Autonomy

a myth.



sigh.

Weird!

There is no escaping now, I think, now that I actually have been tagged to write something. There always is the 'was too busy with my thesis to blog' trick. Sadly, there is also the 'I wrote a 1000 word essay, yet again, about the same thing I always write about and it's now your turn' trick too. The problem is that there is nothing weird about me. Or interesting. which, as ye invisible readers must've figured out by now, is the reason I write so little and so far between. So, I present to you a list of, let's jus call em amusing, facts about me.

Oh, wait, the 'rules' of the tag. I'm required to
a. Link to the person that tagged me: Ziah, you couldn't have chosen a time worse than now, lady. Follow the blog closely and make him do fun stuff like this: it's easy, I leave symbols to guide you. Leave me to my inappropriate RSS style propaganda posts!
b. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about me: Patience, we're gettin there!
c. Tag 7 other people at the end of the post: Now, this is gonna be a challenge. Ashok, hon, we really need to socialize.

And now *drumroll* Seven Amusing Things About Aishwarya

a. I have nine moles on my face. Three around my mouth which in the absence of the other two could've worked perfectly as beauty spots. Yeah, I know what you're thinkin. I don't have skin cancer.

b. Or Diabetes. Or Pancreatitis. Not severely hypochondriac, but slowly and surely gettin there. With support and borrowed paranoia from Ashok. It is quite strange that I'm still alive considering I grew up in a household that firmly believed in paracetamol panacea. So, I'm surprised that nothing's wrong with my body (goddammit, the brother at least has allergies) and try to read a li'l too much into every stomach ache and sneeze.

c. Oh, nor do I have 'weird brain disease' that makes me wildly intelligent as it worsens. Always wanted to have a major catastrophic illness which no one but I and a friendly uncle knows about. And wither away. And be a genius the world didn't know it was losing. And then die within 24 hours of my secret being revealed and leave behind some unimaginably brilliant work.

d. Yeah, I stare at the pimples on my ceiling all night and dream up a lotta weird things like that. I can also loose track of time admiring myself in the mirror. I cannot start using a new pair of socks without first checkin if that tiny metal clip/hook/thing holding the socks together makes for a good clip-on nose ring.(it does.)I always smile at myself in the mirror, even if I've been crying till just a moment ago. I've tried practicing speeches in front of the mirror but never get past a line or two because I start smiling at myself. Very embarrassing but I must admit that I feel better when I look good. I suck at looking good.

e. I don't understand what the big deal about a hot meal or a hot drink is. It think this too is a direct after-effect of my largely forgotten but probably traumatic childhood. Mom was busy being the busy working woman and middle-class India had not discovered the magic of microwave yet. So now, I walk into a coffee shop in our crazy Minnesotan winter and ask for an IceCrema 'cause I can't wait till regular coffee cools down enough for me to be able to even sip and the barista has this look that reads, 'the snow probably does weird things to immigrant-looking people'.

f. I can sleep for obscene lengths of time. And if my neck didn't begin hurting after 16 hours, I'd sleep some more. No, we're not talkin about crashing after a tiring day, once in a while. We're talkin about weeks spent just sleeping and waking up to eat and then sleeping some more. Ashok thinks I'm hibernating.

g. Most days I'm happy spending my time alone. There are very few people I care about. I am the most important person in the world. But, I also want to travel a lot and meet people worth traveling across the planet to meet.

Oh, alright, so the last one was not really all that weird.
Or amusing.
That's because, I can't think of seven weird things about myself. I might be conceited. Wait, if I'm not sure does that mean I'm not?
And I did ask him for one weird thing about me. Well, he's too friggin scared of me to actually suggest anything weird enough for the purposes of this post. Like I'd believe the very fake,'shit, there's nothin weird about you??' thing he did. Just you wait till we quarrel again.

Now for the tagging 7 other people part. I can't think of many people who'd take me seriously if I were to tag them. And most of the people I can think of have already been tagged. Thanks a ton, Ziah. So, I'm gonna be really fair and let him tag four people and come up with three forward links myself.

Here's my list.
all or nothing who doesn't really say much ever but just might take this on for a change.
Ubiquitous who hasn't written much in a long long time. and,
Alien who's been around since we started this blog.

do nightmares have a director's cut?

people unsound of the mind, and unhappy with the world have imaginary friends. they call them jack. or tyler. depending on whether you vote for the shining or the fight club. people high on newsroom conspiracies and invisible wmd's have imaginary fears. they call them muslims. or any of the equally islamic names of oil-rich countries. depending on whether you vote republican or democratic. those with vivid imagination, and lotsa spare time, have imaginary lives. they call them hell or heaven. depending on whether they vote for suicide or an eternal cycle of pause, play and repeat. i am one of them. i lead an imaginary life.

let me,or something like it,explain.

i live alone. but in the company of the girl of my dreams. i don't talk to people. but my jaws hurt reeling out my day to her. i don't eat much. but i light my rationed cigarette after every home cooked meal. i don't have a home. but i try painting every wall red and blue. i don't have kids. but i help them with their homework everyday. i know am losing it. but i have everything to the point of excess. i have the best imaginary life in the universe. every unimportant thing that happens, is an important plot point. every new indie rock song, a thankless addition to the original sound track of the life i don't have. singing in praise of the people we are both not. not yet.

forever suspended in anticipation. beauty delayed on arrival. and a future of unmitigated goodness, lost in transit.

freeze frames and picture books of anniversaries that never happened. conversations and minor conflicts that almost seem real. walking barefoot on sand and foam, hand in hand with thin air. lulled into sleep by the whispers of a cold wave. painting stick-people with my fingertips, on the small of her back. and the nape. both made out of regulated hallucinations. making shapes out of cotton candy clouds. and laughing back at the memory of her face. and her laughing back at the memory of mine. uncorking wine and tinkling tall glasses that are always empty, and never spill over. li'l triumphs over everydayness, gloriously memorable victories over the general dictatorship of boredom, sweeping acquisitions of lifestyle enhancements. all ignorant of their strange intangibility and obvious impossibility.

invitation to a display of blank painting frames. holiday cruises on ghost ships through dead fish. and weekends in the basement. with the music on mute.

i love all forms of my life. love the way it pans out of lush green grasslands to reveal one winged monsters. determined to take their loss of flight out on my wish to soar. i love my wished for life. with all its predictable drama. and the imaginary long faces and even longer freeways to reality and perspective. i love the girl of my dreams. i know she is real. i know she is out there. somehow dreaming up the same impossible dream. reaching out through the haze and hate, that goes around as respectable denizens of this dying planet, battling out her own army of scampering personal demons. scheming a way out to me at the other end of the labyrinth. in my fairy tale, she has to reach me while i am still standing. and for me to get back up on my feet, i'll have to hit ground soon.


and wake up.

