Bubble In The Bong

One for Democracy

2011-09-21T08:32:00.001-07:00

I am an Indian. I was told in my formative years in school, that I belong to the biggest democracy. I was told that I am given rights, that, if violated, could be contested, fought for. I was told, in the many years of rehearse and regurgitating that my classrooms forced out of me, that many a lives worked and fought for me to lead a life of respect where I am given, just given, Rights. While there are others who live under tyrants, capitalists and communists, I was given RIGHTS. I was told all of this, and I was made to rehearse and regurgitate and I did. And so I remember.

As I began to form my own opinions because of this mighty democracy that was born into, I began to witness, bit by bit, year after year, one by one, my rights being contorted, and made a mockery of by mobs. By unreliable, dishonest, undemocratic mobs. I found that my country’s most celebrated painter had to die in exile. That I cannot dress the way I want to, hang out in the places that I want, it began to dawn on me, that maybe, just maybe, what I was taught was inaccurate. Text book. A mere presentation. I began to see, that maybe, my democracy is a sham.

But what kept my faith hanging by the frail chord of an ailing string, was sadly the fact, that I am not a painter. So nothing irked me per say.

Today it seems, the shackles of my democracy press against my veins. Caging me into a forced lifestyle.
Today, it seems, that my Freedom of Choice is being taken away from me. And I am hurt, humiliated, frustrated and disillusioned by this mighty democracy. Today, I am tired of this sham.

You cannot tell me what movies I should watch, the PG13 phase is over now. I am an adult. I work. I pay my taxes in thousands, every year. And I am a human being, brought up with the ideologies of a democracy that offers me choice, opinion, liberty and dignity. All of which are being taken away from me today.

I have the RIGHT to like a particular kind of music. Personally, I love folk, rock, heavy metal in any language, so long as it makes musical sense to me, I like french music, I’m beginning to dive into the world of house and techno, I don’t like trance at all, I love jazz, fusion, psychedelic, and gosh, the list is endless. I MAKE A CHOICE to listen to the music i like, or explore new music. But ONLY I get to make that choice. My mother never asked me not to listen to something because it wasn’t her kind of music. She, having been brought up by the same ideologies of our mighty democracy, allowed me to enjoy my rights, allowed me to make my own choices.

Why do you believe you can force me to listen to the kind of music you want me to? Or eat at the places you think I should? You are not my mother, not my guardian, and certainly not my friend, and your absolute disrespect for my opinions, doesn’t warrant you or your opinions to matter to me. Not one bit.

I am insulted by, what now looks like the custodians of my democracy. When you tell me I can’t dance at a club, because you want to curb bar dancers, you are then telling me, that I, a hard working tax payer in this country, a natural citizen of India, am dancing for money at a club. You are insulting me by telling me that you are unable to see a difference between me and a bar dancer, and I am insulted, not because I think bar dancers are bad, but simply because I am not one. And I don’t want to be categorized with one, just like I wouln’t want to be categorized with a politician, because, I AM NOT ONE.

I DO NOT want to listen to hindi songs, or Kanada songs when I’m at a pub/club/bar, because I DO NOT ENJOY THEM. I MADE THAT choice. DOn’t you see? My democracy says I’m allowed to. And when I’m paying my hard earned money for a sisxty of whiskey I bloody well get to listen to the kind of music I want to. If clubs/bars/pubs that play local music do not survive then it does not make any BUSINESS sense. You cannot FORCE me into giving them business.

So maybe I like to dance at a party in a club, maybe I just like to sit on a comfortable couch with my friends, drink my drink, pepsi, wine, coke, ginger ale, I get to choose see, maybe I like none of that. maybe on most days, I sit at home, with my doggie and my music and a book. But are you telling me, that should I WANT to, YOU are taking away MY ability to CHOOSE where I’d like to go, what I’d like to do there?

I do not get into brawls, hell, the most number of brawls I’ve seen are on your tiny unplanned roads in Bangalore. I am not a hooker and I don’t know of any club that I go to that provides the service, I am a human being, who loves different things, I love fashion, I love chicken, I love beef , I hate pork, I do not like the sambar made in Karnataka, I prefer the Tamil Sambar, I am a universe of likes and dislikes and YOU CANT TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME. I do not break the law and don’t you even dare to tell me that liking loud western music with my beef pepper fry is a crime. Don’t tell me letting music flow through my veins and letting the music talk through my body is a crime. DON’T.

You’re spitting on my Freedom of Expression. You’re trampling over my right to choose, and the only thing I can think of is fleeing. Going away from a place that does not understand me, respect me, my dignity and my right to choose. I want to leave this country, because I am disrespected here. My art is disrespected here. I want to leave to a place, where my fundamental rights aren’t toyed with. Next time somebody says this country’s going to the dogs, I won’t stop them.

Stop your false democratic parades. This democracy is a sham. And today, I give up.

To Anna's Little Champions

2011-08-29T02:18:00.000-07:00

Well, you did it. Stood up, stood your ground, and fought for your way.

I don't know what will happen in the parliament, but I suppose now, I wont see you paying off a cop for no fault of yours. I suppose I won't catch you breaking the law. Maybe now, you'll get through to college without donations, get your hall tickets without paying up. I guess now if you fail your exams, you fail your exams; without finding some professor in the university to buy into clearing your paper. You're too resolved against corruption for that yeah?

I like where this is going.

I hope to find the lot of you pelting stones at an Empire or any restaurant you find open after eleven in the night, you do know they pay the cops to be able to stay open don't you? But since you're into starving yourselves, and lighting candles, I guess these restaurants will witness, many an empty nights, haloed by your quiet candles, symbols of how much you despise the dark and deceitful corridors of our corruption.

I hope now, our streets will have drivers and riders who have really earned their licenses, buses where every passenger gets a ticket, new houses that get their water supply without bribing the concerned organisations. I know you will go thirsty and dirty than pay someone up to get your work done. I have never seen a more resolved lot than you, and boy, I am in awe.

Now that we’ve all come together like never before, I suppose no more downloading movies off the internet then? No more songs off the net, now that we're fighting corruption, why not add stealing off the internet to it too? I guess we have to give up our ways and I'm really proud to know your kind for being this... how shall I say it? Determined to set things right yes?

Good. This is good.

So tell me, the thousand, hundred, fifty odd people appointed to see the country bribe,corruption and flea bag free, are people like you yeah? People who don't pay to get their work done. People who would rather die than take a little extra money. People who don't dream of owning three houses with their government salaries? So next time you're asked to pay to get your papers, to get into some place or out of it I guess you'd rather stay put, than get your work done with money. You're sure right? Really?

Well that's good too then.

So what will your next battle be? Tough exams? Heavy school bags for kids? How about we fight for the preserving of our culture and traditions? Don't you think we're losing our identity? How can we let that happen? Next time one of you is convinced beyond reason that women should NOT be working, but should be at home, looking after the holistic development of their families, I urge you to please, stand up for your believes, show up on our social networking sites and catch the nods of our many hungry thirsty rebellious youth, craving for a battle.

So yeah, Anna's little minions, you've done it.

Forget about the North East of our country, still struggling to be noticed. Forget our farmers, forget child trafficking, hell, why don't you conveniently forget the fact that it's you who facilitates, breeds, harbours, feeds and nurtures corruption.

I know you're looking within. And I know, that because of you, Little Champions of Anna, I will never have to pay above the meter for an auto again. I won't ever have to worry about not having the funds for a medical seat. Nor will I have to worry about keeping my shop open if I don’t pay the hafta.

Sure, it was nice, the stint. We all need a revolution. I know we want to stop corruption. But tell me please, what do you know about this drive you so faithfully participated in, apart from the two key words: Anti Corruption.

Are you sure you did the right thing? Tell me, do you finally feel good about yourselves?
The time now really is to see How much of Anna you really are. I certainly am nothing like him.

SInce When Did Royalty have to Work?!

2011-06-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Today, I have managed to wake up on time, but I don't want to work. I just don't. I just don't feel like it. And I don't want to go.
It's not that I don't have an amazing work life. I do. But my not wanting to work feeling is so strong today, that I'm about *this* close to quitting.
See what I really want to do is take off and go. Somewhere. Anywhere. I know I only just got back, but I want to go. I think flight is sinking in again and that's a little worrisome.
I don't know why I am this flighty. Something about being grounded that just doesn't work for me. I need to know that I have somewhere to go. When I'm on my way back form that somewhere, I need to know that there's somewhere else I can go. The nomad in me is taking shape of a travel junkie of sorts, and I'm not complaining.
I need to go. EVERYWHERE! I want to live out of a suitcase. Eat strange food, meet amazing people breathe different air and write! Oooohh boy... this is not helping the fact that I need to be getting ready for work right now... So quit.. or be wise..???

This is when I miss my royalty status. You see, I used to be a Princess, in the city of ... luxur. And as small as my city was, boy was I rich! It so happened that our Royal Scientist one day made something you modern folks call a Time Machine. See that's the kind of shit we got down ages ago bitches.
.... Okay this was going to be a very interesting story about my true identity, one I have managed to keep concealed for eons now. However, modern civil, un-royal iving calls for my being wise and demands that I get up from this beautiful almost royal bed of mine, change from my very royal Ts, and make like a tree and leave. ..

..Perhaps another time then mortals. For now, it's time to chase the greens.. or the browns.. wait.. weird blues and reds?!

....

2011-06-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

Walking back home on an evening that isn't quite there yet. Lucky to have gotten off work early, grateful for the amazing place I work at, I see two men, talking, flirting, clinging to a prostitute. They're laughing their letchi laugh. Thirsty to get off, and you can see it in their eyes.

I wonder then. how so much good and so much bad finds this strange ratification on planet earth.

I see her surviving. And I see them... Well, I see them being Human.

This being human thing still perturbs me from time to time. All that power. And the futility of it all too. For all the clue we walk around so insolently with, we really haven't a clue.

We're a bunch of frightened, seemingly civilized monkeys who really know nothing more than what we believe we know.
Our beliefs make us. As amazing as that sounds, it's still quite unsettling. How much of what we belive is true anyway?

They hold her by the hand and pull her away into one of the buildings and as I watch them go, I'm suddenly glad to have this home I can go to. Sit in. Lay pointlessly in. Happy to know, that should I take flight, I can come back. Sometime. Anytime.

♪ The time you ran was too insane We'll meet again, we'll meet again ♫

2011-06-06T01:18:00.001-07:00

Cob webs fill up the walls of this chaotic mind, and the frantic chords sounding off of a rusty guitar make way for comfort. There's a certain intangible truth in a dead man's song.

The magic of it's ringing wisdom. The occult surrounding the thoughts of he who once was man, but now is dead. Or the curious, haunting calm that can only come from slipping into the mischievous couloir of an ever growing past.

The breathless harmony that takes over from the music of the now dead, is enslaving. There is this sweet, seductive silence that fills up inside; with each key gliding into those very veins that were a mere tool just a few moments ago. The succor of his voice, crawling ever so tidily and bursting out of the tips of your fingers and toes. And the satisfying predictability of it all.

There is an aggravating calm in consistency. In what seems to be an almost contorted way-repetition dulls, but consistency, comforts.

Often times, you need some things, to remain constant. A certain way of life, certain patterns, and certain people. Patterns are easy to keep, if you really want to. Lifestyles are easy to maintain, if you try hard enough. But the people, those you can't keep.

So in those many rampageous and muddled moments when the rickety tiles of what is, my only ground, seem to tremble and spiral out of control into a foreseeable lacuna and state of bleak nothingness, I let the dead man speak; and It is through the delectable words in his ghost songs that I am pacified. The predictability of his rehearsed chords, lets me dive into the ocean of his notes and through his words, I find my pattern again. Forgetting the inconsistency of human relations that seem as flighty as my heart.

I let the cursory breeze of this chilly night mingle with his words, feeling comforted, in his mystifying melody.

On reaching God.

2011-05-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I try to reach God. Somewhere inside. I hear nothing but the tenuous calm that floats within me in deep silence. And despite my mortal unknowing; I somehow *know*. I could be anywhere. That doesn't matter.

Sometimes that works.
Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes I try try to reach God. And my pulse quickens, because I know the disheveled confines of my room won't do. I know an evening walk won't do, and so I make my way into one of the chambers they say *some* God pays attention to. I walk in, because I have no where else to go.

I don't go to pray. Prayers frighten me; because God has a way of not answering.
I go to find my silence again.

As I sit there, marveling at man's seamless imagination and dexterity; I see others, human, like me walk in. Kneeling, crying, hoping, *praying*. And the piano begins to play almost on cue, as the voices rise in unknown faith, each word growing wings, making its way up to the angels, their voices believe exist.

I cannot find my silence here, amidst tears, and desperate pleading- Talking to this figure that stands firm with the strength of all their hopes.
I see hunger in their eyes. And I see haplessness.
I kneel, I stand, I bow, I light a candle, but I don't know why.
I wonder if my thoughts are worthy of attention, between the many tears that surround me.

I cannot get passed my inability to see beyond the literature, and lose myself in the moral confines of these Gods of right and wrong. But I cannot deny that feeling of something calm setting in when inside a designated house of god.

It could be the collective faith of a great many unknowing mortals like me, that helps me momentarily forget the bureaucracy of it all and feel the magic of the faithful. It could be the exigent and prodigious hope that is insatiable the moment you step in. The unburdening; transposing of a pain that would otherwise consume the weary.
It could be the collective yearning. It could be anything.

I sometimes try to reach God. And muffled between the saintly tingling of the church's bell, and my little my quiet space within, sometimes, I think I reach God. Sometimes I don't.

As far as you can tell

2011-04-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

As much as you know, in the quietest corners of your mind, that you're "probably" better of this way. Sometimes, you still wish it could have been just a little bit different.
Sometimes, in those secret musings with your heart, you can't help but be candid, be unrealistic, be silly, and poetically sullen; wishing, that things could have been different.

