and Batty Woman had a Strawberry Daiquiri. The Economist has this exasperating habit of taking our pictures when we are completely unaware and in some of the pictures or most of them I look retarded while Batty Woman looks pretty in all of them. Hmphhhhh!To top it all he puts them up on Facebook and we have such a merry time commenting on them. He even took a video of one of our cat fights and threatend to post it on YOUTUBE naming it “King of The World” cos Batty Woman triumphs over me at the end of it and literally sat on me screaming “ I AM THE CHAMPION” . hahaha!
Sunday afternoon Raddy got one of the biggest surprises of all times. She’d been cribbing and whining about Atti who has been in Kuwait for the last month and a half. They hadn’t been speaking properly for a couple of days and there was some miscommunication yada yada yada! Same old long distance relationship blues. The three of us were happily lazing around. Rad and Batty Woman played scrabble as I goofed around surfing the net. The bell rang and Batty Woman went to open the door. We were debating on who it would be. But Batty Woman opens the door and doesn’t say a word and in comes Atti walking jauntily with a smoke in his hand and his shades on. I almost fell off the sofa as I screamed but it was Raddy’s expression that was classic. She was on the floor as they’d been playing card scrabble. She just froze. She had no idea that he’d be coming down as he had been so uncertain about the future. It took all of us half an hour to digest that Atti had actually come back and managed shocking us the way he did. He always does this but before it would be after a weekend trip from Jaipur or the likes of it. This time he pulled off a complete international surprise hahaha! Batty Woman and I oohhed and aahhed thinking wow I wish somebody would do that for me. Batty Woman goes like “ Haaaaiiiiiii why doesn’t someone do all this for me?”
Sigh! Yes I wish somebody did spring such a surprise on me, when I least expect it. Something tangible, not fleeting, something that was here to stay, something lasting, not transient and momentary but forever.

No time to stand and stare

I spoke to this friend of mine after a long time today. We lost touch because we were too immersed in our own lives and I didn’t bother to make the effort. He was working in Bangalore in a top tier law firm and he had been picked up right after law school. I always envied him and told him so too cos he had soooooo much mullah to spare . There I was working for a construction company and earning peanuts and still am . He was a high profile associate in one of the most sought after law firms and they billed their clients a few hundred dollars per hour.
I remember this particular conversation we had when he tried to tell me why exactly I should work in an establishment such as the one he was working in.
A :- “ You know you’ll get used to the finer things in life and you won’t be able to work for a lesser salary. When you’d be able to pick up a Gucci or a Versace bag instead of the fakes one you’d know what I am talking about. You’d be able to take your folks on exotic holidays at the blink of an eye. Snobbery will become a habit and believe me it is quite a high when you meet your compatriots working in small lesser known law firms.”
Me:- “ Dude that is so not me. I can’t do that. But yeah I love the monetary benefits. Maybe secretly I’d love to turn up my nose too.” Sigh!
I never got a job in that firm and after a while I stopped pining for it since I truly believe grapes are sour . I got a surprise phone call from him today and he told me that he was resigning after a year of working for a bunch of slave drivers and that he’d been hospitalised and he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and his folks wanted him to take a break and come back home as soon as possible. He said “ I just want peace of mind P and I take back all that I told you last year. I wanna be able to spend time with myself and not constantly be pestered by SMS’s at 4 in the morning asking me to finish a particular job by 9 in the morning. I want to be able to switch my phone of and not be hounded by my bosses. Even if it means earning considerably lesser. I don’t wanna burn out this early. Hell I am only 24.”
Yeah I am only 24 too and there is time. I don’t always need to be in this rat race where I am so unsure of the destination. Maybe doing things differently isn’t as appalling an idea that I always though it was. Guess money isn’t everything though it is a vital part of life. I don’t need an original Gucci and Prada right now I am quite happy with Janpath and M Block market. I know I cannot take my folks to foreign locales but someday I will be able to and not at the cost of my sanity and health. I live a peaceful life. My Boss doesn’t treat me like his paid slave. He gives me days off when I am PMSing and am all cranky and whiny. Yes I crib about paying bills but tis alright. I get to spend the loveliest times with my friends. I get to cuddle up in a corner with my books on a rainy day. I get to blog when I wanna and most of my posts are written amidst work. I haven’t given up on all the things I love in life just to earn the frivolous luxuries.
I can sneak out for the occasional coffee with my friends in the middle of a loony day at work. I can look up at the blue blue sky, I can play in the first rain and be all gleeful and cheery about it. I can smell the roses, I can stare rapturously at the Gulmohur Tree for hours while sitting on my terrace in the evening. Yes I have time to stand and stare. 
"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

As for him well he is taking a break, waltzing off to Singapore for a couple of days,planning to learn French, spend time with his family and laze around doing absolutely nothing. heheh!

And we are not gonna drink for sometime now!!!!!!!