A Change in Theme

because it's my turn to write and as ever I can't think of anything to write about. This evening started with I thinking of watching Munich. I sauntered into its IMDB page to check the ratings before I began but found myself reading page after page of discussion on the Israeli-Arab conflict. In the words of one of the more reasonable sounding Jews on the board there was one "propagandist, the ideologue who cares more about winning an argument, trouncing an enemy, upholding the virtue of the ingroup, than testing her assumptions and learning something new" supporting zionist politics, battling a whole bunch of people and rejecting everything that sounded sane. Then for a natural progression towards 'Hindutva' and Vedic 'Science'. However, most of the stuff I read offended me, like all those of-course-god-exists! arguments with Ashok do, mostly because all the (scholarly) text only adds to all the reasons there are for quitting on Hinduism. When I don't wanna quit. But then, I found this:

I asked myself, what sort of secularism have we created in our country that has appropriated my claim to my intellectual heritage?

and am convinced I should hang on.

So, even if he hates me for doing this to our blog while he sleeps, blissfully unaware, here's the link to a paper I loved: The Dilemma of a Liberal Hindu

remote host dead and buried.

there are two things you can do with your sorry mortal self, thats more exciting than living in gandhinagar. listening to the radio on mute. and arguing with your dog about the trans literal versatility of the french new wave of the 60's. how did i end up living in gandhinagar? moved here from hyderabad four years ago. just when the new kid on the cosmopolitan block that hyderabad is, was waking up to disposable incomes,women drivers and public displays of affection. just when i was waking up to alcohol, alternative rock, and alliteration. i was just out of high school, armed to the hilt with a clean conscience and obnoxiously good ranks in entrance examinations. bad things, they say, happen to those who don floss before they go to bed. and i ended up in the dhirubhai ambani institute of information and communication technology. the university's in gandhinagar, gujarat. and my life, changed forever. change is good, they say. i'd love to get my hands and feet and dynamite sticks on whoever said that. a four year stint here was supposed to grant me among other things, a degree in ICT, proud parents, a beautiful wife just the right kinda dumb to follow me back to some G8 nation, a set of ties that match my socks, and the financial freedom to proactively indulge in lifestyle catalogues. a four year stint here and i don have a degree. i live in a one room tenement with a coffee mug¹ for an ashtray,and a laptop for a lifeline. and i have a bad case of bronchitis. shit. this is that point in a man's life, when he starts wishing his dad was an oil baron. my love's an effective distance of a coupla small planets away and i secretly wish india invades the united states. pulling a csi on the life that was, and tracing everything back to where it started, i find myself standing on a carpet of garbage with a yellow board sticking its head out and tryin hard to convince me that it certainly was the ahmedabad railway station. yeah, that was four years ago. the filth was appalling. i have this annoying habit of drawing an unfair parallel between everything this country is infamous for and its counterpart in a much cleaner, less corrupt and more colder country. and the filth painfully reminded me of their sanitized public transport systems. and that's been a constant feature of everythin in my life, since. a split screen of the good and bad, seperated by the longitude of national boundaries.

the first semester ended. and everything started going down. she blames chuck palanuick and fight club. and i blame humanity as a form of life. i mean, here i was in a fledgling university trying to fit into a mindless system of learning and unlearning. grappling with the urge to turn into an individual, strugglin with the lack of an ambition. i was 18 and already tiring. i was young and already losing. i don't know if i did not fit in, or if i was just not supposed to, but, i started fashioning an anti-social lifestyle. out of bits and pieces of expressions of resistance and acts of rebellion. when helpless in the face of a bullying enemy, you hurt yourself. just your li'l circus of pain to show that you are not afraid of it. i hurt myself in stupid ways. i flunked and flunked again. foolish enough to imagine i was being true to my ideal.or atleast and more definitely, the lack of it. and the people. they were stupid. obvious idioicracy passin off as grave wisdom. young kids, just like me. they were all content. it was the same university for them. they lived in the same crappy city. but somehow they found the trick to sleepwalk through it. they embraced mediocrity and made peace with the lack of a meaningful youth. i knew this was not the paris of 1968. but it was too one-dimensional for an india in 2007. a software career at the end of the mono-chromatic rainbow was just not going to do it for me. i don know what i was looking for, but what i had was just not what i deemed it should be like.

and i withdrew. threw in my towel, and walked out in utter silence. not a whimper of protest. not a signal of unrest. i just switched myself off, and withdrew. i could not talk the talk. i could not cop out, in deference to a generation oblivious of the rot that set in. in a country with an irritating moral high ground hurtling towards an anchranous future. and i went through the motions. tried to be a theoretical rebel. followed the basic minimum programme of any self-respecting suicide bomber. lusted for zarathusthra. rooted for and against russel and freud. interchangeably. agreed with marx. ridiculed bush. worshipped che. and laughed at god. had the drawl of a scarred young man, with a dark past. i was living out a caricature. as pedestrian as the rest of humanity i sought to debunk. and gandhinagar did not help. neither did the university. it was a downward spiral. colorful, confusing and certainly comatose. i loved the fall. but you hit ground, someday. i hit ground 4 months ago. belated perspective hurts real bad. and truth's just as painful. i knew i missed the clue somehow. all i was supposed to do was pretend blind and feel my way outta the darkness. all that was required of me was a love for the ordinary. an acceptance of the mundane. if i could have reigned in my intolerance for the less beautiful, controlled my aggressive pillage for the higher truth, i could have arrived with the rest of them. in a comfortable straitjacket.

and i did not.

i am 23² and unemployed and unhappy. am hurting her with my lack of ambition. she's always waiting for some sign of a concerted effort. and again, i blame humanity as a form of life. at least the most immediate variety. she is my sanity. i am foolish enough to take it out on her. am scared of failing again. cynicism hits home, when nothing is funny anymore. and i am irritatingly cynical sometimes. waft across universes as disconnected as what i just wrote. thats understandable when you see that i lost the script.lost my bearings. lost my invaluable chance to end up as a nameless, faceless software professional.i don't know anymore. how world peace and making the world a better place, got around from being anthems of redemption to beauty pageant cliches. how armies of young, bright people can short sell themselves. the worst part is,i don't know if i would be anymore happy if i was anything else. i don't want to trade my consistent misanthropy to a comfortable ignorance. if i could change anything that happened over the last four years, guess i'd pass.

and one other thing, thats more exciting than living in gandhinagar? staring into deep space, and waiting for your shooting star.

Update
¹This is what happens to uncreative birthday gifts.
²He is NOT 23. That's just what he wants to believe. Hon, you're 22.
^*Doesn't he jus make you cry sometimes, the sweetheart?

The 1 am Question

It always begins after he leaves while I'm still not dozing off mid-sentence. I lie there, in absolute silence, lit by the glow from the screen, very incapable of falling asleep. Sometimes my thoughts freeze while I try to decide whether to rush forward or backward. To dream or to ruminate.

That smile I fell in love with teases me to recollect, fill out that face, paint out every detail, every pore, every smooth curve that, by now, I surely must know very intimately. But, the smile is all I remember. Years with him and all I know of my love is his smile. That's all it took, really, to begin with. That's all every day is about. Keeping that easy smile intact till the end of all this. At the end of all this will be a life that can not be described. Even if he tried.

