The Annual Re-cap.

Made it just in time. 

1. What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?

- Created a stable, settled life for myself - for the first time since I left home.
- Saw work on bill-boards and in newspapers. (Very cool feeling.) 

- Acid. (Have to write about this sometime, it was hilarious. May I hastily add, not cool. Not cool at all.)

- Bike ride across Goa 

- Learnt to ride a scooter, and if anyone snorts in disbelief right now, I rode it over hilly areas for 10 KM without crashing. 

- Adopted two cats

- Found two grey hairs. (Yes, TWO.)

- Opened Christmas presents 25th night, not the morning. 

- Some stuff in London that would take too long to talk about.
- Got a home with more than one room and real furniture. 

- This doesn't count as something I've 'done' - but this is the first time I haven't looked forward to my birthday. I'm 23, that's fine, I don't want to be 24 particularly and after that, comes 25 and honestly, what is the point of life after that?

- Oh my god - there has to be more. What sort of faffing is this? WHAT HAVE I ACHIEVED IN WHAT HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST MOMENTOUS YEARS OF MY LIFE? Apart from minor work-stuff, not much. 

But as always:

- Loads of stuff I can't make public. Ha. 

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Severely limit drinking. (I'll elaborate the Code another time.)

Start studying again. Yes, studying. On my own. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My Bhutto and Kebli. 

5. What countries did you visit?

England. And the UAE if you count Dubai airport which I do. 

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?

Money. As usual. 

Travel - although 2014 wasn't as bad as 2013 travel-wise.
Something else I can't explain here. (Due to inability to articulate, no mystery.)

Seeing more of non-Bangalore family and friends. Especially Mawii, I really miss Mawii. 

7. What date from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

February. I found out something that changed my life (when I am being dramatic). 

And something that's just a pain in the ass (when I am not being dramatic). 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Related to the above.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Related to the above.

And something to do with someone I love. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Yup. But I'll refrain from boring you with the details. 

11. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Mama. She had a tougher year than I did and didn't complain once. 

And my sister Pria - because she is a hero, although this has been the case since birth. 

12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Mine again. Mostly. But oh well, you grow, you learn. 

13. Where did most of your money go?

Cigarettes. Alcohol. Autos. 
This has been the same for the past six years.

14. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

This holiday - one glorious month off.

Seeing my family and friends - especially Pria and Nain and Nicky (who visited me from Bombay to throw up in my bathroom - I'll share that story another time.) 

15. What song will always remind you of 2014?

Sunday Morning - Lou Reed.

Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Underground (this reminds me of a person actually, not the year itself)

16. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

I'm not sure. I'm definitely not sadder, but the happiness I have right now is a different sort so it can't be compared.

17. What do you wish you'd done more of?

All the things I keep telling myself I ought to do. 




18. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Nothing comes to mind really. 



19. How will you be spending Christmas?

Christmas is over. And I spent it in London after years, surrounded by my family, eating the turkey and drinking the wine and playing the traditional games, and meeting the friends, and seeing the art and the plays and Christmas carnivals and - my god, it was so special. 

And Pria gave me the most touching present I've ever received - so I spent at least an hour crying. 

20. Did you fall in love in 2014?

I fell down a rabbit hole.

21. How many one night stands?

None. 

22. What was your favourite TV programme?

Kept changing - phases, y'know. 



23. What was the best book you read?

I think I can count the books I read (for the first time, not re-reads obviously) on my fingers - so I won't list anything here. Nothing was life-changing. 

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Nada. 

25. What did you want and get?

Many things. 

26. What did you want and not get?

One thing - but I didn't want it for very long.

And a flat I fell in love with. But I don't care about that anymore, my own is Home. 

And seeing many friends. 

27. What was your favourite film of this year?

Nothing. 

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 23. Had the usual party - did not wake up with a hangover the next day. 

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Not dreading the future would have probably helped. 

30. What kept you sane?

S.

31. Who was the worst new person you met?

Didn't meet anyone (very) horrible. 

32. Who was the best new person you met?

The 8B boys.


33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learnt in 2014.

It's not a lesson per se - but I learnt how loved I am. Many special people went out of their way to make sure I knew that.  

And that taught me how important it is to show people you love them. You can go a lifetime without knowing how important it is, but luckily, I didn't have to.

34. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

No. 



I apologise about the damn spaces - they're driving me crazy but I have to go shower and decide what to wear so I don't have time to spend forty minutes making them even.

Happy New Year, by the way. As they say, it's another chance to get it right.

Even though you won't, you obviously you won't, you'll get it wrong, horribly wrong. But it doesn't hurt to be optimistic now and then.


Note

After typing that, I went to get ready - I was drying my hair after my shower, and brushing it out in the attempt to achieve a wave, and it got stuck in the brush and couldn't be untangled and I had to chop a chunk off. You can't make out because of my parting (thank goodness).

Also I have a really really bad hangover.

December Ramblings

I woke up this morning because the sun was in my eyes, and because it was cold, just a little. And the first thought that occurred to me was, it's December. For three minutes, I felt a familiar rush of excitement, a feeling I've gotten every year, on the first day of December. Then sleep took over, and didn't release me until half an hour after I was supposed to leave for work.

It's always reassuring, the feeling of excitement. I felt it at seven, at ten, at fourteen, at eighteen, now, at twenty-three. December's still my favourite month of the year.

When I was in school, it meant bringing out the blazer (after I turned twelve). Man, I loved my school blazer. It made me feel so grown up. I'd look at the brats who hadn't graduated from sweaters yet and I'd be all, ha-ha, snot nosed children with lice, I was one of you once (minus the lice), but now I am more validated than ever before, because I have my blazer.

I regret to say that this was a recurring monologue. It didn't stop after the first year or two, it went on firmly until I graduated.

And December also meant Christmas which meant PRESENTS. I've always had my list prepared since August. Post August, new things are added, old ones are removed. Finally, I decide on one big present, or maybe a few little presents. That hasn't changed. What's on my bucket list this year that I am hugely excited about?

A cycle.

