Still Round The Corner There May Wait, A New Road Or A Secret Gate

It has been one long week since the last time I blogged and nothing seems to have changed except for ebb of thoughts that keep changing their flow from here to there and everywhere. The last weekend passed away swiftly and I remember the two bottles of wine, the rosemary and garlic chicken made by Sags and me and the funny conversation we had while Richa who was equally tipsy sat in one corner of the living room just laughing at our antics. Sags is a fabulous cook and she so inspires me to try my culinary skills out and I love the fancy glossy cook books she has and I so look forward to flipping through them cos they have a little bit of history written behind each recipe and its ever so intriguing. We even have pots of herbs in our huge veranda be it oregano, thyme, rosemary and basil and its turning out to be a veritable kitchen garden. Oh and I love thyme in my omlette and may I suggest the same to you. :-)

My eyebrows were growing at breakneck speed and my face looked right out of some ghastly tv serial so last evening I went to this shady parlour called Hi Tech Faces. Yes aren't you flinching too but beggars cannot be choosers cos I am too lazy to get out of the house during the weekends and weekdays one clearly has too much work. I met up with Nik the other day for dinner there wasn't a single restaurant open in the whole of Indiranagar all thanks to elections ofcourse and by the end of the evening we had sat on 5 autos. Plus he insisted that he knows the cool places here unlike me who tries to act cool and fails miserably heheh! So last evening Richa and I were at the Barista at Leela Palace waiting for a place to have our coffees when I suggested we took a round of the fancy, overpriced and tempting shops until they beckoned us. Now that was clearly a bad idea as I ended picking up a perfume. And I am quite excited about smelling all green tea lotusish. These days the tiniest of things make me happy. Maybe cos the bigger things are eluding me.

Last Night Batty and I had the most whackiest of conversations on how we'll never ever get what we want when we want and we are obviously gonna land up in places we never expected to and why cities matter so much to us. In the middle of debating and contemplating on the diametrics of cities, people and our lives we ended up talking about volunteer work in Africa or the Middle East, Baghdad and even Kabul and how we would die to work in such places doing humanitarian work. Quite a few secrets were spilled out especially how both of us would like to be oh so famous someday the right way and how it would be to be working in Baghdad and we would be one of those women who wanted to make a difference and who left their cushioned jobs in MNC's cos we wanted a purpose in life and then in the process landed up in Iraq. In Iraq too we'd crib and whine but we'll be happy and then how it would be to get kidnapped by one of those psycho terrorist outfits and then we would make a heroic escape and be all over news and there would be Facebook campaigns like the one for Roxanna Saberi and this one would say "Free the erstwhile Lawyer and Documentary Film Maker". Sigh! To think we had to come back to our ordinary lives what with me having to draft an agreement for an insipid pharma device and Batty having to edit some uninspiring documentary film. No heroes definitely but two dreamy and foolish 25 year olds who clearly imagine too much.

“'What do you fear my lady?'
'A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond beyond recall or desire.'”
J.R.R Tolkiens

Wanderlust!

I wanna go on a holiday to Ulan Bator. Ask me what place is it? Tis the capital of Mongolia and I have sat for half an hour checking out pictures of Mongolia and reading up on where to go stay, what to do, what to eat, the places to visit, the drop dead gorgeus scenery. I really wanna go. I wanna see the shamans and witness a shamanic ritual. Sigh! If only one had the monies. I even found out the price of the tickets and it only costs 70,000 something for a round trip. In college I use to want to visit Tibet and I still do. Maybe cos I spent 2 years in Gangtok as a child and went to school with Lepchas( people of Tibetean Buddhist origins). One of them was called Dorji and use to be my favouritest friend to play with after school. They made the most amazing momos and thuppa and I got a taste for their food at the age of 6 and I still die for momos any city, every city I go to.
I was thinking about the number of houses I have lived in the 25 years of my life and gosh the number baffled me too. Can you imagine that I have inhabited 22 houses? So I sat and counted how many cities, how many houses and 12 of those are all thanks to Dad and the Indian army starting from Dehradun, Jodhpur, Gangtok, Pathankot( small town in the north of Punjab) and Calcutta. Then there were 6 different abodes for the 5 years spent in Pune. Oh my God some of them I dread to imagine. After college a place in Chennai, one in Delhi ( I miss, I miss the house) and two in Bangalore. Yes 22 houses I could have called home. I wonder how many more am I gonna have and how many more places am I gonna visit. But I have always been India bound. I wanna get out and visit Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, Turkey ( Sigh!! Istanbul), Mexico, Peru and the whole wide world. I envy globe trotters really! I have only ever been an India Trotter. Hmphhhhh!
I never grew up in that one house you can call home where you spent most of your childhood and I always envied people who had that cos for me it was such a luxury and we shifted every two years the first 10 years of my life and I hated it. Now in retrospect I realise that the very essence of this gypsy like existence was instilled in me since the time I was born and I actually start getting an itch to get out a particular city after a particular time period. As a child we had a truckload of boxes and trunks whereever we went and those were used as makeshift dewans and tables, carefully concealed under drapes ofcourse. The tin trunks use to have my Dad's name engraved on them in white saying Col XYZ , _____ regiment, shifting from ____ to _____. Even the sight of them would disturb me cos it meant a new school, making new friends and catching up with school work.
Last week when I was home and Mum sent me to Fort William to the pay the bill at the Club everything made me upset cos it reminded me of Dad and the life he gave us. I passed the Golf Course and it reminded me of the days he'd be off playing golf at 3 in the afternoon and come back at 5: 30 all sweaty, happy and high on life. I see the huge fauji trucks and I remember my whole school life when I went to school in them and how embarassed I'd be when I got a little older cos they looked like mobile zoos complete with the cage and us monkeys inside.
Yup this wanderlust too is my father's legacy...
And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?

