Sunday, December 12, 2010

Life on a soundtrack

If I had the option to rewind my life to certain times and places and replay it with a soundtrack, the first thing I would rewind to would be lying on sidewalk of a national highway.. just lying on the sidewalk.. hand in your hand.. and looking up at the stars, while the world passed us by.

And obviously, the track that would play to that would be

Snow Patrols - Chasing Cars.. If I just lay here, If I just lay here, would you lie here with me? And just forget the world.

Monday, December 06, 2010

We are all victims of life's speed

Some of us sit around trying to define the depth of a relationship, some flirt with definitions and some are waiting. Waiting for the relationship as you know it to start.

We each course at a different speed through these confusing relationships, but what speed is it that we want? Why are we always dissatisfied at the pace we are at? The fast want to go slower, the slow, faster. The one's at the red light just want the damn speed to pick up and the traffic to start.

I feel like I am on slow mode right now. Waiting for the full throttle to burst. For the rush of speed to take my life by surprise. I am waiting for my life to start. I am done with laying the foundation for my life ahead, hell maybe I am not done with it, but i am done doing it, you know.

I just want life to start. I am tired of waiting for things to fall in place.. just so I know where my place is in this Universe. I know a few basic facts, and I am ready to take on the world on them. No more brick laying for me. Bring on the cars, and let's crank up the gears.

It's irritating when you realize that you have no control over your life right? very irritating. But what can we do, we are all victim's. Of the race that Life has set up. Some like it fast, they get it fast, some don't, so they switch to double lane driving. Now is now right?

Friday, October 22, 2010

End of the era of selfishness

In so many ways you show me what I mean
In so many ways, you show me my place.
It just makes it easier for me..
Easier to understand that you are not the man for me.

You are so not worth it. 

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

When pants hang low, pull

What do you do when you see a guy with his trousers hitched so low on his non-existent hips, that one tug would have them on the floor? You tug. That's what you do. Or you do what I did. Tug mentally, smile impishly. And find the trousers on the floor. :)

Last weekend found me with two friends walking down this scenic beach-front road in Mumbai. One just-turned-20 guy was at a corner shop buying what guys buy from corner shops normally. And his pants were riding low, way low on his skinny body. Low enough to display a thick line of muddy blue underwear on brown skin. Yes, that low.

Low enough to make me want to pull it down just so I could tell him,
" There. Mission accomplished." 
 And while I looked at him straight in the face and contemplated the mental tug, the pants slid off his hips. Slid. Right. Off. His. Hips.

The boy caught them mid-slide, almost near his knees and looked accusingly at me. I was a safe 50 yards away from him. My friend and I were laughing quite unabashedly at him and he then had the good sense to look sheepish.

We continued walking, not letting the laughter break our stride, but I couldn't resist a 'pallat moment'. I looked back, and his pants were again riding dangerously low.

Sigh. This generation I tell you!!!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Finding my fit.

One chapter closes in my life. Another starts in a few days. I take over the residual wide-eyed excitement I brought to my first chapter with me.

But I also take renewed hope. Hope that this time, I will fit. Although deep in my heart, I know I am not the fitting types. I never fit in through my college years, or through school. I did not fit in in my completely firang department in University. Not because I was an Indian, but at that time, because I chose to not fit in.

Maybe I need to stop trying to fit? Create my space and be comfortable in that? Hmm.

Space. It's a weird concept. Space was my personal bubble when I was in the US. Here, in India, it is invaded constantly. The woman who uses my thigh as a support to get up in the train, the man who places a fist on my shoulder to push me ahead in the bus, the colleague who peers over my shoulder to look into my monitor, to get a glimpse of whoever I am shooting an email off to.

Space. It exists where it shouldn't too. The one-time best friend who I don't hug anymore. The awkwardness in reaching out and grasping the hand of someone who has been making me feel much more comfortable in the last few days. The weirdness of not being able to sleep off mid-conversation anymore. The by-chanceness of missing out on different timezones.

What's a fit between all these? When I make my exotic dinner-for-one? Or when I bite into my mother's shoulder, over her giggles and protests? Yes. These are my fits.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Vicious

Her laptop pings in the background while she furiously types away at a word doc. She looks up, a bit disoriented at the ping, identifies the source as a new mail in gmail, and ignores it.

He doesnt deserve my time.  He does not deserve my patience, or my worry.

She goes back to her word doc. Clicks and clacks at the keyboard for a while and then grunts in disappointment. She is distracted. Her words dont come back to her, that fine silvery line of thought in her head has faded to the white blankness of nothing. The shimmer of words, pulsing with meaning, erased from their emboss on the white.

She sighs, and moves the mouse over to her inbox, angry with herself for having no discipline. Of course the email is from him. She does not need to check to know that. But it's not meant for her. It's meant for another, come to her because she was subscribed in the list.

More words, more charm, more sentences that clearly say I'm available now, do you want to hook up? Or maybe that's just her imagination. What it really says is, I'm available now, let's talk. Get to know each other.

The later was more scary than the former. Though the former gave her chills too. She had always seen that charm directed only to her, meant only for her. Just her's. No sharing.

She compose a new email, copied his message to her in the body and in the subject wrote three simple words, I hate you and then clicks on the send button.

 She understand the heights of viciousness she has reached today. But she also understands that there are levels higher up when she gets no response to her email.