Early morning drives, pass-me-the-sports-page, pasta fights, blatant consumerism, lazing around, sweet-nothings, ear lobes for lunch, indie-movie induced siestas, disastrous meals,you-have-a-pretty-nose-when-I'm-drunk, and then this very moment, lying in the dark, feeling the gentle wave of his breathing, thinking of his smile, while snug in his arms.

Why in the blinkin world did I choose this when I could be doing that?

psychosis, nutcases and the lochness. in that order.

always thought psychosis was a fancy name for plain lack of sleep. and nut cases just an important genre fodder for celluloid. smirked at the idea that one day, i could be staring down at self-inflicted lacerations. counting down people who'd mourn my loss. betting on being forgotten and relegated to somebody who once was. somebody, who could have been. self-importance is a chemical superior to lsd. that heavy rush of adrenaline that cloaks brittle susceptibility with an inflated sense of your invincibility? i just didn't know. that someday, I'd be painting my masterpiece on my wrists. set alight by the red of my leaking ego. the pain drummed out by lack of hope and loss of faith, and the screaming armies of blood thirsty scavengers of your broken spirit. that a sense of loss could deliver spine splitting blows to your wanton lust for a personal triumph. i complain of too much light, fighting eponymous demons in pitch black darkness. where dignity takes a bow, deprivation rings in. of course, you can't have a second helping. of course, there's no such thing as a benevolent super-power. you can only laugh, when the joke's not on you. fair dice is a matter of chance. i don't blame my luck.i should have known better. that you could be a perfect example of a living, breathing, dreaming specimen and still be smelling of formaldehyde. that suicide is more than a simple act of cowardice. to voluntarily submit to the loss of your own life, is to conquer the natural fear of your own death. to give up on survival is to embrace peace.life after death? good. death being truest form of closure? better. miss her. like crazy misses madness. love her. like crazy loves madness.

the impossibly fulfilling knowledge that you deserve to be loved? i feel loved. beyond any scale of reason and logic. she swears she'd be there. for me and for us. she is my only promise. of a lifetime of proximity. till endearing senility takes over. she convinces me its only for the better. that staying away is only a sign that we'd be together. that the two year old lump up our throats would only end in an omniscient melody. that crying everyday is preparation for a better perspective.that mourning every moment lost is a precursor to an endless celebration of life. i want to believe her. keep wishing i could chip in with some form of encouragement. and i fail miserably. i want us to be real. wish we could live some place beyond row houses with IP addresses. its too early, she maintains. we are still a work in progress, she assures. she says the fatigue is self-induced. and the sadness, a necessary evil. i beat myself up. for not being able to see her. beyond the pre-programmed pixellated images, the web cam delivers.but only just. bad lighting and white noise included. when cue of speech is a luxury, you can only say so much. and hope it means something truer than it seems. i have degenerated, she says. from the starry eyed kid who spoke in movie quotes to the whiny little monster with a penchant for sad songs. i wasn't always like this. unmitigated self love has given way to irrevocable self loathing. and i hate being who i am.

i am waiting for the wait to end. when happiness is not spelled impossible, when i don't have to stand in line for peace. that nameless someday. when we step down and stretch. when we arrive and rest. that nameless someday. when we hold hands and sigh. when everything's behind us,and everything else is ok. i resent the fact that these are our best years. and we are losing them to the mechanics of a better life. i could be wrong. this could be the start of a brighter than sunshine life. i don't want to live like this. but it could just be the best i can have. i want us to be happy, and stay at it. i hate my life but i still love her. i mull over death and the afterlife but i still want us to grow old together. i shuttle between stark reality and selective imagery. and i still want to picture us in the same frame. i don resent her planning for the bigger picture. but i want her to notice the little things. and the vanilla sky. that life cannot pause and resume. and that I'd love her,before and after. the best part of pain is that it'd either go away, or you get used to it. i am used to it now. and when it finally goes away, psychosis and nut cases, may just get back to what they were.

aishu baby, love you so much. forgive me. and I'll forgive myself.

dawn-dreaming and other pathetic attempts at finding a title

I search for women+subjugation+marriage and the first think google throws up is "The Rise and Demise of Women's Liberation". Excited, I flit through the text - that was one radical piece of writing -

Motherhood-as-calling, as sole definition of women’s social function, and marriage as the only “normal” condition of women, serve to assure the necessary annual crop of new proletarians.

I'm not sure if it was too dated or am too programmed to believe I'm liberated but decide to look for somethin worth staying up till 5 AM to read.
And then on the results page I notice the sponsored links am attuned to ignore.

* Married but feeling unfulfilled?
Find local like-minded partners.
* Become a Tupperware consultant and
work from home.
* Find Unhappily Married Local Women
Instant Search Your Area

I am particularly intrigued by the suggestion that Tupperware is related to post-marital subjugation of women. Oh, the other two links just vouch for the fact that we are one filthy generation.

My mother and I are infuriatingly hypocritical women. We'll scoff at women we know who do not think of being only home-makers as being 'only' home-makers,think they're preserving a piece of themselves and exercising their dormant entrepreneurial talent trying to sell tupperware, women who without a trace of self-doubt, and perhaps even regret, will live only for others. She and I have had friends who claim to be ready for life of domesticity and easy affluence - always surprising - considering the women I knew are now only 21, jus outta college, weren't far behind me academically or really regressive rural types. But then who doesn't want a life of domesticity and easy affluence? Who am I kidding, working isn't as much fun as everyone wants me to believe. Challenging, perhaps, but only challenging enough to have me chew my nails off for an hour or two before I see a workaround. The last year has been jus about a bunch of minor accomplishments on the academic front and major bouts of heart-crushing sorrow in my personal life. If I could give up everything, all this - the life I've always wanted, I would, for a life of domesticity and easy affluence.

ah, if only easy affluence was as easy for us as it sounds. I have thought about this before: if I can ever be so rich that I'd not want to be anything. well, other than be rich, that is. a naive new engineering student who was doin quite well for herself that I was, I told myself that I'd bore myself to death not doin anything and that my education, my intelligence is too precious to throw away. And now I stand at the very edge of my comfortable life as a student staring ahead at years of 'gettin there' followed by years of 'almost there' and I want to be magically transported to my 'well, here we are, shall we get that vermeer?' era. on second thoughts don't even need that stupid 17th century paintin, want be comfortable enough to lie around and read about Vermeer all day and maybe consider selling Tupperware. I conform to society's standards of how a woman should look, why the moral high ground when it comes to standards of how a woman should act. I guess I'm reaching here. Women I know who sell tupperware do work their asses off too, at home though, and they can single-handedly churn out smashing meals for a large thankless family. But it just seems so much easier. and peaceful. and strangely fulfilling.

well, who knows? maybe he'll paint his masterpiece and we'll retire at 25 and quickly aquire a taste for pina coladas and malibu.

four hundred grams that can't unfeel.