Picture Perfect Life

Sometimes you close your eyes and see the picture perfect life it could have been. The images conjured in my mind seem to be unreal. Fragments of memories keep coming back and its all so disjointed. I wanted it to be a train and not different bits and pieces as it has turned out to be. I wonder if I grew up to be the person I thought I would. Is this how I saw my life 10 years back? This walking, talking, laughing, perfectly functional wreck that I have become. Wow sometimes I hate everything and everybody around me. I envy people and I keep asking why the hell? When am I gonna be able to make peace with this and accept it as destiny? Most of the times I convince myself but again one phone call or one cry for help and one sob and its destroyed all the make believe peace goes up in the air. I am back to where it began and its as hopeless as ever.
I wanna be able to crib about silly and stupid things like I always have done and like the others do. I wanna be worried about why so and so did not message me and why isn’t XYZ not calling me up. I don’t wanna get upset all over again about work but I am cos someone said “I won’t deny that you have to work very very hard to catch up.” I know she didn’t mean it that way but it hurt and it amazes me that this thing at work will bother me always. I don’t wanna hear the tiny voice that says “ Oh God I don’t wanna be in her shoes. I am so lucky that its not me.” But I hear it silently every now and then. I keep consoling myself saying someday life is gonna make it all up to us but what if it never does and I keep leading this ordinary life the way I have all this while the mediocre and average way. I have begun to hate those two words cos apparently I am not even that.
I don’t know whats bothering me more the assumptions about me or the circumstances I am in. Both I guess cos I desperately want something to work out, anything to work out. I wanna see light at the end of this tunnel and this one wasn’t made by me at all. I had nothing to do with its creation but it has encompassed everything I believed in, shaken my faith. I can’t seem to reconcile myself with the stark contrasts. Honestly I have tried and failed but I promise myself that someday its all gonna be very very different, good different, better different, happy different. Someday we are not gonna be passed over cos we ain’t good enough. We’ll be good enough, way better than good enough, yes we will.
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

With A Little Bit Of Help From My Woodwork Angels

I got up in the evening with the most rotten mood after my afternoon nap. I was angry with the world for a variety of reasons and primarily cos our prayers don’t seem to be working, cos my Dad needed an oxygen mask last nite, cos maybe I finally found something I can grow to love, be good at with time and I’ll have to take a break from because of circumstances. I have lived the last 8 years of my life skimming over everything, be it law school where I took it easy for almost all of the five years or my two years in Delhi whereby all I did was to have fun, drink too much( much too much for my own good), party, chill out with my friends and not give my best at work. I haven’t been true to the substantial things, the priorities for so long that it became a way of life for me. Somewhere deep down I always knew that I cannot continue in this fashion and hence the move out of Delhi. I wanted to be the best I could be and I know that I had fooled myself for too long. Nothing in life is free and yes all the fun has come at a cost and I am having to pay for every second of not making an effort at work before and I have struggled and continue to struggle here in this law firm but amidst this constant maze of questions I am getting answers. I have questioned myself every single day at work over here for the last 6 months wondering darn am I ever gonna be standing anywhere amidst people who are so good at what they do and know so much more than I ever have. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I wanted to do well and I was sick of being a nobody, despised myself for having let myself become a shadow of what I could have been. But if you want something that badly and go for it even if you stumble every step of the way, make an utter fool of yourself in the process but you still get up, laugh and carry on cos this is gonna be one long journey and you just started, a tad bit too late maybe but tis never too late to go after your dreams and dreams change.
So there I was a couple of hours back fuming, snapping at my sister, furious after a phone conversation with my mother who insisted I was lazy and I should be able to cook instead of making do with take aways and instant food all the time. I walked out of the house to get milk for the coffee my roomie Richa was making for us and ended up buying eggs, onion, garlic, tomatoes and some potatoes thinking maybe I should try my hand at cooking and I can’t be that bad as they think I am or as I think I am. I come back home with the supplies and Richa goes “Wow you gonna be cooking.” I said sheepishly “Yes I am. Hope it doesn’t turn out to be bad, hope its edible.” I started with the chopping, cutting and boiling of the ingredients and doing just that exhausted me but not to be discouraged I carried on. In the middle when the mixie wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure how to make the onion, garlic, tomatoe paste I almost gave up looking at the mess the kitchen was. Whatever task I do and if it is a hard one there is always this one moment when everything seems to be falling apart and I think hell this isn’t gonna work out. But with time I have realized if I stick around and persist that moment passes and I do complete what I started out doing not in the spectacular fashion like in the movies but not half as bad either. I did finish making the egg curry and rice with a little bit of help from Richa and useful tips from Sags and my Mum. In the process while she fried the masala for me and I ground the ginger we exchanged stories about her Grandmum, my Dad, our families and I came to the conclusion that no I do wanna be there for my Mum and Dad now and if I don’t take that break now I’ll have life long regrets. The Egg Curry smelt yum, tasted fine and they liked it and there is a little bit left that I have to put back in the refrigerator. I wish I’d tried cooking before, I wish I hadn’t had preconceived notions about what I am good at and can be good at. But I am learning now that I can be good at what I truly want with a little bit of help from my woodwork angels be at Meggy at work or Richa at home with the cooking. Woodwork angels are those who materialize out of nowhere, almost the woodwork when you need someone the most. Thus Meggy has been mine at work for 6 months now and Richa was one today in the kitchen. :-)

