What was I thinking

8 posts in 20 days. That is what I call hopeless stats. Epic fail!

This is how it all started. I woke up one day to realise that I had had no “me” space in a long long time. I had completely lost touch with so many things that I enjoyed doing. Like this blog for instance, was lying in a corner with absolutely no attention from me. I hadn’t clicked a picture in a very long time. I even had no clue when the subscription on my Flickr pro account ran out. I logged in one day and found out it had expired. It made me very sad. I wanted to do something about it. This putting up a post a day was an effort to reclaim something of what I felt I had lost. The few posts that I put up made me feel nice. Just when I was beginning to feel like I could finally write something again and make some sense of it, I lost the flow.

I tried to do too much at the same time. I was trying to regain my virtual life when my physical life it self was non-existant. Last couple of weeks have been very demanding both physically and emotionally. I have woken up almost everyday wishing I could go back to sleep for another few hours when I know I have to drag my feet and get going. Weekends haven’t exactly been very rejuvanating either. I have been staring at my computer screen so much that I even stopped lurking on Twitter over weekends. With what little enthusiasm I have left during weeknights and weekends, I have hung out with the husband and some friends and tried cooking something tad more interesting than my unexciting everyday cooking.

I now I have new found respect for working mothers. My mother used to wake up every morning, pack 4 dabbas, send 2 kids to school, pack off a husband to work and then leave to work. She always had the energy and time for everything we wanted. In fact, she even had time to do her own thing! One big difference is the fact that my mom had a job that was strictly 9 to 5 (at least when we were growing up). No one’s job is strictly 9 to 5 anymore. Even my mom’s job stopped being that when she decided to go for those promotions she missed out on when we were growing up. There are days when I feel like none of this worth it. Today is just one of them.

One missed!

After just 3 days of posting, I missed a day. In my defense, I don’t think it counts as one day missed as a bunch of us were in office up all night fighting a deadline. I went to sleep at 5.30 am. So technically my body clock is still stuck at yesterday! So refuse to count this as a slip.

In spite of the racing against time sort of deadline, yesterday was a fun day and this is why

• it was my first ever night out at work!! I thought I was going to dead by the end of it, but surprisingly I was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5 in the morning and could’ve gone on without sleep. I totally surprised myself.
• Dal Kichchdi is my latest comfort food!  Its best eaten pipping hot with ghee and pappad. Sabari, a small joint at Santa Cruz makes the best Dal Kichchdi ever. Last night I finished almost an entire portion all by myself. Any more and I would’ve definitely slept off at the table.
• Went home and woke up the husband who was fast asleep to show him the T-Shirt I had bought him from the InkFruit sale at work. They have a really funky T-Shirts. Must check it out if its your kind of style. These are some of my favourites.
• Woke up this morning to find out that the husband had made some yummy Nutella and Peanut butter sandwich for breakfast!

So far, lack of sleep has not been an issue. So I hope to post once more today to make up for the missed day!

New Year Mania!

Its that time of the year again. Lists are being made, lots of reminiscing happening, resolutions are being dusted out and recycled, party plans being finalised and more than anything, renewed optimism about the year to come. I feel strangely detached.

Not that I’ve ever really made ‘New year’ plans. I’ve slept through most of them. Or at the most, woken up to reply to calls and messages at 12 and promptly gone back to sleep. But this year, the biggest bummer is that, I’m going to be working on the 1st. Something about some logistic issues or something equally bizzare that I didn’t bother to even pretend to understand. In spite of not having any party plans (no plans, actually), I feel very let down and cheated.

The peer pressure is getting to me. Just saying things like I’m going sleep through the new year and wake up to work the next morning or I don’t really care about the new year fuss, makes me feel pretty ancient. Maybe my new year resolution should be party more and feel young?