where reason fails. when any attempt at exoneration, only secretes more rhetoric. when darkness turns from the mere absence of light, to its vehement denial.day collides with night declares war on dawn submits to loss triumphs over reward secedes to guilt.

where do you look for inspiration?

four hundred grams. thats what it weighs, the heart. four hundred grams. it pumps away. in sheer darkness. oblivious, of the tragic soliloquy. wafting across your insides. mindless of the encroaching vines of sad thoughts. it pumps away.thoughtless. innocent.

why are we scared?

an overwhelming wish for unconditional freedom. a gripping prophecy, of an epic calamity. the dilated pupils. of a fast-approaching disaster.you try to garner the firewood of sympathy. long for the familiar scent of familiarity. strain your ears. so you'd not miss a voice. you know the voice. you hate the voices.but you love the singular note of this one voice. that effigy you built of her. all the statuettes of cotton candy. the figurines of rum filled chocolate. the face that remains after you've joined all the dots. when you come to the end of all that you can make sense of. you hear them speak. and all you hear is that one sound. her voice. asking nothing of you. but courage. the courage to be human. the courage to react. constructively.

the courage to give up. compulsion.

you want to break free. the chains of historical submission. want to break out. of the mirrored confines of self-doubt. your heart. all four hundred grams. circulating blatant screams of uninhibited intention. to escape is to touch her. to touch her is to live again. to live again, is to look back. to look back.

inspite of the impossible.

instead, you blame. undo all the good work. turn back the sand clock. smudge your own masterpiece. you blame. invisible angels of a personal nightmare. you reconcile. to be reconfined. four hundred grams is now collateral damage. four hundred grams is now excess baggage. blame. you take stock. you do the math. you look for the leaks. crib for the plugs. self-abuse. the machinations of regret take over. the ruling deities of self-conferred misfortune, wield their iron fist.

you blame.

act like you are acting helpless. you are. helpless. you give yourself up, to the forces of death. you turn yourself in. and inside out. you cheer lustily as you are tried. tried and sentenced. sentenced to more than the lack of life. sentenced to unfeeling. that damp corner, safe from light and life? you scamper to it. smile incredulously. bored witless and free from freedom. you embrace bondage. you crumple. crusted eyelids. that once hid circling fireflies and parallel universes. stable limbs. that once rode over happy surprises and warmer sunrises. time-frozen thoughts. that once unsolved open mysteries and made movies. that never got made.

those four hundred grams. that once heard her say your name. strangely, they still do.

sadness is a smudged neon sign

Crispy chicken, a bowl of noodles and a lager. That was their last meal together. It was the cafe leopold. This unassuming but spacious bar at the foothills of the imposing Taj Mahal Palace hotel. The cafe, proudly claimed an origin dating back all of a hundred and fifty years. A painting on the wall tried real hard to advertise the cafe's international patronage, rather unsuccessfully. It did have a smattering of tourists, most of them white and some of them surprisingly carryin kids. Surprising, for it was a fullblown indian summer. He was distracted. Something really insistent was playing on his mind. One look at the clock on the wall, said it was nine. They were short on time. And he couldn't bear to think about what lay in store a coupla hours hence. They had shopped for inexpensive clothes all evening, and managed to fall for a clunky bracelet, a frilly brown skirt (which later turned out to be nothing more than a square piece of cloth with a hole cut out in the centre). From the street that housed hundreds of vendors, tryin to make a living out of cheap imitations and mispelled foreign brands, a taxi ride had transported them to the gateway of India, that colonial monument built to symbolize colossal India's submission to its relatively puny imperial ruler.It was tastelessly set alight by vapor lamps, planted inside the building. Though it did not effectively ruin its basalt charm, it did reinforce the notoriety, keepers of history in this country are known for. It was their first visit to a major monument of considerable national acclaim. And they,like a million others before them, tried real hard to register a major landmark in their lives. Visiting the gateway of India. Thats one thing you can strike off your list of things to do, in this lifetime. They knew it was mammoth, when they couldn't fit the whole structure in the viewfinder of their humble cannon. he lit up a smoke, and tried to think straight. Tried to stay in the moment and not wander to distant lands of eventual loneliness. They still had three hours together. three hours of stumbling for happy things to say. Three hours of keeping extremely crippling sadness at bay. They walked a while, along the wall that separated a permanently agitated sea and the more ordinary bustle of the city. She said something about how Mumbai could be the only city walled in from the sea. The Arabian sea. He strangely gave it a thought. Made a note to himself, that he would confirm it afterwards. She lit a cigarette. He noticed, that it was the last cigarette he'd see her smoke. Everything that day, was the last occurrence of something.

The last time they'd ride a train.

The last time he'd see her smile.

The last time they'd hold hands.

They walked along the wall, trying to photograph the entire gateway. They stood there, looking out into the sea. Her words now. Describing how the view of the sea was different from her own home town. He cud sense the strain in her voice. He knew the strain in his own voice. A strain that asked difficult questions but demanded no answers. They crossed over, onto the other side of the street.

The last time they'd cross a street.

He held her hand, while they gazed at the windows lining the entrance to the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. It housed stores of all major insanely-expensive brands. There was Dior, Versace, Zegna and Bvlgari. They wondered how Bvlgari was pronounced. They settled, amicably on vulgari, more for the prices than any consideration for Italian linguistics.They looked around for a place to eat. A few blocks away was the cafe leopold.

the last time they'd dine together.

The time was nine, and they had two hours to go. The food arrived, carried by a waiter, who couldn't have been out of place in any bar,anywhere in the country. He was inoffensively unspecial. Before he finally ordered crispy chicken to go with the lager, he had stared at the menu, unnaturally long .Trying to avoid her eyes. and trying to choose from the extremely wide array of cooked meat on offer. Beef and pork, aren't exactly a regular presence on menu cards in this holy fuckin country, he thought. But this place had quite a few additions for both supposed blasphemies. Somehow, he felt a new surge of respect for the Cafe Leopold. He had never eaten beef. And she doesn't eat meat. They settled for chicken. He fiddled with his food, forcibly calm. And finally gave up half way into it. He cleaned the lager up, while she twirled a single strand of noodles with her fork. they were both contemplating. two hours from now.He was biting his lip, now. while she was fighting to stay collected. She begged him to take care of himself. Repeated invocations of the word love, rent the air.He said he'd be fine, knowing he wouldn't.They decided to have the leftover chicken packed. For the imaginary great dane, loungin around in their imaginary beach house.

The last time, they'd get their food packed.

They got into the taxi, and left for the hotel they were staying in. She was tired. they'd walked a million miles that day. Rode trains and Shopped long. She rested her head in his lap, and slipped into sleep, real quick. They were drivin past Haji Ali, a place of worship for almost everybody, when he first broke down. He looked outta the window, strugglin to fight back resurgent memories of the month gone by. Then it happened. A trickle down the left cheek, and his first thoughts were to stop it from landing on her, resting on his lap. He pressed his eyes close. And wished they'd keep riding through the night. An hour to go. He stroked her hair back from her head. A million vehicles sped all around them. Some expressed their anguish, and threatened with unspeakable violence ,behind them. A million people, with things to do, people to see, families to get back to, nightmares to run away from. Crowded on that one stretch of road. All at the same time. He cried his heart out. While his baby, slept in his lap. He kept stroking back her hair. He kept lookin out. At particularly nothing. But he could see pain. It was a smudged neon sign advertising bath fittings. But he could see pain.