Friday night, three bored and suitably messed up women , a bottle vodka, driving around and what do you get the perfect recipe for a crazy night. A night which started out perfectly innocently cos I wanted to sleep early since I have been sleep deprived this whole week. I don’t know why I can’t pop into bed early like most people would do if they had work at 9 in the morning. But no I have to drive myself to this exhausted and sleep deprived state and its not that I have been on some wild partying spree. No my excuses of not sleeping have been as insipid as watching a movie on my laptop or skyping till wee hours or having Chinese at Pandara road at 1 in the morning or the the lamest one talking on the phone with my best friend Batty Woman. So last evening I told Raddy that I really wanted to make it an early night as I haven’t been getting any sleep and surprisingly she agreed. So we stepped out for a little while to pick up some liquor since it was Friday evening. After doing so madam wanted to go on a drive and drink I indulged her and said fine we’ll do so. Anyways how long would we be driving around and we would be home in an hour. So we start making drinks in the car rather I made the drinks as she drove and suddenly a bright idea flashed in my head I told Raddy “ Come lets go meet Batty Woman.” She wanted to drink too and she’d almost sighed when I had told her on the phone that Raddy and I are gonna be drinking. So I call her up and ask her to come out for a drive and her first reaction was “ Are you mad? My parents will murder me if they wake up in the middle of the night and I am not at home” . Finally after much coaxing she settled for having one drink in the car right under her house. She came down sat in the car and took a sip of my drink and as the alcohol took precedence over everything else and made its presence felt in our systems we women went on our own strange whacky trips and drunken dials to Kuwait and England and Hyderabad were made. Strangers were spoken to over the phone. Younger brother of Batty Woman was called frantically and asked to keep shut if her Mommy came downstairs. All fear was forgotten as we made numerous trips to her house to use the washroom and she sneaked us into her house in our drunken state and not to forget in a drunken stupor.
As I try to remember just snatches of conversation come back to me. Mr Light Eyes from the Middle East told me over the phone that he’d have an extra marital affair with me. Yes he is very cute but married to a model. I said I do not flirt with married men and gave the phone back to Raddy who had called to speak to Atti. Atti and Light Eyed Looser were at some yacht party in Kuwait. Batty Woman sent her her giant who is shooting a film at Hyderabad, a soppy message from my phone and forgot to write her name and lamented for 10 minutes cos Giant would think tis me confessing my undying love for him. He did nothing of that sort and called her back promptly saying “Hmmmmm what was that message all about.” Batty Woman all happy says “Giant I am drunk but I loweee you.” The things we women do under the effects of alcohol. But the funniest was when we sneaked into her house and three of us couldn’t stop laughing i. There was no reason whatsoever but we rolled on the floor and laughed. Thank god for her folks being such sound sleepers and the fact that they were sleeping upstairs. I dread to imagine what would have happened if they had been woken up by drunken antics. I wonder why we acted the way we did. I have been laughing all day just thinking about last night and remembering our girly talk. Kudos to Batty Woman and her pluck or else who would let two of her inebriated friends into her house at 1 in the morning just to use the wash room and be so drunk herself that she couldn’t walk in a straight line. We even smuggled “murukkus” out of her kitchen into the car. When Raddy and I finally got back home and I was looking for the bottle of vodka I found the empty bottle lying under the seat. I was appalled with our habits.
Batty Woman’s explanation this morning “Oh please I get carried away too easily. One slight push in the not so right direction and I forget everything and act like some super cool dare devil when the truth of the matter being if my folks had woken up last night and seen me and the two of you drunk and running around the building corridors I would have been slaughtered alive and they would have thought I do it every day at night when this is the first time and I would have been forbidden to ever meet you again.” A long pause. Hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
My first reaction this morning “ Dude what was wrong with us last night? What happened?”
Raddy’s answer “ We were marvellously drunk thats all. “ hehehe!

PS :- I still went to office at 9 in the morning just incase you think I didn’t manage getting up on time for office and its 5:30 and I am still here. Hmphhhhhh! Btw Batty Woman and I are sitting at my place this evening and watching movies and drinking only water cos even the thought of drinking disgusts me.

As good as it gets.

Its Monday today and can I please say that I haven’t suffered from the customary Monday morning blues and that I have been having a really ridiculous and a clumsy day cos I don’t know if I should be depressed or laugh or giggle or ruminate or maybe I should just lament the loss of my sanity. For starters my weekend was quite slow paced and naiceee as Batty Woman Came over with P’s good friend The Economist. Yes yes I insist on calling him that as he blushes and gets oh so embarrassed as I loudly pronounce him to be the youngest Economist I know. He is 23 so understandably so. Did I add that he is the only Economist I know too? Heheh! So he came home with a bottle of wine and Batty woman and I had got vodka too as we knew that the wine wouldn’t last too long between us. We had a mellow pleasant evening chatting up as both of them bonded over coming from the same part of the country ( the south if I may say so) and the larger than life film industry existing there and how much they miss the food and how he should come home for scrumptious south Indian lunch to her place one Sunday afternoon. Then ofcourse as cliché as it sounds but we got a little high and started talking about life and love and hope and dreams. Our man came up with a sentence that made me boil over and this was with regard to some girl he’d liked and he said “She was way out of my league.”
Before we knew it Batty Woman and I were punching him from two sides cos he would not change his opinion about that as we tried to explain how no self respecting person should think like that. So there I was sitting beside him punching his arm as Batty Woman whacked his legs and he just sat and watched a little taken aback while this other friend of Raddy’s screamed at both of us saying “whats wrong with you women? Poor guy is being bashed up the two of you and he doesn’t say a word.” We burst into laughter and so did he over our playful banter. So we dropped him home and while coming back managed getting lost at 2:30 in the morning even as Batty Woman felt mighty proud of herself cos she finally managed to smoke a cigarette while driving and chatting with me and she also felt uber cool cos having lived with her folks for close to two years now she hadn’t got to drive the car after having downed 2 glasses of wine in the wee hours of the morning. So there we were twooo happy women cruising along, singing songs to ourselves and making the most nonsensical conversation.
But to come back to my funny mood this Monday. I wonder whats wrong with me or maybe after a long long time something is right with me. I have no idea and no this hasn’t been one of those revelation days but today being one of those “nothing is going right” days I am still not feeling as bad I should. Firstly lemme give you a list of my tiny disasters. My colleague called up from Bombay a week after I’d called him and begged him to get some information related to a particular suit and I spoke to him at length for 15 minutes advising him on how he should extract the information from the concerned person and how tired I was of pursuing the matter with the same person. For once I felt soooo calm, collected & professional and not at sea cos darn I was talking to him so professionally and I sounded so confident about the matter and when I realised damn I got the required information 4 days back. Why am I talking to him at all and that hell this will only create more confusion. I managed to get myself out of the situation after some stoopid excuses and there my boss was standing right next to me. He looks at me with a cocky expression saying “ And I was thinking what on the earth is she talking about when we got what we needed 4 days back.” I mumbled some reply and sat down.
Then again I have to be checking out universities for a Masters Course as Batty Woman and I have dreamed of this for the longest time. Now very recently I am fixated with Paris so just been googling about universities in France. Now of all the times he could have got looked at my screen he decides to check out what I am doing just when I on just a whim was checking out some degree called well ahem a PHD in Physical Education. He froze. He is well aware about my aspirations of higher studies but this was way more absurd than he thought I could be. He says “ And you wanna do a PHD in Physical Education because? “ I felt like saying “Cos I wanna join the WWF” and see his mouth gape open. But again rather sheepishly I closed the window. The most embarrassing part of the day was in my pursuit of trying to dig out a file from this huge and lofty pile of files and documents palced on the common table of his work station and mine( they are almost like walls made up of files between our work desks) the entire pile toppled and all the documents fell on him. Amidst all the documents and the dust as he got up he gives me an icy look saying “How many times have I told you that if you are trying to obtain a document from the bottom you should keep the ones on top aside first and not just yank out the one at the bottom?” I apologised profusely and arranged all the documents in place and this time I made the piles towards me loftier just incase they fell they’d tumble on me :P!
I know I should have been guilty but I was dying to laugh so I ran to the pantry to call Batty Woman from the phone provided there for the pantry staff(this is what I have come down to.) as I couldn't possibly call her up sitting right under my Boss'S nose and I was giggling and laughing and she says “ Pia you are turning clumsy and neurotic and you aren’t even a bit ashamed.”Only to be followed by “You are just like me, such a sadistic bitch.”
Ah well I am such an innocent girl next door.How could you say that? Hehehe! Come on Batty Woman we are the model 20something olds living the funny lives we chose to live, laughing too much, crying even more, cribbing endlessly about the ever changing personal front, stumbling every now and then, hitting too many rock bottoms, suffering from disproportionate bouts of self pity, learning lessons from every self made disaster or at least trying to and having been blessed with the ability to laugh at our numerous misdoings knowing that we’ll probably end up doing something more catastrophic tomorrow.