Ah, just forget it, I don’t really care and I’m going to sleep through it, yet again. Or maybe I should just accept the fact that my life is boring and watch Titanic for the umpteenth time. In Tamil, maybe, this time?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The old man

I’m in a mood to ramble. More than ever. 3rd post in a span of 5 hours? Never happened before. I was blog hopping and ended up reading this blog end to end. Some very very cool posts. This particular post reminded me something that happened to me once in Hyderabad.

I was living in Maradpally. As usual, took a cab home at around 8. Its a long drive home from office. So it was about 9ish when I got to Maradpally. I got off at the end of the lane cos I needed to pick up something from the supermarket. Hyderabad is a safe city. I’ve taken an auto back with Roomie at 2 in the morning and fought with the auto-driver over spiked auto meter, loudly at that. Its not something I’d ever dream of doing in Madras. In fact, I don’t think I’ve travelled in an auto past 9pm here. Getting back to the story, the road that led to my house from the supermarket was poorly lit as always. Under the lone streetlight on the narrow road, there was an abandoned TVS 50 and lying next to it was an old man. My first impulse was that there had been an accident. I slowly moved towards the man unsure of what to do really. But as I moved closer, I realised he was mumbling something undecipherable in a language I didn’t recognise. I stood right there for a full minute unsure of my next move. People kept going past us. A few gave me a second glance. More out of curiosity, I guess. Just as I unscrewing the cap of my water bottle to sprinkle some water on his face, another gentleman stopped. He seemed like my grandpa. Same kind eyes and laid back attire of going for a leisure evening walk. He looked at me questioningly and I shrugged saying I don’t know what happened to the old man. He moved closer and the stench of alcohol hit him. He signaled for me to move away and keep walking. ‘He just drunk,’ he said, very casually. I kept standing there cos he wasn’t exactly young and I wasn’t sure how he would lift the drunk man up. I didn’t feel right about leaving him alone.

In all this, the drunk old man woke up and tried to roll over and stand up. In this process, another bottle of alcohol rolled out of his pant pocket sounding wicked as it rolled over on the gravel. Even in his drunken stupor he felt about for his precious bottle and refused to be helped up without it. I still stood rooted to the same spot, in shock. The other gentleman kept signalling for me to leave and gave me an encouraging smile. I walked away, unable to grasp the gravity of what I just saw. People kept walking past, wrapped up in their world, refusing to help a man struggling with a stubborn drunk. Maybe this old man’s world was a small one too, just him and his bottle.

Toilet Chronicles

I have a phobia for public toilets. Not just using them, just even being around them. But you know life, especially mine. There are times when you just do not have a choice and will be forced to pee in the weirdest of public loos. This phenomenon has been haunting me from as early as my school days.

I studied in a school that was run by the Arya Samaj, hence very rooted in ‘culture.’ They were so obsessed with it that we had separate schools for boys and girls in most places. But the more recently started schools like mine had to be co-ed for a very basic simple reason – lack of space. The oldies on the board weren’t deterred by this. They put their creaky minds to work and figured out an ingenious solution. They decided to put boys and girls in class 8 and above in separate classrooms on separate floors. They then figured that we could still like talk to each other while walking from one class to another (rolling eyes). So they decided to go one step further and make two stairways, one for the girls and the other for the boys. Wow! But there was one faux pas. The girl’s toilet was near the boy’s staircase. So the only time the cute boys could be eyed is when you’re waiting in line to pee or when you’re drying your hands on your way out from the loo. Not pretty at all!

Then came college. I studied in a girl’s college. No problems of opposite sex at all there cos the only man in the compound was our super sexy grey haired chowkidar. But the row of toilets close to our block, for those one off urgent occasions, was the only one in the college with a big long mirror. Even if one wasn’t interested in using the mirror, just fighting the mob in front of it to access the toilet was a feat one had to master. My college also treated these loos with a lot of care. They were promptly locked everyday at the end of the day and only opened the next day at 7 in the morning. But I was one of those unfortunate people who reached college at 6 in the morning for almost a year cos of NCC practice. In the unfortunate event of having to use the loo in the morning, the only other option available was the security guards’ loo in the parking lot. For one, its extremely unclean, for another, it’s filled with cigarette butts and weird looking men looking harassed after their night shift. Talk about fate!