That's right. I am going to re-embrace one of the facets of my old Delhi life and use a cycle to commute between home and work. But because I am grown up and evolved, it will be a mountain bike. In further evidence of my maturity, I've actually researched different cycles in order to short-list the one that's best suited for my requirements and personality. I will go to the shop and actually try it once before buying it (i.e. before my mother buys it). See, I am now sensible and careful and level-headed enough to care about these things. It doesn't detract from the joy. Nor the incongruity of being excited about a cycle at twenty-three. Twenty-four.

Which reminds me. In exactly a month and a day, I'll be twenty-four. That first grey hair I found is a poignant reminder that my youth is slipping away. But then again, I've been saying the same thing since I was about thirteen (minus the grey hair).On the bright side, as I was telling my father the other day, the hair was most definitely silver. This is extremely reassuring - my father's side of the family, whose colouring I've inherited, get silver hair as they age. Not grey. It's a very nice silver actually, quite attractive, so I will just let my hair go about its natural course and laugh at all the poor souls who have to hide their common, plebeian grey-hair with dye.

Although I devoutly hope nothing will show until I'm forty.

I have completely lost track of what I meant to write about - something to do with December and childhood and nostalgia, blah blah blah. I don't need to feel nostalgic, come to think of it. Last Christmas, I woke up alone in the room flat I shared with no one. For the first time in my life there were no presents, there was no tree, there was no Mum with smiles and hugs.

But the day was still beautiful and I felt grown up and I celebrated with rum in my coffee before going to my brother's to be with people I loved. So really, you could say I've made Christmas my own.

All the same, this year, I will be back in the Christmas of my childhood. Back in London. Waking up in Pria's room on Christmas morning, jumping on her bed, then going to jump on Rajeet, and then insisting on opening presents before breakfast, not after; and eating traditional Christmas lunch with about five hundred members of the family (just kidding, one of the regulars is arriving on Boxing Day so it'll only be 499 of us) and rounding off the evening with mulled mead and Monopoly (which I hate).

Those are the sort of things December brings me every year, though the forms they take on change. A pause from my incessant complaining and pessimism to just be thankful for my life, which is a pretty lucky one; and the comforting knowledge that it's absolutely okay to eat pudding three times a day because Father Christmas, no matter how old you grow, will always bring presents: a magical calorie deficit being one of them.

Goa, Part Something

Okay, given the weeks that have passed since Goa, The Second Trip, I feel it's useless to document, in detail, the day-by-day occurrence of Goa, The First Trip. So before I start writing about GTST (or should it be GST?), I'll share some excerpts from (GTST/GST/I really need to look this up).

Goa, First Trip (easier, no?) - Extracts 

The drunk night. We went out, had dinner somewhere, oh, come to think of it, we didn't have dinner.

Let me start again.

We went out. Found a restaurant that had the following offers:

1. 1 beer, 1  beer free.
2. 1 cocktail, 2 cocktails free.

Or something similar. I don't recall - on account of the fact that, because of that offer, I drank too many beers and sipped  gulped too many cocktails.

Anyway, we, or rather HR, who has the unique and admirable talent of making friends wherever he goes, befriended a Bengali waiter who totally gave us 65-70 ml instead of 60 ml, which just goes to show -  IT'S IMPORTANT TO MAKE FRIENDS, PEOPLE.

It was his last night though, he was leaving for Darjeeling the next day.
,
Typical.

Then we drove up and down for the same road for twenty minutes and landed up at the only pub that looked open, and the manager was drunk, and he sat with us and we rolled a joint. There were a few white people at the next table. And HR asked them whether they wanted to share the wondrous beauty, the explosion of stars, the beauty of a wall and soiled carpet, with us.

"Because," as someone once told me, "that is the amazing-ness of a joint."

Anyway, the white people did not want to smoke, which, trust me, is an extremely abnormal experience in Goa.

"Where are you from?" Said HR.

An innocent question, but for some reason he got death glares.

"Amsterdam."

See, see, do you see, the beauty of an ironic world?

Oh right, and then we went back to Silver Star, and drank too much, and HR hustled a waiter at pool and won, and I heard, with patience, another waiter's love story, and I kept getting up at intervals - when I felt energetic - to chase puppies because I love puppies, come on, they're adorable, but HR chased after me, and spent much time advising me about the dangers about taking Puppy on a bus to Bangalore and keeping Puppy in a small, damp, gets-worse-with-time room, which incidentally is where I live.

So I gave Puppy up because true love is selfless that way.

And then we went into the Silver Star room - thankfully the only night we would spend there - and we were completely smashed and then we passed out.

The rest of the trip, which I'll talk about later (on account of how I do not know how to keep things short) is more interesting.

Or not. I don't know.

I'm quite stoned. Haha. 

Just a quick 23.30 office rant to publicly record there are few things in life more bloody tedious than a new, bubbly, over-enthusiastic co-worker.

Plus, he's making me look bad. I can't even play Triviador in peace. 

Interval.

HR's friend won 4 free flight tickets to Goa. Tomorrow.

So I have to finish writing about the last trip and then tomorrow's (if it's memorable enough, I hope it will be). 

So much writing to do. About being a bum on the beach. And moving to another beach to continue being a bum there. And then I have to talk about all the beer, and attempt not to black out so I can write something more interesting than "I blacked out". And I'll have to talk about long motorcycle rides through the twisted roads, golden fried calamari and authentic pork vindaloo, the calm hand of time holding back the mad rush of minutes to replace it with something slower, something infinitely - blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. 

And now I have to write about two trips, not just one. 

So dull, so boring, so effort-full.



BAHAHAHAHA. 

Goa, two years later - Part 2.

As I've mentioned before, Palolem curves on either end. A mile of white sand and fishing boats - there were no shacks or deckchairs this time - framed against a backdrop of disordered, disorganised, dark green trees.

After our swim and our beer, we decided to go to the other end of the beach to see if we could find any shacks that were open. HR remembered a shack set-up on Butterfly Island. (I discovered that day that what I thought was Butterfly Island wasn't Butterfly Island but I'm too old to change my ways). We went via the sea - sometimes walking, sometimes swimming. HR had boasted about his swimming abilities before and, unfortunately, I was able to witness them firsthand. 