To my almost soul sister

To the most gorgeus woman I know.
To Preema
With lots of love.
Cause you said I never ever blogged about you.
Cause apparently you wanted to be written about too.
Well I am no writer and this is no great piece of literature.
But yes this our story.

From the very first introductions when you insisted on talking nineteen to dozen about life, love and other trivialities.
To last night when we got onto a rick at 11:30 at night to get fuel for our dear friend.
From all the stories we have cooked up just to spend perfectly innocent girly time together.
To the dreams woven together sitting in that room of yours.
From hoping against hope time and time again .
To falling down and getting up and trying once again.
From trying to chart out a new course in life.
To getting tipsy drunk in the car and dancing like fools.
From planning out a Saturday night with alcohol and yummy food.
To going off to sleep at 11 the same night only to get up at 5 in the morning cos you and I could not possibly sleep anymore.
From all those phone conversations we have had away from the prying eyes hahah!
To the time when we got happy just adding stupid sirnames behind our names :p!
From the time you got oh so angry and did not answer our calls for 2 whole days on the pretext of “I am gonna start howling plssss don’t call me.”
To the moment you actually walked into the house bashfully cos you knew we’d come and make up with you.
From the child that you love being.
To the woman of strength I see every now and then.
From the time I saw you sooo gleeful yet teary eyed one night with you know who.
To the time you asked me to stop lying as much as I was.
From the tomboy you can be when you want to.
To the beauty that you are oh so gracefully.
From the time when we first started looking for excuses on Saturday nights heheh!
To the time you sat by my side while I cried my heart out over someone and you told me to buck up and put on my smile and go right back in there and have fun and I did.
From the time you sneaked me out of your house at midnight.
To the moonlit night when we got chucked into the pool one after the other much to our dismay and secret delight.
From the time you said “Oh you can dance jus like me” (I know for the life of me I can’t. But I try to.)
To the time when you said “You never took my name with Akku and Shivi’s name when you said they were your bestest friends”.
From being just an acquaintance.
To being an almost soul sister.
Well to all those times and to many more times Preema. This one’s for you especially.

And we will go away , far far away....

I have been away for sometime and had no access to the net which was in some ways a welcome relief because knowing myself I would have been sitting online majority of the time when on the other end I was supposed to be spending time with my folks and my loony sister. Yup I went home for almost two weeks and this time going home did feel like homeee. I met up with Tinni after more than a year and there were moments I felt it was only yesterday that we were in Pune sitting around for hours in Barista doing nothing but making meaningless conversation and watching the rain while we rejoiced at the idea of having secured the perfect seats under the umbrella or getting up each morning and walking a km and a half just to secure her Gudang Garams to have with the customary cup of morning coffee and Thousand Oaks and listening to "Coming Back To Life" with everybody right from P to Fido Dido to R and N and not to forget towards the end S use to be there with Tara. Tinni and I giggle and reminisce those days when I didn’t know S at all but would still greet him oh so sweetly just to smuggle a few smokes off him and one stoned night a couple of months back S told me his first impression of me was of the girl who flicked smokes from him. Sigh! We had come a long way indeed. Anyways tis is not about S.
It was raining back home and a year and a half in Delhi and I clearly have been deprived of the rain and I was one of those people who hated the rains be it in in Cal or in Pune and even those brief sojourns in Bombay. This time though I loved it. Made me feel a little lost maybe cos I am planning to leave and do things a little differently. I was trying to imagine how it would feel living in Cal again after so many years, how it would feel knowing I am not about to see the familiar faces I am so used to seeing all the time cos some of them have been a part of my life for the longest time. What’ll happen when it finally hits me one fine day that it is all gone and I cannot have that life back ever? Maybe it would never hit me and there is an expiry date to everything and the good times also come to an end. I have had such fun times, good times, drunken times, cranky tearful times here and now that I made up my mind and there has to be an end to this.
Last month we’d gone for a pool party to someone’s farm house at Chhatarpur and on our way in the car we were passing these huge farm houses with gigantic avenues and all one could see were effigies of trees and trees and I got a glimpse of the moon through the trees while Atti played some typical Punjabbi number. I looked at the moon and looked inside and saw a bunch of people I love right from Atti to Rad and Preema. They were talking nineteen to dozen oblivious to the fact that I hadn’t participated in the conversation for a good 10 minutes and I realised damn I am gonna miss them, their non stop chatter, and even the punjabbi music right from the pind when I am back home. The pool party was delicious as Preema and I got chucked into the pool despite all our honest intentions of not wanting to contaminate the water due to obvious reasons. Did I ever tell you men can be complete dunces when they want to heheh! I swam my heart out at 1 at night under the effects of a multitude of intoxicants.
Oh and about home well I met Fido Dido too and convinced him to come out clubbing with us and he actually enjoyed himself and would not drop me home at 1 cos he wanted to stay some more. My sister incidentally has picked up smoking and that is bad news as we’d gone out for lunch with her and her best friend and someone from school saw her with a smoke in her hand and I nearly killed her for it. The stories she and I had to conjure up leave me feeling a wee bit guilty. We went to Peter Cat and had sizzlers, went to CCFC with Mum and Dad and ate and drank to my heart’s content and how much I missed fish curry and rice cooked by Mum.I gorged on it and I must have put on 2 kilos easily. On the whole it was a well deserved break but back in Delhi I am feeling teeny meeny bit low. Hmmmmm the holiday blues. But I have to get to work and start the dice rolling. I have had too much time to stand and stare.

