He always thought himself a happy person, despite everything. For no other reason than this: to him, life is precious. He doesn't know quite what it is, although he never gives up trying to find out, but it has a claim on him, a claim beyond the ordinary, a claim stretching beyond the instinct of survival.

Which is why he's slightly disconcerted when he finds himself seated on a window ledge, on the wrong side. It is the side on which the moon falls sharply, where the wind ruffles his hair. The other side is the one with the warm yellow light and the safe floor he has known since his feet first touched ground. His back is turned away from it tonight. 

His feet are dangling now. They're cold.

The yearning to leap - and it won't be just a leap, he will fly, with his hands out - brings a small half smile to his face.

He looks down at the ground, but it's too far to see. All the better, because the ground is where the ugliness of it will be: the blood and guts and despair. Here, at this place, at this moment, there is only something pure, something sacred, a secret language in his heart that he's never heard before. He doesn't know whether he will hear it again. 

Beep beep.

Not today.

Later, though he knows he won't, he can't stop yearning for that feeling he had, sitting outside, more naked than he's ever been before, despite the fact that he was fully clothed. Naked, to himself, as if all the people he ever was, as if all the things he ever felt, had come together in a single dazzling moment.

No, he won't jump, he won't leap, he won't crash, wild and furious and free. He will keep on plodding one step at a time, and his only comfort is that he may yet forge his own path in the wilderness. 

Mawii is probably one of the nicest people to ever walk this earth. She gave up an evening of probable cuddling with her boyfriend just to come and check out a potential flat with me. To make sure that I don't get bullied/duped by the owner.

I'm documenting this because I think Mawii's niceness deserves to be documented. Everyone should have a Mawii in their lives. (And a Trisha to buy all the Mawiis drinks in return for their niceness.)

Also, I AM FLAT HUNTING. FOR MY VERY OWN FLAT. I go flat hunting after work. Yes, work. Real work that I enjoy.

I really do feel twenty two these days. 

Nirbhaya.

Delhi has become a city of fear.

It's never been known as a safe city. When I first moved here to start college, one of my father's main objections - and he is the most easygoing person I know - was how unsafe it was. I dismissed it obviously.

There were a couple of unsavoury incidents that occurred in my first couple of months here. I was on a rickshaw heading to my aunt's,  and a group of men in a car threw water over me, and called me a randi, before speeding up. It shook me. Nothing like that had ever happened in Calcutta. My uncle darkly told me I was lucky it wasn't acid. Soon after that, I was walking back to my PG - at 3 pm on a very hot, sunny afternoon - and a charming gentleman stepped out of his car, and started masturbating.

I never felt genuinely unsafe though. It's that sense of immortality that comes with youth, that feeling of, oh, this will never happen to me. I can take care of myself.

And so, I'd happily take autos home with just a couple of girlfriends after a night of drinking; myself and Mawii had no concern travelling alone to Majnu ka Tila in the dead of night to procure marijuana, and three years of this, instilled in me a certain confidence.

I was in Calcutta when the rape (and now murder) that we have all been hearing about, and all been talking about, happened. Despite the revulsion and horror, I sensed that perhaps a certain change was occurring. What the streets of Delhi had now, which it didn't before, was anger. Not all of this anger was productive, obviously, but out of it arose a kind of feeling of having had enough. No more merely accepting the fact that Delhi was unsafe, no more sadly shaking heads over the fact that it is called India's rape capital (is it just me, or is that label ridiculous?), no more taking certain precautions to avoid rape.

There was a shift in thought. Don't tell us how not to get raped, tell them not to rape. I saw photos of many men taking part in marches and candlelight vigils and protests. We are not all animals. It opened up many avenues of dialogue, and not just of safety.

Yet, in the midst of this, disturbing things emerged. Recall that comment by our President's son on painted and dented ladies (or was it dented and painted?). No one had a clue what it meant, but however much they laughed at its absurdity, it made clear a conviction many people have: that no matter what, women who get raped have it coming to them.

In a society as patriarchal as ours is, you get the feeling that no matter how much you shout and scream and protest and try to implement changes, nothing real will ever happen, as long as the country's people - not all of them, but more than a few - still believe that women must subscribe to certain established norms of behaviour, and that to break free of those norms leads to the just desserts of these painted and dented, dented and painted, whatever the case may be.