I'm not sure how to describe it accurately - let's just say that the only swimmers I've seen who are worse than HR, are the ones who can't swim at all. He looks like a dying fish when he swims. I was horrified and offered to teach him how to be more elegant, more graceful, less embarrassing to his companions...

"Stop suppressing my individuality," HR said, thrashing around. "I am unique, I am the master, I am -" 

I ducked him. 

Anyway to get back to what I was talking about, we reached Palolem's end. That section of the beach has a fresh-water thingamajig that you can walk across when the tide's low. When it isn't, you need to swim. 

The tide was in at this time. Sort of in, anyway. HR had our phones and all our money so I was instructed to go in first. 

"If you don't sink," HR said to me, "I'll follow you."

I tread the water cautiously. I didn't mind sinking, but I'm the sort of person who would easily step on a sharp rock and start bleeding to death - a circumstance I wanted to avoid. The water, at its highest point, only came up to my chest. I turned and waved at HR who began to cross, holding both phones and money aloft. 

Because HR is a genius, he couldn't remember the path to the island. After a bit of scrambling around and searching, we found one, but it was blocked. So we had to go back down to the sea and walk along the edge. I carefully avoided the rocks again, this time because I saw a lot of dead fish washed up on them. Man, I would rather battle a shark than step on a dead fish. I'd rather battle three sharks. Battling sharks is one of the few things in life I'm confident about. 

We climbed through a stone archway and I couldn't believe I hadn't been there before. The hill we were on was obviously a shack set-up, but closed now. So isolated from the rest of Palolem, so very beautiful, perched on a cliff, with uneven grass and low trees, overlooking the sea. I peered over the edge and saw many boulders that formed a path to it - a little like the rocks around Anjuna's lagoon, but what they led to - stray rocks right in water, with the waves lapping around them, and nothing ahead except an infinite sea - was even more appealing than that had been. 

"I'm going to climb down to the rocks." I said to HR. "And I'm going to climb across them until I reach the edge."

"Alright," said HR agreeably. "Don't fall, don't hit your head, don't drown, don't -" 

"I won't." I said, offended. "I've crossed tree-trunks over raging rivers, I've battled quick sand, I've survived drowning in the oceans of Indonesia, I've-"

"Of course you have." said HR obligingly. I scowled at him and made my way down as gracefully as possible which, between you and me, wasn't graceful at all. 

The rocks were slippery. Also, because of reasons I won't go into, my balance is even worse than usual - I get dizzy more easily than I used to. So I had to climb over them like a spider, all arms and legs. First a leg here, then an arm there, then the realisation that I should have used a different limb, and a muttered curse, and then repeating the process all over again. I was nearly there when HR passed me, stepping from rock to rock with ease, for all the world as if he was on an evening stroll.

I comforted myself with the thought that while he had balance, I had hair. It wasn't comforting. 

But I finally reached the rock I'd wanted to; there was one a little ahead with a patch of sea in between that I wanted to go to, but HR wouldn't let me. I stood on my rock and I looked out to the sea and I swear, there was absolutely nothing there, no boats, no birds (thank god). Just an endless shimmer of silver and blue and the setting sun. 

I took in a deep breath of fresh sea-air and started coughing. I waited for the coughing fit to pass and took another deep breath. This time it lived up to the moment. 

"I'm queen of the sea." I said, turning my head to look at HR. 

"You are." 

I was. 

And then we shared a cigarette in companionable silence and it was like we were the only two people on earth. But time was passing and evening was drawing near and we had to get back to Palolem before the tide came in even further. So then we made our way back and I wasn't Queen of the Sea anymore, I was the Fool on the Rocks. 

As we crossed a stretch of sand, I noticed a dead eel lying near the shore. I don't think I've ever seen an eel before - dead or alive - so I got quite excited. They actually look quite ferocious but unfortunately this one, with its mouth open, looked a little retarded. No surprise that it was dead.

"Can I take the eel back with me?" I said to HR. Sometimes I get a little childish, okay, retarded, when I'm around HR, probably because he's six years older. 

"No, you can't." He said firmly. 

"But if I did, I could throw it at the client-servicing people in office."

"You are not taking a dead eel back to Bangalore."

"Can I throw it at the white people on the beach and make them scream?"

"NO."

"What about the creepy Indian men who film the white people?"

"NO."

As we were walking back to Silver Star, HR noticed some stone steps on the beach, leading to a garden with trees and two wooden shacks.

We went to see if they were open. The path was made of beer bottles planted firmly in the ground. I fell deeper in love with each step I took. 

There was a man beating a broom energetically in the verandah of one of the shacks. I thought he was one of those foreigners who'd settled down to make a life in Goa, but once he started talking, I realised he was Goan Catholic. They usually look and sound extremely angry. 

The Man (we learnt his name later) said that we could stay there, although he warned us that since the cafe/bar was shut, we'd have to get food and drink elsewhere. He showed us around. I'm putting up photos below this post because I can't describe how pretty the place was. And the detail - a painted cupboard here, a gorgeous big bed there, a desk I fell in love with - man, if I had a desk like that (and a personality change that would give me more focus), I'm sure I could churn out a novel. 

He was charging us 1000 rupees and HR and I regretfully said we couldn't afford that. So he brought it down to 700 on account of how he "liked us". Hah. As if there were loads of people in Palolem clamouring for rooms. 

"We have to stay at Silver Star tonight," HR told him. "But we'd love to come tomorrow."

"Ya. Come. Here's Dilip" - a dark man with a pony-tail and a shy smile had sauntered up to us  - "He'll be around." 

We went back to Silver Star in a very good mood. Our room looked particularly dingy after the gorgeous one we'd just seen but, as HR pointed out, it was just for a night. We rolled a joint and took a walk through the mini-forest that stretched behind Silver Star. And then we came back to our room and took a nap in preparation for the night of drinking that stretched before us.

And what a night that turned out to be.

To be documented in my next post - an unedited version, since my mother doesn't read this blog. 

And here are the photos. They are quite pointless because they rotate wrong when I upload them here and Blogger won't let me rotate them, er, right. So if you want to actually see what they're like, you'll have to attempt to rotate your head. 

