I was reading through some old blog posts the other day. Came across this one. Why on earth did I write it?
I bloody hate cricket, and I don't give a damn about Sachin Tendulkar either. The only sportsman who moves me, who has ever moved me, is Rafael Nadal, and after this weekend, I am Very Moved indeed.
But for some reason, in 2011, during the World Cup, I became totally obsessed with cricket. I wouldn't miss a single world cup match, I'd tirelessly read articles that analysed the sport and tried to play soothsayer, familiarising myself with all the standard cricket commentators and bloggers. I developed an intense, short-lived passion for Sachin Tendulkar the Legend (not the Man so much, that voice. Yeesh). But yesterday, when I read that post, I cringed.
This is the problem with having a blog, man. The thing about diaries is that they're essentially private. But blog posts - they're out there. And it's your fault. No one's forcing you to write crap and stick it up online for the world to read. I do occasionally give my blog a cleaning spree - there is nothing left, for instance, from the years 2006 and 2007. That's when I first started, er, blogging.
But now I feel kind of bad about deleting the posts, even the stupid ones, because they were all written by someone I once was, I suppose. I just wish that my past selves had been slightly less lame.
Anyway, the point of this post is not to talk about how pathetic I was (am?). Well, not directly. That post made me realise how excited and obsessed I get about things, for a short period of time, only to completely forget about them/start hating them a short while later. I realise this makes me seem like a slightly unstable person, but if you introspect as often as I claim to do, you will also realise what a fickle, feckless person you are, so perhaps I'm doing you a favour.
1. The poha phase. This is my current obsession. I cannot stop eating the damn thing. I've had it practically everyday for breakfast since January the 3rd, and I would have it for lunch and dinner too (I do sometimes if I'm home on the weekend), if it weren't for the fact that I don't want to give Kusum any cause to think I'm more of a looney than she already does. I also know that I will stop eating it as soon as I leave Delhi, and not look back.
Ok, it's not really a phase-phase. It's just the only addiction I can think of right now. Cigarettes, pot, and booze are not counted here. Because. Because, because, because.
2. The wanting a tattoo phase. When I was fifteen, there was nothing I wanted more than a tattoo. My father aided and abetted me in this plan, promising to pay for it as a sixteenth birthday present. I spent months researching tattoos, designing them, and carefully examining every curve (there weren't too many to examine back then) of my body to see where I could neatly fit one in. Finally decided on a four leaf clover on my ankle. There were three reasons for this: 1) A four leaf clover symbolises good luck, and even back then, I was dimly aware of the fact that life was a dreary, miserable business most of the time, and that even the appearance of luck would be a good thing to have permanently. 2) It would be green and green has always been my favourite colour. 3) My ankle because it was pretty much the only body part I liked back in those days. And also, I thought, it would be easy enough to conceal it from my mother's side of the family.
And then I changed my mind. I don't even know why. I think it was partly because everyone started getting tattoos, and it stopped feeling like a special thing to have. And also because I only grew more pessimistic as time passed, and came to believe that even a four leaf clover, tattooed forever on my skin, would in no way stop my life from being tragic.
3. The watching football phase. An extremely short phase that occurred when Zidane came out of retirement to captain France in the World Cup. I completely fell in love with this noble-looking, bald man who seemed to be the torch-bearer of an exalted destiny. I used to wake up at 2 am to watch the games. After he did the whole head-butting thing (at least it was a memorable exit) and France lost the final, I never voluntarily watched football again.
4. The X-Men phase. I used to read the comics, watch the cartoons, watch the movies. Jahnavi and I started a club where we had X-Men code names. (Mine was Storm, she was always my favourite.) I started reading and writing X-Men fan fiction - since I've admitted to the Harry Potter fan fiction, I may as well admit to this. But the X-Men period didn't last as long. Just, uh, four years.
5. The fan fiction phase. Ok, fine. I may as well come out of the closet. Between the ages of ten and seventeen, I wrote a shit load of fan fiction. I always focused on something different: there was the Harry Potter phase, the X Men phase, the Mutant X phase, the (please-remember-you-were-lame-too) Archie comic phase, the Charmed phase, the whatever tv show/book series I happened to be obsessed with phase. I never wrote Batman fan fiction because I found most of the women uninspiring. I spent most of my ICSE study break writing fan fiction. I was bloody big in the fan fiction circles. No one will ever find the stuff I wrote, because I used a fake real-name, but I was known, damn it. But now I've completely stopped reading and writing it. So fine, a seven year obsession, which is sort of long, but whatever. Also, if anyone out there reads fan fiction, here is a tip: never go to fanfiction.net. Always search for specific fan sites, the quality of writing tends to be better.