Nothing needs to be wrong with how things really are, its just that the picture could be just a little bit different. Couldn't it? And you wonder why not.

What if she didn't have to die that way, what if he didn't have to. What if she loved, what if he stayed and what if, just what if, he still breathed... towering over me like the figure I often wish there was.

...Though I know, I'm "probably" better off this way.

Wishing things were different...somehow helps me blame reality. .... That it's not my fault. But all of reality's doing. So "what if" you played it differently life?

Would it really be that bad if you could be nice sometimes?

Lightening Kisses. [You could say]

2011-04-09T01:44:00.001-07:00

.... I cannot fathom what love is anymore... I try to lose myself in lightening kisses, indulging in sophistry; something I already know is an apocryphal story, still I let it play. I do not know the heart these bones encase anymore so I let it flutter and beat, making me feel I may know it a little after all; I let myself believe. I let myself believe my lie so I can be wafted in the moment. So I don't see myself. I don't hear the stranger beating in my chest. Beating at it. So I can forget. Forget how much I do not know the person, sitting there, pushing her hair to one side, clinging to her fears, expectant like a child again.

It isn't that I don't despise the waking up, the silence. It isn't that I don't despise being told by a stranger to move on. Not because I like thinking "but you don't know me, and you never tried." Not because I enjoy feeling less of myself in a soul that is fast becoming more than a stranger to me. A soul quickly turning into a distant mirror that I cannot look into.

I do it because I love the lie. The scent of that little lie brewing, makes the chaos disappear, the silence disappear and the emptiness then masquerades into budding, thriving, grooving life.
Yes, I love the lie, because the lie is the only way I feel any control over me. Over this life. Over this quaint planet harbouring me, without telling me why.

I cannot fathom what love is anymore. I do not know who I am anymore, and I can feel my mind crumbling. So I trace my steps, chart my map just so I can garner the hope of something more, some time soon maybe, before I give in to this abysmal void taking over my space and my existence. So I trace my steps in the congenial purr of the evening. But I do not know if I must retrograde first. I do not know where to begin.

So I sit put. I can't move, till I know where to go. Bouncing between a hiccuping tomorrow and a today that's caught firmly in yesterday's deep and dingy moor has taken it's toll on me. So I sit still, arms down, flags ready, under the evening sky.

There's something about the evening that makes me think. Nothing like the skies thousands of meters above the ground. Not like the phantasmagorical clouds leaving room for imagination.
There's something about the evening. The silhouettes. The yellow orange. And the many lives that pass by me so freely.

It grows darker. It's night. And the tears have done their rounds and tired. I move. Not ahead, nor do I look behind me. I walk away. Into a night of company, a night of noise, a night of lightening kisses. So I don't have to decide for just a little bit longer.

Sometimes

2011-03-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just want to die. Not so much for the death part of it all. But sometimes you want out. You want to flow into the waves of sound and fly away in it.

Sometimes you want to be right. You want to be desirable. You want to know that you've got it too. After all, this is the only life you remember.

Sometimes you want to be like everyone else.. so much better, so much free- er, so many more things to do.

Sometimes you just want to feel 23. Without the chaos, without the debris and without the bleak feeling of what lies ahead.

...

2011-03-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

It's strange why we meet the people we do. As random as the universe really seems. There is some deep undervalued pattern harbored by her, muffled with her jarring chaos. There is a secret behind her every move and each of her warnings. There is reason.

There is no regret in things done, undone, things we think we should have done. There is no regret, because the universe will have it no other way. The possibilities are limitless, unforeseen and unforeseeable. The possibilities are haunting. The possibilities exist. And there is but one path to be taken; and it is simply the one that you took.

The universe likes to make us believe that there are no strings attached in this puppet life we feel gifted to have found ourselves in. We forget though, that there was no choice in our coming. There is no choice in our going. And no choice at all in the mess in between.
She chuckles while she watches us "try". Sometimes... she pities us; but she wont dare let the jig be up. We're all the entertainment she's got.

We carry on though, masquerading with our lives; attending one ball after the other. With eyes well hidden and a protected heart; marching forward into unknown time, ticking ever so slowly in unaccounted for seconds, seeping forward, right into the chaos.

There's no telling why we meet the people we do, and why we do the things we do. There's no telling why the universe won't just tell us we have no choice, right at the very beginning, instead of alluding us toward that final truth of choice-less-ness with her almost invisible messages lit up by dimming neon lights.

All that's left now, is waiting. For the next scene, the next act, new entrances. Some grand, some quiet. All that's left now is a costume change, a different set up and better lines. All that's left is for the puppeteer to drag us...now to the left.. and now right. Until that final exit even before we're ready.
But there's no complaining, the Universe would have it no other way.

***

Just a Little Before I Die

2011-01-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Today I met a singer. Well not really met one, but more so that I came to know of one when he slowly popped out of the group of 30 and decided to sing farewell to a colleague leaving. And I realised.

There is a little bit of someone in all of us. The quiet singer, the quintessential novelist, the closet painter, the delusional businessmen, the arty actor and the oblivious and very ignorant rally driver, there's someone in there, almost always hidden, somewhere in there, in all of us.

So what happens to these little characters we so truly are somewhere in between growing up and earning a living? Do we given into the bitch that survival is? Is that what happens? Or do we simply forget? I don't know. But seeing that man I don't know, don't want to know and probably will never meet again, singing there, swimming in the confines of his sheer vocal melody.. I wondered,.. how many hidden whats and whos were out there with me tonight.

How many closet rockstars and dreamers stood there, in the same room with me, with the music, the instructions and the magic of the moment taking charge.
I wondered how many non-conformists stood there in line, beating the drums as they were told, and I wondered what happened to them all.

And then.., suddenly it hit me, how all of them, right there in front of me, swaying to the instructions of the man with the drums, of how all of them right there, beating to the whistle, turning to the beats, and smiling, enjoying the little 45 minute break they seem to have been promised after a grueling year of labour... almost every one of them, was an example of what I could be, if I didn't hold on to my bearings right and if I didn't hold to that little neha screaming for attention inside.

So I realised, standing atop a chair with a camera in hand, hands aching, watching people dance and make music to the ears and instructions of someone they've never even met before; that there's very little time left. before the fire loses it's sight and focus... And I'll be damned if I ever found myself there....
...So, standing atop a strange looking chair, camera in hand, strangers in front of me aware of how their every move was being taped...by someone they didn't even know and probably wont remember... I realised, just how much I need to do, to keep myself from fading into just another corporate story; promising myself, never will I be on the other side... waiting for a chance, in a group of about 30 odd zombied ppl... waiting for a chance to be able to sing..just so I could say adieu...

So balls to the silly plans that never work. It's time to live, just a little before I die.

She Moves

2011-01-24T08:38:00.000-08:00

She moves to the beating of the drum; she moves. While seagulls dance- playing catch as the call of their instincts take over...making music as they leap over watery skies; she moves.
The music halts. And she moves.

And as the music smiles... and lingers in her doorways playing catch, she swivels, in one poignant turn of grace, palm in palm, eyes closed, sliding slowly into the earth, in sweet, incoherent surrender. The unsettling corridors of her mind shift and oscillate in nauseating repetition...

While with open eyes, she tries, sometimes, to speak; healthy others miss the signs.
Then the violin begins its stormy cry, bringing music to her silence with their notes...the distant drums slowly catch on, and the emptiness leaves.

She mingles quietly, smiling now, hiding now. Looking on, as the world bustles by.
Something fills the bright morning air, with banter, footsteps, and the clock quietly ticking forward. Something fills the bright morning air, just as vacancy fills her night.

But the fire burning beside a gentle stream, somewhere, where dreams come true, let her dive, into few ghostly hours of nothing. The rhythm of the night takes over, hyptonizing her yet again, with cheeky promises of a tomorrow she well knows is only another page blown by the wind, one she never could catch before. She knows. And yet she moves, sinfully playing with the music of life. Letting the chords be fooled, by her feigned oblivion.

She may not see the grids on the map. But she knows how this song will end. And yet, she moves.

...

2011-01-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

I learned today that I can't change the world. And that sometimes people can be very hurtful.
What people have to say has never troubled me. But what hurt today was seeing how some people think... and I wonder how many others think the same way. I don't like how much this is troubling me. I've never cared about the world. So why now?

Today.

2011-01-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

This world and I are strangers. I don't know it. And it doesn't know me.
I think I'll end up a documentary some day... the sad kind... with all these people with something to say about me, but not one of them who really ever knew me.
Today was a difficult day...
Though I know I can't change the world... I don't know... today was just a difficult day.

...

2011-01-06T08:41:00.001-08:00

Letting the silence take over again. I wish it didn't have to be this way.

This I'd Like to See

2011-01-06T02:44:00.000-08:00

There's so much I can't control. I've always been in close uncomfortable corridors of intimacy with the concept of "there's nothing you can do". This statement and statements of the like pierce through me like ice cold knives of truth, and a feeling of overwhelming loss.

I don't like that there are things, lots of things that I can't control. I don't like having to start over. And I don't like sitting on the edge, dilated eyes and tensed, marred by the sorrowful truth of existence, that some things, most things, so many things, are out of my control.

If I could change one thing, I would do it, without a second thought. And the irony is, that it isn't even for me.
Life is chatoyant. It changes in lustre and colour. constantly merging into new shades of crimson and black and subtle pinks. Life is scary. And even though, I have John Mayer here, promising me as I write, to try and transpose the heavy queasy lump in my chest onto this blog, John Mayer sings along to me, promising me that he "knows, the heart of life is good." I don't doubt his loving conviction, I can almost feel fond feelings for life when I hear that, but truth remains, a good heart or not, life frightens me.

It frightens me with tomorrow. Because I don't like hope, hope is vacant and vapid in my world. It's a crude joke and a heavy reminder of my helplessness, hope is a mockery; a smug emotion that I feel involuntarily. Hope is almost evil, with its untamed falsehood.
I know the world would beg to differ. But that doesn't change a thing.

I know life goes on, but what frightens me about tomorrow, is living with the loss of today. All these lessons and all this pain that life throws at you, is what you carry tomorrow. And so I fear.

I fear what I have to leave behind. I fear how I cannot change somethings. And I fear how this hope I carry with me is going to come crashing down soon, and how I'm going to react to it.

I know I'll carry on, but I'll be the sum of all these things, my heart desired, but life took away.

John Mayer reassures me, that "fear is a word misunderstood," and he "knows the heart of life is good."

This I'd like to see.

Wtf! Why is everyone I know getting married?

2011-01-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not against wedded bliss. I really am not. Sure I don't think badly of that major plunge people like to take, changing life as they know it ...for good. I don't mind that really. Just that I haven't found someone to convince me that it's really worth taking that plunge yet.

But that's not what this is about. This is about everyone I know, getting hitched...

I stumbled upon some wedding pictures of a junior from college. She looked very hot in her wedding gown, I've got to give her that. But looking at that, sort of led me to the edge. I've been to three weddings in a span of a few weeks and heard of a hundred more. Why is everyone getting married? Now that I'm saying it out.. it seems like an incredibly silly question to ask...so I scan through my list on google talk, find the one person I know who'd get exactly what Im thinking and go "dude- wtf! Why's everyone I know getting married!" To which I got my most comforting response- "I knowwwww!!!!!" Sighh....

Tis freaky... this whole getting married thing. Tis freaky on two levels.
One: It's just pure unadulterated freaky shit, I do not have good examples to go by on this whole wedding thing. So what if that by virtue of experience, makes me "doomed for failure"? I would never know until I do it, and then.. do I really want to know how much I suck at being married after I'm married? Ya see.. that be some freaky shit right there.

And then there's this other level.. one more real. What if, you never find that person, that one person who fits. And as I stated before, *convinces* you that well yeah.. you don't want to run anymore. What if that never happens?

See because it's not about the cakes and the noise on the day of the wedding, it's about what happens after. NO not immediately after, but after all the noise subsides, and after all the people leave. And there, right there, is where this person and all of it has to fit.
What if that fit never happens, and you have to settle?

I don't even know what I'm saying quite honestly. All these wedding pictures, and wedding food is messing with my brain. I don't know what I want, but I'll know when I see it??? And until then I say- Fuck That Shit.

Over Dictatorship and Coffee

2011-01-04T02:47:00.000-08:00

I have never had much to say. All the things I have to say are usually speeding past in my mind, and I don't think anyone could keep up anyway, so on a general everyday basis, I choose to keep quiet.

But off late, the universe has played this dirty little trick on me, urging me to make up for all my anti-social behavior by crossing my path with someone who doesn't have much they'd like to share with the entire world either [or so it seems]. See that works just fine with me, I like quiet. So long as no one's trying to shatter the bliss that silence and I share, with their incessant yakking, I'm good.
But what now when my drudge-y feet have led me to this other human being, sharing planet earth with me, also unwilling to talk. And this ridiculously un-understandable need from within this solitary head of mine, to converse with this very individual.
"Why god why!!!" I ask myself with emphatic exaggeration. And God simply laughs.

So there I am, with my lots to say -but nothing you may want to hear anyway- self, in this odd new situation that I've found myself in- vis a vis: actually wanting to talk to someone.

Of course I failed. And miserably at that. See this kind of maneuvering needs practice. You have got to have a strategy to make something like this work. And that is one place I lose out on. If I ask myself, how would I make me talk? The only thing I can think of is- I'd leave me alone. Golden.

This now brings me to a moment of silence, I honestly feel a little sad for anyone who has ever tried to have a conversation with me. I now understand how you may have felt. And I'm sorry.
And therefore, I am led to my zippy new, new year's resolution- Talk to everyone who wants to talk to me.
Okay good, so that's one lesson learned. But that still leaves me with my little problem here. How do you crack this code? To get someone so overtly quiet, to respond.

