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.
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?
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.
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..
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? :)
It is about a year and three months since this day.
I don't know when it happened, but my surreal world became my reality. The U.S.of A became my reality in these last two and something years.
I loved everything I knew I would love, and some more. I hated almost everything I knew I would hate, and some more. I faced everything I knew I would face, and so much more. If before coming here, I thought I knew all the emotions and feelings I was capable of, now I know that that spectrum is impossible to define. If before I thought I was worldly-wise, now, I know what the word actually means.
But, come the end of my studying, my original plans loomed in front of my eyes. Taunting me. Asking me if I still wanted to go back to India. Firmly I said yes. In a few weeks the firmness kind of disappeared. I found myself floundering for a hold here. Then, the universe reminded me of what I had always believed would be my happiness.
Home. India. Mumbai.
And now, Two years and two months and twenty days later, I find myself returning back home. To India. To Mumbai.
And now, this, right now, feels surreal. Leaving my life here and heading back. Goinf back to where I was two years ago. But going back as a different person. Because boy, I sure have changed. I know what worldly-wise means now!! :D
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...
Normally her demons arose in the night. They turned the normally flippant, brilliantly blunt and straight answering girl into a blubbering, confused and sobbing girl. The world knew her as a very arrogant and collected person. She bounced back from all her problems and issues didn't she? She did, but at night, when she was alone, sitting in the dumpyard behind her apartment complex, she wasn't all that brave. She could not even introduce herself to her demons. That part of her which she was unaware about. Which she had not been introduced to. Which she had not met. That part of her she dint know about.
She needed to see a shrink. She was sure of that. There could not be two parts to her. A demon that made her eyes tear up randomly. That made her begin every night with hours of crying. The part of her she knew, would not, could not let the world see her crying. Would not accept to the world that it was her weakness, her sign of indignity. Her fall.
Except, now, that demon had become so powerful that it came out in the day too. When she was around people, in front of them. She tried to supress it with silences, with blankly staring away into nothingness just so that her eyes would not well up with tears. Because one roll down her cheeks was never enough, it was a saga. Sometimes it would start in the class, sometimes while having dinner, sometimes while doing her laundry and sometimes when she was stretched out on the couch witnessing a happy moment. And she was slipping away into being powerless.
Her skin was behaving like it was over-exposed, her eyes looked like she was drugged. Her body frequently burned up to a fever. Was everything alwasy never good enough? or was it just that she wanted too damn much. That there were two parts to her, the demon and her. Together, they wanted a lot. Needed a lot. Expected to get a lot.
Which is why she started on back-to-back episodes of Scrubs.
The first time I was told I was ugly, it was my 11th birthday. I had worn what my mother had picked out for me, checkered shorts with a silver belt, and a black tee-shirt with something silver on it- I was quite skinny that time. You know you dress well in school for your birthdays, distribute chocolates? When I was doing that, my so-called brother Amey, pulled me closer and said
"I know I shouldn't say this to you today, but you look ugly. Why are you wearing that?"
I never wore that outfit again. I steadily gained weight that year on. Sometime when I was 13, I had my first crush, and the guy told me I was beautiful, and I did not believe him.
When I was 16, I was in a theatre group. I was one of the youngest there. The two other sixteen year olds were reed thin, I was, by now, plump and chubby, as everyone would call me. Obviously I never got the main part, until in the end I was given one as charity. One guy who was dating one of the reed thin girls, once remarked out loud,
"Girls just look so breath-takingly beautiful with wet hair."
The three of us had just come in from the pouring rain. We all had wet hair. We all looked at each other at this statement. The guy smiled and then after a pause said,
"But not you Pragni, your hair is horrible, how can you ever look good"
I have been out with models, a dangerous looking guy, an ok-looking guy, a gayish-looking guy, intelligent guys, rich guys, one player or casanova and one semi-celebrity too. But I have never believed myself to be worth them, physically or looks-wise.
I hate it, and I hate admitting it, but everytime one of the guys here tell me I look beautiful, I pause for a moment. That pause is to convince myself that even if I don't think so, maybe they do. They are not saying it to please me. They are not saying it out of any obligation. They mean it.