All is not gone

She couldn’t get herself to read books these days. She had sat for half an hour trying to engross herself in a good old murder mystery by Agatha Christie only to discard it on the bed and walk out of the room with the familiar feeling of impatience. She couldn’t even read the newspapers except for running her eyes through the headlines. The editorials were a far cry. She’d changed and she knew it because this wasn’t her. She wasn’t at peace and she wondered what exactly would soothe her mind. A part of her wanted to wait around and see herself through this senseless floating while another voice that seemed to grow louder and louder each day wanted her to leave. It was over and done with. Just leave and start afresh. It doesn’t matter because you will build your own world again. You always do. You shall learn how to.
A couple of months back she would have questioned her own deeds but now it was different. She probably didn’t judge herself in the same light anymore. It is so extraordinary just charting your own course of evolving as a person. How sometimes your life feels like a movie or a story book and how to outsiders it looks oh so perfect and only you would know about the inner turmoil. Maybe in the same fashion she had envied people and maybe their lives weren’t what she had made them out to be. That all of us have our own demons to fight and that it was all in the head. In semi darkness someone had whispered in her ears about a glass ceiling and how she has to look beyond it, that maybe it was time to move on.
Driving home at 12 at night when she’d been on the phone with a friend and she had questioned herself when the driver almost cursed her for her non belief in her own abilities. Her soul sister sitting behind agreed with him wholeheartedly. Something changed in her that night. She’d always dreamt but now she realised that it is time she believes in herself. The whisperer left for his own travels, left her with memories of midnight drives & Romeo and Juliet , getting lost in the vastness of the city, bizarre conversations, walking home hand in hand after coffee, a Sunday morning breakfast, inebriations, unexpected tenderness and a pair of laughing hazel eyes.

And so it is not quite like I thought it would be as life goes easy on me...

Well I am incredibly bored and the heat is doing looney things to me. I have the strangest of moods when I am obsessing over trivial things that really should not matter to me and the bigger things just do not seem to be that important anymore. For instance last week I was so convinced that a few days more of this agony and I am gonna chuck my resignation letter on my boss’s face and walk away without a single regret. That is so not me. I am the kind of person who weighs all the pros and cons and tries doing the right thing and always in some ways does what is expected of me. But really when one is driven to the wall and you get up in the morning with that nasty feeling at the pit of your stomach then it is high time that you move away. I haven’t taken a holiday in a year and a half and I am doing so and the excuse I have come up with is downright scandalizing. My boss happened to be all cheerful the other day and I knew it that this was the time I say it or sit at the home the whole weekend and mope. So there I was telling him all animatedly on how keen my folks were about me meeting this guy who could possibly be a prospective candidate for marriage. Darn he actually bought it heheeh! So he thinks I am going to Bangalore to meet “The Boy” while I am going to the Jim Corbett National Park for 2 whole days with the whackiest bunch of people hahah!
One of closest friends shifted base from Chennai to Delhi and I am jubilant. It is lovely having her around. We have been joined at the hip since she came to town on Sunday and we never seem to run out of conversation. She is my soul sister and is as batty and deranged as me heheh! The other day we went out for dinner with an old friend whom I got to know only recently. We were acquaintances for more than a decade and we even ended up in the same college but bizarre are the ways of this world as we started talking only after both of us realised that we shared a common love of blogging. So Batty Woman and I met up with Blogger Buddy and her husband for drinks and what a delightful evening we had. I had heard about Blogger Buddy’s husband from her before but meeting both of them as a couple was entirely entertaining and he did take me by surprise and I must say appearances can be very deceptive haha! On Sunday I’d gone to Blues Cafe with Batty Woman and Funny boy and his best pal. Was quite a fiasco as I stormed out of Blues after insisting on paying the bill and not letting Funny Boy pay a penny. I don’t think he is as funny as I thought he was and let us leave it at that. Thank heavens for Batty Woman being there with me that evening or else I had one too many a Bloody Mary and my lips were almost falling off because of an overdose of the salt and the Tabasco sauce and not to forget the state my delusional mind. I have realised one thing though that really how could I ever think I would be able to relate to someone who thinks “sarcasm” is a long word.
I am meeting S today after 3 whole weeks. He was in Goa for a long holiday and had lotsa fun with his friends. I am sooooo looking forward to meeting him. I miss his cartoonish presence in my life. My Dad was in town day before and I went to Ruby Tuesday with him cos I had been wanting to sample the crab cakes they had displayed on the menu for some time now. Now what am I supposed to do if Happy Hours was on so I had two Mojitos. My Dad found it amusing but my Mum calls me up later in the night and screams at me saying how I am on the verge of turning an alcoholic. I was livid. I just had 2 Mojitos. I mean for Christ’s sake it ain’t that big a deal. Okie yeah last time she came to town and stayed with me for a week one night when all my friends came home for dinner I did get drunk on wine, but that was happy tipsy and besides those were my closest friends and I can be myself with them. The funniest was when S and Mamma were making fun of me as S said “ Pia don’t talk your speech is slurred. “ and Mamma says laughingly “She is just like her Dad. Alcohol runs in her veins.” I do share a love hate relationship with her. Sigh! Anyways I am off. Have a great weekend while I try and figure what to pack and take with me for my sojourn into the wilderness.

I can have anything that I desire. Sigh!