So I try again, because *somehow* this stupid me -who I was hoping to leave behind in good ol 2010, managed to slowly slip right into 2011 too- and doesn't want to give up. I mean I'm queen of giving up for crying out loud, there is not one thing in the history of this very chaotic life that I have lived so far that can stand testimony to my perseverance. I give up, it's what I *dooo*.. it's one of my *things*, then why in tarnation can I not give this one up?
I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
****
And then it happened, with my new found sense of keen persistence, and lots of patience: a cup of coffee and conversation with the person who can maybe even beat me in this whole not talking thing. I have finally met my match. And though I dreaded the silence, I braved forth swearing to god and all things living, that I would make the most of my measly one hour and coffee.
And what do you know- we actually talked. For the first time, it almost seems as though this curious other who lives on planet earth with me, wants to know what I have to say. Okay so I'm surprised. Shocked, among other things.
But still acutely aware that this is one tough cookie to crack.
And so. over badly made cold coffee that was supposed to be chocolate flavoured in the first place, some evidently bad smoked chicken, cigarettes and a quirky deceleration of a lack of faith in democracy; we made some good conversation this being and I. Amidst their love for dictatorship, and my idealistic-give everyone a chance rant, talk happened.

What I don't know now, is if it will happen again. I wasn't just kidding when I said this one was one tough cookie. I don't know if I should keep trying, or let the silence that keeps me miles apart from the world, fill up this little opening too.

I'm going to let time answer that. But truth be told, I don't want silence this time.

If I Could...This Christmas

2010-12-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

Christmas has always been my favourite season. There is nothing like the cheer, the cold warmth and the spirit of Christmas. Christmas to me isn't about the Birth of Christ. It has nothing to do with Christ and Christianity for me.

Christmas for me, is about Santa Claus and the promise of goodness. About five year old me, sitting on my bed at night telling Santa with all my heart, that I was a little naughty, but I promise I've been good too. Christmas is the perfect way to end the year, and start the new a few days later. It means carols and singing, chocolates and friends, cakes and rum, wine and cheese and so much cheer.
The air around Christmas is different. It's sweet and almost candy flavoured, and if you listen close enough, I swear you hear the bells ringing!

If I could, make a wish this Christmas, then I do. And while the contents of that wish lie between the Universe and I [and well, a few privileged others] I blow out my wish, into the candy flavoured Christmas air this year, and as I see it travel with my chocolate truffle-ed eyes I hope that this time around, Santa really comes to my rescue.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

On Goodbyes... This One Last Time

2010-12-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

I have had the fortune and misfortune of finding myself in a lot of things. Things I've loved. Things I've found myself trapped and choice-less in. And things that I have wished, and wished with all my heart to capture into little balls of timeless pleasure, that I can keep for myself. Always.
But I've had to let go of each of those things, only to have them tucked away in my mind, for solitary viewing. When the world gives up and leaves me out; thinking me walled in and impenetrable- I have my little memories, only for private viewing.
From the bad situations, I have always found a way, and if nothing, I've found a rope strong enough to hold on to while the tumultuous seas of misfortune throw me around, lashing me about life, seeing just how much more I can take.

***
It's time for another set of goodbyes. To something I fell in love with. I don't know what it was about this place that had me swoon from the very first day. But slowly... I feel in love. With my little window in the corner, the sun dropping in to say hello, and that little open sky that promised me my flight. I fell in love... and somehow, I can't put a finger on what it was anymore. It must've been the people. Or just everything about this place. All I remember is thinking- "God... I know this is too good to be true for me. C'mon, tell me, what dirty little surprise do you have in store?"
And to what was, in retrospect, no surprise at all, time came, for another round of goodbyes. To my little window in the corner, and to the people I've met.
***
This year has been a year of change. From the lost recluse, to a more comfortable one. From refusing to conform, to slowly accepting a more revised means to not conform. From shallow promises to finding the courage to be true to myself. From refusing to accept pretense, to sticking the finger when it really mattered.

To learning to say NO when I really mean it. and most importantly, from just hoping, to doing something about it.

I found the one thing that I had been searching for all along, this year. And I found the courage to do somehting about it. I know, and yet I still don't know how this pursuit will end, but something has happened, somewhere in the magic of the stars that has brought me here, and I will try, with every ounce of try left in me, hoping, with glazed eyes, a palpitating heart, and cold nervous fingers, that that something that I found this year, will relent, and just let me in.

And in all the hoping and trying, this year has given me the courage yet again to accept, that though I've finally found my something, my somehting may well not let me in after all.

This year has left me a light and sketchy frame of the year that could be. What could well be just a mirage in this sunny, desert that I have found myself in. But with the comfort of strength, from the strangest places, and from the places that I turn to as well.

This year managed to shake me up and land the seed of change, deep deep inside of me. And as I sit here, for the last time today, never again to walk these steps, and hear these voices. By my little window, in the place that I love, in the place that led me to find the one thing I had been waiting for my life, I say goodbye to this year for being as painfully sweet as it has been.

You've given me a lot, and I have taken much more from you. And if given a choice, I would want some things done differently, but choice is something I lack, just like I do time. The only choice you give me, Year after Year, is to choose my lessons or stay put.
Well I've picked the lessons I'd like to carry forward, and though you've been this bitter sweet to me 2010, I ask just one more thing of you- tell me you were real. Though I'm aware of the hopeless dreamer that I've turned into... Just tell me you were real, and what I've found is just as real too.

The Thing Is

2010-12-20T10:06:00.001-08:00

*********
See the thing about the future is, that it's going to happen. Whether you like it or not, like the infant at home that looks like an angel while asleep, but you know, oh yes you do, that when it wakes up, there's going to be lots of wailing.

That's just how the future is, it is going to happen.

And in this great happening of the future that is underway, a lot of time gets spent in hoping that things go according to plan. But that's just the thing about plans, they're like rules. Not meant to happen. Plans are like the time table you may have made a little before every exam, breaking your day down into coupled hours of pure dedicated studies, those time tables that you may have spent so much time on, only to make sure it was neat, organized, and for some of us here, pretty looking too. That time table, that took over a nice proud place on your wall, made you feeling kicked at your awesome skills at not only nice looking time tables but man- the organization- par excellence.
And we all know what happened to the Time Table year after year, college after college until we finally got the courage to admit to ourselves, that there wasn't any point fooling ourselves any longer.

I have honestly lost focus of what I was trying to say here. Aye.

So the thing about the Future is, that it is going to happen. And regardless of how it turns out, I have come to love a simple little fact, that while some things are not in our control [like how this great and mysterious future (that has now taken the form of a very smokey, adrenaline junkie like Evel Knievel) turns out], what we CAN do is, give it all we got. I've heard it a lot before, but never really tried, because I took the liberty to assume that since "everybody's saying it" it must just be a fad :) Well no that's not true, I guess, the thing with giving something all you've got, is that it's a scary thought, because it could still lead to disappointment.
But here's what I'm thinking, you can never tell how much you should invest on something or someone, how much of your time, how much of your effort, you'll never know, but at least, you'll never wonder "What If".
"What If" is a real pain in the posterior when you can look at yourself in the mirror and say "God damn you! YOU never tried enough! Now look what happened!"

So there's something that I've found that's got me thinking about the "giving it my all" bit. And boy, am I trying. I don't know how it's going to go, and from the looks of it, I'm going to need a lot of time with friends and a lot of alcohol to get over this, but I'm giving it, and I'm giving it my all, just so I never have to wonder over quiet musings, "what if I had done a little more". And just so I can look at myself in the mirror and go "Babe... you got it down!"

Though I know I'm charging relentlessly for an abominable, apocalyptic-esque failure, I chant my New Mantra in my very rusty Deutsch- zumindest werde ich nie Wunder, "was, wenn"
At Least I'll Never Wonder "What IF"

Eat Pray Love Indeed.

2010-12-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

I despise change. I'm the girl with memorabilia stuffed into her cupboard. The girl who has to go through boxes and boxes of things she's never looked at, but kept safe. Dusty. But safe. I have doodles from school, silly little notes sent from friends, birthday cards from people I never expected them from. And that's only the beginning.

It has never bothered me until recently, this holding on to little pieces of my past, that I never really enjoyed in the first place. So Why do I do it? Because I hate change. Somewhere along the line, I found that holding on to these worthless fragments of things and people that aren't even a part of my life anymore, I could probably hold to the girl I used to be. See because all through life, I've been longing for totems; something that helps me cling on to that dwindling sense of me, and what better way than to hold to these mnemonics from the past, just to know that I am real.

Who knows, I could wake up one day, and things could be different. Maybe, I perceive the world as it is now, and what I see, isn't real. Who knows? And who can tell me it is? I don't know.

The thing is, that I don't know a lot of things anymore. And the recent bout of change that has taken over my life has left me panicking. And for the first time in my life, I didn't know if I'd come out alright. Sure I knew I'd get by, but I didn't know if I'd make it. And that's the thing about change I hate- that I cannot control it.
The last few months have been a whirlwind of change and don't kid me by telling me "change is good". Change isn't good, I have always said it and still do, change isn't good. It's just that we find a way to squiggle our way out of it and make it good because we don't bloody like discomfort.

What I've realised though, is how we bounce back. As people. It's fascinating. This time around, I had a word with fate telling her to take her best shot because I wasn't about to bounce back. But the freaking bouncing back happens on it's own and all I could say was "well okay.. bring it on.. I kind of like this feeling".

So here I am, certainly not the person I was. Still weaving out new layers of the person that I am today; and the silk doesn't seem like it's going to run out any time soon. What I am, is here, right now, still so utterly clueless on the "where" and "hows" that I never liked thinking about. What I am, is letting go, of all the old notes and cards and books stashed away in my closet, because in my feeble attempts to hold on to that girl, I seem to have lost track on the one right here, with me.
So I delve deeper now, letting go each rope after rope of inconsequential details that cannot matter today. I let go, and as I hear the rope snap, I feel release. The chords have played themselves out, and are now snapping, and it's okay. There's nothing to lose, in what I've already lost in a yesterday I cannot relive. So I let go. And slowly give in to that fact, that try as I may, my totems are of no avail, because the harder I cling on to time, the faster she slips away.

So I hold on, just enough and no more. Shortening the gaze that looks back in desperation. I hold on, just enough and no more, slowing down my beats, and in effect, slowing down my Time.

...

2010-11-22T01:15:00.000-08:00

It's easy for a girl to feel un-pretty. I don't know why. But it is. It could be because we expect. Or it simply could be, because we don't give ourselves due credit.
Our stories tell us, that there can be only one princess. And just one prince to her rescue. One queen bee. And so here we are, a bunch of gazillion girls, wanting desperately to be that princess, who gets her prince.
We're looking to be rescued. Most of us. We want to be taken away, far away, to start all over again. And that's not a bad thing.

I'm a bit out of sorts.. it's been a while since I have been, and I'm not sure how I want to end this post today. So I'm going to leave it incomplete here. With a few words from a song sent to me by that beautiful icing on the very messy- home-baked cake that my life is, Miss A A.

You're that butterfly I get to keep, and anytime I need some magic dust, you're there, fluttering for me.

                                I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful
                                So unloved for someone so fine
                                I can feel so boring for someone so interesting
                               So ignorant for someone of sound mind
   Alanis Morissette - So Unsexy

On Accepting.

2010-11-18T01:17:00.000-08:00

Life has proven how strange she is to me, time and time again. But she is kind to me, this life. She gives me brief moments of repose from all the strangeness that she engulfs me with; but she's always there, reminding me, sometimes gently, sometimes with a jolt, of how the repose isn't meant to be, and strange is what destiny has written for me.

And strange it is.

Who would've believed that I would find myself here one day. I certainly didn't think I could've made it. But I did. It has been anything but grand, but I've made it so far. I keep playing with the words hope, faith, destiny, not because I have nothing else to say, but only because these very words play with me. More often than I can keep up, each time their blow gets more steady, more swift than before; each time their blows get more frequent, and I cannot keep up anymore.

I am tired. And this isn't the tired that some sleep can take away. But I'm tired. From right inside I'm tired. And I don't have the strength to pick up the pieces anymore. I *know* that *this too shall pass*, but I don't believe in the passing anymore. Because once this has passed, there will be something more that I will be waiting to be get past. To leave behind. Another jar broken, another endeavour to pick up the scattered pieces, another series of painful nights, and then gathering myself again.

I simply cannot. Or more aptly, I don't wish to anymore. I don't want it to pass. I don't want to let go, and I don't want to gather myself anymore.
I want to know that this strangeness will leave me. I want to know that hope and destiny will stop playing with me. I want to know that I can trust this voice inside. And I want repose. From all of this.

I feel drained of all the strength that I had, gathered under my sleeves. I feel devoid of anything remotely hopeful. I cannot indulge in self loathing. I cannot look forward because the bleak November skies promise me more pain. And I cannot sit here anymore.

I want this voice inside to tell me the truth, and I want to hear it loud. I want to trust it.
I cannot imagine, that I made it this far, though I can't say unscathed. But I made it, and I cannot imagine that life chooses now to mock me one more time. But this time she got me. This time she hit me hard. And this time, the blow is fatal.

So here I am, accepting. Accepting life, that you will always have me bent, and picking up pieces of a broken jar that you made me carve out in the first place. A jar that you promised me would free me from all the other jars that you have broken in my life. I accept life, that I cannot count on you. And now, I cannot count on me. Because as I accept, I also give up and I also give in.

This time, it wasn't just a jar of your making in my hands, this time, you've broken me.

And since I was taught to see the silver lining in everything, here I see the lining too: because this giving in was bound. It was foreseen, forlorn, and destined. Sooner now than later.