Till a really long time, everytime someone told me I looked good, my instant reaction would be "yea, right" or "Stop kidding around?", until one day, R got really angry with me and told me that he wouldn't say it if he dint mean it, and I d better start believing him or saying it out right that I did not trust him.
I said, "I don't know what other reaction to give!"
Said he, "Try thank you. It normally works."
I did not believe my thank you's after that for a long time too.
It's just recently that I have admitted to my being very very conscious about my body. About my self image. And admitted it in front of friends and now publicly. I know this is not going to liberate me. But maybe, somewhere along the line, I will be re-introduced to my self-esteem. Ironically, I do not lack in the department of self-confidence. Funny how I have made that thin line so thick for me.
P.S - Last two days of the pills. I promise this confess all mode will stop then and so will the sappiness.
"I can fall in love with someone because of their intelligence, its one of the three things that can get to me.." "What are the other three things?" Pause I knew there were three things.. I just hadn't really put my mind to it to think what those three things were, you know? And this was not a person who would let me change the topic at this point. "aah.. this might sound shallow but pampering maybe? I guess if someone pampers me a lot, I could fall in love with them." I have had cousins who have pampered me crazy, and I have adored them. So I guess, it could work... "And the way a person treats other people around him. The respect you give other people, the distance you maintain, the way you talk to them." Now that was the correct one of the two. I was sure.
But pampering? I thought about it all night. Can I really fall for someone because they'd pamper me crazy? And then some instances came to my mind. Pilot insisted on me taking the diamond ring he got me. I refused, he actually went up to the sea to throw it. I took it. I love the ring, I had designed it. But I din't fall in love with him.
Pilot always always pampered me. If I saw a toy I liked, it would be sent to my place in a few days, twice in a week, fresh flowers would be delivered to my place, fancy dinners, and coffee every other night. I did not fall in love with him. And then he started hanging out with my parents. He respected them, took advice from them, revered them. That's when I even started thinking of him as someone who I might be able to be with. He wanted to them help out with the summercamp kids. He was beautiful with them, strict, scary but lovable. That's when I realized that he is worth a lot more. If things would have continued a bit, who knows I might have been in love with him (if love is possible). But end of story, I did not fall in love with him. Inspite of all the pampering, and inspite of all the respect I saw him give others.
I think the respect he gave others, made me respect him. And respect is very important for me. To give and receive. But it did not induce love. And pampering just made me feel nice, but I always knew it was a materialistic nice. And I guess seeing me feel nice, he felt nice. He never did it to make me fall in love with him. I hope.
Since intelligence is a must in people around me, I should have been in love with Dhum, Pinki, Petrovski, Veeru, Jats and looking at intelligence from a different angle, Pilot too.
But I am not. Which effectively negates my dialogue above. I cannot fall in love with anyone just because they are intelligent, or they pamper me, or that they are respectful. I can just be a little pleased with them for it.
I guess love just happens right? Without a reason?
** So since you are reading this, I shall retract my statement above that I made to you. And rephrase it. A bit. "I don't know how to fall in love with someone. I don't know what can make me fall in love with someone. I don't even think I can define love. But yes, these three things that I listed? They make me think highly of a person. They make me realize that the person cares, for himself (intelligence), me (pampering) and others (respect). Which matters. I guess."
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.
Unbelievable mood swings.. And I don't know a single person who could understand them..
So many things to say, but no one's there to listen. Flitting in and out of people's lives.. Some, have completely shut their lives altogether. Maybe I am shutting mine too..
Suddenly my attachement to this blog has increased. But it feels exploited, because of random people who dont care a hoot and their random comments, and because of people who care, but dont care enough to say anything.
Everyone is suddenly black and white. It's like I have lost my prowess of seeing the shades of grey. She is white, he is black (I thought he was white, but no, he's black) They are black. He is black. She is white. They are black.
Suddenly I am questioning all the relationship I have made. Isn't it supremely stupid to claim to have so many best friends? And if they are, which of them really understand you? Which of them knows what is happening right now, even though you dont talk to them daily. Most best friends are actually just good friends. Or very close friends.
