Cat on a hot tin roof

Final station

2011-11-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Her happiness was infectious.
She was smiling with her whole body. Her eyes could hardly contain it.
It was beautiful.
She is in love. It's taken its time with her. I've seen the disappointments, the heartbreaks. I've held her hand through hers. She through mine.
Today, she didn't need any hand holding.
She has found him, she says.
After years of being alone, of being lied to, cheated on, of having chased love that had never wanted to be caught, of so many mistakes... she has found him.
When it's right, she says, smiling, it's easy. It's so easy, she is scared.
I wonder at what our decisions, our emotions do to us, our lives do to us. She is scared that there are no problems with this one.
It's too good to be true, she says. She is afraid, what is the catch.
We feel right, she says, then smiles as her bb beeps. I watch her smile widen. It is him.
For the first time, she says, we are on the same page. She is not chasing, doubting. She isn't sitting and wondering where he is, why hasn't he msged, he doesn't make her wait, she says, like she has had to do with all the others. She smiles. He feels the same way for her. She is complete.
I touch wood during the whole conversation. No chances, i smile.

You scratch my back...

2011-11-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

Expectation doesn't exist in a vacuum. We only expect more of the things we already have received.

Things I miss

2011-10-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Things I miss:

Idealistic debates as opposed to cynical rants.

The wild child within. For the most part, she's been tamed.

Seinfeld reruns.

Not having to colour my hair.

Picking up the phone to call Sups and Prach and then actually leaving to pick them up from home.

Spontaneous plans.

Not having to hide my relationships.

The rains. I know, they just left.

Not lying.

Being able to take charge and not think about what who's going to think.

Being able to take charge. Period.

My father's advice. Precious precious.

Freedom. In every sense of the word.

Being surrounded by positive, real people.

Making mistakes and not feeling this is probably my last chance.

The luxury of time.

Not worrying about my biological clock

Going for weddings and not steeling myself for 'that' question.

This girl: "Against all odds, against all logic, I believe".

Being able to write on demand.

Being able to write. Period :)

Unread Harry Potter books.

Standing at the corner of the road and talking for hours with friends, just because there wasn't enough time to come up.

Morning walks on the beach.

To be continued

Room with a view

2011-10-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I went to M (sis-in-law)’s room for a nap.

For those who aren’t familiar with the layout of my house… there’s a living room, kitchen, my bedroom, mum’s bedroom, and then, an extension area that used to be a neighbour’s house and is now M and V’s section: two bedrooms.

I lay down on the bed, not straight, sleeping on the edge of the mattress, trying not to move anything, feeling like a stranger in a foreign house. And then, I remembered something with a start.

This used to be my father’s room. Before it became M and V’s. Before they got married. Before he died.

My parents’ room. I remember them sleeping here, I remember the mattress on the ground on which they slept. I remember that it was in this room, on that mattress one night that I had said haltingly to my suitably surprised father that after 5 years of studying Commerce, I wanted to be a journalist and study at Xavier’s.

I remember one night, walking into this room, late, scared, awakened from a nightmare, needing comfort, and seeing my parents sleeping peacefully in each other’s arms, how delight had bolted through me, never having seen this side of them before, how I stood there feeling like a light had been switched on inside me for a few seconds and carefully tiptoeing back to my room, nightmares driven away by sheer joy.

I went a little further back. Before it became my parents’ room, and after it was our neighbour’s living room, for a brief period, this was no man’s land. When carpenters had avalanched on our home. At that point, this room served as a makeshift apartment for ALL four of us. I remember the four of us living in this room for around 5 months when the rest of the house was being done. This room served as our kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom. I remember that the laughter never really stopped for those 5 months. I remember Vaibhav and I being closer than ever, lying side by side and falling asleep, when he came to visit from Ahmedabad where he worked for a bit.

I remember happiness in this room. I remember my father in this room.