So there you are. And here I am, an assortment of my broken jars, give me one last push, and see me crumble all the way. I will not fight you. But I dare you. I'm sure that you'll enjoy this.

Butt Obviously.

2010-11-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, things are very obvious. Like for instance, when you think Pamela Anderson, you think of those giant mistakes for enhancements that they are. Or when you're done with class and someone you don't really like pretending to be pleased to see, asks you if your friend, didn't show up to class that morning... Well uh.. did you SEE her there?

Sometimes, some things are obvious.

Obvious they are, but the signs are busy playing freakin hide and go seek with your mind and for someone living in oblivion, there is no real "seeking" involved, which means no reading or even looking out for the signs.

So the signs get tired after waiting to be found and then they start to do their little happy mocking dance in front of you- "that's right, can't you see us!". Clearly I don't.

Until I'm bloody forced to. And then I go "OHHHH that's right, that's what it freakin meant".

Uff.. I'm tired. I really really am. And this is probably the worst stint...yet.

A string of nonsensical blog posts await me, I can tell you that much.

2010-11-16T01:24:00.000-08:00

Despite what anyone says, giving up isn't easy. It's the hardest thing to do, to watch yourself being unable to do what you think you could, whatever be the reasons behind it, giving up, is never easy.

On Trust.

2010-11-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

Sure, it's easy not to trust anyone. That principle has worked for me just fine over the years. But what now, when I don't know, if that one thing beating in me so strong, the one thing that is really all I have, what when this silly little heart of mine, can't be trusted anymore?

What if, I shouldn't be counting on its honesty anymore. What if, this little heart of mine needs a pair of glasses, its vision is blurred, and so it can't be trusted. How do I get past that?

What if, the one time this heart wrenches at my guts, yanking at them from within, all day long, telling me and every inch of me that my logic is wrong, the signs are wrong, and that for once, it's willing to bet the relationship we've built over the years, just so I believe in it, what if this one time, when my heart cries out to be trusted, I really shouldn't.

What if I give up. Close all doors for conversation between this heart and me. Because all functions are now impaired. My heart wont relent, and logic and reason say they don't have to prove to me of their accuracy. So what if I give up on this heart, fall back on logic, fall back on facts, and draw my conclusion, never to trust this heart again. Because the turmoil is a bit much for my kind.

What if I "let the cold inside", and close all means of contact.

I was told, not to let being around people become a habit, yesterday. So what if I let the cold seep in.. all over again. I let logic and reason and facts take over.

So what if, I douse this fire, tell the heart to shut up. And so what if the heart is sure? Logic subtly tells me to move on. And in its subtlety, I see conviction. So while the heart screams in desperation to be followed, and to be believed just this one last subliminal time, Logic calmly nods in disapproval, spreads its arms around, and tells me to go through, just once more if I will, all the facts neatly laid in front of me.

It's hard not to take that seriously. And so I will.

And so this is goodbye,
****
Dear Heart,

I know you think differently, I know you believe with all your million beatings that you've never been more right. But the things I see, that you don't from inside, tell me a different story. And though I wish what you felt was true, I think it's time, that you left. Because really, I don't know if I can ever trust you again.

And so this is goodbye.

Yours Truly.
****
To Logic, Reason and Facts,

I've never liked you, that's probably why I've taken a beating for most of my life. So come on in, welcome. I have a strange feeling life is going to be much better with all your calculations and deductions.

Thanks for trying to get through to me, this one last time.

Here's to the three of you,
Cheers.

November Rain

2010-11-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

The music began..and I couldn't help but laugh at god's perfect fucking timing. But I sang along, like it meant nothing to me. Axl started with his haunting voice that seeps into my veins and reminds me of a past that had nothing for me but the sound of his voice and others like him, of raw riffs and bad hair, drums, lyrical rhyming and absolute sense, and of that deathly promise of something big waiting for me.

But life has a funny way of making your wish come true... and never letting you really see, that there, right in front of you, between your fingers, at arms length, there and everywhere around you, is your wish, fulfilled. But you never see it.

*****

Rains have always been my favourite. They have a funny way of making everything seem okay. The rain doesn't burn down on my skin, but bathes over the scabs, it doesn't pierce through me, shinning down on me like the sun, reminding me that I cannot hide too long; but it simply wraps itself around me, and hides me in it's dance. And so I love the rain...Walking down the street as it takes over every inch of me with its tips.. promising me a new start.

There's nothing more difficult, than trying to hold the ground beneath your feet; so tight, so desperately, and wishing never to lose control. There's something so sadistically human about that desperation... That you wonder if there is something bigger in control after all, and if there is.. then why you?

Nothing lasts forever he sings.. and sings to the world of how hard it is to hold together, in the cold November Rain.

Life won't let me call her a bitch, she wont leave me alone, and she wont let me be. She dangles freewill in front of my thirsty rebellious eyes knowing I will crumble, and then she laughs a thunderous laugh, telling me how that "freewill" was a cruel test of Destiny.

He sings..asking me if I need some time on my own, if I need some time all alone.

You try. But the ground does shift, your feet do lose their grip, and the earth does shatter all around you. But the truth remains, that you get by. Because you pick up the damn broken pieces, you pick them up to start afresh or you shove them down some dirty drain of disasters and start over. It's what you do. Because of some weird spell you're on, that won't let you give up.

So he sings again, asking me if I need some time...

I try... I try to refrain, but I'm giving in.. He tells me behind fine guitars that "everybody needs some time"... and I give in.

If it's time I have, then it's time I need. To pick these damn pieces up, or figure out where I want them thrown.

Destiny, bring it on.

On Change.

2010-11-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of change. And I never have been. I have never jumped up in exhilaration at the first onset of change, and I have never embraced it with grace.
Change to me, is good, only when Hutch tells us they like being called Vodafone now, and promise us that "Change is Good". Change is fine by me then. It's a different thing that I still call Hutch..well Hutch and not Vodafone, but hey, that change was fine by me.

Of course, there are times in my life, when I look forward to moving out of an old house and into a new one, or change the way I wear my hair, I don't mind change of the smaller kind; but the big ones, they don't just suffer going down my very narrow, inflexible throat, they don't go down at all. The moment the first dreary clouds of change begin to appear, you'll find me in a corner hurling my world out in despair.

I don't like it. I just don't.

And Change kills me more when she comes at a time when I struggle to find my constant. When I look around with glazed, dilated pupils for some sort of totem to cling onto, while my world around me crumbles. And today, Change has laid it's first blow on me. Leaving me with no one answering questions.

She's struck me with a steely knife, right when I marveled at how comfortable I was feeling; she's ripped that fluffy pillow of comfort right from under me, reminding me of the same truth I fight, Day upon Day.

But of course, I do understand how inconsequential my trials may be in this big blob of change that this world is all about. So I retreat, yet again, this time far deeper into my shell. I tried reaching out, that I can promise you; but only to blind eyes. So I retreat.

Let the change take on it's wildest most glamorous role, and I'll see how I respond to it.

There Comes a Time

2010-10-06T02:30:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in life when you just stop to care all that much. I don't mean you stop, slow down and take a moment to care. What I mean is you stop caring. Just like that. When the way you wear your hair doesn't matter all that much, nor do the tales that the mirror echos.
There comes a time in life, when life just gets simple. I don't know how it happens and I don't know when. But it does. For some of us.
I just saw someone I used to know in school's Facebook profile. She was my senior there, and boy was she one of the hotties, and I see her today, she's a mom now.. and I noticed then how she seems to be floating on a comfortable pink cloud of bliss in just that time where none of the things that glimmer matter. In that stage in life, when beauty really seems to lie in the eye of the beholder. And I wish her a lifetime of that.

That seems like a nice place to be in. I suppose. But it's all a little too comfortable for me. I think I'd defeat the purpose of experiencing such bliss by living in constant fear of something not being right. I can picture myself sitting in the waayyy corner of my purple cloud of comfort, biting my nails incessantly looking around with bulging eyes like Wile E Coyote. I would be too stressed by the comfort. Too unsure to enjoy it and too damn edgy to even know I'm supposed to be feeling it.

See I'm used to things going bad, and now I see the pattern and I find a certain sense of surety, if not comfort with this pattern in my life. So when there is a quiet, I don't let myself be fooled into calm, no sirree, but I take that quiet time to tense up my muscles and keep the adrenalin pumping in case of attack.

I can't help it, I'm just that way.

I may have been a gladiator in the past.. or maybe just a night guard outside the king's castle, which perhaps answers my edginess and paranoia.. see because guards have to ASSUME that trouble lingers. There entire profession would be non existent if it wasn't for the trouble and its evil evil lingering around, so imagine me, an old guard in the something hundreds, skinny to the bones, standing in the cold dark night, beside the icy gates of my king's palace, breathing out mist and sitting or rather standing at the edge of my toes with a measly old spear in hand.... Pathetic.

So It's not my fault really. I know of life's naughty little games and I know how she loves to tease. And while there may have been many occasions when her cuddling and tickling my chin in fondness have fooled me into momentary bliss; but I have learnt my lessons and life can throw all the comforts she wants at me, but the old skinny bones night castle guard in me is never going to be at ease.

But of course, it would be nice to know that my Purple Cloud of comfort is nearing. So holler out to me if you ever see it coming and I'm too blind to, just so I can nod and go "Hurray!" and rush to gather all artillery and read up on my history to see how to combat that age old war tactic life seems to love to use one me- The Element of Surprise.

In No Hurry

2010-09-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big fan of life moving real fast... of piling on the numbers [no I don't think the numbers matter,but I'm not looking to pile them on in a blur]. I don't like thinking of anything more than maybe a week in advance..sometimes if it's worth it.. like for the Oktober Fest? I can plan maybe twenty days in advance, but no more. The other day I read in the papers that Prodigy is coming to Bangalore, and found myself super excited, until I saw that their visit is scheduled for January next year. That sounds fun.. only.. it frightens me to think THAT far. So I don't like it.. all the hurrying.. hurrying for experiences.. hurrying for the same bus everyday, hurrying to class.. okay maybe that I miss, but you get the picture anyway?

As a child, I spent wayy to many nights wanting to grow up so I could move out.. well I'm grown up now and I don't think I could ever get myself to move out.. not anytime soon.. and later on..? See that's just the thing.. I don't know. I can't think, and I like it that way.

So I allow life, to be slow.. as slow as she'd like to be. She can drag her ass all the way down till the end and I don't care if the end takes a century to get here.

Someone I know's started to read this book on spirits and souls and the seven realms of the other world... and they talk of how earth and life here is just a pit-stop. It sounds gratifying that I will be avenged for all the evils done upon me. But see, I can't quite chew down or even close my nose and swallow the concept of this right here, this blog, my fingers, my thoughts, my green tea and all my passive smoking means nothing. It's not just a pit-stop for me. Not this me that's right here, on this planet, hating it, loving it and living with it. THIS is as real as it can get. My soul may have dropped right down to the darkest realm that is ironically called realm number ONE. But hey, that's how I see it. My soul and I are quite happy without being hammered by karma and her little quirks.

One thing that all this soul stuff tells me though, is that there aint no such thing as destiny, thank you very much, and I wont say I told you so. And I've had the blessing of coming across quite a few *souls* who do believe, just like I do, that if there were a heaven, and pataal and whatchamacallit, then I'm already either doomed for the fiery underground or blessed with a *sinless* heart with a business class ticket and hot stewards to heaven. See it don't work that way.
Either way, I know there will be a day of reckoning with MYSELF at the end, and I prefer to reckon with myself on a regular basis. That way I can undo the wrongs and redo the rights and all of that. All this talk however, has left me wondering what in the world I had started off saying in the first place.

Maybe what I was and still am [ in what sadly seems like a struggle] trying to say is, that I'm in no hurry. Each awesome moment can take its time, so long as it promises to come... I can wait.. Life seems fine in its pace right now, with status updates, lots of staying out late, good food, great company... and though September seems to be taking her own sweet time getting done with... I'm alright with it, gives me that much more of a challenge, trying to make it a few days more with my very empty wallet. See that takes skill that needs mastering... The kind that I have championed over the last .. well.. since they day I could count money and decided I wanted a good piece of it!

I'll be damned if I ever find myself thinking of my POA for the next five years. ... I can plan out one thing though.. to maybe try and save at least a few hundreds next month. Until then, September can drag on.. and I'll keep counting the chiller!

I Thought

2010-09-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

He followed me. In the quick steps that his nine year old feet could manage. But he kept up, I ignored. He spoke till his point run through- "paisa mat dena didi, khana khareedke de do please." He had me right then, but I kept walking anyway. Not wanting to fall pray. Not wanting to turn back to buy him food. Not knowing, if it was safe.

I turned to look at him after a few minutes because he coughed like a litle child; and on his nine year old little arms, sat a little girl with a running nose. I looked away. I pretended to walk toward a coffee shop, but he yelled out anyway, desperately, telling me not to give him money, but to buy him food. He started to bargain with me, and said a packet of biscuits would do. And I choked. While what may well have been his little sister coughed an unforgiving cough, I simply choked on my own tears warring inside to be let out.

And so I thought. I thought of my own complexities. I thought of the drama; all of it that bides in me. I thought of the hurt and all the blame that I have tucked into overt oblivion but at only an arm's length away in case I ever have to unearth that little closet.

I thought of my choices; my rights and my wrongs. And the many wrongs I know are about to be made.

I thought of it all and some more. Faced by a little boy begging me for some food, I thought of it all. Through his desperate eyes that I hoped not to trust, I didn't think of the responsibilities. I didn't think of the government. I didn't think of all the undone goods.

I thought. And I thought of me.

The Lost Accountability of this Democracy

2010-09-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

We've got the titles in place. The offices occupied. The papers strewn, and the promise of goodness, all in its place. But somewhere, we've got to admit, there's a lot of action missing. The drama exists. The action, sits comfortably as prints in the pages that house and profess those very titles. Of course, we are a Democracy. Because that's what that giant book concludes with all of its many amendments.