6. The Kusum phase. This occurred when I was fourteen and fifteen. Most of my friends know Kusum (the building, not the lady who feeds me and thinks I'm crazy). That is because I live there. Well, whenever I'm in Calcutta. When I was fourteen, I did not live there. My grandmother did. Because my mother was at work, I'd usually go to my grandmother's after school. I had loads of friends living in that building - still do. I'd spend the evenings playing with them. And then I fell in love with Bastard. Man. I do not want to think about that phase. I'd flip if I missed even a single evening there. I gave up activities with school friends, I gave up my first teenage parties, I would fight with my mother just so I could play basketball with Bastard at 9 pm at night. That, I regret to say, was my wooing strategy - I'd beat him at basketball. In retrospect, it probably wasn't an ideal way to win over a fourteen year old boy. He ended up falling for my friend who couldn't play any sport to save her life. It taught me at an early age that most men like needy, helpless women. Luckily, I came to terms with the fact that I could never be one of them - hell, I hope I'm not - not for anyone's sake. Not even Bastard's. I moved on from the Kusum phase eventually, losing my teeth over him speeded up this process, but I lost a good year and a half of my life to it. On the other hand, it was a year and a half of spending every evening with close friends, perfecting my skills at football and cricket (I may hate watching the sports, but to this day, I am famed for being the only girl allowed to play them with the, er, big boys), and enjoying the exquisite torture of unrequited love.
7. The hippy phase. Oh god. So when I was eleven, I went to Thailand and came back with a shit load of bandanas (that's bandana, not banana) and a few floaty tops and sarongs and I decided to be a hippy. I would flash everyone the peace symbol. I stopped talking as much as I used to (my family was quite relieved by this) and instead, I adopted this calm, collected kind of persona. I would speak rarely, when I did, I'd be totally chilled out.
By the way: apparently I still give off the impression of being chilled out. It's completely unintentional now though. When I was in Bangalore, I was at the Un-doable One's house one night, and a bunch of people had come over. I was drinking and drinking and drinking, vodka after vodka after vodka, and I was completely shit faced because I don't remember anything about that night, except having an intense discussion with someone about aviation - a direct result of my association with Pill. Anyway, at some point, I was standing somewhere, and this friend of the Un-doable One turns to me and says, "You've been drinking so much, but you're so chilled out." And the Un-doable One (who, on the surface, seems chilled out, but then how chilled out can someone who's as afraid of birds as I am be?) grinned a chilled out grin and said, "Yeah man. She's chill."
I think I said good or something along the lines of that, and wisely nodded my head to foster this impression even further, but inside I was thinking, what the hell have I been doing around these people, how is it possible to be so misinterpreted? (Not that I was complaining.)
Anyway, I digress - so the hippie phase was where I was doing my best to be, er, chill. I even vaguely considered turning vegetarian, but even I have not mastered that level of self-deception. Yet. And throw in Jahnavi's goddamn influence,and add braided hair and tarot cards and writing spells to the mix. Yeesh.
There are many more phases, but I shall mention just one.
8. The depressed phase. I go through this around twice a year. It's not real depression, if it were, I wouldn't be writing a blog post about it. By the depression phase, I mean a period where I feel everything is going wrong, wrong, wrong, and I am always bored, and have nothing to look forward to, and I use it as an excuse to drink too much and to feel sorry for myself even though I have no reason to. This phase, though it can be dreary, is, however, a lot of fun if treated right. The longer it lasts, the more annoying it gets, so I recommend it not more than twice a year, with a duration of two weeks and not longer.
I'm not sure how to sign off on this blog post, so I will leave you with a link that Mawii sent me a few days ago. Because this is apparently what Mawii likes doing in her spare time. Stalking infants. Here it is.
I just re-read this post. Apparently, the point of it is to talk about how pathetic I was (am?).