Hullo! Guess I am updating after 3 weeks or so. Been so goddamned busy and yesterday was the first Sunday when I could laze around without a worry on my mind about pending work. “Pending Work” what can I say about these two little words that have taken precedence over everything else in my life. Now there are certain aspects of my job which I absolutely detest. I do not like dealing with inanimate objects day in and day out and the insipidity that from my perspective defines the construction industry. Now I know I shouldn’t be passing such dramatic statements cos for builders and promoters this is as good as it gets and its only getting better. But I so hate these arbitrations which take place one after the other and the only role I play is to be typing out the minutes of the meeting and the arbitrators who often mistake me for a stenographer. It did not bother me too much before cos most of them would be elderly people who’d treat me almost with a hint of affection as I’d be young enough to be their grand daughter. But last week there was an arbitration at ASSOCHAM Chamber and darn I’d been working like a dog all morning in office when I was called there for typing and the Chief Arbitrator took me to be a secretary or something and was even surprised when I’d knew the matter as well as I did. He was downright rude cos I was a bit slow and later on when I went to get the print outs my bosses told him that I was a lawyer as well. When I came in later he was scrutinising me from head to toe trying to make out the lawyer in me but his attitude hadn’t changed and he was as patronising as ever. I felt really let down more than anything else cos I had only been trying to do my job well. The opposite party had gotten along this pretty young thing of an advocate who was seemed to be quite a bimbette but just cos she was in black and white ( mind you all she did was to help her seniors hold the files) and I wasn’t the differential treatment. Hell I really don’t care. I don’t happen to be working for a law firm or a senior lawyer cos I chose a different path but that doesn’t mean what I do doesn’t deserve the same amount of respect. It bloody well does and I am working in a very niche field and that pretty young thing wouldn’t know half as much about construction law like I do. Oh my god I am blowing my own trumpet. No no this isn’t me. Just that sometimes it gets to me and yes yes I have got to find what I love and I haven’t as yet or maybe don’t have the means to right now.
Anyways I had quite a nice weekend. Friday night I was out with roomie and a couple of other friends. Roomie’s 17 year old brother is staying with us for a month and he came along. This other friend of mine whom I have started hanging around with only recently isn’t too much of a fan of rock music and sometimes I find it soooo strange cos amongst us Morisson is almost like a tradition and Friday nights are Mori nights. But the sweetheart that he is he comes only cos he knows how much I love this place. Strangely after S I had assumed that the men i’d like would have to like the same things I do cos S just does. We listen to the same music, the same songs, both love reading and adore Harry Potter and haunting the same places weekend after weekend. I know his likes and dislikes inside out and think he does too. Even the food we order we just know that what he doesn’t like I wouldn’t like too and vice versa. And no he is my best friend that’s all hahah! But Funny Boy, as I am gonna christen this new addition in my life, ( though I have no idea how long he intends to be around) doesn’t like half the things I do. I wouldn’t listen to the hindi chammiyyan music that plays in his car unless it is the radio and I have nothing else to listen to. He doesn’t read half as much as I do. He isn’t a lawyer but a B school product and is someone I knew years back and suddenly we seem to have hit it off. But yeah we have the Pune connection and the same army background and most importantly he makes me laugh like no one has in a long long time. He thinks I am very different from the women he is used to being around with cos I use words he doesn’t understand and he has to bang his head on the wall to do so hahaha! But he takes care of me when we are out together and we have so much fun getting out in the middle from Mori and drinking in the car and going back upstairs all drunk and everybody is left wondering what happened to the both of them. He drives down all the way from Gurgaon at 1 at night cos I wanna meet him and calls me 20 times a day. Apparently I am not the ice queen I thought I had become and I really do not need as much space I think I needed. I know all this is momentary and probably frivolous. But after a longtime I don’t mind getting out of my comfort zone and doing silly stuff like messaging all day or good night calls just before we hit the bed. Well well well I have been forbidden to walk down the same path again by my friends and this time I am not gonna fade into the background and put my feelings on the backburner. This time I am gonna say exactly what I feel cos really sometimes when you feel something as strongly as I did, one should just say it or you’ll be left with a regret that you didn’t say what you felt when you should have. I had thought I would always have that regret with S but I did the unthinkable the other day as I realised that life is changing and if I don’t put a closure to that I’ll never be able to move on completely. I am feeling so much at ease with myself and that burden of being the silent and unrequited lover has gone. I have no idea where these new developments with Funny Boy will take me cause the circumstances are frighteningly identical to what I had with S hahaha!But really will life just keep on giving me the same old trash? Someday its gonna come up with some magic too. Till then adios!!!!!!

"Mmmmmagic
You can have anything that you desire"

Going, going, gone

I know I am lonely, so bloody lonely these days. Especially when roomie went home and that one weekend when S didn’t turn up for whatever reason and even if I had something to do each night I still felt the way I did. I am much much better now. I don’t get up in the morning with a yuck feeling coming right from the pit of my stomach. I don’t wait expectantly every time the phone rings. I don’t feel dejected when I open my mail box and there isn’t any mail inviting me for a job interview. I have accepted the inevitable. No this isn’t some rocky phase in my life. It has been way worse before I think. I don’t know what this is at all for that matter. Seems like everything has come to a standstill. It doesn’t move on. It just doesn’t move on. I keep waiting for something to change, something to gimme an inkling of what future has in store for me but to no avail. I am surrounded with people thankfully but then why do I feel lonely still. These aren’t strangers. These are people I have been living with for a year and people who have known me for almost 7 years now. Some of them have seen me grow up and stood by me through one of the worst phases in my life, when I thought I couldn’t go on , when I hit rock bottom and when everything fell apart. This is different now. I am older now so handle things better. I goof up once in a while but manage getting out almost unscathed. At least I hope I do. I don’t appear to be as morose as I use to but hell I think I am way more indifferent now. I am colder and sometimes I feel I am insensitive to people who don’t wanna do something in their life. Not that I have been some go getter forever but how can people just sit around not doing anything about being stuck in a rut but just cribbing. Think I did that myself until I woke up the other day realising how big a fool I have been and tis time to move on from this plastic bubble. It is never gonna be how I want it to be. I am sick of being confused about what to do and how to go about it. So I am just gonna choose one path and follow that blindly or else I swear I am gonna be stuck right at the beginning of this rat race wondering how is my life gonna shape up to be.
I wish this was easy. I wish this was some something that had been planned from before. I wish I didn’t want everything at one go. I wish I had clear vision of how this will turn out to be eventually. I wish there weren’t any temptations to distract me. I wish I didn’t have as many vices that I do. I wish I could leave all of this and go away and not look back even once with any regret. I wish I didn’t have any “what ifs” in my mind. I wish I was all happy happy and did not feel the way I do. I am so glad that in some ways someone sitting thousands of miles away has started making a difference to me. I hope I make a difference too. I hope I make it. I’ve dreamt for so long, I have gotten lost for too long too. Confusion seems to be overpowering everything else. But there will be a way out, there will be light. They say its the big picture that shall finally prevail. Why the hell cannot I see the big picture now? Why can’t these higgledy piggledy pieces of jigsaw puzzle fit in perfectly into one complete beautiful picture? Why can’t I plan this out with someone who is gonna walk by my side? I don’t wake up anymore with questions in my mind where someone is concerned. I don’t care any more. There ain’t gonna be any answers ever. I don’t wanna know whats going on in your head, really I don’t. Its empty and barren up there. It was all in my mind. I made it all up. Darn I know I did. My goals seem nearer now though impossible. I never again wanna settle for something that is lesser than what I can be. I don’t even know where I am going, but hell I think I am finally gonna be on my way......
“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? Iit's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
Jack Kerouac

