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..

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.

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...

Weighing the scales

So eitherway you get screwed..

Either its a lifetime of regret that you dint follow through.. or its a lifetime of torture that you did follow through..

What's better, regret that eats at you all life leaves you discontent or torture that eats at you all life and leaves you unbalanced?

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.

"Take the next flight out and come back."

Sometimes you wake up in the morning, hug your T-shirt, and realize, how much you miss things.

And then you just wish that you could hug them quick and tight and then carry on with the new routine.

*Hugs Gumbal*

Alone..

She sets the table. Puts out the soup, toasts the bread, heats the mushrooms. Absentmindedly she picks up the red handled spoons from the holder and lays them next to the mismatched plates. The microwave pings and the oven buzzes. Both the mushrooms and the bread are done. She sets it out on the small kitchen table and pauses. Picks up one of the plates, serves, steps to the sink and eats. Standing there.

When you start living alone, you train yourself to get used to eating by the sink too. Standing.

"Have your medicines NOW" "I would, but I can't find them.."

I feel like I have lost this entire last week. Starting from the Sunday gone.

Everything planned went up for a toss. The only thing I remember of the week is endless visits to damned doctors (nothing against them, just a personal grouse) and endless flowers.

I think I might have visited every species of doctors in just 7 days. Gynecologist, Radiologist, Ophthalmologist, Obstetrician, Pediatrician, Dentist, Endocrinologist, Anesthesia Specialist, and a Psychiatrist in making. Sigh. This from someone who is shit scared of doctors and read the italics above. Trust me, it feels like I have met every species existing..

Yours truly is a believer in natural cure. Meaning when sick, wait for the body to recover by itself. Without the help of medicines or damned doctors. And now, after the last 7 days, I take 5 pills, 2 syrups, 2 powders and drops in my eyes daily. This is what is the perfect combination of mental and physical torture.

Believe me, I try to 'lose' these medicines as often as I can. Now only if that would work...

phobias of the mind..

So you know what's the problem?

I am not committed enough to writing and posting here. I write, actually, I start writing. I voice out some random thoughts. Most of them pretty heavy. I don't piece them. I just pour them. Then when I feel like I'm half way through, I re-read it.. I wonder why the hell should I be posting this. Writing it should help me enough. Posting it means expecting something more. Why expect more? Especially where this is no real commitment. No expectations from the other side. It's not like people who read this blog expect to know all this.

So there is an expectation problem and a commitment problem. With this blog. And in life. Not only mine, every human being's life. Too bad, I say.

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

Universe = my friend

Isn't it weird?

When we are kids, teens, and freshly "in love" for the first time, all we can think of is ahead.
When we are old, mature, in the twenties, old enough to logically consider the ahead, all we can think of is now.
When we are older, more mature, and in the thirties... I'm not there yet, can anyone else fill this in?

When we have happiness in hand, we forget how painful the sadness was.. and when we have sadness, we forget how elevating the happiness was.

When we live with someone, we yearn for the chance to live alone. When we live alone, we yearn for the chance to not eat standing at the sink, alone.

Isn't it weird. How the universe turns things for you at every angle? If it wouldn't be like that, it would probably be very boring and non-crazy.

And I can't do non-crazy. I need spontaneity and crazy to live by. Yea, I think the universe is my friend after all.

Magic and craziness

There's some magic in lying down on the curb, of a highway, at 2 am and looking up to gaze at a thick, cloudy, starless sky. Just because.

And there's some magic in walking across a small-ish flower bereft park, at 1:25 am, and suddenly looking down to see a small pot of fresh flowers and a brass plaque saying, "Florence Dorsey, 77 Elm Street", under an unexpected star studded and bare branches screened sky.

There's a lot of magic out there in the world. You just need the craziness to be able to explore it.

There are people..

There are people who are not different. They are the difference.

People who don't just solve a problem, they let you reach the solution.

People who get hurt when you are hurt, and when they want to be there for you.

People who sit with you on a bus stop and talk about the most random things about your past, that you never thought you would share. At least not with someone who you know from just a few weeks.

People for whom you don't have to care about how long you know them from, but all you care if how long they will be yours.

People who's departure, as distant as it is, disturbs you enough to consider a departure too.

People who mean your microcosm to you. A world of your own, and no one else outside understands it.

People who you feel so close to, that you are shocked when you see that others are that close, or closer to them.

People who you don't necessarily talk hours to on the phone, every day. But when you do? that once in a while becomes minutes without your knowing it.

People who sometimes have the power and ability to finish your sentences, mouth your thoughts and crave the same things as you.

People who encourage you so silently that their confidence in you shows.

People who don't think about what they are missing out on, as long as you are happy..

People who you know will not go into super sentimental mode, just because the occasion is so.

People who you know will react rationally, but so super funnily that you will actually be on the floor laughing.

People who have a quiet strength around them, that gives you warmth too.

People who hug you so tight, you forget your entire day in that moment, and who peck you so sweetly, it feels like it's their birthright.

People who you want to be in your life forever, as a part of this parallel family.

People who teach you the art of parallel thinking, a parallel thought for every statement issued.

People who have the art of keeping an absolute poker face, while dishing out the fatalest of jokes and concealing the deepest of secrets.

People who are always game to try something new, no matter what, as long as it is not illegal.

People who you know will wrap you in their embrace when you are too out of your mind to string coherent words together.