The media coverage made me think that I would return to a Delhi that was seething, a Delhi that had finally woken up to these issues, and was determined to do something about it. More cases were being reported than ever before, as if people were trying to say, okay, she's not the only one that's been raped, there are more out there, this is nowhere close to being over.

But as I said, this is also a city that is afraid. The perils that are out there awaiting women have been sensationalised to such a degree that instead of marching around at night, daring men to try what they will (which in practice isn't a good idea, we will see that in a moment), women are avoiding being out late at night. There was an article in the papers today about how they are all departing office by six regardless of the jibes received from their male colleagues.

What has been created is a vicious cycle. Despite the anger directed towards brutal, savage men, a very real fear has been created, a fear that has always lurked, but never been given such shape and substance. Anger is all very well, but it won't help you when you are walking down a dim lit street at night, in the depths of winter fog, armed with maybe a can of pepper spray that won't do you much good against a gang of potential rapists. Politicians are making noises, the Supreme Court issues profound statements daily on the need to change the country's laws, but none of that will do you any good, will it, when you're walking down that deserted street, your mind full of thoughts fed to you by newspapers and recent events? So to ensure your safety, you control the only thing you can: yourself. You leave work early, you don't take unnecessary risks, you grow timid.

And then, as an interview in the paper pointed out today, men who see women unafraid, walking the streets after dark, start to taunt. Aren't you scared to be out so late? Don't you know what's been happening? Don't you care about your safety? Have you no shame? Once again, the woman is breaking an unbreakable code - her independence, her disregard for the terror that has enveloped the city, implies that she doesn't need to be rescued. And a woman who doesn't need to be rescued, is obviously all things unfeminine, an unnatural creature from the dark.

And of course - more complex issues. What if, as a friend of mine pointed out, Nirbhaya hadn't been from South Delhi, what if she'd been a Dalit girl living on the outskirts? This outrage has occurred because that girl being brutalised on the bus could have been one of us. That sense of immortality has been shattered.

But at least it has been shattered, it's time it was shattered, because perhaps now, we, realising that we can't walk down an empty road in darkness, will create something, out of our anger and despite our fear - something that finally annihilates a mindset that is centuries old.

What that something could be, I don't pretend to know.

2012's last life lesson.

I will forever be grateful to 2012 for teaching me things, and not too harshly either. It taught me that it's okay not to know what you want to do once you've finished college, but also, that it's not okay to sit around and complain about it. It taught me that if you can't be specific when someone asks you what you want to do, then it's important to go out and find the answer, rather than waiting for an epiphany to find you - epiphanies have better things to do. It taught me a lot about self control: namely, that it's possibly the most important quality to have. Without self control, it's difficult to have self respect. It taught me a lot about people: those who seem shallow and boring and who seem to have not much to say for themselves are sometimes the least pretentious, the ones who have their heads screwed on right.

Anyway, this isn't a monologue on how I've evolved this past year, it is rather, an anecdote on something extremely stupid I did, and what I've learnt from it.

Date: 24.12.2012 (which turned to 25.12.2012, which should have been the first warning).

Place: Third party of the night (second warning)

Incident: Climbing into Varun's car (sensible, if it had been Siddharth Sharma's, I would probably have been dead by now).

Fault: mine, and it was a twofold one. It included my natural accident proneness, and also, large quantities of wine and vodka, which was an amateur mistake, and one I am kicking myself over, because I learnt long ago not to mix drinks, and this was a good reminder of why you shouldn't mix drinks, or drink irresponsibly.

We were at this lovely party, but unfortunately (actually, fortunately) I don't remember much. Beautiful house, and long stretches of garden, and cheerful bonfires which no one fell into, and I was feeling pleased with myself because I was wearing high heeled shoes and not falling over. I always get into trouble when I feel pleased with myself.

This is good, said my treacherous mind. Let's have one more Vodka and Redbull and feel like we're in college.

(I'm not in college. Note to self: never want to 'feel' like being in college again, it was an undignified time).

The drink was lovely, let's have one more. Oh look, people I know, let's talk to them. Oh, but they're being boring, so let's rudely move away mid- conversation, and go join another group. They're even more boring, why are they talking about this, why do I want to hear about this, maybe we should go back to previous group, oh no, wait, there's a friend I haven't spoken to in twenty minutes, let's go over and say hello. (I have more than one voice in my head usually, I'm sure most of us do).