I'll tell you about the cat later. 

Goa, two years later - Part 1.

People who've been reading this blog for a few years (my father basically) might recall a trip to Goa I wrote about a couple of years ago. If not, here you go, lucky you.

Anyway, last week, I decided to take a couple of days of work and go there again for four days. For my cousin's engagement obviously, since I wouldn't have been given permission otherwise. On account of how I'm the only copywriter left on my team, but let's not even go there. What a happy coincidence though - thank goodness my cousin decided to get engaged to a boy from Goa, and thank goodness that it was a completely informal ceremony that took up no time at all, leaving me to explore Goa with my friend. So I won't write about my cousin's engagement - it was no different from any other ceremony. In fact, for your sake, I'm going to pretend it didn't exist and write about the other, infinitely more interesting things I did.

My friend HR (Holy Roller - don't ask) accompanied me. It was the first trip I'd been on since my four day break in Calcutta over New Year. Left straight from work - practically ran out of office at 6.30 - met up with HR and went to the bus-stand near Majestic. It was a sleeper bus. I've never been on a sleeper bus, I didn't even know they existed. They're brilliant. Train set-up but in a bus. Conducive to sleeping, as the name suggests. We'd booked a Non A/C so we could smoke on the way, but it turned out to be an AC bus. Wasn't a brilliant start to the trip. We were both sulking. But after the first hour, we fell asleep, so it didn't really matter. I woke up occasionally, over the night, my face turned towards the window (which was the length of my body). It was pouring with rain, so dark you couldn't see anything, except bursts of silver whenever lightning decided to make its presence felt, which was often.

And then suddenly, I opened my eyes, and this time it was morning, and the rain had stopped. The sun wasn't out yet, the sky was a soft grey, and, outside the window, all I saw was a canopy of green. I remembered the time Mawii and I had driven from the airport, and it was just like that, except more. And then I began to recognise the road, and the bus stopped, and there we were.

We took an auto to Palolem's main road ("main road" - haha) and it was as if nothing had changed. I even passed that goddamn CCD, I don't know why it's there, I've never seen anyone inside it except a defeated looking behind-the-counter-man. We got off at the entrance to the beach and there it was - the sea.

What is it about the sea? Most people I know prefer the mountains - the calm, the winding roads, forests on either side, that sense of being above the world, and away from it. The sea doesn't give you that feeling, it gives you something else. A sense of vastness, like the mountains, but a different sort of vastness. There's a lingering danger to it, you can never know the sea the way you might know a mountain trail. It's always a stranger, it doesn't want you to get to close to it. But it's also reassuringly familiar. Unlike mountains, where towns get bigger and people more numerous, and even unlike the beach, where the same thing occurs, the sea itself can't ever really be conquered. It can't be built on - though Hong Kong's made a valiant attempt. And it holds life and it holds death, and no matter how much technology advances, at the end of the day, people just can't fuck with it. You can explore it, and swim in it, and play in it, and exploit it to a certain extent, but you will always be at its mercy. Not the other way around.

Because it was off-season, all the shacks were closed, or had been taken down. Which is one of South Goa's saving graces, I think. It protects it from what's happening in the North. But there is a place called Silver Star - also known as Cocktails and Dreams (I know, I know) - and that's open 365 days a year with a 24/7 bar. The shacks were shut, and the cheapest room was absolutely terrible, not worth 500 bucks a day, but we decided to put up with the ugliness and the dinginess for just one night.

"We'll get so drunk tonight," HR said to me, "That we won't even notice the room. We'll just come back to crash and look for a nicer place tomorrow."

That was okay with me.

Changed into our swimsuits, put on some shorts, and went to the Silver Star bar. Like all the places right on the beach, it overlooks the sea. We got a table right in front - it was relatively empty, just an overweight white man, who had the redness of someone who drinks too much beer and eats too much steak, at the next table.

"We've got to have Kings beer," HR said to me, "I can't believe you haven't had Kings beer."

So we ordered a Kings each - and this was at 10 in the morning, what a perfect way to start the day - and sat there quietly, talking sometimes, reading sometimes, and drinking, well, constantly. But slowly. No hurry. It was only Thursday morning and I smugly thought of people at work, sitting in front of their scenes, shouting at each other over deadlines and briefs. Terrible, I know, but it added greatly to my contentment.

HR rolled a joint and we smoked that, but the thing about joints by the sea is that they don't get you stoned, not really. There's no dizziness, no heightened sense of humour, no 'faaaak, I'm so stoned' feeling. It just marginally adds to the peace. And I was feeling peaceful, a kind of peaceful I realised I hadn't felt in a long time, not even in quiet nights outside my flat when the rest of the world is asleep. The sea was a greeny-grey, lapping at the shore, the waves tipped with white, slightly more energetic than I remembered, but still fundamentally lazy.

And I was dying to get into the water, to taste its coldness and its saltiness, and to feel the spray sting my eyes, but I was also postponing the moment. Anticipation is sweet. But the sea began to recede, and the sun came out, and I couldn't wait any longer. I took off my sarong and I walked towards it, slowly at first and then faster and faster, and I felt the familiar weight of the water pushing against my legs, and then I was thigh-deep in it, and I dove under a gentle little wave, and opened my eyes to a murky, mysterious underworld, and then I broke through the surface, gasping for breath, salt-water up my nose, sun in my eyes.

It always feels like coming home. Always. As familiar as the sound of my feet pounding through Calcutta airport and the sight of my mother's face and outstretched arms behind the airport's metal railing.

About nothing. Or, how I convinced somebody I was a lesbian.

Whyyyy don't I have anything to write about these days. I definitely don't feel like ruminating on 'moments of quiet' and 'parcels of happiness' and 'unknown paths' and 'battles against life' and all the other pseudo-reflective crap I've been spouting recently - mostly because of the not-having-anything-to-write-thing. I'm trying to think of the last funny thing that happened to me, but I can't. I'm sure there are, something disastrous happens to me every week, but I don't remember right now, so obviously they couldn't have been particularly interesting or distinctive.