The last time they'd be in the middle of so much traffic.

They reached their hotel. She took a bath,changed into clothes they bought that day.He tried real hard, not to give in. He was determined to keep it as less sad as it was humanly possible. But its human to not want to be alone. Its also human, to look around the room one last time, and break down into your love's open arms. And he did just that. They kissed like they were breathing life into each other. They kissed like they were never gonna kiss again. They kissed and cried. And hugged, in sheer hope of fusing together inseparable but dead. Inseparable. and never mind, dead.

The last time, they'd kiss and cry.

They trudged down, got into the hotel car. It drove them insufferably fast to their destination. They got the bags out. He made a couple of inquiries, and it really was time. They walked leaden footed and heavy hearted, to the door. The bags, her luggage, stacked on a trolley, They got to the entrance for international departures. It was time. There they were. At the end of a glorious Indian summer. The cruel glass door. The point of no return. This is where they stop. This is where they last hug. This is where they last cry. This is where they kiss.For the really last time. She goes into the door. Turns back, looks at him. A rush of vignettes from a parallel universe, where everything around implodes. Crashes into itself. Disappears. and she can run back to him. And they can both go home, to their imaginary beach house, with the imaginary great dane. A parallel universe, so wished for, it could be real. She turns back one last time. He raises his hand, limp and detached. She smiles, from behind the eternal sadness of an unfulfilled wish. And then, she disappears.

The last time, they'd see each other.

elemental weather and a bed by the window

There's something about rain that makes me, well, not pause and ponder really, though that sounds so much more profound; jus stay up incredibly late and watch it wash all the sickening heat out of my city. I force myself to think sad and for once, I, the queen of all things gloomy, can't come up with one stifling thought to go with the stifling weather. Been very very long since this last happened but I'm calm, laid-back and not thinking of any one thing in particular. All I can see is the simple fact that I've changed so much. Random thoughts and everything that flashes by leads right back to this: that I've changed.

I used to love getting drenched in the rain, a love probably inherited from my dad than cultivated - dad moved from one rain-soaked city to another and missed his rain-soaked land as much as I miss mine now and made sure his kids see him fly into raptures the moment it started drizzling.
I used to love being around people, being surrounded by people I know, chided, bossed over, being loved, belonging. I used to be a rotten sister: younger brothers were never meant to be loved, I willingly submitted to the stereotype of the elder hence smarter sister and was about as big an asshole as indifference allows.
I used to believe in friendship.
I used to believe in love that is forever.
I used to believe in God. completely. without any doubts.
I always wanted to look better than I already did.
I was convinced I'm one of those lesser beings who are solely responsible for the world being a mediocre place that just about runs.

Now,
I will watch the rain from a distance, stretch my arm out and let the drops slide down to my elbow and admire the path a drop takes almost following my vein, but I will not let the rain really touch me.
Friendless, but glad. I used them all, most used me and am now left incapable of trusting anyone but myself.Yes, I care about my brother now and watch with concealed respect what the kid's turning into.
Am not so sure about God now and not being sure almost means not believing in her/him/it.
A trip across half a planet and a million reassurances later I'm comfortable in my skin.Yeah, it does help that my hair's so breathtakingly perfect, these days.
The world is still a mediocre place but if it runs at all, it is because of me. alright and because of a coupla others.

And the best part? Only he knows how much I've changed, I suspect he quietly nudged me into evolving, and yeah, into feeling such love for myself.
I almost can't recognize myself from a coupla years back but I am the me I want to be now and for a long time to come.
Content.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
- Yeats

(Perhaps a little vain, but hey, self-indulgence is the theme of this blog.)

no road that is right entirely

my room was annoyingly warm and I was letting the summer torpor take over my senses when I hear someone knockin at my door. the evening had been exceptionally noisy, live right next to the freeway, so keep hearing sirens of all kinds all the time and today it was as if everyone in the city had conspired not to lemme doze off. find mike at the door wanting to know if I'd like some pizza and then before I could say anythin he hits me with the news. no, actually, he assumes I already know it.
the bridge two blocks from our house had collapsed taking about 50 cars along with itself into the mississippi. the very first thing I thought of was that I could've been on that bridge had it not been for the annoying warmth that's supposed to mean summer out here in the twin cities. and this thought was followed by a dozen very very selfish thoughts: if I really were on the bridge and something did happen to me, how in the world were people back home gonna find out? it was a long long time before I bothered to find out anythin about deaths and injuries.
two minutes later we were all sitting in dan-the-new-guy-upstairs's room eating his cold pizza wishing whatever obscure music he was playing could drown the noise from outside. there were half-hearted attempts at conversation and awfully sweet kool-aid by jan.

should we bike over and see if we can help?
naah, we'd only get in their way.
you're with CivE, did you hear anything about this earlier?
naah, I do roads from Albertsville.
is your phone dead too?
a collective dejected yeah.
does anyone wanna watch the boondock saints?
what, in the blinking world, is the boondock saints?
can I get help for my dynamics homework?
lying blatantly: oh. dynamics isn't really my thing.
don't you just miss your family terribly sometimes?

yes, my friend, more than you can even imagine.

especially when I'd been as silly as is humanly possible when I last spoke to the love of my life and if something did happen to me, that stupid conversation would be the last thing I'd leave him with. it's tragic enough having to go through my daily routine all alone, only letting him know what I can and choose to put into words. the last thing this relationship needs is a disaster. the worst thing i can think of is everyone who cares for me back home waking up to some kinda bad news and then realizing that they've slept through the event and then that they're completely helpless. yes, I do realize I'm obsessed with something very improbable.
what are the chances of me being on a bridge minutes away from my home when it finally chooses to collapse?
oh, very high.
but we don't ever imagine that anything so huge could really touch our lives significantly enough. don't we all make decisions about our careers, lives, and if you're us, children's names like we've conquered death? and don't we truly regret years misspent and this need to plan for the future, all the time, when we realize how delicate the present is? hell, a little less laziness and I'dve been on my way to the library and later found myself in the HCMC.
think there's a telugu word for this post. or wait, was it sanskrit? smasana vairagyam?

just wish I was in a different place and I had the sense to choose the roads that lead there.

the customary poem,

Entirely
By Louis MacNeice

If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
And falling twigs of song,
And when we try to eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.

If we could find our happiness entirely
In somebody else’s arms
We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city’s
Yammering fire alarms
But, as it is, the spears each year go through
Our flesh and almost hourly
Bell or siren banishes the blue
Eyes of Love entirely.