I bloody hate cricket, and I don't give a damn about Sachin Tendulkar either. The only sportsman who moves me, who has ever moved me, is Rafael Nadal, and after this weekend, I am Very Moved indeed.
But for some reason, in 2011, during the World Cup, I became totally obsessed with cricket. I wouldn't miss a single world cup match, I'd tirelessly read articles that analysed the sport and tried to play soothsayer, familiarising myself with all the standard cricket commentators and bloggers. I developed an intense, short-lived passion for Sachin Tendulkar the Legend (not the Man so much, that voice. Yeesh). But yesterday, when I read that post, I cringed.
This is the problem with having a blog, man. The thing about diaries is that they're essentially private. But blog posts - they're out there. And it's your fault. No one's forcing you to write crap and stick it up online for the world to read. I do occasionally give my blog a cleaning spree - there is nothing left, for instance, from the years 2006 and 2007. That's when I first started, er, blogging.
But now I feel kind of bad about deleting the posts, even the stupid ones, because they were all written by someone I once was, I suppose. I just wish that my past selves had been slightly less lame.
Anyway, the point of this post is not to talk about how pathetic I was (am?). Well, not directly. That post made me realise how excited and obsessed I get about things, for a short period of time, only to completely forget about them/start hating them a short while later. I realise this makes me seem like a slightly unstable person, but if you introspect as often as I claim to do, you will also realise what a fickle, feckless person you are, so perhaps I'm doing you a favour.
1. The poha phase. This is my current obsession. I cannot stop eating the damn thing. I've had it practically everyday for breakfast since January the 3rd, and I would have it for lunch and dinner too (I do sometimes if I'm home on the weekend), if it weren't for the fact that I don't want to give Kusum any cause to think I'm more of a looney than she already does. I also know that I will stop eating it as soon as I leave Delhi, and not look back.
Ok, it's not really a phase-phase. It's just the only addiction I can think of right now. Cigarettes, pot, and booze are not counted here. Because. Because, because, because.
2. The wanting a tattoo phase. When I was fifteen, there was nothing I wanted more than a tattoo. My father aided and abetted me in this plan, promising to pay for it as a sixteenth birthday present. I spent months researching tattoos, designing them, and carefully examining every curve (there weren't too many to examine back then) of my body to see where I could neatly fit one in. Finally decided on a four leaf clover on my ankle. There were three reasons for this: 1) A four leaf clover symbolises good luck, and even back then, I was dimly aware of the fact that life was a dreary, miserable business most of the time, and that even the appearance of luck would be a good thing to have permanently. 2) It would be green and green has always been my favourite colour. 3) My ankle because it was pretty much the only body part I liked back in those days. And also, I thought, it would be easy enough to conceal it from my mother's side of the family.
And then I changed my mind. I don't even know why. I think it was partly because everyone started getting tattoos, and it stopped feeling like a special thing to have. And also because I only grew more pessimistic as time passed, and came to believe that even a four leaf clover, tattooed forever on my skin, would in no way stop my life from being tragic.
3. The watching football phase. An extremely short phase that occurred when Zidane came out of retirement to captain France in the World Cup. I completely fell in love with this noble-looking, bald man who seemed to be the torch-bearer of an exalted destiny. I used to wake up at 2 am to watch the games. After he did the whole head-butting thing (at least it was a memorable exit) and France lost the final, I never voluntarily watched football again.
4. The X-Men phase. I used to read the comics, watch the cartoons, watch the movies. Jahnavi and I started a club where we had X-Men code names. (Mine was Storm, she was always my favourite.) I started reading and writing X-Men fan fiction - since I've admitted to the Harry Potter fan fiction, I may as well admit to this. But the X-Men period didn't last as long. Just, uh, four years.
5. The fan fiction phase. Ok, fine. I may as well come out of the closet. Between the ages of ten and seventeen, I wrote a shit load of fan fiction. I always focused on something different: there was the Harry Potter phase, the X Men phase, the Mutant X phase, the (please-remember-you-were-lame-too) Archie comic phase, the Charmed phase, the whatever tv show/book series I happened to be obsessed with phase. I never wrote Batman fan fiction because I found most of the women uninspiring. I spent most of my ICSE study break writing fan fiction. I was bloody big in the fan fiction circles. No one will ever find the stuff I wrote, because I used a fake real-name, but I was known, damn it. But now I've completely stopped reading and writing it. So fine, a seven year obsession, which is sort of long, but whatever. Also, if anyone out there reads fan fiction, here is a tip: never go to fanfiction.net. Always search for specific fan sites, the quality of writing tends to be better.
