Reincarnation

Sometimes, your last life catches up to you. Most times, it doesn't hurt, it doesn't sting, it just makes you wistful. It makes you miss the stuff you left behind. The people you left behind. The friendships that got eroded.

It reminds you of the crazy crazy times you had then. And you wish you had someone to remember them with. Someone to say to, "Remember how we were crushing on this song that time?" Or someone who shared the joy of an experience and won't mind revisiting it with you.

You miss the feeling of discovery. The feeling of newness. The feeling of exhilaration that you shared together. It doesn't mean you don't have most of it in your new life, but it would just be nice to be able to remember those times again.

Wouldn't it? 

Your way or my way

So, it happened the way I said it would
You fell in hard, and dragged me in
You knew this would happen
the way I said it would
You would fall and drag me through

So, one day you called me out 'the blue
Had a random conversation bout you
I held the phone this side of the sea
Wondered if this would happen
the way I said it would

So, you surprised me as much as you could
Tried new things coz you knew
I would fall in for the new
It would happen the way I said it would

Of course I resisted as much as I could
Made up reasons, threw up tantrums
But you weathered it all through
And made it happen more than
the way I said it would

So, you stand at altar waiting for me
I walked up finally, crying to glory
You smiled at me and made me stop
You knew this would happen
the way you wanted it to.

Doubts and tears

She woke up with a start. Last night came rushing back. It wasn't like her.. these weird sleep cycles. This erratic, unexplainable wave of affections she slept with and woke up with. It wasn't like her anymore.

She couldn't believe she was back there. Where she ended the night in doubts and woke up to tears. She couldn't believe that she had left the smiles that her life had brought with her behind.

Black Heart

Why do you have a black heart my love
What deed so tainted, words so impure
what joy rebuffed, what smile upturned

you always believed
that smiles are an anomaly
that the world is a bitch
that people are selfish

you always accepted that
that was your truth
imbeded in your psyche
fashioning all your moves

you revelled in the pain
Basked in darkness
enjoyed the screw drilling in
relentlessly, ruthlessly

what little action was it
that turned out to kill it all for you
why do you have a black heart my love
and how am i supposed to love it

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?

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.

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? :)

Can we??

Can I wrap you up in a song and make you the song itself?
Can you hum to me, that song?

Can I look behind one more time, because I am sure you will be there?
Can you see the sunshine within me?

Can I scold you to my heart's content, because you know I am just doing it to irritate you?
Can you keep making that frustrated face everytime I say something completely irrational?

Can I whine to my heart's content to you, because I know you wont judge me for it?
Can you keep trying to fill that void that has just opened up inside me? Some day it will fill..

Can I keep shopping for those little things that you don't even know you will need around your house?
Can you keep surprising me in all those little and small things that you do?

Can we keep forming these little traditions of ours? These little things which is always what you do, and these other things that are always my doing...

Chemical Imbalance

I wish I could explain to you what it feels like when you are actually in a happy mood, but you can feel something clicking somewhere in your brain which brings on a bad mood.

I wish I could explain to you the anguish that tears through your mind, and then the other side, where you know why its happening, you know you really are not that sad, but just the fact that you are not that in reality, but are feeling so right now is a pathetic thing.

I wish I could explain to you how horrible it feels, how alienating.. how much you would just love to give in and cry, because although you know that that wont solve the problem, it sure as hell seems like what you should be doing.

I wish I could explain to you how much it hurts to cry alone, or cry but let no one notice it. Because logically it makes sense to do not cry in front of anyone since its an induced state, but in the mental state you are in.. that's the polar opposite of what you need.

I wish I could explain to you how suddenly you want so much more, you need so much more, you emote so much more, you expect so much more. It's like you just CANT bottle up these things which you know have the capacaity to hurt you.. so are best not wanted, needed, expected, loved.

I wish I could explain to you how much imbalanced you feel, how it completely puts you off your foot, how helpless you feel and how much you need that support from everyone who matters.

I wish I could explain to you how it is so so necessary that in this state you give me every little thing you assumed was given, you say all those things that can assumedly be left unsaid, you give and show every ounce of what you are feeling.