The rule and not the exception... :-)

I came back home on Sunday afternoon to a musty room with dust settled on almost everything I own and it did not feel like home. It still doesn’t however hard I try. I was dreading work on Monday morning and yes recession has hit us hard too and the clients seem to be barely trickling in. I was given work nonetheless and had to draft some agreement and as expected I took it too easy. I did anything and everything but draft the agreement and as a result of my excessive laziness I was up at the break of dawn today finishing it. I almost lost my cool an hour into it when I realised it isn’t as simple as I thought it was and was almost ready to give up but I guess this workplace has taught me one thing and that is never ever to give up on an agreement even if it’s the worst possible one. You carry on drafting slowly, reading and re reading, deleting and adding. Everytime I read it I found something missing or something not fitting in and I kept adding till the last moment even 5 minutes before submitting it at 11:30. It wasn’t the perfect one though. I wonder when I’d be able to draft a perfect agreement. ☺
Last week as we drove down from Haridwar to Dehradun I saw some of the loveliest scenery I have seen in the recent times (after my Jim Corbett trip last year and that already feels like a lifetime back). Yeah this was the same part of the country too and I love the trees, just endless rows and rows of trees and forest area. The eucalyptus, the pine, the fir trees with the purple bourgavillea made the prettiest picture postcard view. Though my frame of mind could not be equated to that beauty around me. But then hell tis never gonna be picture postcard perfect. Anyways I plan to come back next year for the Kumbh Mela and Batty has agreed to accompany me. It should be fun and intriguing and we should be able to take some interesting pictures.
Monday evening Meggy and I went over to Featherlite to choose chairs for ourselves for the new office. In the space of an hour and a half we tried out every single chair, couch and sofa in the shop and we had opinion on every item they had on display including the cute work stations, the coffee tables and the sexy bar stools. Now the problem being both of us found fundamentally different chairs comfortable and we cannot possibly have dissimilar chairs and had to reach to a consensus. But Meggy being 5ft and I being 5 inches taller than her we were not agreeing on any one chair. The ones I liked were too high for her and the ones she approved off were too low for me or she liked mesh while I liked leather. We were politely but firmly asked to leave the shop at 8:30 and the look of relief on the sales guy was to die for hahah! We still haven’t got our chairs ;-)!
There was Biriyani for lunch today in the Cafeteria and as usal Meggy and I passed comments on the people from the neighbouring office looking at them enviously as they always seem to be such happy carefree people. We on the other hand look perennially harrowed and tired, the types who clearly don’t have a life besides this law firm. Oh and last night Miss Lemony Pie and I came to the conclusion that we single women actually only ever talk about the exception and not the rule. ( Has anyone seen “ He’s just not that into you”) Me thinks Batty Woman’s story is an exception and point being I am probably not gonna be the exception so I should quit wanting what is unattainable. But I still don’t wanna and despite everything I still hope and maybe I always will thinking it could be just around the corner waiting for me. :-)

“Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope."

Gigi [He's Just Not That Into You]

And someday I'll chase them again.....

