Wednesday 5 December 2012

Pink Herons, Blue parakeets

I couldn't sleep last night. Or for that matter the night before. This is strange considering how sleepy I was in the evening. I almost fell asleep and missed my favorite soap. But then, after I had conveniently called early and said goodnight to my parents and him, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, applied lotion to my hands and feet, night cream to my delicate face, turned off the light and hopped in bed--- I was wide awake. I thought I would fall asleep gradually and normally it takes me less than 8 min to do so, but this is different. I just had no sleep near at least a km of myself. I could've got up, read some book, watched some more tv but somehow I was still lying there, wide awake, stubbornly refusing to give up. Then I thought of music. So I got my mobile and 40 secs to the first song I was crying! I doubled up with unspoken grief and squirmed and whimpered. Tears streamed down in gushes. And I was surprised inside. Why was I crying? Why am I so sad without me knowing it! What's wrong and where? I could not stop. I cried like a baby. And then I started to feel cold, with a blanket over me in 18 degree Celsius, I was shivering. Then I understood. I know this. I have been through this before, for months. How could I forget it? How could I pretend everything is OK! But thank God, now I know. I know what I have to do now to survive, I am a pro. So I forced myself to get up, dragged my sorry crying figure, still mopping tears off my face, to the kitchen. I filled the hot water bottle, drank a cup of warm milk and came back to my bed. I crouched to my left side in the foetal position cradling the hot bottle to my heart and slowly softly started carressing and patting my head. The tears subsided slowly, the shivering stopped, the whimper went away and although I was still not sleepy, I was feeling better clarity. I have to accept the reality, I thought, I need to know I am not OK and that it is OK not to be alright all the time. I started to feel pity for myself, which is never good, it can cause immediate relapse of the previous fit, and it did. But this time, as I know I would, as I always do, I cried myself to sleep, dreaming of missed trains, lost lands, barren fields, shocking pink herons and blue parakeets.

I woke up sore and tired. And I stayed in bed till 9, watching the regular sparrows and bulbuls knocking at my window, they eat inscts perhaps but from my side of the glass it appears like a dance or sometimes like they are in the powder room, dressing up. It amazes me. So life is thriving all and about and I finally left my den, got dressed and came to office. Not much work today and so I thought of writing this. If anyone is reading this, don't think I am a coward. I can face myself. Just afraid that I might not be able to get back. I have no reason to. Not anymore.

At World's End

Only a week left to the supposed 'end-of-the-world'! I think this should have had the capacity to be scary in order to make me happy, but now it sounds like a weak pj. Personally, I just love the concept of destruction, when it comes as 'complete' destruction. What can be better than just vanishing one fine morning with everything you know! No backlogs, no afterthoughts, no trailing around left-behind loved ones(in case you believe in the ghost theory), no fear of karma(if the world is destroyed I can't possibly be sent back) and most of all no fear of losing your dear ones (who possibly can die in this one week, and even then who cares). Death is a sure certainty with just one small disclaimer. You never get to know the certainty in its entirety unless the very last moment has come to claim you. That makes death horrible, hated, unbearable. That also makes life interesting. But somehow, I don't think much of this surprise factor of death.I would rather know when,where,how. Hence, the theory of the world ending makes me happy in a peaceful sort of way. Weird it is, I know, but at the same time, it is so attractive!
So, with no promising end, I am left to search for the survival means, money, I mean. I have just received my first pay cheque and it made me sad. Plain simple sad. I thought I would be happy. My perpetual life of debt and gloom will come to an end. I will buy whatever I feel like and finally,finally pay my rent on time. But now with the actual thing on hand, the reality looms large over my psyche. 20,000 sounds good, looks good on paper, doesn't really translate that good in the market. I know, with my qualifications, this is the best job I could have bagged and I thank every living and non-living being in the universe for this, but 20,000! Maybe, I need more time to settle into a life I think good. Maybe after 5 years I will be able to afford a jacuzzi and a red, convertible sports car and then gift a world tour voucher to my parents. These are not merely my dreams. These are like the pins in my bed which doesn't let me be comfortable.
People say, aim high. Is what I am aiming for high? I don't feel so. I feel it is only so much one can have in exchange of the other dream, the low cost one that was more fulfilling psychologically, which was unceremoniously snatched away from just under my nose. I feel what I am aiming for is lower than what my heart would have originally be happy having.
Remember here, this is my second life, second chance at life, second dream of a perfect life. I died once.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

I hate you BF

So, what do you do when you start disliking your best-friend.