Oh look, here is a Frenchman I've only met once who is extremely good looking and rude, let's be rude in return to show that we don't think he's good looking. Okay, done being rude, let's go get another drink. Oh look, there's another friend. Tra la la la la.

[Insert dancing which I don't remember].

[Insert leaving party which I don't remember].

[Insert climbing into Varun's car which I do remember, albeit vaguely].

The next thing I remember is that the car was moving, and I hadn't closed the door properly, but I didn't have time to shout, or maybe I did, and I was desperately scrabbling around trying to get a hold of something, but I missed, and the door swung open, and I fell out. I remember wrapping my arms tightly around my head as I fell - hah! I do have some sort of half baked survival instinct then - and I hit the ground.

I remember lying there, thinking this was the end. I think that's where the vodka comes in. I know there were people around me, but I couldn't open my eyes. My consciousness had tucked itself into a warm, dark corner of my mind, and it just wanted to be left there. I felt a friend shaking me frantically, and I wanted to respond but I couldn't. It was all very strange and traumatising.

And then I heard the word hospital, and I was just like, NO. No way was I going to be taken to hospital, a recorded statistic of irresponsible drinking. So I sat up, and I suppose I got back into the car, and then I came home. My mother yelled at me and put me to bed.

Later in the morning - Merry Christmas! - I went to get a tetanus shot, and to get my knee dressed. All the skin of my knee had come off. It really wasn't a big deal at first, and I came home to a whole lot of undeserved Christmas presents, and a peaceful day, spent the way Christmas should be spent.

But since then, I have visited a doctor, and been informed that I should get plastic surgery on my knee, and I am supposed to be leaving for Delhi on the 3rd to start a new job, and basically, all hell has broken loose.

None of this was as bad as the phone calls and e-mails I had to send off the morning after the party, to all the people I'd apparently been rude to, traumatised, and otherwise inconvenienced.

I strongly believe in making the best of bad situations though, of emerging from a pile of poop smelling of roses. So I am trying to tuck away the embarrassment, the humiliation (there is nothing I can do about the pain which, I assure you, is AGONY), and instead, use this incident to emerge a better person.

The obvious answer to that is to never let it happen again.

More importantly, I think, if faced with a similar situation, to ensure that it is tackled with a bit more dignity. Up to this point, I hadn't made a resolution for 2013, but 2012 cackled and was all, "think you've gotten through me with no need for improvement, next year? Ha ha, let me change that, just a bit."

Courage, someone once said, is grace under pressure. I don't know whether I would call that courage, but to be graceful under pressure, and also not to aid said pressure with Absolut, is what I will strive for this coming year.

The Annual Recap

1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?

- The big ones: graduated college, had a proper job, earned paycheck, studied an online course on the side, saw Death staring me in the face and triumphed. Yes, I did. 
- The little ones: drove an auto, flew a kite, baked edible cookies, learned how to do many push ups in a row, went skinny dipping in the ocean, started driving, got chased by a cow, etc. 

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

My new year's resolution was to do something new every week. I didn't manage doing that every week, but I made a valiant attempt to. No resolutions for next year yet. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?

Indonesia, and since I visited Hong Kong and crossed over to Kowloon, I suppose I can count China. 

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

A little epiphany on future career paths would be nice, but...(see point 8)

7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

June: I graduated college, left Delhi, aaaaand, well, it was memorable for other reasons as well.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

It's not an achievement yet, but probably giving up on epiphanies. 

9. What was your biggest failure?

Sat around on my ass too much. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope. 

11. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

My uncle Pud. 

12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

No one comes to mind. 

13. Where did most of your money go?

On Saturday nights out. 

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

Haha. I can't say. Too embarrassing. 

15. What song will always remind you of 2012?

Probably anything by Katie Melua.

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

Technically, I am depressed and confused at the moment, but honestly honestly honestly, deep deep down, in the pit of my stomach, back of my mind, SO MUCH HAPPIER. 

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

Nothing, really. 

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

Less flirting. Actually, no. That's a lie. 

19. How will you be spending Christmas?

With friends and family. 

20. Did you fall in love in 2012?

I didn't fall in love this year. 