Yeah I have been away for a while but I guess its expected considering the fact that we lead the lives we lead.This one week will see me traverse 3 cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata) and 2 small towns (Haridwar and Dehradun). I have loads and loads of memories atatched to Dehradun as I spent a part of my childhood there. I was 4 then I think as we use to live right next to Doon School. I had the most ridiculous haircut which in the mid 80's use to be known as the "katori cut" as in literally meaning that your hair would be cut in the shape of a round bowl. I looked like quite the clown and to top it all there was some serial killer on the prowl in Dehradun in those days and he had a taste for little girls so I had been strictly intructed by my folks especially my Dad that if anybody asks my name I am to say my name was Pappu. Well I took to the game like a fish in water and very soon started acting my part so well that I would not respond to my real name except for Pappu and I had convinced myself in my head that I was a little boy until my Mum whacked me one day reminding me who I actually was and what my real name was hahahha!
I know I shouldn't be writing such inane anecdotes but I don't seem to want to write anything else. Someone told me the other day that I have to be strong and a little indifferent to whats happening around me or else even when this time passes and life changes I'll be stuck in this time capsule having lost the real me forever. Sometimes I feel maybe I'll never be able to have a fun time without worrying or feeling guilty that I shouldn't. Life surely has the strangest ways of teaching us lessons I say. I know I have to be making plans very soon but selfish that I am something which bothers me a lot is taking this break from my job and I'll be missing out on work and a learning for sometime. But times change, atleast I hope they do and my dreams will remain with me intact and hopefully someday I'll chase them again. Till then I'll do my duty cos this is the least I can do and I owe them this much and so much more.

The boy with the gruffiest voice

That time nothing made me happier than an e-mail from him with an account of exactly what he has been upto and how much he misses me. I haven't exchanged such frequent and long e-mails ever again in my life despite the internet being so much more accessible now. Those were the days when one had to pay 30 bucks for an hour of surfing the net but I'd check my mail without fail just to receive one of his long, chirpy, intense yet sunshiny e-mails. I remember his gruffy voice and how everytime he called Dad would think a really old guy is calling me up when in reality it was a 17 year old calling a looney 18 year old and trying to put some sense into her head while she swayed to and fro from sanity to insanity. I remember his obsession with the guitar and he idolised Joe Satriani. I loved, I loved talking to him and the feeling was mutual and no this isn't any love story or anything even remotely close to that. Just an episode I was reminded off today after years cos I dreamt of him last night. In hindsight I feel we could have been really good friends if not for the stupidities of youth and the quirks and eccentricities that come along with it.
By the end of it he vanished just as suddenly as he had made an appearance and the melodramatic me deleted those lovely e-mails he sent me in a fit on anger. I want those e-mails back, I really do. Infact I tried retrieving them a couple of years back but to no avail cos technology has its limitations too since the account shut down 7 years back. We never got in touch again except for an odd e-mail I sent him and he replied back saying he had been thinking about me but again that was that. Sometimes I did wonder how he was, how was law school coming along for him because one did not have social networking sites in the earlier part of this decade. But since he had hurt my already damaged ego I would have never made an effort to renew our association. Apparently he'd come down to my college once for some moot court and asked about me but my luck I was back home then. I was excited just knowing so he does remember me.
Finally when I did bump into him I completely looked through him as he stared at me. It was the High Court in Delhi a year and a half back as I was chatting with S and we walked past by each other and he looked at me while I put on a fabulous act of not recognising him and continued my conversation with S. I knew it was him the instant I saw him but I wanted to have the upper hand for once and thus the elaborate act. I got some perverse pleasure out of it as he almost had that surprised expression on his face. He never came forward to say Hi to me but I know he kept looking back.
I believe he still plays the guitar like a dream and still is quite the dreamer he use to be at 17. I heard he lost his father almost 2 years back and that was one time when I wanted to say something but there was nothing to say. I have no idea why you were in my dreams last night but when I got up this morning I did know that I wanna say " Hi Gruffy Voice! How are you Dude? Longtime! Hope you are doing good. Thought I'd drop in a word." But I never shall.

Its 9 at night and I am in office trying to finish something along with Meggy. No big deal i know since most people I know work just as hard if not more. But today was one of those blearghhhh days maybe cos She and Miss Touch Me Not left and i couldn't spend enough time with them and also cos I am PMSing real badly and to top it all there isn't any water at home. Also cos I feel ugly and fat and not me at all. I've had a real fun time last 2 days with these 2 friends of mine but I do not feel like replicating it on Blogger as yet cos I wouldn't be able to do justice to it. I've even shopped lots and lots but why do I feel the way I do? Oh and I sorted stuff out in my head too and it is such a load off my chest.
I've stopped wearing kajal cos I got the nastiest sty in my eyes and I look like this pale imitation of the older me which maybe I am. I saw such happy snaps on Facebook and wanted to be as happy as her but I cannot. I am turning into a social recluse but not to worry because I feel it is just a phase. At least I hope it is. Last night I had homemade Irish Cream at someone's place and it was divine and very potent.I drank lots of wine too but like She says I can have two bottles of wine all my myself and not bat an eyelid. I ain't half that cool anymore. I got high on 3 drinks on Saturday with my roomies and She and Miss Touch Me Not. She got me the prettiest bedcovers and I am very excited and dying to use them.
Nutty bugged me all weekend and we fought quite a bit, much to the amusement of everyone around. They find it hilarious and they would considering the fact that we fight like cats and dogs on the stupidest of issues. I am tired, really tired and I just wanna sleep and not worry, wanna be able to hope for something good to happen, look forward to something or have plain fun without reality biting me and reminding me of the real picture.

