My latest serenade song.

I'm going to be halfway in love with the man who woos me with this song. *sigh*

Days like this one, I will henceforth call Disaster Fridays.

In order of events, last Friday:
- I woke up with a nagging headache that refused to go away.
- I was getting my bike out of the house and I lost balance and the bike fell over. The laptop attached to it was fine, thank goodness.
- I almost met with an accident when I almost rammed into a guy who zipped across me on the roads.
- I had just stopped at a signal when a bird decided to poop on the bike, right where my hand held the brakes. I decided to wipe it off and got the keys out of the ignition just as the transvestites at the signal went around asking for money. My keys slipped and fell on the road. I got off in a hurry to retrieve them and the signal turned green just then. 
- I rammed my rear view mirror into the gate at my workplace.
- I got an extra 40K in my salary account, only to be told that it was a mistake and that I had to transfer it back.
- I got into an unnecessary and absolutely painful fight with a very close friend.
- I was so angry that I hurled my phone at the wall with every ounce of rage I felt, and it went kaput. The screen shattered, the motherboard got ruined and the battery got busted. I am in the process of acquiring a new phone.

I felt like the Baudelaire orphans from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I hope to never have a day like that again in my life. Never ever. Ugh.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez said...

"What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it."

How true, and yet, how... sad.

A recent occurrence made me open up my mind to the possibilities of being single. I feel... free. I feel... invincible, like I can do anything. Anybody, even. It's liberating in many ways. It makes me want to simplify, cut back, bite off the threads that dangle loosely on the other end because they're attached to nothing. The Greys will always be there, it's only a matter of knowing how far I'll go. And for what. 

No more clutter. No more hoarding - emotional or psychological. (Physical's another matter - I love food too much to cut back on that!). Lean, mean, sexy. Sexy on the inside, more importantly. That's the way to be. 

Hello, Singledom. I have finally understood what it is like to love you and be a part of you.

And a good year to you all.

In January, I lost a close grandparent. The same month, I found out that I would have to reconsider my work options. In February, I discovered that a relationship I had been struggling hard for didn't exist any more. I also discovered that it wasn't a recent development. In March, I discovered a distasteful side to myself. In April, I thought I was going crazy and briefly considered reaching out for professional help. 

May is when the Bhutan trip happened. It was my first two weeks of peace between an extended period of chaos. June is when professional life changed. Every month after that was full of fights on the personal front with the one person I care the most for. Every month was a struggle to find my footing professionally. 

A bout of travel happened.

Things started looking up. The author of No God in Sight got in touch through a review I had written on his book. The author of The Dream Chasers and I got into a Twitter showdown - I beat him at it, of course. The Adventures of Potli Baba got a couple of awards from fellow bloggers. Someone from Jet Wings got in touch to know if I could do a travel feature for them - in the end it amounted to nothing, though. 

In the beginning of the year, I was the insecure one, unknowingly giving some stupid psycho bitch of a woman power over me. Yesterday, though, she did something extremely stupid and in doing it, she not only relinquished the power she had over me but also gave me some over her. Turns out, she's the insecure one.

So yes, there isn't too much to redeem 2013 for me, but there have been a couple of turning points. But this year - starting today - is going to be entirely different. 

This is the year of me. 

I am reconnecting with the person I was, who got left behind in the dust raised by the stampede that's been my life this past year. I'm going back to get her, and this time she's going to stay with me.

Time travelling.

I get onto Groove shark and a song comes on. The song that started it all.

It takes me a long way back. Takes me back to me sitting on a bed, you trying to put me in a better mood after an episode with a friend - how you had come searching for me then, wanting to make that episode go away! This song playing on TV - the first time I heard it, saw it. 

And as I listen to the song now, my insides are pulled by a force far, far away - as if from a parallel universe - and I have this intense desire to go back to that time. Go back to before it all started. Because that time was good. It was uncomplicated. It had only anticipation, no expectation. No discomfort, pain, grief, sadness. No bitterness. 