Vox populi, power to the people, the great rule of the people, we the people, all of it. Who are the "We" in this people that we've become. "We" seemed to have been herded into one giant bunch with patriotic, heart warming, goose pimple bringing words like "we", "together", "unity in diversity", "hum hain Bharati".
I don't think we asked for this consolidation of our billion emotions into one humongous "we" that WE are well aware, doesn't really exist. To that we nod one great nod of approval- at the truth of "our" in-existence. "We", is just a convenience. A shorter word to use than "all those", "each and every", "me, she, then that one, that one, that one, and that one, and also that one". "WE" just gets so much easier.

But that of course is beside the point I've taken time off from my other wise event-less Saturday to try and say something. The question that's really got me thinking here is, where is the existence and rule of the people, when "we" as a people, are not an active people? So where then, are all the decisions being made, if its not me, and you, and the girl next door?

By the looks of it, it is clear that not much good is happening around here. But then again, there is some order in chaos and someone sure HAS to be making all the decisions for "us". The ones that WE were promised to be able to make ourselves. The ones that WE decided, were not worth our time.

See I like Democracy, because technically, it lets me have an opinion. But I think I'm just as much of a disgrace to this democracy that sadly, doesn't need anymore capitalizing, as you, and you and most of you.

It took a conversation with someone, a cup of nicely made Grandma's Special Tea and the very persistent smoke of a seemingly addictive cigarette for me to realise this.

I know how much we love to point fingers at them, because they did this, all the wrongs, the few rights, they did them all. They anger us, they make our blood boil, they leave us to shake our heads in repetitive disapproval and tuts of how this country's going nowhere, and in effect, so aren't we. Unless of course we have the money for that flight away and someone or somewhere to go to from there.
They don't know how to do anything, and all they do, is bring us down.

Sure why not, but one rebuttal for a question and if we were to ask "who 'they' are, we don't know!" I know I've asked myself this question on many an angry mornings back when I did used to keep myself aware by reading the paper. But My mornings have been nice off late, and you can only imagine why.

See, but I see the truth now. Because the truth is, what ticked me off was the simple fact that I wanted change, but I was willing to do just about nothing to make that change happen. How is a democracy to run in all its greatness, with an ineffective people? WE have not spoken. WE haven't worked, WE haven't fought, We haven't questioned, and so, quite plainly, WE have failed.

The yous and mes have comfortably lost our own accountability in the effective functioning of our ignoramus Democracy. This great numerical number of a billion that consolidates Us into this country, has forgotten the power it holds and how abused this power has been, by its inactivity.

All the They's we hate so much, are right there sticking their fingers out in the dark gali-s of their blind eyes. Because in the absence of a people, we witness today, the absence of a real Democracy.

Something Somethings

2010-09-09T05:49:00.000-07:00

Something strange seems to be happening to me. A strange phase I'm going through in life right now. Having said that, I don't deny the fact that what was my life, what is and what has been, my life has always been strange; but it's been a kind of strangeness that I, over the years, have become accustomed to. The sort of strangeness that I befriended after having fought it for what seemed like nothing less than a million battles fought over a century.. or well, at least left me feeling like nothing less than a hundred and twenty one years and half old. Now THAT kind of strangeness I'm used to.

This however, is a strange kind of strange. Even for someone as strange as me. It's the kind that's left me wondering, among other things, what my "great plan of action" was as a child. Well.. That's something myself and I like not dealing with. But something else is happening. Everyday, tags a long with me, a girl I don't know too well. A girl I'm growing far too weary of. A girl I just can't seem to place my finger on, what's wrong. I'm a stranger of sorts to myself; the kind you look at and think "hmmm...I wonder if she KNOWS she's weird."

Well Know I do. I had recently thought of updating my Facebook status to, whoever I am is "coming to to accept the fact that she's a clown." But I didn't. Because I didn't feel like talking to myself via the world. See that's just another thing, the once all important Facebook means nothing to this girl who's recently found a home inside of me. I don't know what happened and where, but somehting sure did happen.
There have been many news...and with the many sips of tea on the roof top, the many new "tried and testeds", as I go on each day, ignoring my dog, day after day, maybe a little more with each day after, something's been stirring up a brew deep inside. This weird yet awesomely unknown storm; about the only feeling I am all too familiar with...and as my days proceed on that quiet roof top, with the crows, and the squirrels and the the loud buzzer of a washing machine sweetly cocktail-ed with the incessant barking of a dog tied down to the chain that stands alone as the one true testimony to his sad state of imprisonment; chiming along in protest, the storm I know and love, keeps brewing.

And with the sudden last call of the station master's rusty whistle, the deep exhale of the engine, the tired rattling and chugging along of an ancient train... I know I'll find my order in the sweet addictive chaos of my mind. Order I will find.
Until it's time for the unforeseen storm again.

What Started Off as a Dream

2010-06-07T04:34:00.001-07:00

What started off as a dream, still continues, in some reminiscent old part of my mind. One I visit in flashes, almost like an uncontrollable reflex that takes place at the sound of an old song, or the words to an old rhyme. There’s something in the air, something mysteriously quantum physics about it. It’s like it can capture little capsules of specific, significant time and bring it all across the oceans of the past for you to breathe in, for just a tiny instant or lift you up, like Jerry got lifted up by the trail made from the scent of cheese; you close your eyes, and you’re taken back. Right back. Though sadly it’s all a haze. But you can hear the sounds. Feel the floor. And you can smell the time. Every time has a scent. An unexplainable one. One that only you know and only you can tell to which great column of this giant book of time that scent belongs to. And as much as you can share these thoughts, that time is still all yours. Untouchable and unexplainable.
Little ripples across a narrow stream down the old country home you loved as a child, but will probably never return to. Images flash in front of your eyes, making you almost wanting to dive into them; almost. With you holding on to your seat on an everyday afternoon sitting numb on the chair that holds you back from daring into attempting the very things that gave you that sense of identity. You hold on to that unimpressive throne of survival, for letting go, might take you back, to a moment of bliss, and consequently, sheer sadness. Coming out of it, is bound to be hard.
The tree lets the wind take over, dancing, moving, grooving to the pushes of the music of the wind only they can hear. And each time they dance, Time unravels itself, from the ghettos of your layered mind; maybe to a rainy evening with your grandmother, standing by the window, crying, feeling scared, for some unknown reason, inside a concrete room, watching the trees dancing to the music of the wind in a trance. And in this brief travel, there’s the right kind of music playing in your head too, to make you smile a crooked smile that holds back a broken pipe of tears. Time is beautiful. She leaves you with passing. So nothing stays and everything becomes all the more precious, all the more beautiful, and all the more important. Time gives you longing, and reminds you of her passing, every waking moment, every occasion, every sleep over, she’s there, wrapped neatly around your existence; reminding you, to savour it, because tomorrow, it will be gone.
And as a tiny butterfly reminds us of a time in which we went days trying to capture one, we’re tormented with unreachable parallels, of clinging on to what was, pleading for a little journey back, to maybe even start over, and yet, with painful, and uncontrollable hope for what is to come.
And so she plays her tricks, Time. Teasing you, in moments of elevated dream, playing with you, as she brings back a breeze from the past, a face even, that drifts you into comfortable memory, sweet, and painful. From moments you keep safely hugged between your heart and your ever growing, rational mind; in that place of comfort no one can touch, and no one can feel.
As the guitars play the same chords to a song lost in the ripples of an old country house in Wales, Time moves on, reminding you of “passing”- her cruelest gift.

I'll Miss Those Corridors

2010-04-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'll miss those corridors for the rest of my life. The dusty stairs, the old building strenuously working towards a make over. The filled up cupboards with papers and bundles of it, standing right opposite a trusty new computer.

I'll miss the quietness of those corridors, early mornings and late evenings. And the images of it standing straight and beautiful in its emptiness if framed deep within the iron bars within my mind's heart. I'll miss it. The bumping into girls, glaring at each other for daring to think they were better than the other. Each fair in their own little battles. I'll miss the variety. The long skirts, the baggy pants, the great hair, the coolest bags, the questionable bags, the just right clothes, and that one particular girl perpetually fooled into her psychological tower of greatness by the length of her very ghastly heels.

I'll miss the rich brats, and the ones turning those very brats into queen bees.
And on many a summer afternoon, I'll think in fondness of the many paper plates, cups and wrappers I may have thrown into that red drum for a dust bin.

I'll miss the excitement of having really nothing to do and the sheer boredom of it all.

I will miss it all for the rest of my life. The tap tap tapping of the basketball on those cool October mornings. The little lady in the old rusted tuck shop, scrapping through the days with her maladies, he inescapable ability to keep you locked for a few minutes at least, and her trusty chocolate pastry spiders, reminding me "NEVER TO EAT IT AGAIN."

I'll miss the classrooms with two doors, and the insatiable sleep that could take over every ounce of the very last twitch on my face...Leaving me rested, sometimes drooling and secretly calm, knowing I'm still safe inside.

I'll miss all of it. Those shushed talks that grew in intensity and dipped as soon as danger was spotted. Those little controversies that popped up in every little pocket of those corridors. The little competitions that help us forget, or keep us deluded enough to think that THIS WAS LIFE.
I'll miss those heartbreaks shared with my girlfriends. Those strings of advices, those choice abuses and those tight silent hugs every time each one of us needed it. And that one aggressive word of support from your girlfriends, for anyone trying to hurt you. I'll miss the comfort of knowing that though the day had ended, I'll see them again right there, just like that, the very next day. And I'll miss the blessing of having got that day after day.

I'll miss that food, that didn't hurt the pocket and tasted better than anything else money can buy me today. The stinky toilets that surprised me at every visit, wondering, could GIRLS really be using this?? I was sure there some boys messing it up!

I'll miss the little misunderstandings, the tension at having disappointed a teacher we loved, and the egotistical consoling afterwards. The haven of peace, the magic of what lay beyond and the longing for more, while hoping what was would never end. I'll miss it all, in sweet, addictive pain for the rest of my life. And though there are some things I wouldn't miss, like the insufferable men and women sitting on their thrones in the mighty towers of administration. I'm still glad it all happened.

Never say Never

2010-04-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

She walked into the room filled with strangers, and smiled at where the dwindling path called life had brought her to. Pushing the door with her right hand, right foot in, she took in one long deep breath marking the end of what lay outside as she exhaled into the room.

Cigarettes, loud talk, simmered talk. Shiny shoes, heels claiming their authority on the floor, and everything she had stayed away from for as long as she she could remember.

She witnessed before her unforgiving eyes, a newspaper cut out of the very mnemonics of routine, of conformists, of human beings metaphor-ed into rats and an ugly race she never ever wanted to be part of.

She entered on, unnoticed, and pleased at it. What lay ahead, she did not know, but she knew it would be good. Because as hard as she tried to suppress the quiet glee she unexpectedly felt within, she could not deny its existence.

The verdict had been laid out. Only not acknowledged, and it would be time before it's impact would be enforced. But the verdict was out- She Liked It.

It was chance that brought her here, she consoled herself, and so chance will take the call.

CONTD

There's Something to be Said

2010-04-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

We love it. We do. We really really do. This whole human thing? We love it. The power trip, the insurmountable amounts of power we get what with the opposable thumb, the slightly more intelligent brain and that ghastly curiosity which as religion might have it, got us to eat the damn apple, and well also lead us to a lot of other discoveries that have not only brought unbelievable advances in our human society but also damaged the prospects of a safe human society for centuries to come. Until we're too destroyed to go on with unflinching faith in the god of progress or somehow learn to unlearn what we have learned. Wow, the tongue twister in that sentence speaks for the possibility of any chances of such an occurrence.

There's something to be said about this power. And a lot more on what it means to be human.

We could become demi-gods in this mighty ocean of giagnoramous power. Let's face it, we rule this planet. Each and every one of us mighty humans. We've laid claim and we rule and the battle for supremacy still does continue bold, strong, loud, but the best battles they say, are the quiet ones. And there's something to be said about that. And a lot more on what it means to be be human.

So help me god if I for an ignoramus, shameful second happen to believe that I stand apart from this hot bed of bubbling pride. We're like a huge planet filled with eggs boiling on hot fire probably going "I cook first! I cook first" least realising that once cooked- the end awaits.

Hell yeah. There's something to be said about alll of this.

But in all of this being human thing, it's the little creatures who were meant to share this planet with us who suffer. The ones without the opposable thumb. Without the enlarged brain and therefore no complicated ID, EGO and SUPER EGO to deal with.
The little critters who were, as the greatest hamartia of the gods has proven, left pretty much as themselves. While we were made to "progress".

They're left behind in all of this. And while we could be Demi-Gods, really, we choose to be Demi- Gods of power. And not of love. There's something to be said about that.

It's the little dogs on the streets who pay. The nest-less birds. The homeless squirrels who did NOT want to satisfy any inner, seemingly selfless ego by sacrificing their homes for our Christmas trees, our decorated, dressed massive pieces of art ready for processions, sealing great political bags of votes, and all the other things that our opposable thumbs and our mighty developed brains allow us to do.. It's all of them who suffer.

The evidence is everywhere: our feet, our hands, our homes and our streets. We're the masters of cruelty. And that cruelty shines out loud with its light reverberating and echoing all across the polluted skies of our world, when a little animal, has no place to let out the only way nature allows us all to. When even his corners are lined with our mobility shining under the sun. Houses to the left, cars to the right, concrete where it stands and if were to let go, the mighty hands of the demi gods on earth raise up with stones and feet powered with kicks for that creature, to whom this planet equally belongs.

There's something to be said about that kind of power. There really is.