6. The Kusum phase. This occurred when I was fourteen and fifteen. Most of my friends know Kusum (the building, not the lady who feeds me and thinks I'm crazy). That is because I live there. Well, whenever I'm in Calcutta. When I was fourteen, I did not live there. My grandmother did. Because my mother was at work, I'd usually go to my grandmother's after school. I had loads of friends living in that building - still do. I'd spend the evenings playing with them. And then I fell in love with Bastard. Man. I do not want to think about that phase. I'd flip if I missed even a single evening there. I gave up activities with school friends, I gave up my first teenage parties, I would fight with my mother just so I could play basketball with Bastard at 9 pm at night. That, I regret to say, was my wooing strategy - I'd beat him at basketball. In retrospect, it probably wasn't an ideal way to win over a fourteen year old boy. He ended up falling for my friend who couldn't play any sport to save her life. It taught me at an early age that most men like needy, helpless women. Luckily, I came to terms with the fact that I could never be one of them - hell, I hope I'm not - not for anyone's sake. Not even Bastard's. I moved on from the Kusum phase eventually, losing my teeth over him speeded up this process, but I lost a good year and a half of my life to it. On the other hand, it was a year and a half of spending every evening with close friends, perfecting my skills at football and cricket (I may hate watching the sports, but to this day, I am famed for being the only girl allowed to play them with the, er, big boys), and enjoying the exquisite torture of unrequited love.
7. The hippy phase. Oh god. So when I was eleven, I went to Thailand and came back with a shit load of bandanas (that's bandana, not banana) and a few floaty tops and sarongs and I decided to be a hippy. I would flash everyone the peace symbol. I stopped talking as much as I used to (my family was quite relieved by this) and instead, I adopted this calm, collected kind of persona. I would speak rarely, when I did, I'd be totally chilled out.
By the way: apparently I still give off the impression of being chilled out. It's completely unintentional now though. When I was in Bangalore, I was at the Un-doable One's house one night, and a bunch of people had come over. I was drinking and drinking and drinking, vodka after vodka after vodka, and I was completely shit faced because I don't remember anything about that night, except having an intense discussion with someone about aviation - a direct result of my association with Pill. Anyway, at some point, I was standing somewhere, and this friend of the Un-doable One turns to me and says, "You've been drinking so much, but you're so chilled out." And the Un-doable One (who, on the surface, seems chilled out, but then how chilled out can someone who's as afraid of birds as I am be?) grinned a chilled out grin and said, "Yeah man. She's chill."
I think I said good or something along the lines of that, and wisely nodded my head to foster this impression even further, but inside I was thinking, what the hell have I been doing around these people, how is it possible to be so misinterpreted? (Not that I was complaining.)
Anyway, I digress - so the hippie phase was where I was doing my best to be, er, chill. I even vaguely considered turning vegetarian, but even I have not mastered that level of self-deception. Yet. And throw in Jahnavi's goddamn influence,and add braided hair and tarot cards and writing spells to the mix. Yeesh.
There are many more phases, but I shall mention just one.
8. The depressed phase. I go through this around twice a year. It's not real depression, if it were, I wouldn't be writing a blog post about it. By the depression phase, I mean a period where I feel everything is going wrong, wrong, wrong, and I am always bored, and have nothing to look forward to, and I use it as an excuse to drink too much and to feel sorry for myself even though I have no reason to. This phase, though it can be dreary, is, however, a lot of fun if treated right. The longer it lasts, the more annoying it gets, so I recommend it not more than twice a year, with a duration of two weeks and not longer.
I'm not sure how to sign off on this blog post, so I will leave you with a link that Mawii sent me a few days ago. Because this is apparently what Mawii likes doing in her spare time. Stalking infants. Here it is.
I just re-read this post. Apparently, the point of it is to talk about how pathetic I was (am?).
1 comment:
Pretty good... and, by the way, so was the one on cricket (your link) that you seem to detest ;)
Oh... and you have a rather important aspect to your personality - the ability to laugh at yourself... :)
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