Every time I meet my Indiranagar friends - not as often as I used to - and they ask me what's up, all I say is, "work". Which is a lie. I mean, I'm busy with work, but not that busy. But it's become my standard response. I guess it has some uses after all. 

Oh here's something. I've told this story to practically everyone I know (and sometimes I've told it twice without realising - see how little I have to talk about these days?) but I might as well mention it here since I have nothing else to do except edit a crap video for a crap client. 

My friend and colleague Saikat told this other colleague, Hareesh, that I am a lesbian. By the way, a side note on Hareesh - he's the kind of fellow who has teddy bears hanging from his closet and he knows all the best beauty products and he knows that honey's good for dry skin but not oily skin. (Hareesh has oily skin, just in case you were wondering.) 

Anyway so that's what Saikat - who is a fucker (not literally but who knows) like Friend - told Hareesh. That I'm a lesbian - in case you got dazed because of the honey thing and forgot. 

You know what Hareesh's response was?

"I thought so."

Which I found a little insulting. I mean, I have nothing against lesbians, look at Ellen DeGeneres for example, but why would someone think I'm a lesbian? I don't dress like a man these days - not much anyway - and  I've even started wearing skirts and dresses and cardigans and shit. Seriously - I own a cardigan. An orange cardigan. Pill made me buy it because he said it depressed him to see me in black all the time. I explained I have a dark soul but it didn't work.

Um. Not that lesbians don't wear orange cardigans, I'm sure the two aren't mutually exclusive...ah, fuck it. I'm going back to the story. 

So one day Hareesh asked me about it and because I am blessed with a marvellous sense of humour - most of the time anyway - I played along. 

"Yeah, I am." I said. "But don't tell anyone. I'm not ashamed of it or anything, but I don't particularly want it broadcast to the world. I'm sort of private that way."

"No, no," said Hareesh earnestly. "I won't tell anyone. I have lots of lesbian friends. Want me to hook you up?"

I grew slightly alarmed. 

"No, no," I said equally earnestly. "I'm already in a relationship."

"With who?" said Hareesh sceptically.

"A girl called Mawii who lives in Delhi." 

"I don't believe you. I don't think you are a lesbian actually." 

So I sighed a heavy sigh and logged into Facebook. Out of sheer coincidence, my profile photo was one of Mawii and myself. And because life has its moments - her profile photo was the same as mine. And he bought it, oh, he totally bought it. 

And then he started asking me questions.

"Did you always know you were a lesbian?"

"No," I said. "I had boyfriends in school, but I didn't realise until I got to college." (Okay, so I had one boyfriend in school, but in this instance, as in most instances, boyfriends sounded better.) 

"How did you realise?" 

"Well, I was roommates with Mawii and we were together all the time, and I sort of started having funny feelings and..."

"So how did it happen?" He was looking visibly excited at this point which was a little disturbing. 

"We got drunk at this party, really drunk, and then we went home and...y'know." 

Hareesh nodded wisely even though I seriously doubted he knew. I mean, come on, he has teddy bears in his room. (He isn't gay, just effeminate.) 

"Does your family know?"

"Most of them don't, but my mother does."

"What did she say?"

"She wasn't happy about it, but she understood."

"Ah."

The conversation sort of ended there, but I was curious abut one thing. 

"Hareesh?"

"Yes, Colourful?" (His nickname for me is Colourful, god knows why since the only non-black things I own are my cardigan and a couple of scarves.) 

"Saikat said that you already sort of thought I was a lesbian. Do I look like a lesbian?" (This is something my brother has always told me - that I look like a lesbian - though I hadn't taken him seriously until that moment.)

"No, no. You don't look like a lesbian."

"Then?"

"Remember that time we were drinking at Hoppipola?" 

"No."

"You got drunk and came away with three women's phone numbers."

Yup, that probably explains it. 

I have a portfolio now (sort of) because I'm taking initiative these days yo.

It's called Trisha's Portfolio. Or, coping with copy, clients, and chaos. 

I know, not a very inspiring name. It's okay. I'll be inspired another time. 

To live a life unimagined.

It's the little things that take you by surprise. Living in a city you'd never have imagined living in before, a year and a half ago. Coming home to an empty flat after work. It turned into home the day you stopped searching for intruders as soon as you entered. It turned into home the night you left your knife in the kitchen, instead of keeping it by your bed. Buying vegetables instead of fruit because vegetables are cheaper. Refusing to buy a tub of  ice cream because it's too expensive - it could get you two days' worth of food. And then blowing up your money anyway, in a shady bar after work, with colleagues. The little things. Walking to work, to work, not college. Having to do things even when you don't feel like doing them. Having to think and to write when you can't, you just can't think or write, and then you learn - the hard way - that you don't have a choice. Dishes.

The little things make you soar. A cup of coffee, early in the morning, on the balcony, before the world's started to stir. Ecstasy. All those cliches about sunrises and new days and mornings? They seem true in that moment. Green tea, in the same place, on the same spot, when the world is drifting off to sleep. It seems so mundane, but it's part of a constant search for peace. And peace, you're starting to realise, comes in tiny parcels. Moments of quiet. Seconds of harmony. And yet, it matters. Cleaning the house. Dusting and sweeping and moving mattresses and doing the dishes and restocking the fridge and tackling bathroom drains. You were never cut out for domesticity, but it's teaching you something college never did: discipline.

There's nothing particularly exciting about this life. You're not making much money, you're living a hand-to-mouth existence, work tires you, it tires your brain, so you put off that phone call to an old friend, you don't pick up the book you've been planning to read. You don't travel, who has the time. But no, you've travelled through people. You're friends with people you didn't know existed six months ago, you've learnt how to like people without being their friend, you're constantly baffled by their stupidity, their intelligence, their quirks, their humanness. It's another important lesson that this year of being on your own, and trying desperately to carve your place in the world has taught you. You can travel through people, not just places. 

But still. It's not an exciting life. It's not the kind of life you imagined for yourself - you're not traipsing through London's streets, you're not editing books in Delhi, giving life to untold stories. You're not studying history, you're not writing, you're not doing a lot of things you imagined doing. Instead, you're doing something you vowed as a teenager never to do: coming to an office, typing things on a computer, sitting under tubelights. (But there's a secret they never tell you. An office can be more fulfilling, more exciting, more thrilling than any seashore if you're doing what you love.)