21. How many one night stands?

None. 

22. What was your favourite TV programme?

The Misfits, The Big Bang Theory. 

23. What was the best book you read?

Er, probably Eric Ives' biography on Anne Boleyn. It sounds lame even to me. 

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Mmm. Can't think of anything offhand. 

25. What did you want and get?

 I can't say. But something really important and wonderful and I thought I never ever would, but I did. So HAHAHA.

26. What did you want and not get?

A fixed plan for next year. 

27. What was your favourite film of this year?

Don't know. 

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

I turned 21 and had a big party and the neighbours complained. 

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

A lot of things, but I think I had quite a lot to be grateful for. 

30. What kept you sane?

My mother for the first half of the year, Akshay for the last half (after she went nuts with the perimenopause), and Mawii, throughout. 

31. Who was the worst new person you met?

I can't say in case that person finds my blog. He probably won't, but just in case. 

32. Who was the best new person you met?

I met a lot of people, but no one special comes to mind. 

33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learnt in 2012.

No. 

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

No. 

Exploring Chatroulette.

I'm a novice when it comes to internet porn, internet sex, internet pleasuring yourself, whatever. I've never even watched porn, not really. When I was ten, my friend Jahnavi and I accidentally found ourselves on a porn site (or maybe not accidentally, I'm not sure), and then we clicked something, and pictures of naked people started popping up everywhere, and then my father walked in on us, and that was pretty much my first and only experience with porn.

No, that's not completely true. I have friends who watch it, and I've seen bits and pieces, but I've never managed sitting through more than a few seconds, because quite frankly, I think porn makes sex look unappetising, which it obviously is not.

Even less have I understood the concept of virtual sex. You go to a chat room, and you type that you're taking your clothes off and you're feeling hot and your fingers are exploring but I find it difficult to buy into that concept. I always get the feeling that at least one person is just sitting around in pyjamas eating a tub of ice cream. Also, I don't think I'm capable of doing naked things in front of a webcam either.

Anyway, the other day I heard about this site called Chatroulette. You go to it, and if you have a webcam you start conversations with strangers. If the conversation is not going as hoped, you click a button saying Next, and you are connected with another person.

Here are a couple of screen shots. In the first photograph, Chatroulette is finding me a partner. In the second, you can see the guy it connected me with. I didn't talk to him because he clicked the next button three seconds later (just for the record, my webcam wasn't even on), but as you can see he is on the phone, and I heard him say the words 'hemorrhoid cream' into it, so maybe it was all for the best. Anyway, as soon we got disconnected, Chatroulette moved me to another partner, but I shut it down, because if you haven't understood how it works by now, there is no point reading further.

Anyway, a couple of nights ago, I was really bored, and I went to Chatroulette to see what it was like. Also, I really felt like writing a blog post but I couldn't think of anything to write about, so I decided, for once in my life to be proactive, and to research something and then write about it which is what I'm doing now.  

What I wanted to do was to find out why people used Chatroulette. People from all over the world use it - in a matter of moments I met (for want of a better word) people - men and women, girls and boys - from Germany, the Netherlands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, India, and France. I didn't talk to most of these people, just kept clicking next, but what struck me was that nearly all of them were young, and not unattractive either. What I really wanted to do was to strike up a conversation with a couple of people and find out exactly why they used it. The experiment was not a success.

Case A:

Man 1: hey

Me: Hi! 

Man 1: wanna take your shirt off?

Me: Actually, I'm on this site for research.

Man 1: lol

Me: Yes, I know. Lol. I'm trying to find out why people use this site to interact with complete strangers instead of, I don't know, going out and meeting people at a social gatherings. Why do you use this site?

Man 1: wanna see my dick?

I clicked Next. 

Case B:

Girls 1 and 2: *waved*

Me: *waved back*

Me: Hey, quick question...

They clicked Next. 

Case C:

Man 2: *saw my face and obviously clicked next*

Case D:

Boy: hey

Me: Hi!

Boy 1: how old are you? 

Me: How old are you?

Boy: 16... ;)

Me: Welllll, that's too young for me, but I'm really not on this site to socialise. I'm trying to research why people use it  to interact with other people.

Boy 1: c'mon..how old are you?

Me: WHY DO YOU USE THIS SITE?

Boy: to meet hot women.

