Where I am now will we ever be again?

The mantra of my life should be “Thou shall not crib if thou lives in Dwarka.” I am trying, I am trying, I promise I am trying. I am one of those people who embrace change at the first go only to resist it the very next step and fight it every inch of the way until there is no way but to make do with it and finally revel in it. Now that is what is happening cos every day I seem to hate my room and my living conditions a little lesser. Damn we are so conducive to change is it or are is it just the way we humans are born to adapt and survive in different environments and I know how much I have cried and complained about living over here and how I don’t have a life and how it is practically impossible to live in this ‘almost village’ without a car. Last evening I finally took the plunge and after a meeting in CP decided to drop by a friend’s place in Saket. My Bosses and my colleague asked me if I was sure and how was I gonna head back later at night and I said I’ll manage. I had to get out and I can’t just go to office and come back home for the rest of my days over here cos then I’ll definitely get a teeny meeny bit mad with other ancillary effects that shall start showing later. I am so glad I met up with Diya and was nice hanging around with her after a while. We’ve only ever hung around in Calcutta cos I was in Pune for college and she was in Delhi. Now it just so happened that I am back here while she has been around here ever since I left Delhi the last time. The bottom line being I am feeling happier and it is a comforting feeling knowing she isn’t gonna be leaving anytime soon. Batty is going and that is something I don’t wanna be writing too much about because I’ll feel miserable and I do not wanna dwell on that. We all have our different paths in life to take and that is the way it is supposed to be. 
Sometimes I tell myself okay you like the work, the office, the people, so what if it is in the middle of wilderness and yes it isn’t exactly what you were looking for but who knows where you land up eventually so make the best of this. I am here today but maybe I'll never be here again. Maybe this isn’t even remotely close to where you wanted to be but one seldom lands up in the exact place where you wanted to be and when you do it isn’t necessarily like what you imagined it to be. Gawd I am talking gibberish am I? So I bumped into the Bean Pole the other day at my neighborhood market and I was surprised since we were supposed to meet up the same day and not accidentally bump into each other. He and S live a stone’s throw away from my place, almost walking distance and 3 years back I would have given an arm and a leg to live where I am living today. Do we ever get what we want when we want? I don’t think so. These guys use to be my best buddies a couple of years back until we all went our separate ways and suddenly all of us have landed up so close to one another again. Hmmmmm……
This morning on the way to work in the office bus I was actually singing along to “Shimmer” playing on my MP3 player. Damn I know what this means. This means I am gonna be getting use to this place and I’ll settle down slowly and steadily very soon I’ll be quite content with everything until, well until I get that itch to move away again and then God help me. Heheheh!

Winter

This winter come home to a damp, musty room, leaky loos and paint peeling off the walls.
This winter come home to a mini blower that refuses to emit air above a particular temperature due to the low voltage problems in your house.
This winter come home to a cantankerous old Uncle and his insipid daughter who insist on using the most fugly smelling incense sticks at home that your home just doesn’t smell like home, it doesn’t smell of you.
This winter get use to waking up at 7 in the freezing cold mornings to take a shower and rushing out of the house only to be greeted by dense fog that even the person standing next to you at the bus stop seems invisible.
This winter come home to a luxury less home and keep wondering what the hell did I do and what choices did I make for me to land up over here ?
This winter get use to endless chains of e-mails and correspondence even if by the end of it they don't turn out to be the reality you want it to be.
This winter get use to living without Batty in Delhi cos she got a job in Bombay and isn’t gonna be around.
This winter get use to living in and being stuck at the most god forsaken part of town.
This winter you finally bite the bullet and decide to buy a car.