Shimmer :-)

Fell in love with the song and the lyrics. The song is called Shimmer and the Economist thought the lyrics were somewhat akin to the quotes I always put up on my blog :-).

"Shimmer"

She calls me from the cold
Just when I was low, feeling short of stable
And all that she intends
And all she keeps inside, isn't on the label
She says she's ashamed
And can she take me for awhile
And can I be a friend, we'll forget the past
But maybe I'm not able
And I break at the bend
We're here and now, but will we ever be again
'Cause I have found
All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade
Away again
She dreams a champagne dream
Strawberry surprise, pink linen and white paper
Lavender and cream
Fields of butterflies, reality escapes her
She says that love is for fools who fall behind
And I'm somewhere in between
I never really know
A killer from a savior
'Til I break at the bend
It's too far away for me to hold
It's too far away...
Guess I'll let it go

How we use to be ...

Something written by me more than 8 months back. We have surely come a long long way indeed. I was drunk on a quarter of vodka one Saturday evening in Delhi when Preema and I decided to ditch the rest of the gang as they headed to some fancy club ( think it was F Bar). I sat at home obstinately making the excuse of monetary problems and Preema sneaked out and came home with the Bald Cutie and three of us drank and spoke a lot about life, why we are the way we are and why we do what we chose to do, religion, faith and our personal beliefs. I distinctly remember composing this blog post and for some reason not putting it up. Maybe cos I thought it revealed too much. Now it doesn't pinch me anymore and surprisingly this was still lying in the drafts unpublished so here it is. A bit of the " love-sick looney" I use to be and always will be heheh!


"i don't listen to the same songs anymore. i keep searching for new songs on limewire looking for music that doesn't remind me of u. i know life has changed and we ain't where we used to be. i wonder if all that was real. i hate so hate aerosmith and i'd rather die than listen to "dream on" or "deuces are wild".i am moving on and succeeding. i bump into u in and all that i feel is the awkwardness left and the silence that predominates every other feeling.i don't even get drunk as often as i used to when u were around. yeah m a little inebriated now but tis all good. u ain't around to keep an eye on the number of drinks i have. i don't ask questions anymore and i don't wait patiently for weekends anymore cos weekends ain't half as fun without u. i know u ain't gonna call me on a saturday night saying"m coming over soooo pleasseeeee order food" or jus come home and mess up my room. we ain't gonna be standing in front of my dressing table doing r own thing completely unaware of the pretty picture we make and darn there ain't gonna be anymore pictures of us. but u know what this isn't it and some other day, some other age and some other time we are gonna meet again and it is gonna be a different story."

"and if r hands should meet in another dream we'll build another tower in the sky"

You can make it as big or as small as you want....

I have been asked to visit a tea leaf reader cos someone I know thinks I should since I must be having a dozen questions in my mind about how this is gonna turn out to be and where exactly is my life heading. But you know what I don’t even remotely wanna know what the outcome is gonna be like. I am gonna take this one day at a time and I mean it. I am not interested in what the soothsayers have to say. Its not that I have never been intrigued by palmistry and face reading but then it was about trivial things like boys or a job. This isn’t about that and to be told something and starting to believe in it and what if it comes true and it is not to my liking. That scares me so no I’d rather pray and hope and live my life the right way. Even if I try to I cannot seem to pray as much as her but yes I can do the right thing and make the right choices and that would be my way of contributing towards the healing.
In the meanwhile I’ve been busy with work as usal and thank God for working in a place like this. I actually don’t get time to think which is good and bad at the same time. I don’t wallow in self pity or else initially the only thought eating me up would be “why oh why?” Now I immerse myself in some research or a useless agreement and its all good for that short span of time. The other side of the story being I get out of work so late that I am not getting time to pay my bills, give the curtains to the tailor for alteration etc. Oh I shifted into a new place and I quite like my new room. I still have to do it up and I like my flatties cos they are nice women, very chilled out like us and very very sane. They are working and like to come back home and sleep on time and leave for work on time minus the hullabaloo and madness I was witness to last 2 years of my life. Its quiet and no loud music or too many people. I do feel itsy bitsy lonely sometimes but hell I ain't complaining.

There is a no smoking rule inside the house but we have a lovely terrace so I make ample use of that once a day. I am trying to get use to the idea that yes I am gonna quit smoking sometime very soon. I am not a compulsive smoker at all but at the end of the day I love having one cigarette while listening to music and talking nineteen to dozen on the phone with Batty or Miss Lemony Pie. That’s a luxury I don’t feel like giving up right now. Last week wasn’t as dreary as I thought it would be. For starters I saw Dev D with Nutty, the Economist’s younger brother, his cousin and a friend. We reached the theatre earlier and Nutty hadn’t met the younger brother before so we were playing this game called “ Guess whose the Economist’s younger brother?” and I’d point out the shadiest and slimiest of guys saying “Yeah that’s him” and Nutty would get soooo appalled until he actually came in and she recognized him cos he looked like the miniature version of the Economist hahaha!