 I know this is one of the most boring topics in this world. But  I am facing this when I least expected it!! I am grown up, I have a job, I live alone.... This is the time to enjoy with friends, to have them over without worrying about your mom or boyfriend(in case you are living-in). Now is the time to explore all those plans that you somehow stashed out of sight because of exams or blind dates! And here am I, suddenly starting to feel averted by the thought of going to a movie with my bestie! c'mon! what's wrong with me! 
Let me introduce her. She is gonna be with us every now and then, surpassing the boundaries of time and place...
Jiya is the most outraging personality you will ever come across. Simplicity, be it of any kind, shuns her like plague. She is a manually twisted and depressed soul, too loud for the average human, almost too schizophrenic to cure medically, mysterious like some lost civilization and yet has the precision of a computer and 100% dedication  when it comes to anything she likes: sex, food, numbers, her grand ma/family/me and any one man at any given point of time. I hope I need not explain more to establish how irresistibly attractive she is and I have no shame in saying, I was completely smitten by her-- first time we met in grad school. Time passed, and we stuck like iron-magnet(can't say which is which coz she too, is in love with me). We went through all possible life events, never caring or pausing for past, present or future and found that  everything fits perfectly to reveal the ugly zigsaw picture life has provided us with. Here I use ugly because both of us have a different picture of our ideal lives, of which I will talk about later, and apparently the present one doesn't stand a chance in comparision.
But, now, I wish she vanishes. I wish she takes with her, as she vanishes, all the memories-relations-and my guilt. I feel threatened by her jealousy, my jealousy at her ability to envy me, my powerless attempts to control her unattainable dreams...


 I am so sorry Jiya...so so sorry that I can't say this to you in person... this is like that moment you see...that time you were in love with your shrink and he was clueless of your troubles coz you couldn't tell him your feelings for him... I know you will never read this, you are totally clueless when it comes to computers, but I still wish you read this, sometime, coz at the end of the day, you are the only person who will understand this.

Friday 16 November 2012

The dead butterfly

It was lying brown
Face down
As I walked to my work today.
It was cold
(and stiff) to hold---
Stretched wings, lying face down
All brown 
And covered in dust...

Might be grey, not brown
How does it matter, said I.
It's dead
Body,wing and head
Never more to fly...

A prickly caterpillar it was
Some months back
Borrowed colors from the rainbow
Returned them, must be
Just as it was time  to go...

From the dust to the dust
Grey and brown to brown and grey
It was stiff to hold
Lying cold
As I walked up the stairs
In the morning today.
 

Friday 9 November 2012

Too much work today. And Boss moved the FAX machine to my cubicle :( ... meaning I can't write as often as I would like, people are always infiltrating my private space in the name of photo-copying. But somehow I am still feeling cheerful enough to start writing and that is because the sun is shining through my office window... a slice of warm orange sun...right here on my left arm, illuminating my boring desk and setting my glass on fire! Oh how I was dying for this... no wonder the scriptures say that sun is life.It is.

 And if you know anything about typefaces, I am composing today in Trebucht font, the one I 'discovered' today while searching for some good non-serif fonts and this one seems quite good for headings and stuff, I am actually using for my next set of documents.

Oh I had an awesome lunch! Ate a full meal after...um... maybe a week. Actually my bro came down from his work to meet me. It is nice to see someone you know... I didn't even realise how much I was feeling lonely until I said good-bye to him just now. Did I mention he is not my real brother, he is a cousin. But he is the closest to what I know of a brother. I am an only child...and so my share of exclusive goodies comes with this pack of loneliness. I am mostly ok with it until someone starts those mind boggling stories of sibling rivalry, or you read about the Weasleys. Well, then I start to feel a bit queasy in my stomach... a mix of jealousy and care which mostly urges me to punch that person in the face and start a pseudo-sibling fight then and there. This bro of mine rescues me in such occasions. I swallow my initial response and start enthusiastically about 'us' sometimes conveniently forgetting to mention he is a cousin!