And then I think, will you be able to unlearn everything about me and go back to seeing me like you're meeting me for the first time? As someone you may be interested in - you don't know, but you'd like to find out?

Will you be able to do that?

Have I told you about Hannah Brencher?

I can't remember where or when I came across her. All I know is that her writing is heartbreakingly beautiful and true. And every time I read her, I feel my chest pounding. I feel life coursing through my veins, sadness - oh, so much sadness - engulfing me and a desire - a deep desire - to be brave and deal with things.
 
Today, I came across a post of hers. I'm struggling with a relationship that has come to an end. I don't know how to deal with it. I don't want to let it go. I'm actually having serious trouble letting go - I cling to it like it's my lifeline. My very being. My everything. Today, in the middle of that struggle and what is possibly the start of the healing - the one-digit-at-a-time loosening of my grip on a long relationship that probably wasn't meant to be - I came across this post of hers. And I'm left breathless with grief and heartbroken, because I have to do what she says. I know I have to do it. And I need to pull myself together and find the courage - that oh-so-evasive courage - to be me.
 
To be free. Like he wants to be. Like he's trying to be.
 
Read it. Maybe she'll do something for you too.
 
http://hannahbrencher.com/2013/12/03/dont-bring-anything-more-into-the-web/
 
 

Never have I been so in need of a hug...

... as I am today.

I just want someone to wrap their arms around me like they love me to the depths of my soul, stroke my hair, kiss my forehead, absorb my restlessness and uncertainties and pain and confusion and just whisper to me that it'll be okay. That it'll all be okay.

Last night, I dreamt of baby giraffes frolicking in the sea and of catching up with friends as old as Time itself. How weirdly fascinating.
 

I always love it when history comes alive in the form of stories.

 

Strange are the ways of love.

Hello my love,

It's getting cold on this island.

I'm sad alone,

I'm so sad on my own...

The truth is,

We were much too young,

Now I'm looking for you,

Or anyone like you...

 

We said goodbye,

With a smile on our face;

Now you're alone,

You're so sad on your own.

The truth is,

We ran out of time.

Now you're looking for me,

Or anyone like me...

 

Lyrics to Island Blues by Koop

Overwhelmed.

Does your head ever feel heavy and do you feel the inexplicable need to cry? Just cry for no reason at all? Bawl, regardless of whether the tears flow or not, because there's something that's bothering you and you don't know what that something is?

Do you find it hard to forgive yourself? For the slightest error of judgement or the biggest goof-up of all mankind? Do you mentally beat yourself up black and blue for not having been smarter about things, not having thought with a calm mind?

Do you feel like you're having an out-of-body experience? Like, when you do something foolish or insensitive or crass or obnoxious that you never think you're capable of doing? Do you feel like you own the world, that you're good enough when really, deep down, somehow you get the feeling that the only reason you get away with a lot of things is because people are just being kind to you? And then do you think that, hey, perhaps you're not good enough? And that you're not the best there is? For anything, in anything?

And does that make you wonder, what am I doing? What am I turning into? Who is this person in the mirror?

So many questions without answers.

A Walk In The Woods and other such happenings.

"Ey, tomorrow you're coming with me for a play", Munchkin said. "Okay", I replied. As if I was given much choice. I could have refused still, but not having been to a play in over three years, I thought, what the heck, I don't have a blooming social life so I might as well go and see.

I'm so glad I went.

The play was an adapt of American playwright Lee Blessing's play by the same name. Naseeruddin Shah and Rajit Kapoor were the cast, and the play was directed by Ratna Pathak Shah. (For some reason, the floosy woman introducing them insisted on calling her Director Sahiba.)