I wish I could explain to you how much you matter at this stage. And I wish you would realize that more than one person, I need all of you. That I am literally dependent on you. Really really do.

I wish i could explain all this to myself. And coach myself enough to get over this.. to learn and to master this too, so I can stop depending on your calm, your faith, your love, your company and you. All of you.

Bonfire tonite

Am off to a bonfire in a farm tonight. Like a proper bonfire, in a proper farm, with hayrides, and hot dogs ( :( ) and beer. And wine and chocolates, because that's what I am taking for the host. We are taking, I mean.

But before the bonfire, I have a ordeal. A bike which actually screws my case. The bloody seat has been made to dig into the butt bone (if there is one) of the rider. Which is me.

As of now, I am trying to think of what outfit to wear, and such calm (?), pleasant thoughts. But soon, I will start on the endeveour of screwing myself up.

Might post pictures if anyone wants to see them. So let me know if you want to see me, Petrovski, and lots of random people, some who are my staff, and a lot of fire and beer.


P.S - Wine and Chocolates (Ghirardelli's) and a Thank You note. That's a good enough gesture for a boss who is hosting a Bonfire right? Please say yes.

Easy to Jinx

Ever wondered at how happy you are, how perfect everything is and how wonderful the weather and the day is.

And then have it jinxed so bad it's not even salvagable. The sky opens up and pours (and you washed your hair today, dammit),  the day turns dour and that perfect balance is ruined.

And happiness? It's like a bubble that you keep trying to catch or even just touch. But it either flits further away, or bursts into nothingness the minute you are close.

I'm a Grad Student

When you are a Grad student it is assumed that when you shut your eyes for a minute it is because you are re-thinking the thought.

That when you stare into the distance, you are pondering over something deep.

That when you are gazing into your laptop, you are considering a problem and when you are furiously typing away? You are storing away each word spoken in class.

It is believed that when you are discussing something with the guy next to you, it is worthy of disturbing the quiet in the class.

That when you turn to look at someone talking, you are not checking them out.



When you are an under-grad student, it is assumed that you are sleeping, not focusing, lazing, chatting online, emailing, gossiping or checking someone out.

I am a Grad Student.

I know.. that 10 years down the line.. I am going to look at you and wonder why I held back. Why I doubted.. but I know I must doubt now.. I must think and re-think now.. I must hold back..

Because The Crazy in me? It resurrects itself with every doubt I have in me.. regarding me, you or the future..

The spoils of a conquest

A pure white hair-band lying on the floor. In front of the drawn curtains.

The roller chair, abandoned between the room.

Flowers knocked over from the glass vase. The vase, amazingly, unbroken.

The laptop lying on its side with its charging cord dangling from the side.

The book, the page you were reading preserved so preciously till now, on its face on the floor near the bed.

The Ipod speakers blaring an instrumental track you normally always skipped over.

Pillows on the floor and the bedspread crumpled. Bruises on your legs, your calves and your neck.

Going to Imaginary Places..

Wet, wild and lovely

I have a lot of posts due. Tumbling thoughts, words and feelings from my mind. But they are all assigned to later because one thing numbs everything else in me. Rains.

Monsoon here is not just rain. That's why monsoon here is so special. There are crazy winds, the sky clouding up and suddenly immersing the atmosphere in a beautiful dark haze, the trees going crazy with the water droplets and the winds. And the wonderful beautiful rains itself.

Champaign rains are just rains. Suddenly the sky tears up and it pours. Straight sleek sheets of rain. And then it stops.

Rains here have just so much character, so much substance to it. Like it carries all this personality with it just to make a person feel good from inside. Feel whole. If there's one thing that will always pull me back to Mumbai, over every other thing I have been noting in the past month, it is this. The wildness that is the rain here.

The sky rims up with dark clouds leaving a small border of its original blueness as a stark contrast. The wind and the rain lash out, but never feel cruel. Even if all the doors in your house are fastened, the wind will definitely find a few doors and windows to clatter. Love the feeling of going around the house shutting those doors up, waiting to see what more will be clattered next.

I love going up to our terrace and just standing there, the center of the world, with the wind pushing out at me, the rain pouring down and the trees reaching out. Right now its just the sixth floor of our house, I wonder what will the 30th floor be like next year. It'll feel like being between the cloud of rain I guess.