People who don't need to be told what exactly is your choice, your taste and your selection. They know it because it fits them perfect.

People who just come to mean so much, there are no words to express how lucky you think you are to have them in your life.



Dhum, you are all this to me. And more. Happy Birthday!! I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been a part of my life. I love you.

Predicting emotions 50 days from now

May 7th - 10.50 am - Sitting in my room in Champaign, with boxes and clothes and chocolates and gifts.

May 8th - 10.50 am - Sitting in the Subway in NY with Veeru, talking excitedly about May 9th, and 10th and more.

May 9th - 10.50 am - Etihad flight EY 100 JFK to Abu Dhabi - Abu Dhabi to BOM. Thinking about everything I am leaving behind for a month and a half, and everything I am coming home to for a month and half.

May 10th - 10.50 pm - Mumbai, home. Sitting on my sofa, soaking up the heat, wondering why there are so many people around, Desperately wanting, wishing, missing my brother there. Wanting Dhanno and Jay with me at all times. Missing Veeru's presence that completes our Sholay. Wishing Mr. Pilot had picked me up at the airport with everyone else. Wanting Dhum to be here too. And Pinks and Pals and Petrovski. Wishing Pri had been there a couple of months later.

And back to..

March 20th - 2.00 am - Champaign, sitting on my sofa, feeling pleased to have completed the India Tickets Booking procedure, extrapolating my emotions (above) and starting the countdown to India. A month and 20 days to go.

Will you meet me when I'm there?

Random jokes at 3 in the night..

Pal: I love Paki singers..

DhUm: Youtube is banned there..

Pal: Why is the song not playing??

Pause

Me: Because youtube is banned there?

----

Pal: Why is the video quality so bad?

Piks: Because it's coming from a place where it is banned?

Pal: ...



We are studying while this conversation is played out. We are crazy. I know. :)

Beginnings - Vikram

"Bhaiya, I want to study in U.S.A too", Vicky bounced the table-tennis's ball across the wall as his brother cleaned his closet out.
"Yeah Vic, but not now. Complete your bachelors here. You can do your Master's in U.S.A"
"But why Bhaiya, I want to get out of this place. I hate the system here, the teachers are pathetic and Mom-Dad just don't understand"
"No Vic, what you will learn here, you will never learn there. Trust me", Ranjit replied.

Vikram shrugged away. He hated being here. He couldn't wait until he completed his 12th and then finished his engineering so that he could fly away from here too. He would probably do Master's in Computer Science and specialize in Networking.

"You enrolling for GRE classes, man?", Hayden asked Vic.
"Definitely. I shouldn't have done a BMS, yaar, this way I have forgotten all my maths, and english is fu---, I mean screwed anyway."
"So why are you avoiding abusing again?" asked Hayden. Abuses were a part of his conjunctions.
"Because, my parents don't like it all that much. And I don't see the use too you know.. Anyway, where are you thinking of applying?
"I was thinking maybe UK, you know.. MBA's from UK are pretty well recognized, and they just need my TOEFL or IELTS scores.."

Vic got through the University of London effortlessly. The thought of London excited him, but for some reason, the thought of going there for so long, was, still not sinking in.
He had been reading up on everything about London, ridiculously expensive, ridiculously snobbish, unbelievably beautiful and really good-looking girls. Lots of Indians. He joined all the yahoo groups for students going to University of London.

He was ready. His mother was packing his bags, his aunt was making all his favorite sweets, his cousins had gifted him watches, and leather pouches and belts and wallets. His friends were running around, last minute errands. His bestfriend, Nita was leaving for the airport this minute. Her flight to Chicago was within a few hours and he couldn't even go to drop her. His flight was after 2 days.

"Vic, here. The last pair of contact lenses in your number, man"
"Hayden, one last favor?"
"Yea dude"
"Call me Vikram please. Always"

Beginning with Anuja

"Pratibhaji, she is brilliant. What can I tell you about her. I am so glad she continued in this school even though you took up St. Lawrence High"

Anuja had always been an intelligent child, after all she was the vice-principal's daughter, but Pratibhaji wanted to see how Anuja would do if she was left to study by herself, without any help from her. And Anuja had again portrayed her true capabilities.

She had been studying day and night. She felt good about it. She was sure she would ace her final BMS exams, and be a Merit ranker. Once these exams got over, she had to start studying for her IELTS. Yeah, people kept saying it was easier than the exams for American Universities. She did not want to go abroad at all. But her mom was pretty charged up about it, she had even announced to Anuja that she had all their finances arranged for her studies ahead.

Getting into the University of Bedfordshire was a convoluted process. At times she thought she got through, and had been accepted into the MBA program, at times she thought they were ready to reject her. Another person from her class had gotten through London University already. Vikram was almost set to leave too.

She was sick of all the shopping, all the aunts and uncles making a big deal out of her leaving the country. She was sick of the million envelopes she got stuffed with money. She wasn't even going to be using rupees anymore.

She checked into the airport, with 2 bags and her laptop bag. "Beta, come outside after your check-in..", her mother whispered into her ear motioning across to the 20 or so relatives who were there to bid her goodbye. She warned her mother that she would not come out after check in or whatever it was that she was waiting for.

After checking in her bags, and security, she sat on one of those blue plastic-cushion seats. She put her laptop bag on her lap, put her arms around it, and put her head down. And then Anuja cried, and cried hard. For all her dreams she was leaving behind. And for new beginnings without being herded.