In Google, the toilets were extremely posh and the only thing one had to worry about was the gap in the wall between two toilets. It functioned solely on trust. But there’s no stopping anyone who’d want to peep from their toilet into yours or even pulling your leg, literally. But then, they were posh loos! And there were so many of them, that there was always the option of picking the loo which had no one in the adjacent one.

And then my current workplace kinda takes the cake! The office space is definitely not a big architect designed one. But the major faux pas here is the loo again. There’s one door that leads to the loo, both ladeej and gentz. The door opens into a narrow passage which has one door on the right and one at the far end. The door on the right opens into the men’s loo and the door on the far end leads to ladeej loo. There’s nothing more embarrassing or irritating than running into someone in that narrow passage that just about holds two people. Especially with the rains, the doors are all creaking and groaning every time they’re opened. Today, I was stuck in there with another guy who was yanking the door to his loo and I was yanking mine. If there ever was an awkward silence, this is it! I tell you

So much for my happy ending

A good story typically has strong character, a decentish storyline, a few twists, and above all, a happy ending. Its something we’ve been brought up to believe in. Even when the step sisters tortue you or when your step mom tries to kill you or you’re isolated on top of a tower with no door, you perfect ending always finds it way to you. You remember the Cinderalla type stories where the prince is always persistent and comes back to the girl and it all ends with a kiss and the “they live happily ever after” line. You grow up listening to these stories, wide eyed and full of optimism. But in real life, when you meet the frog and kiss him, he doesn’t quite change into a prince. On the contrary, quite a few princes seem to morph into frogs when you open your eyes after the kiss or after the alcohol wears off. Life should ideally be like the ending of Jaane tu yaa jaane naa. You know, where the prince comes riding on a horse, proclaims his love for you to the world and rides away into the sunset with you. Then again, that would be life at its perfect best.

In real life, the big bad wolves seem to outnumber the princes by a very unfair number. Then again, there’s this other kind of story where people cry with you when your life goes kaput and you go through more distress than the heroines of most Tamil mega serials. You know like the Mahabaratha types, people learn lessons from your life, advise others not to make the same mistakes but no one really wants to be you. My bedtimes stories never really featured Mahabaratha’s ending cos you know, its all dark and sad and the kinda story when made into a movie gets critical acclaim. You’re so sheltered from what you’re likely to encouter when you grow up. Its a desperate attempt to protect your innocence. So much for their happy ending stories.

Flying

Flying makes me feel important. As much as I hate long lines, waiting, airports, in-flight food, lost baggage hungama, crying children and take off. I love the way I feel when I fly. When I look down from above, I feel like my existance is more purposeful as compared to those lesser mortals that I see. This silly sense of euphoria originates from the middle class upbringing that had me waving my hand off at any plane that I could barely even spot. Aeroplanes, I believed, were for people who were way too important to take a train. Like it was a sign of raising above humanity. A sign that cordoned off the special people from the normal haggard ones.

During my debut air travel, I did everything that my 12 year old brain could think of to act like I belonged there. With all these people I had been waving to, till then. The people I had strained my neck to catch a glimpse of and admired. It was going to be an important moment in my life. A moment that was going to mark my crossing over to the other side.  When I entered the aircraft, I couldn’t help gaping at my fantasyland, inspite of all rehearsals in my head about acting cool. It was hard to accept that fact that everything was nice and classy. No gr ubby TTRs, no rusty window panes, nothing smelly or old. The cool carpet, the pretty attendants, the chocolates, the free kiddie goodies, even the small little toilet was just the way I thought it would be, impeccable. Then when your stomach stops churning after landing, your luggage even finds its way to you (mostly). To top all of this, when you see someone holding your name on a placard, announcing your glory to the rest of the world, not that any of the people you travel with would even care, the sense of accomplishment is just something else.