He has moved on, she, on the other hand, hasn't.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Mini-Meals - an ode to our lives in champaign


I rush through the day, run for the bus
late for class, quickly take notes
No time for a bit of chat later yaar
I’ll have more research done on this later, sir

         Bite sized love, bite sized lives
         A little hurried hi, a little hurried good bye
         Got to finish this life, get out of U of I
         Masters is enough man, there’s a life outside
Two jobs to fund one life, two jobs to fund the calls to home
but there’s always money for the shots and beer
Nostalgic when we hear a song, miracle, we know the words all
festivals we did not celebrate have meanings now

         Bite sized love, bite sized lives
         A little hurried hi, a little hurried good bye
         Got to finish this life, get out of U of I
         Damn this PhD man, there’s a life outside
Second hand Honda, the pool of our savings
time to live alone now, dude sharing isn’t working
Profs are over-rated, so is research
that’s when I turn to singing, that’s when I turn to writing
                Bite sized love, bite sized lives
                a little hurried hi, a little hurried goodbye
                Got to move aheada this life, get out of U of I
                Fuck Post doc man, there’s a life outside
                Bite sized love, bite sized lives
                a little hurried hi, a little hurried goodbye
                Got to finish this life, get out of U of I
                what the hell is happening, there’s a life outside
                Bite sized love, bite sized lives
                a little hurried hi, a little hurried goodbye..

Monday, February 22, 2010

Can you sing a song to me?

You sing for the entire world, but I can't hear it. You play with the entire world, but I'm not a part of it.

Can you sing that song again, where you chased my afterglow. You might not be the best singer alive, but you are after all, my singer. My only singer.

Can you hold me in your arms again, and wait for me to drift off to sleep.

Distance, is definitely not an easy adversary to have, when distance, is all you have.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Ramblings

I just realized that I haven't done many things 'new yearsy'. Din't think of anything special that I would do this year, did not do anything spectacularly special meant only for the new year and did not wish a whole lot of people too.

It's almost like the onslaught of the new year sped by me, and I realized 13 days later. When I was writing a report in office dated 13th Januray, 2010. 2010!!! Almost sounds like futuristic generation!

But then I just saw something. This last year was sneakily good for me. Balance. That's what the year was about. I finally managed to bring my weight to a balance. After getting desperate about it, deciding to starve myself, over-feed myself, over-exercise myself and over-diet myself, I finally found that balance that suited my body. That did not make me do any of the above. And helped me lose all my excess fat. (Almost all). I am 15 kgs lighter that this time last year. And I think that has been one of my biggest achievement ever.

The year before last, I met some of the most wonderful people in my life. But it is last year that I understood their significance. What they meant to me. What was their importance and what priorities needed to be set to make myself happy. I found my happiness. I made settlements with my expectations, understood what was not a fairytale and what was reality. And loved my life for it.

But while I have done these, I still havent been able to lay the ghost of a friendship past to rest. ABDC still bothers me. The friendship I shared with him bothers me. I don't know what it is about us, but something does. I understood my issues with Pilot. I know what needs to be done and what will just happen over the course of time. Balance.

I fixed up a job, got my brother married off. Hopefully, happily. I made new connections with a new family. Understood their quirks and whims. What makes them a different family.

I was faced with a situation where I lost my cool the way I never have before. I shivered with anger, and my ears turned red hot. Literally. I screamed my throat out. My mind shut down because of over-heating and squeezed out moisture in the form of unwitting tears. Abuses ran through my brains while my mouth tried to hold them down. There. I have a resolution. Never to be that angry again. When literally I have no control over any of my senses.

I took on amazing amounts of responsibilities, once back in India. Quite successfully, if not gracefully, met up to all of them. And then ended the year, trying to bake, hoping to cook, but not succeeding at either.

I am literally smiling while I write these last few lines now. Be cause I realize what writing this post has done. It's given my new year a direction. >> Avoid anger.>> Fulfil responsibilities with grace>> Bake more, cook more >> Travel more >> Lose 4 kgs more.

Not in that order.

P.S. I realize that this post is quite shabbily written, but it has literally followed my thoughts. And liberated me quite a lot. So, as long as it helps me, its all good right? :)

Thursday, January 07, 2010

New year, new woes

I have had posts bubbling inside me from about a week now. When I stopped writing a year or so back, I couldn’t figure out why. I thought it was the pressure to please the readers, to soothe my ego etc which drove me away. I left it at that.

Then I was leaving everything that had become familiar to me in the last two years, and I found myself opening up the blog again. Once back, I got busy. Wedding planning, wedding attending. Etc.

Once all the hoopla settled down, I took up a job. Actually I quite foolishly took up the first job I was offered. I started traveling by trains again, rushing for time, eating from packed lunches, dealing with people’s temperaments, whims and fancies. I was touching ground again. And this time, I was touching Mumbai soil.

And lo and behold, my urge to write resurfaced. This brings me to the conclusion that I write when I need the outlet. I don’t write when I don’t. I was blissfully happy in the last one year... so I stopped writing. I was too involved in my happiness. I was writing short stories to fulfill my itch, but blogging, Nah. Posts just evaded me. Not that I even tried running after them. Thankfully, I had that good sense. When the feeling to blog stopped, I dint push it. No force, no have-puff-to-puff-do-puff-it.

Now I sit in my ad agency office, senior copywriter by post, but in a government office type desk with chair. Old almost defunct PC to work with (seriously, every key has to be stepped on, hard, to type the letter) and horrible stuck up mouse. Someone higher up who thinks banning gmail and facebook is the right way to go (really, when I work for social media and email marketing!!) and a feeling of being boxed-in in the very fourth day of work. Oh and did I include working 10ish hours daily? No, its not a call centre, it’s an ad agency.

I am writing stuff which I don’t believe in. Which is quite disheartening. I erase this stuff from my life when it enters, and apparently I am filling others lives up with this shit. Sigh.

And yet, I have made a promise to myself that I will stick out the initial 6 months. Or at least 3. I’ve already bought a first class pass for three months. Might as well run it out right?