Thursday, September 20, 2012

not everyone can be a v-buddy

Yes, it has been a long time and maybe the blogging spirit is anything but there. But I have been busy and not of my own accord. Its a kind of forced busy you know. When you have to wake up, have to eat, have to go work, have to be friendly. shit.
I did not realise but I have started to enjoy going all quiet. The recluse in me has finally made an appearance. I thought I would always remain one of those annoyingly happy and lucky people with no brooding to me. Well, ofcourse I brood, but now my stocks have gone public. I was told at work, 'you are a really keep-to-yourself person, arent you?'i heard myself laughing and then some more.

No really, I dont know if its age or if the city people dont amuse me enough, but I am this close to being good by myself. i like a few people and umm, they dont even live here around me. and ofcourse, there's him, the filter to my rants. he listens, puts an arm around me, nods in agreement and I am comfortable, yet again. i do feel i should be there for him too, but later on that.

that brings me to the point i have been wondering about. i dont make a good vacation buddy to most people. let me word that correctly. not everyone i have been on vacation with is a good vacation buddy. there are comfort zones and pissd zones and i could write ten posts on the times i was in the latter zone.

the recent trip to udaipur was a wake up call of sorts. not only do i hate 3 opinions on one small thing, i also hate couples. especially, the pda doing, oblivious to others, hating to sight-see couples. why would a person go to a resort in a different city and drink and make merry in the swimming pool and only that? what happened to good old sight seeing? palaces, lakes, why you no likey?

and whats with the i-wrap-my-arms-around-my-love whenever, wherever? i also love this person, and vice versa (i hope) but there's stuff to see, its a group thingy, and it gives me a happy, excited buzz around the ears. why doesnt that apply to these lovesick puppies?

and i understand resorts are rich, luxurious things and one must dive into its plushness but umm, get a room in your own city if that is all you like. period.
I am cribbing and that is because i had to deal with all of that in the typical fake mrinu smiling manner. even say stuff like 'arre nahi nahi, its cool with me' when it bloody well wasnt so. the trouble is, even my fake jig is taken to be the real thing.

that reminds me of yet another amazing trip. that was sort of spoiled by a person who couldnt control her moods. from happy friendship day, it was down to blazing ignorance in 2 minutes. and all you know was that you were talking away to glory, not knowing what hurt the moody grinch when.

another friend decided to sleep the whole day because last evening's trek was tiring. i mean hello, we are here for 2 days, and you decide to sleep for 1? i dont mind weird assery, i just mind wasting my time trying to do my thing past it.

i have had great vacations too, and the people who made it worthwhile can hear me right now. and once again, i am glad you guys are there, cos these people above suck. they are friends, but not vacation buddies. harsh truth, swallow the pill i say.

ok, on to drudgery then.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

wasseypuri maza

dear bihar,
thank you for letting kashyap think this clearly and amazingly well.
fab really.

frustiyaao nahi moora, nervousaao nahi moora,
anytime moodwa ko, anytime moodwa ko, upsetaao nahi moora
:)
ps-too much madira speaking. and madness. hic.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

the way things came to be..

Dear ex-boyfriend,
Wanted to inform you that the last of our friends have decided to tie the knot. With M and G coming together, the group is now complete.

Ofcourse, the journey was full of surprises. I mean, C ended up not marrying anyone from the group, though he dated almost all the girls in it. Its funny how he almost was on the verge of desperation in the last party we attended together. He said, “Ab bas shaadi karni hai yaar, ab akele maza nahi aata.” Having said that, he chose someone who well, never mind. Lets just say its hardly a love marriage.

R dated the weird girl of CR Park for a while. Then he found someone better at work. But she was a non-Bong and typically, got married off before the Bong guy could commit. Now, he has found through common friends and facebook, what you call a catch. A junior of mine, I quite like her. And she is pretty.

Coming to M and G, you know how they came together; from dating different people within the group to finding each other. They both look the part of an alpha couple and I like the combined nature of the two, especially when we all get drunk. G will always be special for he is the only one I could lock horns with. Having reunited over Old Monk behind IIFT last year, we have found our place under the sun again. And I am very happy for the two.

All this is very surprising, no? I mean, five years back, in 2007, the scene was very different. And who of all people knew you and I would be this way? We both seemed ‘set for life’. I was told ‘is bande se zyada pagal koi nahi hoga’ and you were told ‘tu toh set ho gaya bhai’ by these friends of ours. Little did we know. We would give a hoot to the world and roam around free spiritedly on a Bullet, eat cheesecakes and watch every movie in town. We even discussed kid names, didn’t we? Funny how that didn’t turn up well. You had even got internet by the end. It really got important later on, you know.

That said, I don’t mind that older woman of yours, and you surely shouldn’t mind the epic one I decided to keep. It’s a pity I realized I could be the committed sorts, just not with you. But you are special. And on a day like this, when M and G are sharing laddoos and posting pictures on facebook with their respective mothers, I cant help but think of you. We both could have been there, clapping in glee for them. And maybe some more.