Ten Million Fireflies Are Here Cause I Hate Good Byesss

Yes , yes I have a “Fireflies” hangover but biggest of all I have a December hangover and that is really strange cos the last couple of Decembers have been the worst periods of the year for me. I remember December 2005 when I was on a family holiday to the gorgeus Andamans but in a miserable mood and yes heartbroken. Oh gawd I am so predictable. Ain’t I? Hehehe! I remember walking down the beautiful beaches on Havelock island listening to “Aadat” sung by that Pakistani band called Jal and trying desperately to cheer myself up and only ending up in tears more often that I should have. I can laugh at my melodramatic antics now really. I mean how could I be as silly as I was then?
December 2006 too I was in Chennai back from a disastrous yet funny trip to Bangalore. I was kinda disappointed yet again but Batty and I had managed to see humour even in that. I had the most pathetic New Years eve as I sat along quietly with bunch of kids and Uncles and Aunties and welcomed New Year as sedately and soberly as one could while people the world over got drunk in Goa, Ibiza, Bali etc etc.
December 2007 was a Delhi winter for me and was so worrisome especially cos I lost an official file 2 days before 31st December and couldn’t sleep for a week. I drove all my friends up the wall constantly cribbing, crying and thinking there goes my job. Thankfully the file was found almost miraculously at the same place where I left it but not before half my hair turned grey. Nevertheless December 2007 shall always be “the December I lost the file” for me. I also remember the farmhouse party at Chattarpur with Akku, Atti and Radhieka. I was wearing this black and white dress of Aben’s and Akku and I got super duper drunk cos it was freezing and we were desperately trying to make space for ourselves around the open fires. I remember the drunk dialing and feeling stupid next day in the morning.
December 2008 was lots of fun since Redhead got married and I made a trip to Delhi and Chandigarh for the wedding. My behavior however had unfortunate consequences on my social life as I managed messing up quite a bit and pissing of some very close friends. Sigh! That was a lesson learnt. Now a year later I can safely say that I shall never ever behave in the same manner again. Hence the rest of last December was just spent howling and loosing sleep and even when Batty came down to Bangalore for a week I would go on and on about the same thing. But yeah it was lovely hanging around with Batty, Fino, the Economist that last week of December. I remember the fried pork at Koshy’s, the smell of the dusty books at Blossoms as Batty and I went berserk on our book shopping spree and I also remember the chocolate shake the Economist had that same afternoon from that one particular vendor he loves having it from on St Marks road. Please correct me if I am wrong Economist.
December 2009 has been different, happy different, refreshing different and full of surprises. I was on a month long break and I have been home spending a lot of time with loved ones. Yeah I quit my 4 month old job this December and sat at home one whole month lazing around. When I look back to this December I’ll remember the cherry blossom tattoo, the long lazy winter lunch in the middle of the week, the breakfast at Flury’s with sister on Christmas Eve and smoking at “The Bridge” and acting surprised cos you knowingly bumped into someone heheh! I’ll remember the Christmas lunch with Mum and sister at the Flavours of China, catching a sad movie (De Dana Dan) together yet again, the LIIT at Roxy, playing Tombola with a bunch of adorable people including the cutest 9 year old I know, taking the car out for the first time all alone and the thrill one felt as the cold wind hit my face, having a glass of wine and a piece of cake with Mommy at the stroke of the midnight hour on 31st December and yes the whole world was out there partying and getting drunk but for Batty and me. Not to forget the sigh of relief and thanking god that this year, the worst in my life is over and we survived it. Here’s a toast for better times to come and here’s hoping there shall be many more hullos and lesser good byes and yes this December shall play on my mind for a long long time to come. :-)

I'm alive...

I am 26 years old and till a week back I hadn't driven anything on 4 wheels ever in my whole life. However when I took the car out for a spin this morning all alone for the first time I got the biggest kick I'd gotten for the longest time. Hmmmmm.....how do I explain? Its like one of those lists one has of things one feels one can never do. Driving was number 2 on the list. Number 1 is yet to happen though now I feel it never will and hence I don't wanna talk about it and jinx it. Wonder of wonders driving isn't half as hard as I thought it would be and honestly I didn't have a clue how to go about it and my first driving class was a nightmare. After the third day I decided to take the car out in the compound and of course banged the first car within the line of sight and felt mighty foolish. Thankfully it was a slight crash and it did not deter me as I went about trying to get comfortable with the vehicle even if my heart was in my mouth every single time a mini-bus almost brushed past by or the giant trucks over took my tiny little car out of nowhere not to forget the pedestrians who believe it is their birthright to walk right in the middle of the main roads. Yeah my sister gave it off to me for feeling overconfident and it was anything but overconfidence. I only wanted to face my worst demons and if that meant blocking all the fear and focussing just on the steering wheel then be it. Yeayyyyyyyyyyy! I get to give my driving test hopefully before I leave for Delhi and me shall have a license very soon and maybe my very own car before the end of this year.

Since this is the first day of the year I guess I am supposed to talk about new year resolutions. Sigh! I have very few this year and the first and foremost being I wanna live each day as if it were my last day. I think I have spent too much time cribbing over the most inane matters, people, fears. Naaaaa life is too short to be making any lists especially for the likes of me. No lists for me please. :-) I am gonna live for me and the people who matter to me and to whom I matter to this year. Happy New Year to me. :-)

Ding dong I am a Bong! :-)

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

Leap of Faith

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

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

The Best Laid Plans

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

Trust Issues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Maybe I Missed the Bus....

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

I Have Come Undone....

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

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

Wally Lamb(She's Come Undone)

Just get back up when it knocks you down

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

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

Let go...

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

Whatever will be, will be

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

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

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

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

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

Things We Lost In The Fire

Visions about...

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

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

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