The Maladies of Lead and Atoms

2010-04-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

Standing casually by the side of a car I don't even notice. Whining, waiting for the love of my life to come out. Lean my hand onto the hood of the car and boom. I could be dead.

It could happen anywhere. At anytime.

And that's the life I lead. Life you call it? Can I share these thoughts with anyone? Not really. I have already been termed excessively paranoid. But really, it could be anything.

'Your every thought has a consequence, your every thought has a consequence' I keep telling myself that so many times that it doesn't matter anymore. Who do I blame for that?

The religion that blinds. Poverty. Money. Or man and literature. Who do I blame?
As I wait for Nikhil to come out of the store, now hyper ventilating inside, I try real hard to wash these feelings away. Shrug them off like a dog shaking off or straightening up his coat. A turn of the head-ears start flapping- head oscillating, movement passing on to neck-center and finally released in one last freeing shake off the tail. And voila, my thoughts gone.

But it doesn't happen. I retardedly start to sing instead. Nikhil doesn't notice my agony still talking to a friend inside, but the people walking around sure do. "I want to break free!" I don't just sing, I sing like I mean it. Of course I do. "I want to break free from your lies!" Bobbing my head from side to side, my lips accentuating each word. I am Queen now. For that one retarded moment.

Something, anything to make these thoughts go away. Bobbing bobbing I notice something far away on the divider of a busy road. A bag. My heart leaps right onto a third beat, over and over again. 'Why isn't anyone else noticing this?!' I thought frantically. 'Argh! Nikhil! Come!!' If only he could hear the chaos in my head. The alarms ringing loud, bells being rung and self preservation quickly and swiftly creating adrenalin in me, my body was ready to flee. Only, not without him!

'I want to break free'. 'I want to break free' . Okay song not working, next change..next change damn it! Someone passed by me and coughed, I stopped breathing, if it's swine flu, it's not coming close to me. No sirree.

Could this be for real? This the culmination of all these years of my life? Could I be a victim of all my fears? Yes, indeed I could.

Because really, it could happen anywhere. And I'd be forced to leave all this behind.

Nikhil hops out of the store, filled with life and so much sport. I almost envy him. Why couldn't I be different? Even a degree different would be better.

'Your every thought has a consequence, your every thought has a consequence'. My craziest smile on, I hold his hand and leave. Relived at the immediate truth of our existence. And the chaos within continues.

We're just like that...

2010-01-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

We're just like that. We proclaim our unity with bold words. We talk of being brothers and sisters; but really, we're told growing up, to marry anyone, but someone from the other faith. We're just like that.

We talk of a history. Rich. Proud. But we don't fall short when we have to ape. If nothing, we won't fall short of being the first ones to say "we're going nowhere". We're just like that.

We're just like that. We announce our culture and norms to all. We speak of our duties. We speak of how much we respect. We talk of breeding love of showing the other cheek. With swords held firm behind our backs.

We denounce all violence. We banner and immortalize our national hero. Remind ourselves of him each time we look at a soft and sagging note in our neat and organised wallets. We form groups and cults singing praises of our motherland. The saffron goddess of all things good. And when push comes to shove, we hesitate not to slay. We're just like that.

We surrender our minds and beings to god. We celebrate days of rest throughout the year in honour of our many gods. We pray to the female goddess and we shun the girl child. Yes we've heard this all before. And that only goes to further say, that we're just like that.

Take a look at everything that we claim to be a bold and dashing symbol of our country. Our national sport is a joke. Our national emblem a mere work of art. and our national animal, is today dying. We're just like that.
This is just how our country works. And one look at the state of our national symbols of pride, and you know, how much of a nation we really are.
We'll put up a statue for a dead actor worth ten crores because a few of us decide to make trouble. While lakhs wake up to a cold morning, holding on to their sanity and the ones they love after a cold and cruel flood, we debate who goes first and who does what.
Each night we rest to a bold claim on our news, and each morning, we wait for yet another exciting dose at night.
We call each other names, from sala madrasi to "has to be a north Indian". and I shudder to comment on the east and the west.
Because we. Are just. Like. That.

I hope I am never a national figure of pride for this country. I wish not to be thus treated.

While "save the tiger" is just something that even fails to irk us today, just another one of those "save the planet rants". Life, is much more important. What with status updates, visas to leave, and so much more. Life is much more important.

And so, with only one thousand four hundred and eleven tigers left. What is left, is a true result of our convictions. This is how we treat each other. There is noting more we can expect. This, the respect we have for the goddess who rides a tiger. This, all the care we have for all "creatures of god". This the duties we boast of. This the heritage and this the history. And clearly, this our National Pride.

It's the tiger. It's not us. We'll never be where the tiger is at. We've done enough to build ourselves shelters. Keep ourselves. Store much more than enough to survive. Studied weather patterns. Created warnings. Swift help in emergencies. Constant connectivity. We're the kings of convenience.
What does that animal know? What does it know of guns and such harm? When has it ever taken more than it may need? It may leave its cubs alone to fetch some food. And if shot and killed, there are no emergency numbers they can call. No shelters. No last goodbyes. no wills for their further protection. All they have, is what they know from within. And all they have, is what they first got from nature. They have not torn her down all for themselves. They only take as much as they may need.
What have we done? We're so proud of our humanity. Where is it now?

We really are the fittest.

We don't know what we can do to help save them. And so we won't find out.
We're just like that.

Umbilical Lores

2010-01-29T02:47:00.000-08:00

When was the last time I was in a moment of bliss, sheer lack of conflicting emotions? When was the last time that watching children kick a soccer ball in little spaces they find room in..cursing in new found abuses and hand gestures, didn't fill me with a sense of solemness?
When was the last time that I didn't feel jealous of a dog sleeping in a little basket..looking calm and sedated with bliss despite being chained down by his "owners"?
I cannot get myself to eat the orange lying in a basket filled with its companions just a foot away from me.
There was time. A time when nothing mattered. But that time, was a time when I was lost in sleep.. because really, such a time has never existed.

Someone just rang the door bell, and I cursed under stale breath, hating the task that now lay ahead. A pretentious smile. A welcome that I don't mean. And superficial conversations over exaggerated interest shown by me. I am an actor. And While I love it. I hate myself.
I get up from the table breathing a deep loathing sigh, only to realise that it is that child. Ringing the bell in jest. That child of mine. And I am filled with loath for her. And then, I am filled with filth for myself.
She's smiling, a smile that in all of conditional society is meant to bring a smile to the face of a mother. But not I. I cringe, narrow my eyes in disgust, my nose wrinkles and I spit some hate at her. ... Joy I feel at the power that I have over her emotions. A secret joy that gives me a rush each time. Only to die out a few moments later. I am too used o this now. And so is she. I don't bother with an apology anymore.

The child fills me with hate. And I wonder what I did to have this creep as mine. Looks just like her father. Behaves just like him. And at the age of eleven, I can think of nothing else but to abandon her. I don't want her. Not for a second longer.

I curse my fate for the choices that I made.

I haven't cooked. I don't like to cook. It's been three days since the two of us have been eating out. Some fried rice and Manchurian from the cart at night. I don't remember what for breakfast and the meal after.

Mea culpa..mea culpa...
****

My heart is beats against my chest. My hands are trembling... That little bitch got what she deserves. Competing with me! She wants my saree, my bindi, tomorrow she'll want my man. Salee

I don't care if the bag is unsettled, I am done with her. I don't want her... I've never wanted her! Eleven years is enough.. she'll manage herself.. she'll survive.. a woman after all.. there's lots she can do with herself. Mata Rani, be with me, guide me! Help me leave this wretch.

This time her begging me not to leave won't help. Her constant pleas and sleazy hugs! Every time I give her opportunity to prove to me that she is not her father! But dirty blood, will remain just that!

Child, this is it. I am done with you. I gave up my life for you. I sacrificed all for you. I don't know why I had you. Stop your weeping. I am done. There is enough here for you. enjoy your life and other escapades you'll soon have. You'll be fine. You have yourself. I lived with filth for thirteen years. First your father, and then his swine. I'll kick you off again if you come near. I'm done.

****
The house a mess, the girl a pain. Just because I am a mother, doesn't mean I am nobody. ... When was the last time I was in a moment of bliss, sheer lack of conflicting emotions?
Hopefully I will again.

Silhouetted dots.

2010-01-21T01:17:00.000-08:00

When the covering from an old packaged doll placed atop a pelmet, or a dusty book shelf begins to come off, that’s when truth really brings itself out. It may have taken it over two decades. But it comes out none the less. Over ripe. And worthless.
Dusty, filthy and ruined.
The little inconsequentials turn out to be so imperative that the damage has already been done.
The little doll wasn't played with, as it was meant to be, but left. For the world a show. A Clean package, cleaned for the eyes of curious strangers. Cleaned once, cleaned twice. And cleaned so many more times after. Until it was finally forgotten about. And the eyes of curious strangers were directed to more inconsequentials.
The lifeless doll, can't even suffocate. And that’s the unworthy truth of its existence, without really existing. She simply occupies a place in time. A place in inconsequential memories. And a place, right on top, of a pelmet in an old house whose residents have long since grown and changed. Not evolved however.
One look at that dusty box on top, and torrents of images sweep in. ‘How did that happen? How can so many thoughts and images be swept in, by an object forgotten in its place in time?’
Dust. Dust. Though not the kind that can be blown off. The hard stuck in the corners kind. One that won’t go off with some Kiwi and wipes. The kind that needs some paying attention to. A solution maybe, to just wipe out all the muck from existence. Some sort of acid solution to remove all traces of it.

Maybe today, the box will be un-pelmed and un-shelved. The breaking package might just be peeled off completely today. And inside, a fresh, new, untouched object. Still new, despite all its history. Maybe. Or maybe the job is too tough. The dust too much. Off goes the old packing. And in comes the new one. All of life's inconsequential imperatives, tucked away. Smoothly and skillfully. This time, on another shelf. Far from view. But still close enough to be a reminder of everything lost.

The new Preamble -Piece-ful Protests, Pieceful Republic-

2009-12-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

Another day for celebrations. Another glorious day to be marked down in someone's history. Not ours. But someone's. A day, to burn the sheets rolled by little burnt fingers, to fill the streets that obviously aren't loud enough, with some more noise. To explode into the air, some smoke because there truly isn't enough: perhaps to add a hazy effect to this glorious event. A day to bathe the streets in products of murdered trees...just so the sweepers tomorrow, actually have something to work.
A glorious day indeed.

Could I feel more patriotic? Surely not as much as I do today. For today, is day, when I know, where I belong. Or more aptly, to which precise part of this magnanimous ocean of diversity that I belong to.
A glorious day indeed.

Where am I really? I can safely say, without the fear of being slapped with the title of a non patriot, that I, am a citizen of the world. Proud.

****

In a world, lost in its own innovated complexities. Lost, deciphering the existing complexities. In a world speeding towards the edges of an inescapable mountain of mass invented doom. India as broken.

Perhaps a late realisation. Maybe long ago. But India, is broken.

Broken, because of her diversity. Broken because of her divisions, her geographical hemispheres, her border tolls, the different climates within her length and breadth, broken by her rivers, broken by her faiths. Broken because of the very essence of her democracy. An ode to this Broken Republic.

Today I shed a tear. Shed a tear because of my shameful lack of conviction. A tear for the apathy that I have coaxed myself into. Today I shed a tear, because for the first time, I am ready to leave her.

I know this isn't the end. It is only the beginning. Congratulations to the State of Telangana. I hope I have spelt you wrong. Here's a ticket, to Koorg, to Maharashtra, to the East within, the east outside? Well here, take one, come, break us more. Or watch with glee.
None of you are far away from your own long fought for victories. The secret is out, just starve, if not one of you, then five, for the next state ten, and twenty for the next. That is all it would take. To think of all the years you lost in trying to work it out. Starve. Starve, because just being an integral part of this country isn't enough. Starve because you want more. Kill, fight, threaten, and use your democracy for all of it's ideals. Congratulations to all: Tlangana and to all the rest that will soon follow. Way to go! cheers! Hurrah! Break some empty bottles of well consumed liquor, pollute your streets, pollute your air, they're all YOURS now. All your battles have been won. Haven't they? And your world has healed and no more troubles prevail. Who the hungry children? Who the exploited workman? What the crumbling trees? and who the sold girls? Nothing! The biggest problem has been solved.

Where are all my "brothers and sisters"? Are they lost in the long forgotten Preamble that I can no longer truthfully proclaim?

A glorious day. Indeed.

Bubble In The Bong: "AGNOSCO VETERIS VESTIGIA FLAMMAE"

2009-12-03T11:16:00.000-08:00

Bubble In The Bong: "AGNOSCO VETERIS VESTIGIA FLAMMAE"

"AGNOSCO VETERIS VESTIGIA FLAMMAE"

2009-12-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

There's something about memory. Something it spurts, an overwhelming set of emotions that flutters right from some core in the depth of your being. It vulcanizes...and eventuates with an outburst. One that sometimes leaves you clueless.

A gallant heart secretly trudges..sometimes burdened..sometimes quieted and sometimes murdered with long evaded memory. But there comes a time, when that heart cries to speak in open, if only, for the illusion of being acknowledged.

Walking in, to a life that no longer is mine, I was reminded of all things wonderful. All things fine. and simply complicated in their own little exaggerated ways. A quick flash back..and its the same bus stop, the same direction..the shops that complete the scene and yet humbly accept their unimportance. It's the same way the sun shone only a few months ago. The air.. the people , the spirit..and I'm sadly aware, that I am walking to a place I call home...That truly no longer is mine.

Wasn't it only yesterday that I casually walked in for an hour that I was quite frivolously the guest of honour for on uncountable occasions?

The gates remain open armed..calling all who belong, inside. And I am painfully reminded, that I only once, not to long ago, belonged.