And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in the brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.

change's good. change's good.

one of those times,this. when you sniff at that air of pregnant possibility. i can't quite put a finger on it, nor can i describe how it feels to be surrounded by apparitions of the past and faint inklings of the future, in a present, beset by a
complete lack of faith. and hope and everything that stands in vulgar contrast with how i feel right now. i feel good. determined to change things. determined to start believing in the goodness of change. personal, consequential and well-meaning. its been hard. being dealt real bad hands, game after game. bad enough, sometimes, for self pity to be an enticing enough resort. self-pity. that outrageously comforting excuse for inaction. and large quantities of alcohol. wasting away in academic ruin. you don't know you are in trouble when failure's the reason, not for readdressing and a careful second act, but for more failure. failure does sit easy on an anvil of weak will. only to be annealed into frightening prospects of wasted potential. and a strange resonance of every resolution i ever failed to uphold. like quitting smoking.like working out. like. starting to live. when you know you are not supposed to be this way, what is it supposed to be like, anyway? i am here.nowhere anybody would have wished for me.i know i should shrug away the middle children of history tag, i sport. with scarred pride, and foolish hope. i abhorred the lack of a glamorous revolution. i ached for a romantic death. i was impressed by the unassuming ideology of the flower children, both anachronistic and antiquated, now. as i was with the validty of self-sacrifice for selfish causes. i was impressionable, yeah, but only by what i decided to let near. i failed my parents. i was wary of natural courses of life. i hated the smallness of people trying to succeed. i sided with the minorities. just because the majority happened to have large sections of stupid people. rather people, i conveniently regarded stupid, while all the way, they were just different. besieged by problems they could actually do something about. while i fought private wars, upholding the importance of self over success, they went about, bee-like and industrious, getting ready for the bigger struggles of survival. like ensuring economic security, that'd guarantee them time shares and faster cars, a few decades from now. there i go,again. heartfelt animosity making way to satirical contempt making way to jilted haplessness. and i shamelessly discover now, that my ideal, the ideal of free everything, just happened to be self-indulgence at its most self-indulgent. you can't disparage what you happened to be bad at. you can't justify your hatred for things mundane, with an unfounded trust.the trust in the good judgment.of normal people. given a choice, between regulated improvement and unmitigated self-destruction, between comfortable ordinariness and exquisitely lonesome detachment, i chose the path less trodden. less trodden, hence dangerous. dangerous, hence, less trodden. i was living in a time-warp. fighting invisible authority. i knew this was democracy. that style of governance where faceless masses, are supposed to fashion the face of our nation. a democracy, where people imagine they are still ruled by dead people. where erstwhile hoodlums and streetwise hookers can actually hope to rule. does it not seem stupid, for things to work this way? i wanted a qualified reason. something satisfactorily explanatory. the lesser evil being the greater good? the maxim of these modern times. never been able to subscribe to it. turned down everything with a wider appeal. was fascinated by unaccounted greatness and unchronicled heroics. i liked to believe, my life was one such account. slated for posthumous greatness. but the truth is, i longed to be heard, for far too long. i don't know if its too late, though i confess, i really am tempted to believe it is, and it really is inviting to withdraw into another shell,wrought with regret this time, and wallow in a fresh serving of self-pity. for where i am, is not where i am supposed to be. doesn't make sense, really. for where i am has wholly been a result of my designs, or the lack of them. as baudrillard was once translated,rather verbosely, if i may add,as having said "it is paradoxical to do a retrospective study of a work, that was never intended to be prospective". nothing can, in a manner as servile as this, can better describe the last four years of my life. and i cannot account for the last four years. like i cannot assume responsibility, for doing so.i want a way out. an exit driven by disillusion. i have made peace with the fact that, things just are. and that voluntary banality is not any less despicable than useless brilliance. have always explained my inability at pro-active action with a weak smile. world-weary at the age of 22. i am my own caricature. but i hope to change. and i hope to change fast. i feel good. not that i have realized the inherent flaw of life, and hope to cash in and make good. but its just that i have managed to shrug off the shroud of impossible perfectionism, stifled my enormous ego that ordained i don ever change, and have finally made peace with the idea of an inconsequential but comfortable good life. time shares, and faster cars? i hope am not late.

there was once common sense. now, there's just us.

gtalk failed us ,the other day.normally, we communicate in grunts and strange howls, coz gtalk lets us talk. but that day, we were required to type. and what started off as a routine, slam book thingie, led to some serious, summer slamming. read on,if you do not suffer from congenital high-standards.

aishu: neeku bollywood lo evaru ishtam ra?

me: amitabh bachchan

aishu: ohh please.you don like him.

me: shit. nijangaa ra.loved him in nishabd

aishu: abba, e musalodaina bad lightin lo alaane untaadu ra.

me: ok, the trouble is he's makin ita li'l too obvious that he is actually amitabh and not the guy he is playing.

aishu: yeah, see, at least when shah rukh does that we don really mind watchin shah rukh instead of raj or rahul or whateva.

me : ok, he's playing a genie telusaa?

aishu : excellent. why can't he jus die?

me: coz there's just one place left in hell, and shah ruk's yet to die?

aishu: ohk. so who's askin him to go to hell, jus die.

me: don.shah ruk khan played don.it bombed. shah ruk took over kbc.it hit an all time low.
i rest my case.

aishu: swades and shehenshah and I rest mine.

me : shah ruk and duplicate. shah ruk and ram jaane

aishu: do you remember this movie called suryavamsam, the hindi version?
amitabh and bade miyan chote miyan

me: shah ruk and ddlj and kkhh and abcd and unicef and unesco

aishu: shit, amitabh and million other horrible movies.

me: shit, shah ruk and the absolute horror of his face

aishu:yeah. like amitabh is handsome.

me: abba, he was. silsila? abhimaan? sholay?

aishu: really make a list and you'd come up wid far more bad movies fror amitabh

aishu: amitabh and what he's leavin behind for Indian cinema, abhishek. that's enough ra to hate him foreva

me: he was the epitiome of 80's cool in sholay. ok, 70's.

aishu: ade ra. he was in a diff era so I dunno the names of all the movies but seriously shehenshah is enough.and have you seen him in abhimaan, he looks like a shaved chicken.

me: aishu, shah ruk chose a stupid rip off of a nameless hollywood thriller to be his launch pad

aishu : yeah, what was amitabh's debut ashu?

me: abhishek, star son advantage and all, chose a bearded,deglamorised, real toughie of a refugee

aishu: ohh yeah, that din get him anywhere really. tht wasn't his launch pad. the series of movies after?

me: well, yeah, the stupid indian audience din like it that he wasn't called raj or rahul or adi. or he din ware ill-fitting, nauseatin blue clothes just to look hip and yung and for gossakes archie fuckin gates. or that he din land in a chopper for karva chauth

aishu: bull shit. he was called raj and rahul in about 14 flicks after that.he's a disaster.

me : aishu, give up

aishu: okay, did he see kuch na kaho?

me: you are fightin a losin battle. you already lost

aishu: I am not. you sayin that doesn't make it one.

me: lady, here's my wreath.i buried shah ruk.he's gone

aishu: whateva. there's jus no way you can prove that amitabh is better.he's only been around longer.