The climate fills you up, completes you, makes you forget everything else and makes you remeber every best thing. Makes you want the best comforts of like, hot coffee and a soft couch with a book, but makes you want to stay put there and get drenched. Makes you want to get up between the night when it suddenly starts pouring to just lose yourself in the rumbling thunder. The rolling noise of welcome. He lightening mesmerizes you, stuns you and brings out the best in the dark hue which the clouds bring about.

It feels like the world in within your embrace, everything you desire for is right there in front of you, or just within reach. It feels like it takes little really to keep you happy, to make you feel content, complete. Because thats what you are at that moment, content and complete.

Flying Alone

Flying by yourself is magical. It’s magical when you know how to not think. To snap out of everything the minute you end that last call and switch the bloody nuisance of a phone off. Its magical when you select a movie, see it, forward the parts you want to forward, see another movie, supposedly a sappy one which your friends refused to see with you, tear up a bit with a chocolate not having to worry about damaging your macho reputation, see another movie your friends saw when you were not in town, accompany the movie with a glass of terrible tasting wine.

When you pick and chose what you want to eat in the lunch/brunch tray provided to you, wonder for a bit if its really vegetarian, and then because there is no one to verify, try a bit, and leave it because it tastes bad, not because it tastes like meat.

When you try to surreptitiously look around the plane for any guys worth trying to catch a second glimpse of.

When you curl up on the seat adjacent, without worrying about disturbing someone else’s peace.

When you spot that female with beautiful hair, and try to catch a glimpse of her face to see if it matches with the wonderful hair. (It did)

When you get off at the connecting airport, see a model of something you know your best friend would love, and pick it up for him without worrying about how it will damage your credit card conversion.

Because, after ages, there is Marathi floating around you in speech bubbles. And the shrill Saathiya ringtone ringing somewhere, with a mother calling out to her child in Gujarati, a Parsi wife asking her husband to speak softly, a muslim guy spiffing his hair up to impress that wonderful hair female mentioned above, an old uncle in a safari suit carrying a peti around, and a young kid in military pants trying to steal his sister’s ipod. And you are absorbing it in all alone, and smiling contently.

When you happily think about only those patchy parts of an issue you want to think about. The rest will be thought about when anyone else is concerned about it. You are not at the instant.

Because when you finally get 12 hours just for yourself, you enjoy them like never before.

Flying with yourself is magical, but somehow at the beginning of the journey you always wish you had someone standing in the security check line with you, with their arms around you.

But, I love flying with myself. Because I am not alone, I have me for company.

HOME

1 Car Ride to the first airport.

2 Bus rides between destinations.

3 blocks of walking lugging huge heavy bags.

4 Plane rides between five cities

5 train rides from one part of NYC to another.

And home. Thousands of miles away from home, but home nevertheless.

Makes you wonder how relative or absolute is the term home. How much of a variable is it, with dependables being the people who make your home, home. And how important is it.

I have wondered several times in the past few days what I am going to, and going away from. And what is following me there. It’s all relative. My realization of leaving India when I came to USA to study is fresh in my brain. I don’t know how. But I still know exactly how I felt that day, when my brother picked us up from JFK and took us home. This post does not begin to describe it. And inexplicably, but expectedly, I feel the same as I sit in Abu Dhabi Airport. This time for my home in Champaign. For my home that is the people I have left behind.

I packed up by house before I left. Because I am moving out of that apartment. The last two days in Champaign have been crazy. RM left a day before me, we have finally PARTED WAYS. No more RM bitching, unless she pounces on all my friends who are going to be her neighbors next year. But over the last few months, I realized she is not important enough to write about or bitch about too much here, so I stopped. I don’t think she can remedy that situation anymore. Unless she tries to become to friendly with Dhum, Petrovski or Pinki. She won’t bother with the girls ofcourse.

Anyway, so I packed up my apartment. Everyone of the Gumbal got a little emotional about it. It was home for a lot of us. Even if we didn’t spend hours and hours together there. It was our haven in some ways. My apartment was always there to have fun in. It always had any ingredient needed, had our cooking sessions, our Friends marathon seasons, our talking into the nights, night maroing with coffee walks in the morning. Our haven. The new apartment has great expectations to live up to.