A community hall that I made my presence felt, at many a time. Those chairs..that stage.. those people.. they once were mine own... and I belonged.

A center for food and recreation, that I filled up an over grown stomach in...and I also served at. The plants.. the stairway. all mine..and now.. I have gone. And I don't belong.

It could be a teacher's erratic car alarm that hollered at literally the drop of a leaf, the teachers who never quite fit the bill, it could be my presence in a certain class just because I knew I could be a little arrogant there, or maybe even spark off an argument because somehow, then, I believed, that I knew more. It could be a simple disregard for someone, contrasted by an absolute love, respect and adoration for another.

It could be anything from that yesterday, and it would be everything that I once called mine. Today, estranged by unfriendly faces, faces unfamiliar and faces that I knew all too well. And I realise with utter desperation, that I still cling on, to all that isn't mine anymore.

That was an abode of magic for me. A beautiful land of discovery and possibilities. A land where I found myself, the me that I always believed I was, but never found the courage to find. It was a forum for adages, to be made, to be spoken of, broken down and let lose..for scrutiny, acceptance or to be discarded.
A sanctuary..a place of refuge. A place I could never fear. A place, that I called mine.

I thought I had moved on...but today, "I feel once more the scars of the old flame".

Homeless. Searching. And acutely aware, of the lack, or maybe even loss, of an important part of me.

Information is Power

2009-11-19T02:50:00.000-08:00

Its nice to see how people keep others in the loop. At times, to keep you informed. At others, to keep a tab on you. Our insecurities as mere human beings wrought with an unscrupulous knack for survival, incapacitates us from being the very essence of the ideology that we as humans chase. "Humanity".

There is no such thing as humanity, save our egocentric ideas of how great we are. Or rather, can be. We are quite truthfully inebriated by our need for supremacy. And in the battle for supremacy, there is no room for this humanity that we so proudly proclaim.

Which only speaks to me, of how ignorant we are as humans. So proud, so involved and so self deceivingly naive that we do not know when we are in the wrong. And in our blatant ignorance, there is a significant amount of shallow pride.

We expect, without qualms: loyalty, respect, love, trust and the list goes on. But some of us don't know the A of what it would mean to give back the same. So engrossed pointing fingers, we forget what we might have done, perhaps, to deserve the treatment dished out to us from someone we know did care for us at one point.

We are great, only when compared to others, which would mean we are higher, because there are others below. And that's the contemptible truth of our " humanity."

By my discourse it would seem that I have a certain amount of contempt for being human. Not quite there yet. I try however, to be able to see myself clearly. I fail to see why we are so keen on succeeding at the expensive of the failure of others. I don't understand why we are so afraid of someone else's greatness when compared to ours.

I do not understand, when, I have seen, that for the most of us, still sponges to emotion, we look for company, companionship and comfort. Yet to some of us, those hold no value when against competition.

I try, to accept those around me for all that makes them human. But at the complete lack of awareness and self oblivion as some do admit to in sarcasm, I fail to understand where all the ideals they so boldly claim begin and where they end?

People's ignorance and lack of any respect for the very expectations they have from others, Tickles me. I am only learning now... more like re-learning.

We all think we're right, doing circles in this loop, fiercely fighting each other, behind cheers and hugs. Holding the other by the shoulders and brawling in the dirt of our falseness.

And so here, welcome to the loop. You asked for it.

... So many ...so much...and just the right amount.

2009-11-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

A conversation with an old friend has revved me up with emotions. The chaotic kind. And that for my already bogged with chaos mind isn't such a good thing.

I hate feeling confused, and for someone who's confused almost all the time, admitting being confused has got to be serious trouble.
For a minute, I even miss the superficial nods because beyond all the egos and competition, I also had fun with this friend. And I miss that fun.

I wonder now, should I forgive the things done by this friend that defied every ounce of my definition of friendship? Should I redefine my definition? Or should I just understand that that's the best It can get with friendship, and in the end, everyone's the same.

And then.. while writing an overly depressing blog post, a friend sent me a good morning msg, and a friend came online just when i need her.. and I know I'm muuuucchhh better off than being around something made up...:)

Poetry- an old post.

2009-10-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

Its the untold tales that make for story. The mystery that everyone is after. And we forget to see, whats right there, in front of us- simplicity."Everyone has a story" they say...as true as that maybe..must it be a story? Isn't it just simply life?
Truth is, life can get so dramatic, that it gets easier to see the drama elsewhere too. Your life somehow seems better. More tolerable. When did we become such suckers for happy endings...? And how can someone's misery, bring us hope? Is that how it is supposed to work or are we just that ...selfish. That devoid of hope, that someone else's pain..reminds us of our blessings? When did that happen?

We are all shallow. And the word shallow shouldn't be used negatively. We are all shallow. Territorial. And shallow. How else can we survive? How must the fittest survive, without being shallow. How can one survive, without thinking of , mostly, oneself?

Questions..that probably shouldn't be answered. Because too much introspection can crumble us. If you sat to think, then how can there be a heaven and a hell, if there is a destiny. If our destinies are preordained , then it cannot be our fault to have sinned. Then there would be no point in trying..and even if we did try and failed or succeeded, that would still be, our destiny.

Just pondering... our inquisitiveness, our quest for stories... in the end..we're all looking for poetry that's unwritten..chiseling out our big, beautifully abstract sculpture of answers, to perfection. To hold on to our sanity a little longer.

Half

2009-10-13T10:33:00.001-07:00

One of those days when I feel so half of everything. I'm almost ready to change my name to "yeah, just about there". And well yeah, did you notice the "almost ready". I don't know if it's luck, if its energy, destiny, god or just my face.

While on most days I'd fight it all out headstrong, today, I'm just weighed down and tired. Man's got to have a break right? And when they need it. Not when whatever it is in control[ if there is some such thing, there has to be, because I tell you, I'm really NOT in control here]decides.

Sometimes you just need to be cradled. Taken care of. Sometimes, you just want to know, that tonight isn't a night to be spent in fear and despair. But for a beautiful morning to come.

Someone needs to promise us that! And stick to it. It's really unfair otherwise.

Sure you could squeeze hope from the smiling successes all around you. But that could just as well have adverse affects on you. I mean common!!!! You need a break sometimes too!!!!!

Agh... unfortunately, seems like the sunshine is over and there's no more hay to be made.

Goodnight world!

Milestones

2009-10-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

Life used to be about milestones. What started off with "Things I'm Going to do Once I Turn Thirteen", To "Things to do Before I turn Twenty" and then there was the curiously important "Things to do Before and After I turn Twenty One". And what now?

I went through somebody's blog today and read this post about a list of things to do before the blogger turned twenty. And all those things seemed so child like. So fun. Some even made me say "dang..I could've done that before turning twenty". But did, I did,and a lot of things, and all things I'm proud of. Apart from making a fool of myself on stage, I think I loved it all!

But what now? What list do I make and for what milestone? Twenty five? That's a little too far away and doesn't seem as exciting. Well honestly, not exciting at all. And this I say with no offense meant to everyone past their early twenties. I am sure your lives are colourful. I talk with reference to mine.

Is the only exciting moment of resolution making that I'm going to get, going to be New Years? Not fair. Why doesn't twenty three, four etc sound as exciting as turning thirteen and eighteen and twenty AND twenty one? Damn those things that tag nothing exciting to what happens after twenty one!

I can' t remember why I wanted to grow up so bad? What was it? Moving out, a car, and the power to swipe my card. And who knew how all that happens, and what it takes. I hiss with a little twang of jealousy when I see school kids these days, walking around, and think of all the wonderful firsts they're going to have...Most times I feel like smacking their faces and asking them to lower their skirts and pull up their pants, but that's probably after the twang of innocent jealousy has hit.

Just a few months ago there were milestones, and then, the milestones became a blur and windows vanished while huge giagnoramous castle doors made from tons of impenetrable iron open up.And I couldn't wait to get outside. And when the realisation hits you, you're allowed to linger on for sometime, as the doors slowly close. The choice is yours, in a fair world. To go back in [and regress] or force yourself out.

Yes the choice is yours.

And then the doors slam shut and disappear, leaving the windows to appear, curtains dancing in the breeze, tempting you, teasing you of all the goodness from within it ,you're now going to miss....

And fooling yet another innocent soul inside, busy making lists of "things to do before I turn twenty" ..Luring him , making him look out the window and sigh.. "When Will I Grow Up".

A song from the past

2009-10-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

There something about old music. It always seems so much better. Whether is some happy music like 'Wake me up'! Some old Whitney Houston song or bloody murder with Cannibal Corpse.

I began to think today, of how that music was so much better than this. The old so much better than the new. Those days seem much better and everything that came with it.I guess that's why the music seems better too. When I heard the song ' Cecelia ' by Simon and Garfunkel today, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside, thinking on and on in my head of how nice and warm these old songs really are..only to realise that the reason I felt that way was because I remembered an old friend. See I had a friend who I probably would've done anything for, and I remembered her and how she used to sing this song and how the two of us would sing songs sitting right at the back of our class in school and I felt nice. I remembered those times and sighed at how good they were. As the tracks kept changing I was taken into moments in my life, that, though they seem forgotten, remain nicely tucked away for comfort, so that when I go and take off the blanket from it, I'm reminded of all things warm and fuzzy.
It could be another city and another life, so far away from today. And boy, was it so much sweeter. It could be a lonely day of cycling without a care and I feel warm again. A sudden memory of a Petrol bunk that I passed by a lot, and I feel warm again, and wonder how sweet it all had been.
A sudden smell, sound or even a quiet breeze that seemed to have traveled miles just from the past and into your now, so you remember... could take you back to a place tucked away from all the other memories. A place, where your happy thoughts could stay happy. And when that travel happens on the most unexpected afternoons, all you can do is smile.

So it's not the songs that were better, but your idea of life before. Before it all happened. Whatever the "it" is. Life before you knew. Just life before.

And then I realised. How much time I spent, listening to all these old songs and thinking of the sweet yesterday's gone by, that while I was there, in that yesterday, I cried of an earlier yesterday. And that's what life becomes? A deep longing for a yesterday gone, in a today that will be longed for tomorrow.

That's deplorable.

How could I miss a today [that I may not appreciate right now], at a later time far away in some tomorrow? In all honesty, all those yesterday's sucked donkey shit, and yet somehow, they seem better?
...
And thus, I am forced to rethink, change sides, reevaluate and reconquer the meaning of everything so lost and yet utterly profound.

If I appreciate my today,I'll never miss a yesterday again!

Insightful.

De-constructive Thinking

2009-09-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

Often, it so happens that we come across people who know how to get their work done. They can make their way, like cockroaches- they can Survive. What we tend to do is, brand these very people: cunning, sleazy, too smart for our liking and much more. But what the truth really is, that, somewhere, deep inside our conceited minds, it so happens that we're deeply and terribly insecure about the fact that we're just not as good in the game of survival. And that's the hard truth. It’s not them that are the problem; the problem in fact, is us. We cannot survive, we are probably inwardly aware that we may soon be extinct or worst still, remain far behind, and, in our minds: mediocre. That bothers us, and in our inability to survive, we brand the swift-cheeky.

Maybe it’s our pride- we have too much of it and it wont allow us to "stoop" to that level: to that level of asking someone, of the new trend in modern society; NETWORKING. Or maybe... its just that our self esteem is so fragile and perhaps even low, that merely asking someone, or "using" someone as it may be, troubles us and affects our tiny pride. It’s not them. It’s just us.

Time and time again, we are consumed by thoughts of insecurity projected in our outward despise for the fittest. We know we need to be quick, we need to be swift and harder still, we need to learn a trick or two in the quest for survival, by these very swift. We know. And therefore we are consumed by our defeat. The tiger would not be the hunter if not for its awesome swiftness and ability to hunt and therefore: Survive. Early man couldn't have made it this far. Countries wouldn't have made it this far, and the Red Indians perhaps, wouldn't have lost.

Ever since time I have scorned the many I have come across, well equipped and skilled for survival. Inwardly, I am only insecure. I cannot be as crafty, considerably manipulative, and swift. I simply cannot. I am not that "fittest", I am cogitative. Sometimes passive. Lazy. I do not chase that "pot of gold". Perhaps I know, that somewhere, I will fall short...I will somewhere fall behind...or maybe...Just ,maybe, I don't want it that bad.

Possibilities. But truth remains, I'd rather sip on some cold coffee on one of the many laziest days of my life with Ess and go wow...It couldn't get any better than this!

Why Worry About an Invasion?

2009-09-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

I consider myself to be, quite fairly, a very paranoid individual. I fear. I fear disease. I fear the state of the world: water, climate, food. I fear for the lives of young women and young girls. I fear for the state of our country. And now, to add to that fear, I fear being invaded or taken over by a China or some such nation tripping on its power.
But then, I was introduced to another concept by someone who naturally thinks differently and doesn’t even know it. And his thought process was something like this: When we do not have harmony within our own country, someone else taking over this very fragmented feeling of nationality that we, as Indians posses, might not be such a bad idea after all. Blasphemous I know, but he made sense.

He further explained to me his point because today, I can safely say that I keep my mental equilibrium going only by the intake of very limited and select information; and therefore stay away from something disturbing, which looking at the extent of my paranoia might just be everything. So not waiting a second longer to feed my ignorant soul we started off on a very brief but interesting discussion.