It was an entertaining hour of extremely well-scripted dialogues enhanced by breath-taking performances. Studying Naseeruddin Shah's body language as he transitioned from a charming Quixotic character into an old man with no more fight left in him was stunning. "History is geography over time", he says. Rajit Kapoor as the uptight Indian diplomat was fantastic. "You didn't say I had to be trivial and entertaining", was one of his memorable dialogues.

If you ever get an opportunity to watch the two of them, grab it without second thought.

In other news, life is getting along. I keep thinking about posting, but somehow, the inclination to write copious amounts is headed towards the exit.

But, will muster up enough energy and recollect my thoughts to post something soon.

Some days are easy.

Some, like today, are difficult to get through.

The past comes back to haunt me occasionally and i end up thinking of you. Of her. I wonder what part of our conversations has been lies and what, the truth. I think about why i feel like you did things to show that i was going cuckoo in my head. That i was fabricating events and dialogues and situations. I think about why you lied. So much. 

I hate her still. That hasn't changed, and it's not likely to. Maybe some day, i will be indifferent to her presence, but for now, there's a whole lot of negative emotion that wells up in me at the sight of her. Somehow, you believe that anybody who's genuine is not a bad person. I disagree. She may not be bad, but she's other things. Things i don't even want to talk about.

You think you've set yourself free, set me free. But i'm caged inside my head. I run and i run and run, but there's no getting out of the prison that my mind has become, churning with thoughts that are best left alone. I don't recognise who i am any more, all i see is a shell with organs doing their thing like a well-oiled machine. 

Why? That's the only thing i keep going over and over in my head. It's happening again today. And it's difficult to get through.

Briefly out of hibernation for this little update.

Ello! I been gone too long eh? But I been busy busy busy.
 
I be quitting my jawb.
 
I be travelling the globe. Well, Bhutan and Goa actually.
 
I been getting me act together since the (once more) breakup.
 
I be having a new entrant for 'Bitch' category in my life. And begawsh, I hate her. She's making Achilles Heel do things he's never done in the time he's known me: he's lied to protect her. He's lied to me about several things. And I think he had this thing with her, but they decided to keep it quiet and play dumb about it and to never talk about it again. I started off with liking her because she was fun and loved to dance and all that, but man she turned into a different person in my eyes after a specific episode of 'come on' that she indulged in with AH. Now I believe that there may be a certain level of niceness in her, but she's primarily a very shrewd and cunning byatch who plays the part of an upfront and open person to near-perfection.
 
Yes, me be very bitter about her.
 
I be starting work at my new workplace in the first week of June, and I be quite looking forward to it too.
 
Anybody got any ideas on how to forget the existence of a person who means the world to you? Or at least not care too much about them?
 
I met Haathi in Goa this time, after a handful of failed attempts. I don't know about her, but I had a chilled out and peaceful day exploring Goa with her.
 
I bought me a laptop (from which I am posting this).
 
I bought me a smashing bookshelf. Of course, all my books don't fit (I have a whole suitcase stuffed with more), but I will be buying more shelves for those.
 
I'm doing a room overhaul. Sort of to start afresh on everything. I hope it works.
 
Is all y'all, is all. Hopefully, the hibernation should be over pretty soon, because I have a feeling I'll have plenty to rant/rave about in a few weeks.

Three years ago.

I was browsing through the new Facebook settings, and stumbled across my notes. One of them was titled 'Randomness', from an FB era that was famous for tagging people on notes and getting them to tag others. It was about 25 random things about me. I read it. And i was surprised at how i sounded three years ago, because nothing much has changed since. I'm still a lot of those things, with the exception of one or two, the updates for which i will mark in red.

***

1. It depresses me when i'm unable to crack bad ones. 

2. I've always wanted shoulder blade-length hair because i think it's very sexy. 

3. I think a lot about everything, whether it makes sense or not. 

4. I've always wanted to get into my ex-boyfriend's heads and see the relationships through their perspective. 

5. A penthouse with french windows and a sloping glass ceiling in the bedroom, a sitout with wild flowering plants and a lemon tree, and a wrought-iron bench to watch the world from. That's what i live for. 