And sometimes, often when you're doing something incredibly boring, the realisation hits, such a physical reaction that it makes you shiver. You would never, ever have imagined this life two years ago. You would never have predicted it. And that, oddly, is comforting. It might not seem as exciting as the lives you haven't lived. But you've remained true to yourself in one essential way: you're building your own road. By yourself. And you don't know where it will take you. The way is hidden by new dreams that are still being born. 

Days like this.

There's nothing I enjoy more than having existential crises and feeling that life is futile and locking myself up at home, chain smoking and feeling sorry for myself. But on a day like this...on a day like this, I wake up in the morning and feel sparkling, glad just to be alive. Light filters in through my window, littering my room with promises. On the walk to work, I notice things. The sharp outline of leaves on trees against a fresh sky, the intensity of their greenness. The scent of mangoes and of wood from the dilapidated carts they're piled up on. Stray thoughts of people I love; there are so many people I love.Catching a glimpse of my reflection on a shop window and feeling rather pretty. And some sort of elusive, tantalising feeling that I'm at one with the earth. That it knows who I am, although I don't. That it knows who I'm going to be. And because it knows, I don't have to worry, I don't have to be anxious, I can just let things unfold with time. Sometimes I'll float with the tide, sometimes I'll swim for the goal. I spend a lot of my time feeling as though I'm fighting a battle against life, but on days like this, on days like this, we agree to a truce. Or perhaps, I'm hit by the realisation that we're fighting on the same side.

Until tomorrow anyway.




P.S. And, on top of everything else, this just arrived from PM and my dad. Ah, days like this.

Update.

I've been wanting to write for a long time, but I have nothing to write about. Actually I do, but not stuff I want people to read.

Anyway, just to keep this blog going.

Last week, on my way to the gym, I noticed my shoelace was coming undone. I trip a lot even when they're tied properly, so I didn't want to take a chance. I bent down and was busy tying it. (It takes a lot of concentration for me to perform even ostensibly simple activities like this.)

I felt something warm on my cheek, something warm that didn't smell too pleasant. I looked up. A cow was standing next to me. Sniffing me.

That's pretty much the most exciting thing that's happened to me the past two weeks.

Just keeping you posted. 

Some call it the black dog.
A big, black, shaggy haired dog,
That sits on your chest,
Pinning you down,
Until you can't breathe.

That's the usual analogy.

I don't see it as a dog.
More like a hole.
A bottomless pit,
Devoid of beauty,
Of life, of hope.

And though you're falling,
You travel nowhere.
No new doors are opened.
No oceans are crossed.
The horizon is dead.
Strangled.
You move like a slug.
You feel like a slug.
You arrive nowhere.
You learn nothing.


(When I fall in love though,
  That's a bottomless hole too.
  And everyday I fall a little more.
  But who wouldn't want to fall,
  Into beauty and hope?

  Into life?)

A boy, ten years old. Lean, hungry, torn. Kicks a puppy, hard, so hard, repeatedly kicks it, kicks it repeatedly. He hears bone break, such a satisfying sound, a sound that fills, a sound that completes. A crack, a crunch. Like inhaling wine, he drinks in its high pitched protests, its whimpers. Drunk now, he is, on twisted power.
(Later, he meets his friends for a game of football. While the puppy lies mangled in the gutter. It will never feel the wind brushing its nose again).

Lurking outside a dimly lit bar, a middle aged man waits and watches. His eyes invade long legs going through the door. His fingers - they itch to know the smooth expanses of dusky, velvet skin his eyes already know. He bides his time, waiting for a pair of legs to stagger down a dark, empty alley. Helpless legs, beautiful legs. Legs that his thin, veined hands will conquer.
(He has a wife at home whom he has not touched. Not touched for two years. She still loves him).

A young girl walks down a lane. It's hot, so hot, as if a thousand suns, and not just one, are beating down on her head. A nondescript man steps out of a nondescript car. His pants, stonewashed in all the wrong places, are unzipped. A purple penis throbs in his hands. She averts her eyes. She runs.
(By the way, this is the first time she's seen a penis.)

An old man lies on a dusty street in Delhi. He's dead. Very dead. Once, he was not. He was young, he was alive. And people pass his decaying, damaged corpse. They screw up their faces in disgust. And why wouldn't they - that's what he is now, a thing. A disgusting, very disgusting, vomit inducing thing.
(He was a kind man, though. When his mother lay dying, he'd spend hours with her head in his lap, massaging her head, and loving her.)

In a small courtyard, grey stoned and peaceful, a small courtyard that smells of rain - there is a flower in a pot. A small flower, a pink flower. Unabashedly, unashamedly sweet. A security guard, in a starched uniform, carefully fills a plastic bottle with water. Tap water. He pours it over the flower. For no other reason than this: he likes flowers. They answer a wordless yearning in his soul. If he has a soul.
(And you, sitting on a stone cold, grey slabbed bench nearby, you, you'd swear, that you're not crazy, that you really did see that damn flower dancing.)

"Just Another Stupid Thing Trisha Did."

I know I've been supposed to talk about Nandi Hills, but I went through this horrible time where I had to fight this huge metaphorical war and I couldn't write, I couldn't write at all, and now I don't feel like writing about Nandi Hills. But I will sort of sum it up: We got there, it was painfully beautiful, watching the sun rise over that thick mist-wall, but it was spoiled by all the people around, it's the sort of place that needs solitude, not cameras. We sat on this slab of rock, and smoked a joint, and then lay down in the sun, and I took a little nap. And then we biked back to the city, and this was even more fantastic than the ride to Nandi Hills, because the sun was out, but the wind was cold, and everything was glittering.

And then we had dosa breakfast and went home and slept. And it wasn't even noon.

Anyway, to get back to that stupid thing I did. Last week, I had to visit this clinic. Just as I was entering, I tripped (naturally) and my sandal broke. Plus I was loaded with two huge bags because I've been a vagabond lately, flitting among various people's houses. So I was very flustered, and I paid for my appointment by card, and later that day, I got a call from them saying that I'd left my card behind. And my headphones which are actually my friend Harshita's headphones (very big, very expensive and very awesome).