Let alone our limited knowledge of places like the east within our country, but there’s more: We have koorg fighting to be a separate state, Maharashtra fighting for Belgaum to be considered a part of that state, to which I quote my , by now fairly aggrieved friend saying, “It’s all in the same country, how the **** does it matter?” And I honestly couldn’t respond to that. Do we even realize what the word Nationality means? Nation? Unity? We’re at a stage in time, where we can only laugh at our “Unity in Diversity” status. We’re always a few minutes away from some sort of communal outbreak. A procession here, a dead pig there, we chase our ‘fellow countrymen’ out of our cities because they do not “belong” there, simply because they are not, and I’m not going to even try being politically correct here, “Maharashtrian”. That’s my country today. To which I quote my friend again, “it’s all in the same country, how the **** does that matter!!!” We’re ready for a few hundreds to harm each other; we’re waiting for someone else an “outsider” from within our diversity to offend us. Our Panchayat won’t hesitate for a minute before ordering the murder of a young couple because despite living in the same village, they did not economically match nor were they of the same cast; to which, the minister of that state responds something on the lines that, the Panchayat have their own way of functioning and I cannot get involved. That’s my country today. I don’t care how it was a hundred years ago, I don’t care how it is in other countries. I care about the state of my country, today.

In all this violence, hatred and bloodshed, the good of a few genuine, is tarnished. You cannot use the good, as an excuse or some sort of a balm to rub and cover up all the other nonsense that the people of this country encourage each other to partake in. If our political parties blatantly “Divide and Rule”, if we cannot stand each other because of the number of times a day we pray and how many processions we hold; If we go so far as to violently chase out our countrymen from states that claim they don’t “belong” there. Then on what basis do we demand to fight racism from the outsiders? And then what’s stopping the Chinese or someone else for that matter from taking over, maybe slowly but also, what may well be, surely?

And the answer to that sadly, is Nothing.

Spoilt Tomatoes

2009-08-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Life is like rotting tomatoes . Its all squishy and smelly sometimes .. but that's just some part of the otherwise edible tomato. I mean, you work so hard to reach a state of homeostasis, only to find that the tomato is soon going to rot. What the hell..

It's almost like, why bother keeping the tomatoes in the refrigerator : they're gonna go bad anyway. You're left just accepting the tomato for just what it is. You could choose to discard it, but hey, that's one tomato lost. Unfortunately, life isn't that easy. Do you cut off the squishy part? or just work your way around it, or maybe, you don't have enough tomatoes and you've gotta use what you have viz a vis yours truly, rotting tomatoes.

How hard is it, for that nice juicy just right thing to stay that way? I mean c'mon... why not?

Life's like that...should I be politically correct [so to speak] and say "sometimes"? Life's like that sometimes, or is life simply, LIKE THAT? I think its just like that if you ask me. Rotting tomatoes.. thats the best description I have for life today. You add you chilli and a little bit of other spices and voila, your very acceptable Tomato Salsa of a life is ready to be served. You can only hope it comes out right. there's no going back and doing it all over again, unless you can throw the bad salsa to make new one....but then again, life's not like that. Ever.

Sigh.. so much for positive cooking.. I need a new thing to do tomorrow.

A Roller-coaster of Sunsets

2009-08-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Skating and skating, I've realised that there's just too much that I cannot control.It is a hard realisation..and before the sun of faith rises, I'm bludgeoned into a darkening sunset. Everything ias now insignificant on so many levels. And everything more valuable on others. Little miss insignificant and her do anything for anything attitude, miss "self indulgent" disclaimers, miss unconditioned mammary glands and soo many more...They don't matter anymore. I'm free.

It's hard though, to feel so helpless in my faith. It's a terribly humbling feeling. In so many ways, I have just given up...And yet, in so many others, I'm being born again. I will no longer partake in what I do not need. Especially not over Little miss insignificant. She needs to be treated in accordance to what she means to me, which today, is nothing. I have let go. And I am free. And so while I do give up on so many levels;I rise on so many others..not as grand as a phoenix, but as humanly as I can.

To life again..with love.

Upon recommendation- words to be remembered.

2009-08-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

I have recently learnt and realised that it will be favourable for me to stick to the UK dictionary so has to subdue erratic confused behaviour by me :D :D

An Asset :)

2009-08-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm probably the queen of last minute work, and my kingdom: "Lastminutopia" is lost... It's no wonder I don't fit in here! In this world run on clocks and deadlines! Sniff..sniff...

It's true.. I wouldn't lie really... Lasminutopia was lost in the most deadliest battle it ever faced against the timely "Clocksagons" it was horrible..and I the queen, fled for my life, quite obviously, in the very last minute.

Sigh...the problem started in school, that's how far back I can remember. Every morning, I'd be right outside the closed gates of my school, taking out my school diary for yet another entry for tardiness, pay one one rupee fine and smile away to class...obviously that wasn't punishment enough. I think my problems began right there...

If I had three months to work on a summer class project, I started work on it only fifteen days from the date of submission. If I had two months of study break, I'd have two months of vacation time. When I think about it, I don't remember studying like ever, and therefore don't know how I got this far! [No I'm certainly not hinting at being some sort of a genius, I mean I may be, but I'm not saying I am!] I may have gotten a minimum of twenty days before every semester end exam in college, but I started for them only the night before each exam! I mean you would think I'd have the sense enough to get in "the zone"[whatever that is] when my exams began? But noooo, if I had a gap of say two days between each exam, I'll have a holiday. And I'd start studying only the night before......again.

I thought this was something only peculiar to me and being a student. But we all know what thought did don't we? So here I am, with five buckets full of work to give in, and today is when I need to give them up, so when do I begin? I mean hello! Doesn't the fact that I'm getting paid make any difference to me?

But somehow the results have always worked much in my favour. My last minute work seems so much better than the odd day that I may have actually done something by making ample use of my thinking time. My juices flow in just the right amount, and I can't seem to stop myself from being on a roll, at that very last minute.

So here's a new addition to my resume: Strengths: Works well under pressure. Now isn't that an asset.

Germination

2009-08-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

School was a riot, what with sitting in the back bench all throughout, drawing faces on the wall; listening to the "devil's music" and wondering why I was born in the wrong place at an entirely wrong time.

When questions became the meaning of my life, I do not know. But they did. And the quest for answers began.

It's hard wondering what it is that needs to be done. Do I take that job? Is it worth it? Are there really no jobs in the "market", should I not be daft and take what I get? Is this REALLY what I want to do? WHAT do I want to do? Will I EVER be able to do it? What if I only THINK I want to do this, when I really don't? Interesting isn't it?

When did questions get this hard? From the simple, should I take this bus to school, will my friends be on it? And I wonder what XYZ of the opposite sex [or not], thinks of me to complicated, entwining, one question leading to two other- questions...How did that happen?

Relationships didn't have so many levels. The cold wall level, superficial level, thin ice, liquid water and most often, hardened rock. This strange undulation that keeps taking place from person to person, situation to situation. I think as ill-equipped as we may think we are, we're all pretty good at the Game that us humans have made life all about.

How silly, these institutions we've created seem sometimes, be it religion, the constitution,boundaries, and so many others, we're all so afraid; and all we need is answers. We're caught up in a world that exists in its order only because of definitions. So is the order only an illusion? Wouldn't it be easy to say, this is all unreal, it is all an illusion?

But it isn't. THIS , is as real as it gets. And everything is relative.

Our definitions, our demarkations, our ideas and ideals are all relative. Our principles and morals too. There is no universal answer. The magnificent beings that we are, we are born with the ability to make our own answers. Find our own meanings. But we get trapped by shallow conditioning and this ludicrous belief that what is a majority is right. Incorrect.

There is no need for a majority. And therefore, no need for assurance brought about by the fact that 'everybody's doing it.' The possibilities of such an understanding are limitless.

I think, that if we allow the questions to sink in, and not panic at the loss of an answer, the answer sculpted for us, will find its way...all we need to do is, keep our minds open.

Obsession!!!

2009-08-17T01:31:00.000-07:00

Life's weird, it throws you into these situations that you would think don't deserve so much of your time...but you just cant seem to help yourself from giving a considerable amount of time to. We don't care, of course we don't; but we cant stop ourselves from pondering over what somebody may have meant when they said a certain something... It's always the case..

But what how does one react to cases that could be described as nothing short of obsession? When someone walks your walk, right after they've studied your walk...or when they start talking your talk? How do you deal with people who don't know the F of friendship but claim to be one, and while enjoying the shelter of their new found title, study you like a prey.. and when they turn around and then treat you like competition?

Does this happen to everyone?

Isn't there supposed to be a fine line between friendship and competition or is there no such distinction? It turns into a battle sometimes... But then... I choose to let the chameleon win.. only because that battle's too insignificant for my time...

That's a real good formula.

Err..In style

2009-08-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

I had decided last night, that I would wake up, change into my gym pants and just leave with the same shirt I slept in on, before I changed my mind and went back to sleep...

My insouciance lasted about three minutes after I woke up. It was taken over by the sycophant in the mirror staring right back a my sloppy T-shirt, uncombed hair over a nice fitting pair of tracks. And what surprised me was that today, even the sycophant in me wasn't nodding her approval caught up in mesmerizing awe of me. I mean, irony just knows how to make her presence felt on a groggy forced to experience Wednesday morning!

So after my third T-shirt try out, the black one won its place on my back for its ceaseless ability to make me feel good. Why did I have to look "presentable" for the gym?

T-shirt try outs done, it as time to walk the puppy..[I love how healthy all this makes me sound] and I saw this lady, she wore a loose pair of Pjs and a sloppy old shirt wit her hair untouched , she looked so fine...I almost felt jealous and couldn't help but ask myself, now why can't I walk out of my house like that?

In the little thinking that my mind could muster up after having been jolted from a night of passionate slumber, something it was unable to achieve over the past few days; I came to the somewhat, though still rough, conclusion that feeling good is the most important criteria anytime of the day [for me]. And when it involves stepping out of the magnificent cocoon that my significantly dysfunctional home is, it becomes incredibly important to 'feeeel good'. So then what makes me feel good? The answer to that,[ though still under scrutiny and therefore shouldn't be accepted as "The" answer.] That feeling good is almost directly proportionate to looking good. Though the case may not be the same all the time, in most cases, looking good enough to not require the services of your trusty sycophant leads to a happy sense of feeling good. But on the other hand, looking good need not always lead you to feel good and therefore the formula:That feeling good is almost directly proportionate to looking good. Okay I may have lost track of what I was saying here, early mornings do that to me.

Important tough, is that in all of this, feeling and looking good, it isn't someone else's opinion that maters really, it's my own. And evidently enough, it is hard for me to get my approval...well not quite...

That was all it took to console my megalomaniac-cal self. Hair, uncombed yet presentable, black shirt camouflage on, and my sexy black shoes, I was ready for the gym. :)

To the Gym I say!...Nevermore!!

2009-08-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

It was about two months ago that I first went to the gym, even though it was my sister who signed us up for it, I felt quite good about myself just by being able to say " yeah, I go to the gym these days." The first three days were more than torturous they were mind numbing and a sheer testimony to how cruel and inconsiderate human beings can really be...I mean really, you call feeling like you're going to faint or your heart's seconds away from bursting out into the open and embarrass you in turn [yes because that is the most disastrous thing that could happen, being embarrassed because my heart burst out into the finite.] is that what being fit is supposed to feel like? There I was, first day of the rest of my life on the road towards staying fit and looking good, much deserved status undeniably; two rounds of aerobics combined with cardio- something.

So it was my first day there and as i jumped and pumped up the weights feeling real ready to fist the day lights out of that annoying woman mocking me with her sadistically calm and composed voice oozing out of the computer speakers pouring an infinite amount of effort to keep her virtual self from laughing at me, while she said, "CHANGE STATION" every forty seconds which was our blessed clue to change to the next machine or exercise. I'm doing the shoulder push something, and I'm seeing red, it was my first day and I go "CHANGE BITCH CHANGE!!!!!" Only not so much aloud, it was my first day , I couldn't really unleash the beast that I am that soon.

Two more days of the mind numbing madness they call exercise and I never went again.

But I do intend on beginning...again, tomorrow, just as I had intended on beginning again, today. In my defense, my sister left without waking me up. Not my fault people! Blame it on the sister..she secretly likes going without me..yeahp that's what it is... ah well..TOMORROW IT IS! I SHALL AND I WILLLLL!

PS:I WANT to sleep late, I WANT to eat all that I crave for and I WANT to lose weight! Why? Why must there be disease? Why must there be stereotypes that I feel so compelled [sometimes] to follow? Why cant I just be without the wicked faces staring down at me in disgust...????You see, now that's a good example of what they call in psychology, "Projection."

A New Beginning, Or something like it!

2009-08-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

So here I am, just finished crying a lot of tears out, because just a few minutes ago, I was feeling completely and totally neglected. reasons for which are to be kept with me, its like my pain is my light, and the more its my own, the stronger I feel. So anyway, here I was, shedding those tears and crying away to glory, when Ess called and I felt so much lighter hearing his voice...somehow having stopped my tears I happened to take a look at a few "Blogs Of Note" and suddenly I felt my spirits lifting.

I realised then, two things:
1] Its amazing how much writing can affect us!
2] Life is so much nicer when you eliminate the rough edges, ignore them maybe? Or just let go, pick up the pieces and run!

Things can be bad, but while there are so many people so much more deserving than I am to live, are battling for their lives, I am happy today, to be alive! I'm at the threshold of my life..things are just beginning and the beginning is always a little edgy , its like .. blowing a bubblegum for the first time and the second and the third and maybe even the tenth.. its a little hard...[I did everything I could to avoid using the bicycle analogy! But I think this one serves the purpose well doesn't it?] I think sometimes even today, blowing that perfect bubblegum bubble takes a lot tries! So I'm going to focus on the finer things, make the most of my happy mood swings ;) Right now, I feel a little like the first time I read Rhonda Byrne's The Secret..overwhelmed with positive energy, happy and somewhat looking forward! Although right now the extent of those emotions is much much scaled down, but I feel those emotions none the less!

So here's to my new blog alter-ego, welcome to You Win Some, You Lose Some, But you're Alive! So it's okay, just pick up the pieces and run! :) :)