I wonder if there is a point beyond which you wouldn't want to mature. And leave your fun, flighty, so-many-best-friends side behind. The side which laughed a lot once upon a time, when you were with them. But now you laugh with others. And then feel scared. Coz maybe you have lost what was once too precious.
(I know this blog has been getting too mysterious and non-understandable lately. It's majorly because it's me talking to myself. If you don't get it, or don't like it, I don't want to say sorry to you. You can either just continue checking up once in a blue moon, or forget that it existed. Your pick. Either way, the loss is mine.)
Emotions increase or decrease in intensity, reactions waver and fluctuate, friends come and go, people live or die, opportunities knock, withdraw and knock again, situations, cimcumstances, nature, weather, hell, every bloody thing changes.
But time is the only constant.
That day comes every year, no matter what. That night comes every year, those few hours too, repeat on the cycle of the clock. Its a different surrounding every time, but the thoughts inside me, run on an endless loop.
If only I could go back and change these few hours... And then a pause.
Because I know, no matter what, I would still do things the same way. Because the emotions then were pure and strong. Even if now they are diluted and gone. The reactions then were instant and true, even if on hindsight it all seems stupid and immature. The friends then, I believed them to be the best, even if now I realized they sucked at their job of being my friend. The people then who died a million deaths, resurfaced, survived the blow, and trusted again. Opportunites were lost, but other's came up too. The situations and circumstance, seemed justified then, now.. don't even ask..
But time remains a constant. Through it all. Unfailingly on time, and unfailingly there. Just there always.
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.
Is this man crazy? I am a Mumbaite, I am NOT a Maharashtrian, I do NOT speak Marathi, I do not even KNOW marathi for that matter. I was better off without knowing the existence of this man. Should I be banned too?
I am no big fan of the Bacchans. But I do know that Mumbai was always about being a cosmopolitian society. Just like Delhi, and Bangalore and Calcutta to a certain extent. My friend circle in Mumbai was always a mix of everyone. There was a Gujarati, a Maharashtrian, a Catholic, a Marwari, a Parsi, a Muslim and a South Indian. And we were always so proud of it.
No one asked for the state origin of a person before helping them out during the floods. We din't ask for language proof before stretching an arm and a leg out to people affected by the Train Blasts. Those who went to help after Godhra and the Earthquake in Gujarat were not only Gujaratis. Those who helped after the Tsunami were not only South Indians.
The last time people in Mumbai asked about dharam, mazhab and religion, Mumbai burned. And bled. Is this man mad enough to want to start that again? We have learned from that incident right? We will not fight amongst each other because your God has a different name, your heaven has a different name and your religious scriptures are different from the next persons.
Hell, I don't even believe in Religion and God. All I believe in is Mumbai. In the people in Mumbai. Their might be crooks, rascals, and eve teasers. But please let there not be people stupid enough to believe this idiot.
I dropped a course today because I am not smart enough for it.
Seriously. I thought I was the nerd of advertising. Today I realized that even that is not good enough for this class.
Have you heard about those classes where students and the professor sit around a conference table, stare at a problem set in the center and try to reach a solution which will co-relate with life's problems? That's this class.
The students argue about the epiphanic moment in their lives when the situation they were in was influenced by history, politics and their own biographies. And how that relates with the white and black racial division and the undermining of Native Indians and the poverty they have had to go through because of the Great Civil War of Independence in America and the hegemony of pedagogy.
Lost. I am thoroughly lost in the three hours that the class goes through. While the students around me go through various stages of orgasmic noises because of the great knowledge imparted in the class, or dawn on the real solution to placing wooden blocks in such a way that the bottom blocks do not have to take the burden of the neo capitalist economy.. I sleep.
These are all scholars, who actually learn a lot in the class. Who actually can make a lot of sense of everything that just bounces past my nose. And I can't do that.
So I shall drop this class. And admit to the world and myself that there are several levels of intelligentsia and I am way low on it. Way too low.
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.