I want too much, I think too much

I have a page full of drafts. The last post was a recycled one. I wrote a post about the things heavily on my mind, completed it, tagged it, and then.. hit Save. He speaks about this same phenomena in a much better way.

A day and 20 hours away from India, I'm wondering...

What am I going away from? What am I going to?

I feel like I'm leaving one family behind. Here I am, sitting among boxes and boxes of my stuff, wondering if that family has already left me behind, or is my mind paying tricks on me again..

I am going to one family. The one that can never leave me behind. Never isolate, desert, or go away. Never make me feel like maybe I'm better away. But where's the joy gone?

I'm convincing my mind to detach, detach, detach. While one part of me is loudly yelling inside my brain, another is putting on a straight, pleasant face, looking understanding and .. detached?

I'm looking at three months ahead, wondering what happened to this time. Where did it go?

I m wondering why does it feel that whatever is really inside this shell, is being torn apart. While I sit patiently waiting for realization to dawn.

I don't want one at the cost of another. I don't want either if both ask me to make a choice. I don't want time with one person, while the rest stay away. Spend their time somewhere else.

I want them. Back.

I hate Finals

My shot at soulmates...

There was a time when each post had a bit of you in it. When fights, fun, smiles, laughter, anger, possibilities, hopes, crying, cribbing, whining, sleeping, would be shared with you. It seemed right.

You are my missed chance.
The one random thing that can pull me out and plunge me in.

You are at a distance now. A distance I drew. But we are good. And we will always be good, no matter how. Because we both are each others impossible, but beautiful lives.

Meeting Meat..

My family is strictly vegetarian. No meat, no fish, no eggs. This, by religious affiliation. I, on the other hand, being as completely non-religious that I am, should by default not be vegetarian. But I am. For the simple reason that eating something that once pissed, shat and carried out all those weird bodily functions grosses me out. Hence I have always been more or less okay with eggs. Eggs don't piss, shit, bleed right. And I try to forget that they are the animal equivalent of fetuses when I have to have them.

But I had always believed that when I did, by mistake/chance/fate, unknowingly, eat meat, I would freak out. I would do all that that my strictly vegetarian friends do, puke, gag, force-throw up or not be able to eat further.

Today I had meat. Unknowingly, by mistake. Not mine, the waitress'. I asked her for Pasta Fettuccine, without Panchetta, or pork. I specified that I don't eat meat, or fish. She said she would exclude the meat. And then included beef in the recipe. God knows why.

When she came with out orders, I asked her if mine was no meat, she replied in the affirmative.
I had a bit of what looked like a miniature corn on cob and could not quite place its taste. I asked Petrovski to try it. He laughed out loud after trying it. And then declared,

"Its Beef."

Thanks

I dint throw-up, or dint feel like throwing up too. It was no big deal. I had something I did not want to have. I returned it, and waited for the replacement to re-return. While Pinki got pissed with the error, I thought over it. Friends in the background assured me that it was unknowingly consumed, so it was not a big deal. It was a mistake after all.

It wasn't a big deal for me. At all. I would probably have reacted a little more aggresively had there been tomatoes in my dish. But even that has toned down quite a bit. I realized that I am completely dis-jointed from the religious sacrilege, that little bit of beef put me into. In my past job, I watched the chef mince beef all day, every day. I watched while chicken was grilled and chopped and prawns were sautéed. And then I washed those vessels. And at the end of the day, if I could wash my hands off it all, I was ok.

And I thought, You go girl!! I love the fact that I dint throw a tantrum, dint spout hare ram, hare rams or beg for forgiveness from some imaginary force. I asked myself it mattered that much, and it dint. And the incident floated by. No one's mood got spoilt by it, no one's appetite got spoilt by it and I dint behave like a typical sissy.

I have come to terms with the fact that my beliefs are more important than the religious beliefs in the entire world, and that even if I have not found my crutch to lean on, I have a rock solid belief system. The balance of which is not teetered by incidents like these.

No apologies, and no misgivings.