Me: You're sixteen, right?

Boy: yeah... ;)

Me: Don't you find it a little pathetic that at the age of sixteen you are sitting around on sites like Chatroulette trying to pick up strange women whom you can show your private parts to? 

Boy: well...

Me: Why don't you get out? Go meet a nice girl your age at a park or something. Go meet someone in a bar using a fake id. All that stuff is better than this.

Boy: you're right...

Me: Really? I'm getting through to you.

Boy: tell you what...i swear i'll delete this account as soon as we're done talking...

Me: !!! :) 

Boy: just show me your tits first. 

I clicked Next. 

Case E

Man 2: hey

Me: Please don't tell me to take my clothes off. Please listen to me. 

Man 2: ok

Me: I'm trying to research what satisfaction people get from using this site and sites like this. I've met a lot of people tonight and no one seemed like they were hideous or suffering from Asperger's, and I can't understand why they don't want to meet real people. Can you help me? Why are you on this?

Man 2: lol...I'm married. 

Me: Um.

Man 2: someone told me about this site and i'm checking it out for the first time because i was curious. 

[LIAR!]

After that, I gave up. I had no energy left to find out why thousands of people the world over use Chatroulette. I will say this in its defence though: I may have gotten no sexual satisfaction that night, but I did get quite a lot of entertainment. 

Why do we like art?

"I'm interested in art," is a vague sentence, and not a particularly intelligent one, but I know no other way to put it. To me, it is incredible that you can look at a painting, and it may mean absolutely nothing to you, you may not know anything about its history, or its composition, or even why you like it, but none of that matters - that does not stop you from being unable to tear your gaze from it, from being incredibly moved by it, from feeling it in a way that words themselves cannot be felt.

And paintings can bring up so many feelings. I've seen paintings that make me feel safe, that make me feel  I belong to them. I could be thrust right into the middle of the colour and the movement, and I could curl up in a corner, and nestle myself against a pigment of paint, and find peace. I've seen paintings that have disturbed me, and scared me, and yet, I could not move away. They could root me to the spot, and I would not know why, and that is part of the fascination, because I think when you are confronted with something that shakes you to your core, and you don't know why, it makes you ask questions that you would rarely allow yourself to ask. I've seen paintings that I've just enjoyed looking at because they are so goddamn pretty, even though you're not supposed to say that, and I've seen paintings dripping with history that tell the stories of people long dead, long forgotten, reaching out to you, even as you step forward, through the frame and through the canvas, allowing their story to become a part of your own.

Today, modern art is often about installations, but I have not yet learnt to appreciate them. I don't like installations because they are not permanent, they are not intended to be permanent, and one of the things I find comforting about art, and about books, is the permanence they offer in a world where everything is constantly changing. They outlive their creator, and so, something created by man, becomes greater than man, and - most fascinating of all - turns into something man can never completely understand, and can never wholly grasp.

I'm working in an art gallery at the moment, and this is a question that has often been thrown at me. It is a question only the most honest of my friends ask me, because it's one that you're not supposed to really ask: what is the big deal about art?

In the world I've been exposed to, inside the gallery, not the one I've been brought up in, the honest answer is that art is a business, like everything else. A lot of people buy art because they see it as an investment, or because it cements a certain position they have reached in society, whether financial or intellectual.

But, if you shove those issues aside for a moment, if you shove most of that world aside, as well as the people that belong to it, you might find something else. There is a book by Tracy Chevalier, it is called Girl with a Pearl Earring. In that book, the painter Vermeer tells the servant girl Griet, to look at the clouds outside the window, and then he asks her what colour they are.

"White," replies Griet.

The painter tells her to look again, and a little confused, she does. And then, as she looks, perhaps with a furrowed brow, she begins to see that the clouds are not white at all, but yellow and purple and pink and even green, and they all come together, to form a perfect pearl coloured cloud.

This is what that something else is, this is what lies at the heart of a world that has turned into an industry, and this is why, for all the people who buy art because it is a symbol of money or intelligence or social position, there are many who buy a painting because they like to look at it, because it gives them pleasure, because they find beauty in it and they like beautiful things, and there are even a few, who like art, not all art, but some art, because it takes them to a place that cannot be found anywhere else on earth, a place that is close to divine, despite being created by stained human hands.