"Alright," I said to the disapproving man at the other end of the line, "thanks for telling me. I'll swing by in a bit and pick it up."

Now this clinic is pretty close to office. Both places are just off 100 Ft Road in Indiranagar. About twenty minutes apart on foot. Since coming to Bangalore, I've been walking around everywhere quite a lot (which is why I can eat cake and not get fat - ha!), but it's very hot right now, and the sun was shining particularly brightly that day, so I didn't feel like it. But I didn't want to take an auto either because autos are bitches and I didn't want to shell out 80 bucks for a 5 minute rickshaw ride.

I was telling my colleague PK this, and he said, "Why don't you take my car?"

Not a bad suggestion. I've driven his car before. If a slow afternoon is happening at work, we usually pick up a couple of beers and then drink in  the car. I've often driven it to the next lane. I'm not a very good driver - mainly due to lack of practice - but I reckoned going straight down 100 Ft Road wouldn't be a problem.

So I cheerfully took his keys and started the engine. I accidentally reversed instead of moving to first gear which should have been my first warning, but I ignored it and took off, carefree and lighthearted. Disaster, however, was close (it always is, it follows me around, like birds do) - only a couple of minutes away.

I turned out of my office lane and got onto the main road. I was going really slowly - I'm incapable of driving fast - and was still on second gear when a car zoomed past me on the right. I had to swerve to avoid it, and I did, and went bang into an auto.

Oh god, the hell that followed.

I was surrounded by four or five autowallahs in an instant (the bitch car had taken off) and they were shouting at me, so I shouted back trying to explain that it wasn't my fault, but they kept shouting and I heard the dreaded 'police station' and once again, I shouted some more, and they shouted back, and this went on for a few minutes, and more people came and I decided to follow Bitch Car's example, and I just took off.

My heart was pounding, my hands were shaking, I took a left to the lane where the clinic stands, but didn't stop, because I had a feeling I was being followed. And I was. The autowallah caught up to me and I pulled over.

"FIVE THOUSAND RUPEES!" He was shouting.

"FOR WHAT?" I yelled back.

"AUTO, LOOK MADAM, LOOK WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY AUTO!"

I looked. Couldn't see anything.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

"Dent on back, gone in."

"It wasn't my fault, I slammed on the brakes in time, didn't you see that car, I probably saved your life. If I hadn't hit the brake, you'd probably be dead." This part wasn't true of course, but I hoped it would soften him.

It did not.

"Police Station or five thousand rupees."

"I DON'T HAVE FIVE THOUSAND RUPEES." (And seriously, I don't. The autowallah's monthly income is probably a lot higher than mine). "And," I added, "There's no way that dent will cost 5000 rupees to fix."

And then I offered to give him my number and address and told him to bring me an invoice for damages and he insisted that repair shops don't do invoices. By this time I'd called PK and another colleague, Saikat, who will be known as The Lunatic on this blog, and they were on their way.

"YOU WERE SPEEDING, MADAM." Said he.

"SPEEDING? HOW CAN I SPEED? I WAS TRYING TO RUN AWAY FROM YOU AND YOU STILL CAUGHT ME AND I'M DRIVING A CAR? DO YOU THINK I KNOW HOW TO SPEED?"

This threw him for a bit, and while he was digesting it, I moved in for the kill.

"I'VE OFFERED TO PAY FOR YOUR DAMAGES BUT I INSIST ON SEEING AN INVOICE. YOU ARE TRYING TO EXPLOIT ME BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN."

"MADAM. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH."

"STOP SHOUTING AT ME! WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME?"

"No, no, madam. Not shouting." Instant change in tone.

"THEN WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?"

"No problem, Madam, no problem. Five thousand rupees, no problem."

"EXPLOITATION!"

"Madam..."

By this time, I was feeling a lot more confident and I stepped out of the car. The poor autowallah on the other hand, had put a fair amount of distance between us. PK and The Lunatic drove up on a bike just then, and the look of relief on his face was hilarious.

Many words were exchanged, with the autowallah apparently assuring them that he wasn't exploiting Madam. "I am an honest man. Always, I go by the meter."

The honest man was finally content with taking a grand and drove off without a backward glance.

But I'd broken the bumper on PK's car. He drove me back to office (with The Lunatic following behind) and I apologized profusely. Over and over again. PK was very nice about it, he must have been raging inside, he must have been like, damn this fffing girl. But to me, he said, "These things happen."

I needed to pay him for the damages which came to eight thousand, and for this, I had no choice - I had to call my mother.

I don't even want to begin to describe the conversation that occurred. Let me just say it was far from pleasant. Very, very, very, very far. But to cut a long story short, she sent PK the money, and she's deducting it from my rent. Also, the next day, she sent me a two page long e-mail that I also don't want to think about.

I know I should draw some sort of life lesson from this, but I can't think of one. Except - never borrow another person's car.

Unless you know how to drive really really fast.

This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass.

My first ever full page press ad.

Whether it's actually good or not (and I can't be objective about this obviously), may I just say - HELL YEAH!

The laugher, or the laughed at.

I want to go to Delhi again just to hear him live.

The Beauty of the Stupid.

I had a really bad week. And then I emerged from it feeling wild and reckless and determined to do something stupid. A haircut wouldn't cut it (haha - did you see what I did there?). Besides, I have no hair left to cut.

So what stupid thing could I do? And mind you, I wanted to embrace deliberate stupidness, I wanted to be impulsive, I wanted to be ridiculous, I wanted to be all those things. Because I think it's important sometimes to do something meaningless, to do something that makes most people go, "why the hell did you do that?", because it also helps you to not give a shit about what people think and to go with your own gut instinct. To never explain. (Even though I'm totally explaining right now, what a hypocrite I am, haha.)

And I decided what I wanted to do.

I consulted many people within the space of a couple of hours. My father was dead against it - that made me pause for a second. My father's never told me not to do something. When I hung up, I nearly decided not to do it. I knew I'd probably regret it, but that just added to the thrill.

So I did what I wanted to do.