me: ekalavya?

aishu: he's been around longer.

me: aishu, there's absolutely no sense in expectin shah ruk wud age as gracefully as amitabh ra

aishu: another 20 years and shahrukh'll play a friggin bodyguard too. and yeah he'd be sufficiently wrinkled to look deep.

me: he'd die a megalomaniac who once was a superstar

aishu: amitabh did not age gracefully.he was thrown out for makin movies like wait kohram?

ohh no. mrityudata?

me: he was tryin to send abhishek to a good school. and he did it for frends

aishu: ohh yeah, so did shahrukh.for his wife.ajooba? agneepath?

me: it'd do the world a world of good, if he only made peace with the fact that he is no amitabh

aishu: ohh lord, toofan?

me: he is not a speck on amitabh.amitabh has a madame tussad's all for himself

aishu: so does aishwarya rai, so that doesn't count.

aishu: he's not tryin to be amitabh. and if people stuck on amitabh can't get over it, it's not his problem.

me: amitabh was voted the greatest actor, period. in fuckin firengland

aishu : he's been around longer.

me: you have said it twice.you lost,twice.twice, aishu?shame shame

aishu: no, all the hype around amitabh is only coz he's been around longer.

me: hype?ok, the last movie of amitabh, she's seen?

me: khaakee ra? dev?

aishu: whoa long time gone le.

he's been around longer.

me: deewaar?

aishu: waqt?

me: so what?

aishu: family?

me: this was about who's a better actor? its not about who's been around longer
who's a better actor.

aishu: yeah, so go back to the 70s and compare those movies wid shahrukh's

me: who.is.a.better.actor.? forget winnin or losin this my-sided argument

aishu: shah rukh is.

me: she's losin it.

me : peter 'o toole got nominated and so did ryan gosling.

aishu: don jus say that coz you're scared you are.

me: toole's 83689 years old.

aishu: soah? but hon, this is India, and that's how it works here.

me: shit.

that was a cheap shot.

aishu: ashok. jus one last movie ra. Kyun, Ho Gaya Na.

me: that was a cheap shot.

aishu: and I don even need to talk to you anymore.

me: this is india ata. taht was seriously bad defense.

aishu: it is true, you know it.

me: what is true? that you are doing this, just coz you said shah ruk and regret it?

aishu: ohh ohh, did I mention Laal Baadshah? double role.

me: honey, duplicate?

aishu: I do not regret it. yeah, there, chellu ki chellu.

me: i mean, i really can understand it, if they got away with playin a double role, before they cracked the dna.but ,duplicate was recent. it was later than the mid 90's.

aishu: so?

me: you'd expect more common sense.

aishu: did you see waqt ashok?

aishu: a goddamned "I'm dyin of hair cancer now weep"flick.

me: did you see one two ka four aishu?

aishu : yes I did and I liked it. far better than babul.

me: yeah, i liked babul aithe.and baghban and waqt.i adored his haitstyle in shehen shah

aishu: you did? see, that's enough to conclude that you don qualify to comment.

me: shah ruk's not a better actor, just because you like him.

aishu: neither is amitabh coz you do.

me: amitabh's teh best.even if i don think he is.see the difference, you blinded by blind faith,woman?

aishu: you jus think that coz he;s been around longer.

me: shit.

aishu: I could say the same thing about shahrukh.

me: don say it so many times. you really think shah ruk's the best?

aishu: I can. that is the only reason people think amitabh is good.

me: i mean, really?

aishu: yes, I do.

me: yeah, its true.

aishu: what is? and why?

me: the ten biblical plagues nightmare is true. when things like this happen ra, it augurs bad things for those who live in tanzanian swamps. right now, as we speak, it started.

aishu: whateva.

me: the devil's time has arrived.we are all dying.

aishu: coz amitabh refuses to die.

me: just coz you refuse to admit.

aishu: just coz you refuse to admit it

me: ok, how long have we been doing this for, again?

aishu: I dunno.

me: love you

peace?

aishu: naah, I can go on foreva.

me: love you so much. mmuuaahhh

aishu: love you so much too.mmuuahh too

me: hello subbarao gaaru *she turns back*

aishu: I don't.

me: amitabh's the best.amitabh's the best.

aishu: he's fuckin not.

me: hee haa

i win.i win.

aishu: that was so dumb.not to mention male.

me: we'll take the fight to the next level,ok? lemme get my light sabre. you wait,right there. move, and my movement sensor, electro magnetic ray gun,would take you out like a chicken.

aishu : fuck you.

hopin she'd understand,knowin she would.

before i go on to prove that she is by far the best of everything that was ever thought to be relevant in evaluating the necessity of the female species to all human endeavor, let me get something very very clear. she is perfect. notwithstanding, the expression of interest in trying to be a better person and the urgent need for self-improvement to meet my exacting standards, crap she came up with in the piece below. she is perfect. if you had tons of the most bad ass gelatin wired around my head, handed over the trigger to a Russian with bad breath and gold teeth, and made him smile his best "i have a thing for blowing up brains" smile, and tried to make me say anything else, it'd just have to say this. she is perfect. and yeah, pray for a quick death. how do you tell the best from the usual good? how do you know you are dealing with divine intervention in the middle of a pretty fucked up mortal environment? my friend, this is not hyperbole. this is unusual phenomena we are dealing with here. forget aliens.forget spontaneous body combustion. forget youtube. this's been a recurrent irritant, really. i mean, all those who've no idea what we can do to each other, or why we have this serene, a million pleasure bubbles circulating up our nervous system, smile on our faces when we think of us, and all thats gone by and all that's up for grabs? she is perfect. fuel and foil. lemme paraphrase here. she thinks she is quite something? lemme give you an oxford press, a very short, brutally honest take on what she really is.

she is beautiful. no wait, am not fawning here. she is. beautiful like ambient rock. like random inspiration. ok, the first three words i ever said to her,ever?

"you are stunning".

ok, she claims i said shit too,somewhere in the middle of being taken aback by how pretty she was, when i first saw her. i protest. indignantly. must have been the heat. or maybe i was just plain incredulous. for,it was a close encounter with the angelkind.

she is smart. so smart, she scares me sometimes. and some other times, she plain shoots me down. for she lives by the belief that disagreement is the best form of argument. and that she was made to win.everything she ever chose to win. and the worst part? she actually manages to do it. and completely legitimately at that.yeah, she pulls some cheap shots sometimes, but if i choose to forgive that,consider me beaten and dead. she hates to lose and i love to let her win. has an incredible I.Q of 136. now, thats some 30 times mine. psst.she made it to the high IQ club, this obsessively selective band camp, that trips on einstein's voice on repeat. she lets you air your opinion as long as you are prepared to die a soldier's death. for when she picks up a fight, she packs some real juice into some of her iron-fisted punches.

uppercut.rabbit punch.killer jab. knockdown.