The weekend was spent almost only at home except for a couple of hours out at Mojo’s on Saturday. Fino was home for coffee on Sunday evening when we spoke and spoke cos we met up after 3 weeks. I also went to the church for a while and lit a candle. Plan to do that regularly. Lets see if I can. Ram Sene did not go on a rampage as all of us had expected them to and no I don’t think they forcibly married any couples of. “The Pink Chaddi” campaign was welcomed by most of us but I was too lazy to send some. Sigh! I am looking forward to the coming weekend as the Economist is coming down so Saturday lunch at 3 Stories I guess. ☺ The weekend after She is coming to town with Miss Touch-Me-Not and we have so much of catching up to do, indulge in harmless girly gossip and bitching besides lamenting over the state of our lives hahah! She promised to get me some colourful bedcovers from Sarojini or Lajpat Nagar and ear rings. Yeayyyyy!!!!

“It was only a sunny smile and little it cost in the giving but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.”

For You A Thousand Times Over

I cry at the strangest of times. Sometimes the tears come when I am talking to her on the phone and I can hear her voice choke with emotions or sometimes late evening when I am braindead, not being able to make any sense out of the jumble of words in front of my eyes and reality hits me that you ain't gonna be around. I'd thought you'd be there at my wedding ( whenever it would be with whosoever) bickering and bantering with her for the smallest of things, loosing your cool at the drop of a hat but still putting on a smiling face in the evening when the guests came in and you got high on a couple of pegs of Old Monk. I'd thought you would be there when I became a mother and you held your first grandchild in your arms with that confused but gleeful expression on your face just like the time when you first held a squeeling, 5 day me.

I'd thought you'd be around when Nutty and I did exceeding well for ourselves and you would never acknowledge it but be proud of his two daughters secretly. I'd thought someday when I can afford it I would get you that watch you always wanted. I'd thought a lot of things but never thought it would be ending this way. Sometimes I ask God to take whats mine and give it to you. I really do. For you a thousand times over, yeah a thousand times over.....

I'd never thought something like this would happen to somebody so so close. I feel oddly disconnected cos I am so far away and it hasn't sunk in as yet. I knew something was wrong from the moment her voice changed and I finally confronted her and she didn't have to say anything cos I knew it from the time I started having those bad dreams every single night last week. I am still getting them each night but this isn't about me at all. This is totally out of the context but I'd always thought if I ever wrote a book the main dedications would be to both of them "To ____ for letting me be. To ____ for giving us the life you did cos today as I like look back I realise its been a good life all thanks to your little sacrifices over the years which we never understood."

Now I am sitting out here with my hands tied and I can't do a thing but to wait and watch. I know everybody says tis gonna be okay but until it does get okay all we can do is hope that it isn't as bad as they are making it out to be and pray. I know you'll never read this but I'd do anything to have you call me some 4 times every night complaining about how much she nags you and asking me whose side would I be on each time you quarrel. The phone calls have stopped and the silence is deafening...

A Moonbeam To Charm You....

I :-
Do not feel like shifting, not one bit, not at all but have to. Hmphhhhh! Why? Oh why? Why does it seem to be on the move constantly just when I get a little comfortable with my surroundings. I meant life by the way.

Hate the feeling of being not wanted, being the outsider, and I know I still am in this place and the Walrus and the Pretty Maid haven't accepted me for who I am. I wonder if they ever will.

Have this plan all hatched out in my head, something which might pay off in the long run. Hope I can go through with it and hope I am inspired enough.

Realised that most of the times I can slay my own dragons that spread havoc in my head. It feels good though they don't seem to go away forever and will always be there in some form or the other.

Have this wierd craving for the Fillet-o-Fish burger ever too often these days. Dude I am gonna be putting on all the weight that I lost, right back in the wrong places.

Am reading Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn and savouring every page. I love the sound of the moors, the winds, the dark and dreary English countryside and the gothic timeframe.

Have been having long conversations with Miss Lemony Pie and managed convincing her to do something completely unlike her. She is such a prude in some matters and to think I coaxed and cajoled her into something so funny gives me a quite a thrill.

Learning how to find myself again and realising that this was never gonna be easy.

Know that my sentences are halting and incoherent. Pardon me.

Found the warmest of quotes which says :-
“May God grant you always...A sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering Angel so nothing can harm you. Laughter to cheer you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you.”

A brand new ending :-)

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
-- Carl Bard.

Wise words I say. Thats what I want a brand new ending. :-) And it will happen cos it has to and this can't be it.

Aaja Aaja Jind Shamiyane Ke Tale, Aaja Jariwale Nile Aasman Ke Tale'......