And it was stupid, and a lot of people don't like it, and it means I can't drink this weekend, but  to hell with all that.
THIS IS THE BEST STUPID DECISION I'VE EVER MADE.

A life dictated by my blood. They taught me, though,
That it, like everything else in the world,
Like the red joba that nestled in the corner
Of the marbled terrace where I took my first steps,
Is a construct.
And being a construct, like everything else,
Like the photo of Babaji my grandmother
Encircled with flowing smoke from glowing dhoops,
It means nothing, not really.
Bengali. But the words,
Didn't form themselves on my tongue; the script,
Did not flow. It was slowly, painfully etched,
Only to be slashed with red ink,
Followed by a whisper of shame.
I turned with relief to the obscurity of Auden,
Who should have felt alien,
But didn't. Rather, a friend, not an easy one,
But the kind who throws light on your shadows,
Over steaming cups of tea.

The stories run through my veins: the old house in Purulia,
With mango trees that the old people climbed
When their legs were something like mine.
But the story of the ankle of Achilles is familiar,
As familiar, more familiar. And it carries me
Away on the backs of night clouds,
Faster, more furious, than even the swiftness,
The legendary swiftness,
Of Arjun's arrow.
I spring to attention because I was taught to at school,
When the proud strains of that proud song is sung.
And it belongs to me.
But so does the front seat of that double decker bus,
That speeds through the famous road,
That has no trees,
Not one.

Whinewhinewhine.

Living alone isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Like today, for instance, it's already 6 pm, and I'm still stuck at work, because there's a lot of work, and then I have to grocery shop, because I have no food at home, and then I have to go home and clean my apartment because I had people over on Friday (I am never having people over again) and the place is currently a disaster zone, and I cope with disasters by avoiding them until I can't avoid them, and I coped with this particular disaster by spending the weekend at my brother's.

But I can't put it off any longer. I have to clean. I have to sweep the floors, and then wash them, and clean the bathroom, and do the dishes, and also probably clean the fridge because it smells of garlic, and change my bed sheets otherwise I will get acne. (My mother knows my weaknesses and so chose to share this information with me.)

And I don't want to spend my hard earned money on yogurt and mushrooms and bananas, man, I want to spend it on beer, but I can't spend it on beer, because I should be consuming yogurt and mushrooms and bananas because I am a responsible adult now.

And I don't want to be a fatty.

FAAAAAAAAK.

You know what I'm going to do to make myself feel better about all this?

I'm going to clean my apartment naked. That's right, I'll be naked.

Because I can. I can roam around naked. I can sleep naked. That is one of the advantages of living alone. Actually, I'll go a step further.  I will roll myself a joint, and smoke the joint, while cleaning in a state of nudity.

(A far cry from when I'm at home in Calcutta, forced to smoke bloody cigarettes with my head stuck outside the bathroom window.)

Okay, I feel better now.

My First Domestic Disaster. (Spoiler: It wasn't my fault.)

So a couple of mornings after I got home from Calcutta (what an amazing time I had there by the way; I'd forgotten it holds so many people that I love), I was doing the usual pre-work routine. This is a long and complicated process, involving drinking hot water and lemon, doing a couple of feeble push ups, drinking half a cup of coffee, taking a ten minute nap, drinking the second half, attempting to simultaneously create breakfast and lunch...I could go on, but I won't, I'll get to the point instead.

Anyway, I finally reached the part of my routine that is spent having a bath. So I have this weird habit where I shower and also fill a bucket of ice cold water at the same time to pour over my head towards the end of the bath - if my shower isn't a power shower which mine isn't.

So I turn the tap to fill the bucket and - IT WASN'T MY FAULT - the tap came off in my hand. A jet of water flew at me, and it kept flying, spraying me in the face, and oh god, I thought, why me, why me, why me. 

I didn't panic though. I'm used to things falling apart in my hands and necessity has taught me to be quite good at fixing said things. But this refused to be fixed. No matter how desperately I tried screwing the tap back in, the pressure of the water kept pushing it out again.

"COME ON, MOTHERF***ER!" I yelled.

"Please, please, dear tap, go back in." I pleaded.

"Oh why won't the Universe helllllllllp me?" I sobbed.

The Universe never helps me. I had to call my landlord instead. He immediately sent the guard who shoved it back into place and told me it would hold temporarily. Temporarily was right. The damn tap flew off five minutes after he left and the entire scenario started all over again - except, naturally, it was worse this time round, as these things usually are.

My landlord wasn't picking up his phone, there was no sign of the guard who I can't communicate with anyway, except through ape-like gestures, since he only speaks Tamil. And the damn water wouldn't stop. So for the next forty minutes, I kept collecting it in a bucket and then throwing it down the loo, and then waiting for it to re-fill again.

Unfortunately, during one of these bucket-filling sessions, I failed to notice that the tap had managed falling into the bucket. I only noticed when I poured the water into the loo, and - oh, agonizing moment of horror - saw the tap going down the loo as well. And there was no way to get it back. It had gone, gone, gone.

What happens when a tap goes down the toilet? I didn't know then, but it definitely couldn't have been good. I rallied by telling myself it was a stupid tap that had no business falling off in the first place and that it deserved to be flushed.

And then, of course, the guard landed up. We didn't actually have the following conversation, on account of how - as previously mentioned - we don't have a language in common, so just imagine this in gestures.

Guard: Oh shit.

Me: Damn right.

Guard: Where's the tap? I'll screw it back on with tape.

Me: It's gone down the toilet.

Guard: *Makes the universal crazy-person gesture*

And then at this point, my shower suddenly decided to join  the fun and began raining on him.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the bathroom was flooded, the guard and I were soaking wet, the landlord's son landed up, asked me where the tap was as well, looked at me in disbelief upon hearing the answer, peered suspiciously into my toilet, tried fixing the tap, managed making everything worse, and they had to cut the entire building's water supply for a few hours.

Welcome to the neighbourhood, Trisha.





PS For the record, it seriously wasn't my fault. One of the pipes broke. And I also missed a morning at work, and sent my boss photos to prove that I was telling the truth so my salary didn't get cut. Which just goes to show - everything does have a silver lining.