I would be going shopping today after office--- candles, diyas, sweets, decorations, fire-crackers etc etc. This is my first Diwali after I got the job and I don't want anything to fall short in the festivities. I really would like to light candles all all all over our three storeyed home, and also on the fences, on the doorsteps, even all down the 46 winding steps of the staircase, and not for once worry about the number of candles, not do quick mental math to adjust 40 candles in 8 rooms. I have a job and I can do my will. That's nice. That's a nice feeling which I was negating for a long time. Anyway, this is now taking the form of a rant. So I better stop.
Happy Shopping everybody and advance "Happy Dhanteras"... the worship of wealth and happiness, the festival of shopping!! Stay happy and rich you all. :)

Thursday 8 November 2012

November Rain

It's cloudy. It is never good when it's cloudy in November. I mean, I do like 'November Rain' but not in real life, man! And I have a lot to do. Actually, my life just started... and getting started is never easy. There is so much to do that I am having stick-on notes all over my desk (my boss thought yesterday they were for work). I wish I did not have to get started all over again. I wish life was easy, that I could stay at home forever and never move to the city, never look for apartments and then stuff to fill the apartment with... It's not that I could not have sustained myself if I didn't do all these. But sometimes you just have to come out of your comfort zone, push yourself for apparently being someone in your life(as if I was invisible) and stand on your own two feet(I usually borrow others')...
And to top it all, it's cloudy. We are so helpless against nature that sometimes I feel real sad. What with all the technology and bullshit gadgets, we can't even make a cloud shift one mm without nature's will. Maybe that is for our own good...apparently everything is! Be it a cheating boy friend, a back stabbing friend, a colon cancer, a failed job... it is always for the better... ain't it folks!
Funny it is how we learn to console ourselves like just now I made myself some extra sweet tea, closed the windows and shut the blinds. If I don't see the clouds and pretend it's evening...I am going to survive happy today! yo! yo! yo!

Regular day at office

The third ambulance of the day, crying it's lungs out, and taking a bit of my life away with it. It's normal for a normal day...three ambulances I mean. That is in fact few compared to our vast population. Maybe all the sick people do not travel in an ambulance... I don't know about that, but I really don't like them. The whole thought is so scary! Either you be the sick one or the healthy one sitting inside holding the hand or whatever is necessary(a friend of mine had to hold her grandpa's bleeding penis in order to stop loss of blood)... it is scary. God is kind to me. I have never been there(touch wood) but the sheer sound makes my hair try to stand up.
On a more cheerful note, today was my Boss's b'day. So ate a lot of cake. I am not feeling guilty because I just chucked my shitty diet plan a month back. Now I should tell you, I am one of those people who is plumpy by birth. On one or two occasions I tried the south beach diet and it worked great. I lost weight and all but all my close ones started complaining that I look like a hungry Banshee! And I don't want to look like a Banshee hungry or not. So I finally chucked all sorts of diet plans and even started to have sugar with my tea and coffee(maybe for the first time in my life). Maybe I can't wear my 28" branded jeans in a long while...but I have enough kurtis and leggings to last me the winter. So sweets. Watch out. Here I come. YO!YO!YO!
I will end now. It's already time to leave office and anyway today I have some work. Gotta get my bedding or I will have to spend another night on the floor mat. Also, finally, I will get a TV connection today!! Finally getting to meet my family members. Well, they are kind of family...the soap stars... aren't they! Can't wait to see Meredith...and Khusi and Ben.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

The day I started

I am writing because now it's limit... I have reached my limit of keeping it all to myself. Oh no no no... am not tortured, not abused... but see, if you still hang round here a few more minutes, you might get interested by my story. I am a voice, an inner voice of a girl... that is never spoken aloud... in various situations, from past,present and maybe even future! I am new here, but that won't be long. Pretty soon I will be old because the world moves fast, faster than we can feel. So if you love to read, and listen to music, and a romantic... hang on there... I am here and will be here for you.
I created this blog today... and see the irony! I type the word 'blog' and the composer does not identify it as a valid word! Fuck man! The word 'blog' is a non-word in Blogger!! shit..so is this :P. See, this is the state of life... we leave in a compositely complex world, with most of us having zero say in whatever is happening to us! I am not complaining, just amused...