Will you miss me when I'm looking for myself out there?

I am writing after almost a month. Doesn’t seem like it though. Seems only yesterday I had the waffle craving and damn a month actually flashed past by. What have I been up to? Hmmmmm looking for jobs desperately at times and sometimes when I give it all up and put my hands up in exasperation. I don’t know when it is gonna work out. They say it’ll happen when I least expect it. But isn’t it so hard to stop expecting? Really it is. I try to keep my expectations really really low but somehow they find their way back into my head and take over and voila’ before long they rule. They actually do.
Life has been bloody strange lately. I try and adopt a particular philosophy so as to maintain my peace and calm but alas I fail miserably and also surprise myself. I have been running away, running away from certain people in my life cos I don’t wanna face the barrage of questions. I have enough on my mind lately and I get into these crazy moods when I am all out to mess everything up and just walk away. But thankfully sanity prevails and I realise no that is no way to react. There is a right way. Sometimes the right way is the only way or you just turn your back and choose never to look at that path again.
Really if I do get that job and go away for good will it make a difference to the people in my life, people I am close to, people who mean the world to me, to whom I probably mean a bit of the world they exist in. There are times when I wonder whose name would Rad scream the first thing in the morning that she does as soon as she wakes up or whom would the Ice Queen give missed calls to just to gossip in the middle of her MBA classes or whom would She meet for coffee in the evening and rant about the love for her Boy or whom would Mona call just randomly every Sunday saying I am dropping over. And S? Would it make any difference if he didn’t have his buddy around on weekends to go out drinking and head banging, or just watch random movies or doing absolutely nothing at all together but lazing around and who’d make cold coffee for him in the mornings or just be there for him when he needs someone to talk to any time of the day? Who would he take care of when I am not around, who'd sing silly songs with him in the car for hours together? whom would he call 5 times a day? There ain’t gonna be no answers and well nobody is indispensable.
I know I’d miss them so so much. I’d miss each one of them in different ways. But I have to find myself and I do want that journey to begin soon.
“The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be...because of all I may become I will close my eyes and leap!”

Do you feel like a waffle?

I have been eating entirely too much lately. I am so guilty, I am so guilty I am so guilty. I am soooo sure that the weighing scales will be on a rise very soon. But then what in God’s name am I supposed to do if the weather is conducive to food, food and only food. I mean I cannot help but look forward to having hot parathas in the morning before going of for work. I love those parathas made in desi ghee. Yum Yum! On a cold chilly morning parathas are the only incentive that make me get up from my warm and cosy bed and take a shower cos the thought of them keeps me going. Lunch is an ordinary affair. But dinner often turns out to be a treat when I get to feast on some succulent food. Like the other day I got off work and was wondering what to do cos tis being a Saturday I really did not feel like heading home early. She and her boy asked me to meet them at Stone in Def Col. Now to be honest I really cannot afford to be shelling out 1500 to 2000 bucks on a meal since I am running on a tight budget. However some of my closest friends spoil me rotten especially She, her boy and Mona. I am their personal property as they have known me for close to three quarters of a decade now and She and I lived together in Pune for almost 5 years. We have seen real penury when we had nothing but 30 bucks in our pockets and hunger gnawing our stomachs and have had to make do with Maggi and Vada pav’s or Idli Sambar and the likes of it. I remember having to walk in unbearable heat through this particularly sunny stretch of road to reach to our chosen lunch destination and the walk was agonising as She and I cribbed and whined and cursed our luck for having decided to study in this blasted city. We have come a long long way. That calls for a whole new post actually. It is so strange when She and I sit across each other in classy restaurants that we couldn’t have dreamt of all those years back. Hopefully someday soon I’ll be able to do so too and take her out.
Anyways so I reached Stone with She and Boy met us there. Now out of sheer habit before ordering anything I tend to look at the right hand side for the prices. Boy asked me if I wanted to have wine and I politely said no knowing quite well that I really am in no position to be indulging myself only to be bombarded by him for always looking at the prices first and that I can have whatever I want. So there I was sipping Roze and mind you it was French wine and not an Indian make that I generally have. I was so happy and content. We had grilled prawns and I got to have prawn cocktail. Ane no it isn’t a drink. Anyone who even remotely likes sea food will know that it’s more like a prawn salad in mayonnaise. It is served in a tall stemmed glass and maybe that why it’s called a cocktail. By the time the night got a little older I was mellow with the wine and all the prawns I had feasted on. On my way home I was looking for ways and means to get out of this movie scene my roomie had made and I found the perfect excuse. I messaged her saying how happy and drunk I was and how much I loweeeee her. Heheh! Mind you tis loweeee not love ;). She called back saying “Woman now how much wine have you had?” I had had only 4 glasses but I said “8 Glasses”.
“Okie you are obviously ain’t in a state to sit through “American Gangster.”
“No I am not and I giggled.”So me reached home and hit the bed. I went to sleep looking at this stoopid wall paper I have made of two pics of S and mine. We are wearing Santa hats and looking like a pair of fools. I was listening to this song called “Brighter than Sunshine” as I fell asleep looking forward to a fun Sunday. Sunday morning I went half the way across town to wake S up cos his royal highness had to give his car for servicing to some Maruti Service station in an obscure part of Gurgaon. Now which man waits for someone to come from 30 kms away to wake him up? Welcome to S’s world. The lazy bum that he is he refused to get up until I shook him up saying “Hullo I am here. Get up!” I think the funniest part in the day were the cycle rickshaw rides from the service station to the malls. He didn’t lemme smoke on the rickshaw cos he said this wasn’t Delhi and people would get scandalised. We merrily went around singing songs, trying to recognise buildings and bitching about how our college use to feel more like a corporate office and how the MDI building reminded him of Mayo and how much he’d love to stay in such a pretty place. I fell in love with the red brick buildings . I made him sit through this utterly macabre movie called “Touristas” which grossed me out at the end of it and I left him in the theatre to take a breather from the blood and gore. He said he’ll never ever let me choose the movie again hahaha! The most amusing conclusion he and I came to was on Saturday after a crazy night of partying when he said in a very matter of fact tone “Dude you know what! I think we guys drink more than normal people do.
”Food for thought indeed. ;-)
I feel like a waffle.The kinds they serve freshly baked straight from the oven, with the maple syrup and sprinkled with fresh strawberries. I feel like going to Big Chill and having one right now. Anybody game for a waffle?