ok, the final feather in her overflowing. gaudy, bird-house of a cap? she made it to the university of minnesota, on a fellowship. before you pooh-pooh that, consider this. she is the only woman,and am sure the youngest, to be awarded the somerfeld fellowship for the year 2006-07. now hows that for the world's first sexy geek?

i am ready to put it down, the post below,where she whines about the uneasiness or somethin about being perfect, to lack of nutrition, depressing lighting, and her genetic identity. but she's gotta see, without me helpin her out, that i don't hate her for any of her shortcomings. that the reason, i snap at her, is because i am this maniacally hard taskmaster. i mean, i just can't seem to take the fact that, somebody so outrageously gifted, can sometimes be so inventively stupid. i want her to push her nose up, and crush regular,stupid humanity. only because, she can do it. for, being kind may help you win the nobel. but out in the streets, its make way or.blast away.

for all the talk of her being this super gifted ,wonderwoman. she is a real baby. quirky,sassy,hard to please. hates to cry, and manages to do just that, once a day. all it takes to make her twist her lip, pout and refuse to have dinner, is my stupid raised voice. hate myself like i just murdered johnny depp,these times. its strange. how much i love mothering her. how much i want her to mother me. when the conversation morphs into a nursery rhyme, when i babytalk like i was just let off my prep-school session. i have no idea how we manage so beautifully.from across all these miles. but i do want her to know. that it could as well be because. she is perfect.

the day there is nothing left to take away.

the little sadness that remains in my life comes from chasing after this elusive perfection.
spend a good part of my waking hours scheming and orchestrating bloody coups against every single thing about me that he hates. and every other minute a brand new flaw pops up.
pop.
pop.
pop.
swat.
swat.
squash.
pop again.
hell, anybody would love me for what I am - I am quite something.
want him to love me what I can be, at least trying to be.
damn.
why is it so friggin easy to be imperfect?

and morning found my Breeze a hundred miles away(...)

Being together has come to mean the act of ignoring (trying to ignore, if you’re the male half of this arrangement) the fact that we’re about half a planet apart and hanging onto the headfones long after the jaws’ve given out, in hope of getting across, drinking in, another moment of the day we cannot share. With this blog, doing something together now means channelizing all the energy that goes into alternately tearing your hair out and damaging friendships four years old(again, the male version) while the other sleeps. Alright, not entirely true, it was also supposed to mean writing vile things instead of doing vile things while the other, who, by the way, can’t be awoken by anything as simple as a phone ringing 16 times, sleeps.

He paints a very romantic picture of me. Before I’m etched forever in the memories of our non-existent readers as Amazonian, I must say that I am quite terrified. of everything. by habit. We live in this picturesque misery and I just happen to be the one getting to sleep when the rest of (my part of) the world sleeps and without interruption and hence would seem more unruffled. He’s the hero of this piece, knows it and is very hero-like in being so unhero-like. Trust me, ladies; this is what we’ve been looking for all these years. Oh, I forget. Buhahahahaha, he’s taken!
Alright, that he’s taken doesn’t mean we’ve to stop discussing him, does it?
Besides being such a delicious treat to famished Indian eyes, he’s the only person I know who can offend at least two people he knows, three that he doesn’t, a coupla different nations and ethnic groups, certain types of tropical insects and all types of women with almost everything he writes. He’s passionate about defeating the entire purpose of language with every sentence he writes.
A proud flag-bearer of Nasty Nation.
A zealous music spelunker who discovered an entire generation of alt-rock bands that appears to have conspired to make songs just for us.
A devout, sometimes militant, fan of movies that leave me sobbing till an hour after they’ve ended.

My love, of exquisite taste and spectacular talent yet grand follies.

Perfect.

Perfect coated in chocolate.

Alright, this was supposed to be the last lap in the tribute to the Holy Trinity of the internet - social networking, IM and blogging, but is turning into a fawn fest. Now, that won’t do, will it?
So,I declare this blog open, enriched by my presence and ready for some bad ass mudslinging.
Aw, honey, don’t be like that.

Splattt.

and thus spoke robert frost

whose woods these are I think I know.
his house is in the village, though;
he will not see me stopping here
to watch his woods fill up with snow.

my little horse must think it queer
to stop without a farmhouse near
between the woods and frozen lake
the darkest evening of the year.

he gives his harness bells a shake
to ask if there is some mistake.
the only other sound's the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.
the woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
but I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.

- robert frost

i see sparkles.lots of them.each one of them calling out the one name i wish i cud freeze for prosperity. and hold it in my arms.like a baby holds a dear old ragged toy, when its havin nightmares. nobody else knows hobbes is alive. nobody else knows how much i love her. we met and the rest is history.we met and there's just no rest of it. perpetual motion. unhinged and continuous.sometimes stopping for breath.too much activity.always short of what's necessary. too much promise. always more than whats sufficient. waiting with our fingers uncrossed. a sunlit evening on the porch. with the water running in the shower. her back needs rest, and my chest needs her back. and forth. and back.and forth.

a jog in the park, this is not. a cry in the dark, just falls short. we are at work. painting our own future. li'l ants carrying even smaller pixels.tirelessly. absent-minded conversations with non-ant people. gluing together self-titled images of a carefully selected imagery. shaking hands and deep-set eyes. lack of sleep and an overworked jawline. spelling out beauty is not a 6 letter job. she is away. temporarily unavailable. and we wait. she is in the the united states. and we wait. for a united state. of being and nothing. of wonderous amazement at how it all happened. she thinks i am superman. i know she is wonderwoman. a satisfying struggle for satisfaction. end of desperately seeking desperation. nobody else knows what it means. nobody else knows how much i love her.

am stuck in india. my own making. should have freed myself. of make-believe hell. and faceless people. a deaf ear to the sirens call. was too busy fastening the noose. joinin dots to be starin back at obscurity. blowing away potential. trying to walk. on deserted railway tracks. a step down was death. to keep going was suicide. it was the end both ways. talking to myself. that i talked to myself. scared of attention. of stupid people. lying down on one-tree hills. waiting for a rustle. shapin up into my name. put up calls for help. and she answered. nobody else knows it was divine intervention. nobody else knows how much i love her. took to her like rain and the ground. kissed her kissin back. held on for life. to life. she was adamant at saving me. she handed out union. serene and seamless.love on my lips. life at my hand. we knew. and kept the secret to ourselves. that we are the best. yeah, we are.


the earth moved. and she had to go. a good life.and good sense. an year of starin into the night and wishing it was dawn soon. an year of adding an hour and a half, and turning the clock around. she is in minnesota. and i deep in thought. deep inside india. been eight months.eight months into managing the impossible. making love outta nothing at all? thought it was just another song too. we talk across continents.about distant universes. we live on a straight line island.and internet's man friday. everything figures. nothing's outta place. we hoist each other up. onto imaginary parapets. looking down as the world passes by. i hear more than what she says. she knows more than what i tell. we make us cry. we make us mad. we make us smile. and she begs me to stop. noone knows how we do it. noone knows how much i love her. we live a lifetime each day. only to live again, the next. we are a long way from sleeping together. but we are dreaming in sepia. already.