Talk about being narcissistic

Mothi

Imaginary friends are cool. They always laugh at your jokes, compliment you on your pretty new frock, never let you feel lonely, show bursting enthusiam for all the games you invent, and display unflinching loyalty even when you behave unreasonably. Not that real friends behave any differently. Imaginary friends are cooler cos, well, they’re just yours and you don’t have to share them.
Mothi is my imaginary friend. She wears a black and white checked frock and white pearl earrings. She’s the one I shared all the games and activities I invented with. Like making pots and plates using red clay found under the tree in the front yard. She was the only one that knew the right amount of water to be mixed with the clay and the exact spot they were left to dry in the scorching heat.
We used to have long conversations about all my classmates and why Raji miss beat me yet again that day and all our worldly worries while making pulpy keerai paste of leaves on the ammi in the backyard. This would then be cooked on our brittle red clay pots. The conversation would continue through the delicious meal. In the night, she would lie down next to me and talk to me and sing songs with me till I slept.
I thought of Mothi today after many many years. She feels just as real as she did when I was 3. What the hell, its 1.30 in the night and I could use some nocturnal company.

Break

I started this blog cos one of my best friends in college had one. Had not the first clue what it was all about. I didn’t quite know what to do with it when i had one myself. 3 years later, this space has given me a lot more than I could’ve ever imagined. Right now, I feel like its time for me to take a break. A month, maybe 2 or 3, i don’t really know. But i’ll definitely be back. So long!

Nirvana

In time, i’ve come to realise that planning doesn’t work. Especially when you’re planning a get away with friends. Saturday afternoon boredom and frustration lead to plans being made at lightning speed. By 5, K and I were on our way to a much sought after, if I may add, high profile resort on the outskirts of the city. Long drive, good music and great company! The day ended beautifully on the beach. I dreamt of waves splashing, sand castles, fishing nets and moonlight in my sleep.
The best was yet to come. After some catalog browsing, the next morning, we narrowed down on a catamaran ride. Other than its oft quoted etymology, i knew little else of what it involved. Have you seen that song with Trisha and super cute Siddarth in AE or the one with Kareena and Vivek? With the image in place in my head, i talked K into it. She can’t swim and neither can I. Isn’t that why people wear life jackets. We decided to do it.
The sand was just warming up but the water was still deliciously cold. But i couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might be like to be in the middle of the ocean. A speck in the vast blue blanket that engulfed my line of sight. Swimming pools somehow never look like that however vast and however blue the floor is. The sun is always partial to the sea. She always shines in her glowing gaze. The beach is romantic at night but the sea looks her best in sunlight.
The catamaran took us about a kilometer and half into the sea. We stood holding a not so thick rope as the motor was switched on and we zoomed our way through. My hair was flying, my glasses threatened to jump into the sea and water was spraying in my eyes. We were moving farther away from the coast. The screaming in my head started. It wasn’t the panic scream though. More like, i can’t get enough of this woo hoo. The blue just got brighter and more seductive. The motor’s roar died down and the guy asked us to jump in! Jump we did not but after a minutes hesitation, we slid off the catamaran. We were in the middle of the sea. Well, not really but far enough to disillusion us. We held on to the same dear rope to keep us bobbing along with the catamaran. And then the madness was unleashed. I’ve never spoken so many disjointed sentences. Just sheer bliss. All I could see was the same blue sheet that loving wooed we a few minutes ago. There was water in my nose, eyes, ears and mouth. But we were laughing nonstop! Singing cheesy songs in the sea, just managing to keep my head above the water is not something i imagined i would do. When the cynicism took over, i made a effort to turn back and make sure the catamaran was still there. Oh and also that the shore still existed. Somewhere in all this madness, laughter, excitement, fun, doubt, fear and bobbing, there was a moment of Nirvana. I felt at peace with myself after a long time.