Will you walk with me in my life?

I just read this beautiful poem by Emily Dickinson. Reminded me of my goals and to be honest I never lost track of them ever. I was never the child who did not know what she wanted to be or the confused teenager wondering what she should take up in High School. I was so clear cut on what I have to do, how to go about it. However yes on the way there have been times I have got so carried away with superficialities that seemed magnanimous during those phases. But some event or the other would happen and I would be jolted back to reality even if I wasn’t willingly inclined to. There I was the 14 year old who almost flunked 9th Grade cos she jus refused to study sciences which she hated from the bottom of her heart. I hated Biology and Chemistry with a passion that is hard to understand. I was such a dunce at Math that I’d practice like a maniac for months but the day of the exam my nervousness would overpower me and I’d mess up the paper. Yeah but the almost flunking bit made me realise I really cannot get away not studying certain subjects that I don’t love and excelling in History, Geography and English won’t suffice. Sometimes in life we have to do something even if it repulses us in order to do something we love later. We cannot do it for the sake of doing cos then it just ain’t enough and maybe doing something we don’t like happily does teach us lessons. Seems it has been 10 years but some things still have to be driven into me. My new job ain’t happening right now. I cannot leave this place as gleefully I thought I would. I have to stick around and maybe I have to do that willingly and happily cos I don’t see any other road in sight. Surprisingly it doesn’t seem to be as horrible as I made it out to be for months and months. I am learning , I am bloody learning lessons. I don’t feel that much at sea anymore. I don’t envy the rest as much as I use to when they start off with their High Court gossip or talking about the latest stance taken by the Bar Council or the scandalizing judgement passed by so and so judge in the High Court. Thats not my world even if I would love to be a part of it and no I am not willing to wait for too long cos I know I love something way way more.

Yesterday was a lovely Sunday after a quiet Saturday. Actually tis wasn’t quiet cos we had a bonfire at home and a charming bunch of comfortably noisy people came over. For a change I did not drink since on Friday I drank too too much and just sulked and sulked in one corner of Morisson and ended up being rude to the two of my most precious people in this city. Saturday I went off alcohol and it was pleasant. We sat all around the fire, chatting, laughing making the silliest jokes on each other, dancing on “Honth raseelay” and baking jacket potatoes while cursing the cold all in perfect harmony. The jacket potatoes were delicious with butter, lime juice and salt. Damn it just so happened that most of the logs had rested themselves on the potatoes and every time we tried taking one out, the logs would get dislodged and come plonking down spreading ash and sparks all over. I slept off at 3 in the morning and later in the day heard stories about how the wood got over and Roomie was contemplating whether to break one of the living room side tables and use it for the fire. Nothing surprises me anymore. They did eventually use an old worn out table lying on the terrace. Amen!


Sunday was fun. I woke up all cheerful in the morning. Had to meet a friend for coffee and my day was perfectly planned out. Roomie was fast asleep exhausted after her looney antics till wee hours of the morning. I was about to go for a shower when phone rang and it was the last person I expected and yes S called up after my rude behaviour on Saturday. I was relieved more than anything else cos many a time I feel he does know but chooses to ignore and once in a while I goof up and I don’t want him to walk away. Lemme walk away one time and see if I did leave an impression in his life. Anyways he’d called to say he was coming over and to order food for him and asking me if I wanted something to drink. We were listening to random songs and discussing Sinatra when I had to leave for a bit. I met up with someone for coffee and all I can say is tis was refreshingly different. I come back home and those two nuts are immersed in monopoly and S beat Raddy hollow while she cribbed and whined. She came over with her boy and then Mona joined too and it was a cosy gathering around our wannabe fireplace and discussions ranged from ridiculous punjabbi jokes to compulsory enlisting in the Indian Army ,the American Elections (Obama or Hilary) and Israel and Palestine. I love politics, I so love reading and discussing the intricacies, the turmoil and all the conflicts. If I don’t do something about this now I’ll always have regrets.
I know one day I’ll walk away. I won’t look back. I’ll walk away cos some things have to be done and I do deserve to do what I love. Everybody will move on. S will go on with his life. I’ll be someone he met along the way and walked with for a little while. Maybe I would have that coveted job I so pine for and maybe I would finally have that one degree I dream of all the time. I’ll be fine, wherever I am I shall be alright. I know myself. Sometimes we are meant to walk alone. Yeah just walk alone........

P.S :- Someone called me a cute drunk after being woken up by me at an unearthly hour . I so hate these drunken dials.

A random note, a lost file, and hope lost and found

I wrote this amidst an arbitration meeting where I was supposed to be listening attentively to what the opposite party's arguing counsel was pleading and I was also asked to make exhaustive notes but alas this is what I sat and wrote. Sigh! I'll never change maybe.