Jaiiiii Hoooo!! No this isn't a toast to Slumdog Millionaire. Think it has won accolades enough and I don't need to be spreading word around about the acclaimed movie or the brilliant music. I was just happy and this song is playing and the lyrics are stuck in my head. Its 9:30 in the morning and Fino and I are on this "sending utopia songs" trip even if I get to hear the songs in this 20th century PC hahah! I am at my family friends place vegetating or rather recuperating. Its a friday morning and I haven't gone for work and oohhhh such luxury. Don't you just loved those days when you have a valid reason not to work especially when you have been working like a dog (was about to say slumdog heheh!) and putting your heart and soul into it. I am learning a hell of a lot here at my new workplace and I have started enjoying what I do probably for the first time in my life. I never ever thought that the dry and colourless Company Law could hold immense possibilities even for the likes of me.
I have cutest colleague whom we are gonna christen Meggy and about whom I was very apprehensive about initially when I joined and whose been making the rounds of the hospitals with me entirely on her own prerogative. Minus all of that we have fun working together and she helps me out when I am stuck at a loophole trying to make sense out of some case law. Although a cute boy at work would also help the cause cos we are a 4 man army here and we are desperately in need of some entertainment sometimes when the books and the statutes bring out the worst in us. But damn no, Meggy and I ain't that lucky.
In the recent times I've seen a lot of bumps but my friends have definitely helped in making me see the lighter side of everything. I met Motu Boy at the airport (he was on his way to Cal from London)2 weeks back and it was lovely meeting that harum scarum of a boy after a space of three years. He was as boistrous and full of life, all smiling and beaming that made him so endearing to all of us in college. He made such a joke out of all my misdoings that at the end of it I couldn't help but laugh with him at myself. I love this boy and his infectious sense of humour and I'll always associate him with some of the happiest times in my life. I remember one time when She and I had this craving for bread pudding some 10:30 at night and I whined about it to Motu Boy and forgot all about it until voila' the bell rang at 12 at nite and my Santa had actually got me bread pudding from Lucky's coming from half the way across the town. We were paupers those days and for a student to do that meant the world to us. :-)
Hmmmm I wanna go to Noon Wines and have wine( 50 bucks a glass) with Batty and Economist in the evening. Why do they have to be soooooo farrrr away? Grrrrrrrr! A quote to end this post. :-)

"I must learn to love the fool in me the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries"

Hiccups and hiccups!

Somewhere between working frantically over this wretched Section 187C and worrying about enrolling into the Bar and getting more excited than I should about the most trivial of things I fell apart and found myself in the hospital with saline being ejected into my veins with little or no clue of how I landed up there. You know how it is when everything is a daze and you wake up to find yourself in a place you would never find yourself in because you haven't had the time to even comprehend about the breakneck speed life is passing you by. I don't make too much sense now but yesterday as I lay in the hospital bed and spoke to Batty Woman as she asked me if I was alright and I finally confessed that no maybe I wasn't and I don't like being all alone here with insipid white all around me and the smell of medicines and my hand inclined upwards. That's when I called up Fino crying saying " Please come and yes I don't know why I am crying but I am." She was there before I knew it and took me home and fed me and took lotsa care just like Mommy would do.
It was a minor ailment but it sure made me think about a multitude of things. Like if I did die would it effect half as many people as I think it would or people wouldn't bother cos I had hurt them sometime in the past or angered them by my behavior. Would they still hold the old grudges against me and look back on my memories thinking she never meant anything to us and we'll let one incident cloud all the good times. The couple of hours in the hospital surely made me think. I realised that the first people I would message or call when I am in trouble would be Batty Woman, Fino and the Economist. Batty and Economist probably think I am looney to be messaging them from Bangalore telling them I fainted in office when I probably should be calling up people nearby. Sigh! But sometimes we are so in tune with some people in our lives that the rest do not matter and it maybe momentary but as long as some people are around the others pale in comparison. But I know times change and hopefully we make our peace with the past and certain people find their way back into your life.
I received the funniest phone call last week sometime from Mr.Hazel Eyes.(I meant to write a whole post on him which I shall very soon cos now I think he deserves a full post considering the fact that he's been there longer than I ever thought he would) He called up in the middle of the night piss drunk from Lucknow saying?"Are you sleeping. Go back to sleep man." I said "You have bloody woken me up now so you jolly well speak to me." He said something about his folks looking for a chick for him to get married to and how he was supposed to choose out of 6 women. I was like alright " And"
" Well your heart will break na if I get married."
" Please why should I care whom you get married to."
But ofcourse I just meant to sound cool heheh! Hmmmmmm so like that a tiny hiccup here and there and life is going on fine I guess but I wait for the good times to show their face again.

Changes are to be ushered in quietly....