I went still further back. When this room was not ours. When it was Aunty’s (that is what she was unanimously called, by everyone) living room. I could see her: short, slightly wide at the belly, beautiful face, towel wrapped around her hair in typical South Indian style going around the room with an agarbati, the nose ring glinting when she moved, her smile as she saw my small grinning form on her couch. I could see her watching those afternoon cooking shows with me, grimacing every time Sanjeev Kapoor put in a dead animal in a delicious looking curry. I could see her laughing with mum, I think my mum’s only real friend, bickering over the amount of butter that she should add in her delicious, and extremely famous dosas, her loud, loud, loud voice carrying all the way to our house, down the building, and exploding into the street. I could see her stroking my head, as I lay down on her couch, head in her lap, as she talked loudly about the heat, the cold, the maids, the traffic, punctuating her rants with a loving Sejaaaaaa. I could see her running to the phone near the door, in happy anticipation that it would be one of her two sons, and then the consequent ‘seri, seri’ (yes, yes) that followed in the conversation. I could see her talking to ma talking for hours, Ma talking in Gujarati and Aunty bull-dozing ahead in Hindi, not worrying about how little they actually understood, but just enjoying each other’s company. I could see her sons and her daughter, me and Vaibhav huddled around the table while Parshu dissected a frog he had caught for a Biology practical. I could see the Ganpati festival days… hours and hours of sitting with thermocol and creating decorations out of nothing and the evening aarti, arguably the most well-attended on the street because of Aunty’s insane popularity. And we were the ones who got to live next to her. We were territorial of her and took immense pride in the fact that she liked us best. I could see Uncle’s body, lifeless, covered in a white sheet in this room.

I am overwhelmed at how much my relationship with this room has changed over the years.

This room has seen a lot. It has been a lot more.

Here and there

2011-09-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

Today, everything has been a little bit better, and a little bit worse.

Today, I have laughed more than I have laughed in a while, and I have been pensive, more than I have had reason to be.

Today, something ran free inside me while another part of me sank further into a dark, safe corner.

Today I was more honest than I have been in a while, while on some level, I lied through my teeth.

Today I felt good about who I was, and at the same time, a sense of self-loathing coursed through me.

Today, I felt beautiful… and at the same time, I felt a thousand years old.

Yeah, today, everything has been a little bit better, and a little bit worse.

The incredible lightness of The Morning After

2011-09-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

It's the morning after Issue-Closing.
3 days and nights of non-stop, and by non-stop, I mean in a didn't-have-time-to-pee-for-so-long-that-I-forgot-about-it sort of way.
3 nights of coming home at 2am, falling into bed, and into an uneasy, restless sleep, trying to drown out the noise in a mind that's already making page counts for the next morning, and remembering commas missed, boxes numbered...

So, today, it's the morning after.
I am sitting at the window of my living room, laptop in lap, looking outside at the relentless, beautiful, euphoric rainfall, at the green mini-forest my mother's plants make at the ledge, and then unfortunately at a horrible, ugly building obstructing any further view, ugly or otherwise.

My mind is uncharacteristically restful, not empty of thoughts but not really acknowledging any thoughts... like a car in neutral gear... it's on, it's at work, but it's not really at work.

Comatose. Sigh.

I don't live from day to day.
I live from issue to issue.

Life becomes a 15-day cycle (the cycle changes depending on whether the mental asylum [read magazine office] you're working on puts out a weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and so on). Any plans, any at all, dinners, movies, parties, dates, revolve around the one great event of the month: Issue Closing. Happens for me around the 14/ 15 of each month. A whole new meaning to 'that time of the month'.

When you work for a magazine for a while, severe and almost permanent disorientation sets in. At any given point, I am hopelessly in the wrong month. I've just closed my October issue, so in my head, I am already preparing for November... any questions about birthdays, plans for trips, etc always start and end rather embarrassingly:
Me: Of course, you should have your anniv dinner party outdoors. It'll be nice and cold...
Baffled person: In September? In the rain?
Me: Ah. Hmm.

And so on.

Every issue, around a week from Issue Closing, all the status messages of my various networking sites start to scream sad, dreadful, ominous. 'ULTI' in all caps, is my favourite status message. SO much so, when I didn't put it up for a few issues, people started demand for it to be put up. It became a buzz word. "It's ULTI time of the month" or "Not coming for movie? Oh is it ULTI time?" Quite powerful, this social networking thing.

But the truth is, though I hate the process of it, I love the high it gives me when we send the magazine, kicking and screaming, to press. I may crib and whine and cry foul every time it comes around, but we're on autopilot that time. The office is in a state of hysteria, ideas are yelled and crushed, abuses are hurled at almost all inanimate objects, especially printers, computers, etc (Print. PRINT you dinosaur piece of S***. Of course OPEN, I SAID OPEN. don't hang, don't you DARE HANG ON ME, YOU #@%%#$#). Fun times. We're a creative, loud, opinionated group, with a crazy, insane sense of humour. Our funnest, falling-down-from-laughing-so-hard memories have been products of Issue-Closing.

Of course, in hindsight, everything seems pretty.
It's not. It's probably the incredible lightness of the morning after that's talking.
Issue-Closing is a bitch. :)

It's been two years now at LP. I live in hope that at some point, the issue will learn to close itself.