6. When i was young, I wanted to die of a brain tumor. 

7. I never turn back after saying goodbye to something or somebody. These days, i do. And i hate myself for it.

8. I hate confrontations/fights. I still do, but i like getting them over with quickly and moving on.

9. When i'm uncontrollably angry, i start shivering and sputter while trying to speak. When i'm depressed, i turn to nature and books for companionship. And Coke Studio Pakistan.

10. I associate smells with people. 

11. I schooled myself through my years of growing up that i would be emotionally self-sustaining. 

12. I love Mathematics, but i suck at it. 

13. I can cook, keep house and sew as well as i can dance, drink, swear like a sailor and not give a damn about having breasts. 

14. I'm thrilled to bits with small gestures of affection from people. 

15. The more i dislike something, the more likely it is that later in life i will love it. 

16. Bad marriages scare me. 

17. Getting me to drive is not the problem, getting me into the driver's seat is. 

18. I want to see Switzerland and Egypt before i die. 

19. I love chewing on crushed ice. 

20. My life lacks discipline, and that bothers me. 

21. When i'm with people, i become what they are not. 

22. I wish i could give my parents back their youth only so i can get them to do all the stuff they missed out on when they were young. 

23. Waterbodies are super-fascinating. 

24. Everytime i'm on a high balcony, i'm tempted to jump off because i want to know what the feeling is like. 

25. I want to float on a cloud. 

Yes, yes, we be like that only.

Break my heart, why don't you?

This is how the story goes:

Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again.
 

At her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of the show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Ulay arrived without her knowing and this is what happened.
 

You and I, Achilles' Heel, have conversations that end up in fights or misunderstandings. You and I, i worry, will end up being like this. And i don't that to happen. I don't.

WHAT?

I've been intending to say a few things for a while. In two minds about whether i should or not, because the minute it's out there, it makes it very real. But i want to. Because i am frusfuckingtrated.

Why?

Because i turned 30 in January, and i'm in no better state mentally than i was when i was 23.

Two days after my birthday, my grandmother passed away.

I miss her a lot. There's a big gaping hole in my life where she used to be.

A week before that, i got to know that i was being 'redeployed' from my current job. We all know what that means.

Two weeks after my birthday, Achilles' Heel tells me that he feels our 'connection' isn't strong enough anymore, and that he's felt that way for a couple of years. He thinks i'm suffocating, judgmental, opinionated and perhaps not the best candidate for a life together.

The pressure of marriage is now flowing from all corners.

... I'm screwed from all sides.

So if i'm snapping, biting heads off, frustrated, constantly emotionally volatile, breaking into tears at the drop of a hat, clamming up, depressed, uninterested... please, go find someone else to play with while i get alright.

I'm in no mood for grief from anyone right now. Grief, questions, attitude problems or sympathy.

And yes, i just want to cry. And cry and cry and cry and cry and keep crying till i can't cry any more ever. So what? What the bloody hell is wrong with that?

Hey, JB, this one's for you!

What did the Vegetarians tell the Non-Vegetarians when they saw them eating yum-looking dishes?
"We NV you."

Sucks, no? :D

We are like that only.

I got this in my inbox a week ago. It's an excerpt from someone's new work titled "I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE: The Secret Life of Girls around the World", which debuted in book form (Villard/Random House).

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE

I love being a girl.
I can feel what you're feeling
as you're feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend's really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won't call back.
It's a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it's unbearable when I lose.

I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don't you dare say all negative that it's a
teenage thing
or it's only only because I'm a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It's like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it's still in my body.

I know when the coconut's about to fall.
I know that we've pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn't coming back.
That no one's prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.

This is not extreme.
It's a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don't tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It's how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don't tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.

I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing's been diluted.
Nothing's leaked out.
I can take you back.

I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.