Utopia is unimaginably sleepy. What with having hit the bed at 4 in the morn only after being the victim of some psychotic man’s lewd’s gestures in an ATM some half an hour before that when she and Batty Woman ran for their lives back to the cab cos the man insisted on opening his clothes in front of us. Oh God I shudder to think such people exist. Though in retrospect we couldn’t stop laughing about it but it surely scared us.
Oh I have to write about the new year party at the Economists place. So there we were a quite a motley bunch from some interesting walks of life. There were his friends from college in Bombay, his younger brother’s friends from law school ( that kid is just too adorable) , his friends from grad school in London and a couple of school friends thrown in. Fino entered in this exotic white creation and we oohed and aaheed only to be told it was Miss Chirpy’s who was also down for a visit from Delhi. Batty Woman’s 18 year old sibling was there too. One can well imagine what a colourful bunch we were. The Economist played the perfect host and the alcohol kept flowing as the night inched forward to welcome the new year. Sadly I wasn’t even remotely drunk as I only helped myself to three glasses of wine. I cannot say that for the rest though hahah!
Fino was the official barmaid of the evening and the part time DJ as she stood behind the bar cheekily asking “So what do you want?” and giggling simultaneously. Batty Woman was her usal cheerful self except when she got sentimental and vanished for periods when she’d be whispering on the phone. There is this one picture of Economist at the bar with the grumpiest expression on his face almost as if he was saying “Why did I ever invite all of them?” hahah! We women took an instant dislike to a friend’s insignificant other as we chose to call her since she so paled in comparison to her jovial better half. He was the ladies man and she faded into the background. I wonder how the most unlikeliest of couples stick together.
We took some lovely pictures thanks to Miss Chirpy’s fuschia camera. Batty Woman’s brother got his hands onto the guitar later on and he and Fino sang Zombie together and after a while he kept singing his own rendition of “Take me to your heart” until Batty Stopped him saying “Enough. Please go to sleep.” He is such a sweetheart you have to see him to believe it. He and the Economist’s brother have been voted the most favoured of all the younger siblings hehehe!
Last morning we came back to the Economist’s place to pick the brother up and deposit him at the station. In the process we had breakfast there too and played with his dog. ( No I am not a dog person at all. But this one is soooo cuteee) The Rockstar of a brother was suffering from his very first hang over in 18 years of his life and kept exclaiming “How do you guys handle this man?” I had no answer to that question cos honestly I cannot handle a hangover and I have had the worse hangovers in Delhi when the whole day has passed in pain and in the washroom throwing up. Eeyewwww!
I have fallen in love with this bookshop called Blossom’s on Church Street. Batty Woman and I must have picked up atleast 7 books there in the space of a week. The gang even dropped into Zara for a bit last nite and consumed two large pitchers of Mexican Sangria as post party analysis was carried on. Mind you this was after all of us vehemently denied in wanting to have anything to do with alcohol. All in all a quiet new year I say which is a good sign for me. What to you think? :D

Happy Happy New Year!

I am free of all prejudice and no I do not hate everyone equally. I let go of it all the anger, the rage, the feeling of helplessness and even the guilt. Tis gone amost miraculously. Yeayyyyyyy! A very Happy New Year people. We have surely come a long way from sitting with the autowallahs in the autostand and wailing about my lost file this day last year to today when I am sitting in office waiting for the damned watchman to come so that my colleaugue and I can leave. Byeeeeeee guys!

A lesson here, a lesson there

I haven’t written one of my customary long rambling posts for sometime now. Well change after change and I have been trying hard to stay afloat. Being stupid and impulsive also hasn’t helped the cause. As this year comes to an end I heave a sigh of relief. This is one year I am only too happy to say Good Bye to. I have even stopped visiting all your blogs and my sincere apologies for that. I cannot possibly put everything forward or even pour all my heart out cos in some ways this blog has become too public.
I have learnt lessons galore in this past year. I don’t even know where to begin. First and the biggest one would be about managing my finances better and not getting carried away with people who are financially irresponsible. I am still reeling under the pressure of paying debts off and believe me it doesn’t say much about your money management abilities and at 25 one is supposed to be a little more worldly wise than me.
Secondly I learnt that letting people walk over you and being silent about it doesn’t help anybody’s cause. You are left with nothing but utter frustration of unspoken and unvoiced grievances. They say one should always be honest about having unspoken feelings about love well I’ll say sometimes when you are livid for justifiable reasons you should take the ire out. I have even borne the brunt of it in the very recent past when I heard a lot of things I did not want to hear but I am glad they said what they said, I am glad they didn’t sugar coat their words.
I also learnt that we have to pay a price for all the misdoings and every wrong decision made and you don’t ever get away with anything cos your past surely catches up on you. I am struggling with my new job today cos think I had it rather easy the last time and maybe I took advantage of it and thus the present scenario wherein I cry every second day cos they have no belief in my abilities.
I learnt that changing cities was a blessing in disguise and the smartest decision I took in the longest time even if I crib and whine round the clock. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I learnt that even if something feels right from inside it can be all wrong for you and the mistaken things can sometimes turn out to be perfectly fine.
I learnt that I should clearly be listening to the little voice in my head and paying no heed to it was disastrous.
I learnt that being the victim is way easier than being the wrong doer and making peace with myself is of supreme importance.
I learnt that strangely I can go on long after I thought I couldn’t.