"I realised today and I think I have been feeling this particular way that more than anything in today's day I want to learn the ropes, wanna be able to master my profession , wanna learn the law, be passionate about it. I want to be happy with what I do, I wanna love my means of living. No I do not want my work to define all that I stand for today but I defintely want it to play a more significant and proactive role in shaping em as an individual. I want to be able to talk about what I do as a living as spontaneously and proudly as I see others around me do so. I don't do that at all ever. I want to evolve as a person into someone who is very calm and at peace with herself and her life. I don't want to be this cauldron of emotions. I hate being so. Seems however calm and collected I appear to be on top it is very different within me. My mind is always racing ahead, way ahead. Wish I could put a rein on to it. I would be so much more in control then.
I don't want my life to centre around another person and my moods to be ruled by the comings and goings of that person. I want to be happy happy, have fun and embrace all that life has to offer. I don't live in a fool's paradise and I think I give myself enough reality checks to keep my feet firmly rooted to the ground. But sometimes I do hope, even if I try not want the unattainable and even if I almost succeed in convincing myself that somethings shall never be but I don't know from where but hope creeps in. But then we can't live without hope can we, faith is what keeps us going, waiting, watching , hoping , wanting are words very close to my heart that all of us could relate to these emotions. Thats me, a large part of me I guess."
Well could you imagine writing all that down when I was supposed to be doing something entirely different. 2008 started on a strange note for me. I generally don't like to give too much importance to NEW YEAR. I'd just be disappointed later if things did not go my way. Anyways the last day of the year was entirely too melodramatic for me. I cried too much, felt miserable about myself and before I knew it this year ended on such a bad note for me. But then someone told me that "even if things get messed up for you they'll turn out alright ultimately". Wonder of wonders I did find that file when I least expected it, when I'd given up all hope. Life's like that. Isn't it?

Aubade

Being in love with you
Is to abandon the piano:
It is to take up the castanets,
The bugle,
The kettle drum.

It is to sleep naked, with all the doors and windows open,
Fearing nothing.

Being in love with you means many days I am so happy
I can barely feed myself:
I laugh or weep or both and set aside the fork.

It means I wake one morning feeling
Such warmth rising inside me
That I am suddenly confident
All snow would melt
Within my steady gaze;
And I dress quickly
To test this
On the crisp, DecemberLandscape.

Being in love with you further means the rhododendrons
Are in bloom, the mongoose
Is mating, the moon is full and the wind strong
Along the western ghats of South India.

Being in love with you sings arias
In my head, hums loudly
In my bones.
It beats the drum.

Some complain that being in love with you is merely an airtight ferocity,
Or a kind of rococo piety,
But we proclaim it
This Resplendent Helmet,
A radical and luminous sobriety.

Being in love with you is crucial.
Everything depends upon it.
In summer, being in love with you is red, raw and delicious.
In winter it is blue, lucent, and shimmers when touched.

Being in love with you is to forget
For a moment the use of fruit:
It is to stare long at the splendour
Of a green pear
On a white porcelain plate.

Being in love with you is old as Laughing Buddha,
And as fat.

Being in love with you is only now,
Cannot be remembered
Or imagined.

Being in love with you is to notice the basic radiance of all things,
And is thus a simple, unarmed, fundamental bathing.

Being in love with you is as well, a small well-kept apartment
In the middle of busy Kyoto,
Where, with great contentment,
A young couple sit
At a low table
Eating their evening meal
Of sweet hijiki
On beds of warm rice,
The silence broken only
By faint, almost musical
Clinks of chopsticks
Upon the oval bowls.

Being in love with you for even one second
Is enough. The big picture changes.
(When the honey jar is opened,the whole kitchen is instantly sticky.)

Being in love with you is a deep thirst,
An undermining hunger.
It is a desperation like that of a barn swallow caught
In a kitchen mousetrap,
Dragging itself with his wings
And one good leg
Towards the dog-door,
His only hope.

Being in love with you is ludicrous and cannot be explained.
Being in love with you sneaks up on me from behind.
It is a kind of ambush.
Or worse, it is an avalanche
In which I am tumbled furiously
For a time, then stopped cold
In whatever absurd position the snow
Finds me - perhaps only a hat
Or a handVisible to the outside world.

Being in love with you sits on my doorstep
And weeps. It calls pathetically
To be let in the house, rants
About my neglectfulness. I runTo open the door but - when I touch
The doorknob - feel a tap
On my shoulder, turn around
And it is there,
Smiling it galling
Cheshire smile.

It is the holy guardian of archways, the faithful steward of
All tunnels and bridges.

It is alpine and religious, naked and fierce.
It is the kiss of candour, and the cherished cup.
It is "the low down" and "the real dope".

Being in love with you is to dream, at least once, that you live inside me
Like a mysterious Spanish town at twilight: you are the red dirt roadThat winds into town;
You are the squat houses with lamps lit and drapes half-drawn;
On the horizon, you are sunset's silent fire;
You, bouncing are the green and orange swirled ball that children run after
Laughing in the street - and on the porch, the old man, head in hands,
Watching;
You are the young lovers in the town square at nightfall, the moon's play of
Light and shadow on their faces, you are their lips, their kiss;
And yet you are also the several dead drunk matadors, drapedover chairs,
Spread-eagled over the hotel bed;
And you, too, are the town idiot on the tavern roof, dancing a pot bellied
Belly-dance to the slender crescent moon;
And at the farthest edge of town, you yourself are the yelled-at mule, who
Will not budge.

In spring, being in love with you is green, resilient, and sways to the rhythms of wind.
In autumn, it is pale gold and fills the sky.

Being in love with you is centripetal.

Moreover, it choreographs
And christens.
It cradles and cherishes, yet
Confiscates as much as it confers.
It clobbers and clocks, then cloisters - but only to clarify
And cleanse.
It seems to cathart then catnap, but later celebrates
And celestializes.
It cultivates and cumulates until it is continual combustion.
Or, saying the same, is a kind of ever spontaneous consecration.
It cures and cushions,
Compels and completes.
If threatened with congealing, it may creep
Aside, churn and circulate,
Conspiring to colour the cosmos.

Being in love with you is centrifugal.

It is hard to believe
Being in love with you
Was once
That tiny space
In my heart
That has since exploded
Into a vast cathedral
Of sky
Under which I stand alone,
Looking up.

It is raining cats and dogs.
I am drenched.
Being in love with you has soaked me
To the bone
And I will never again
Be dry.
- Michael Londry

One of my favouritest poems. Isn't it exquisite? Kaleidoscopic love heheh!

I don't know where I stand with you and I don't know what I mean to you all I know is everytime I think of you all I wanna do is to be with you.