It’s a happy day. Lets soak ourselves in nostalgia and walk about misty eyed, shall we?

love, always.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

driftwood.

of all the friends one has and lost, the ones that hurt the most are the ones that drift apart. staying friends is good, fighting and getting over them is also exciting (for the moment), but drifting apart is a handicap that weighs you down.

why dont we see things in the same light anymore? why did we stop calling each other? why did we not make the effort to call up and hear the daily crap he or she was dishing out when we had the chance? yes, i have been there and more often than not, have been the drifter while the other, the driftee.

The drifter is a strangely egotistical rascal who enjoys the supreme knowledge that he or she is loved and needed in the driftee's life. She expects to be called on a daily basis, given updates to and to be remembered right at the beginning of sharing great news, be it a job or having a boyfriend. The drifter knows she is indispensable in her own way and 'assumes' that there isnt much work to be done on her part. and it does work mostly. till sometime later in life.

The driftee begins to feel unequal, has a sudden sense of comparison with the drifter's other friends and eventually, goes round and round in his or her head to figure out what happens next. more often than not, they deduce and link it to self worth and slowly curl up in personal hell of silence. The drifter doesnt get the 'drift' of whats happening and soon, the calls are lesser, the visits are zero and the friendship is...ummm what friendship?

While the process is very convoluted and is based on a lot of misinterpretations on both sides, the result is always the same. people drift apart. the friend who once called you up at 2am in the night to share their parents' divorce in a choked voice now simply goes wassup on your gtalk. what is worse, you suddenly realise it years later and wish something bad happened to them so they would speak to you, a little more non-virtually, that is. sheesh.

working this out wasnt so difficult, doing anything about it anymore, is.



Sunday, April 15, 2012

what happens.

Hey, saw your facebook status update. Are you guys fighting again?
This time its for real.
Well, the updates seem more serious than all the last times put together. But cmon, you guys are breaking up on facebook all the time.
This one is of the serious kind. We really have ended things.
But what does that even mean with you two? I don’t get it anymore.
Ya, neither do we.
I didn’t mean that. I meant, what is it about your love that’s so complicated?
I guess it never was love. Just a lot of obsession about each other.
Hahaha. Sure seemed like that. But then you kept getting back together. One wonders.
No more. He calls it a mistake, I call it a weeping heart.
Ouch. That hurts. On your part.
Who is to say which hurts more?
Ok, you need to relax. Tomorrow morning, your statuses will be back to mushy crap.
I like your optimism but there is no possible way that’s going to happen.
But what happened?
What always happens. We woke up.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

a life without a ...

I am not the one about the long silences, no. I am the mindless yet entertaining chatter. I am the fall back guy when the silent one needs to fill the space. So my absence was barely being busy at other fronts.

As life has been at what it does best, i.e being unpredictable. I have been rendered jobless. OK that sounds horrible. I have quit after 6 months of ego fighting (read: sword) with my evil Bengali boss. Irony, aint it? So what came as an impulsive decision has turned out to be an albatross on my neck. I know a few people who might be doing the 'I told you so' dance right about now, but well, I am only human and follies are my forte.

December was fun with a trip to Turkey and planning my first ever New year party for friends at my very own place! Yes, my own frikkin awesome flat. It is a happpy feeling when you have lived and paid rent for almost, ummm, forever.. So yeah!

January was a month in which I got down to updating my resume, mailing people, putting my ego aside and following up on whether people received my resume (which ofcourse they did!) and calling up the very same people yet again. I would never hire me if I was the 'people' I mentioned above. Also, was introduced to a new festival, Uttarayan. In Gujarat, they fly kites like nobody's business. I got into it pretty fast, much to his amazement. I guess he should've predicted it, what with my love for sports of all kinds.

While the festival and the wait to get a response from the 'people' kept me happily ignorant of a whole month passing without a job, February brought with it a promise of going and staying with Ma and Baba for a while. I hogged on bengali food, on mutton, chicken, fish and dry fish (yes, we dont leave any kind of fish) and watched theater and movies and sat on a big field with a beer bottle in my hand and a cousin who has started to look very similar to the 21 year old me, the beer guzzling and the dont-care attitude towards authority and public parks included.

Cometh March and just like old times, the exam fear has gripped me. Only that it isnt about exams anymore. Onto my third month of unemployment, I sometimes wonder about life beyond. If I even want to work anymore. Ideally, I should just start writing that book I have always wanted to. But, being a middle class, intelligent and independent woman (we are a type, I swear am not gloating) I must work, preferably in the best place in this city. And thus, neither do creative juices for the book flow, nor does the phone ring.

If I was racist about small towns before, you shouldnt start a debate about it with me now. My loathing towards anything that isnt Delhi has increased by leaps and bounds and I have my ways of keeping it normal. I watch sitcoms.

Yes, I watch endless sitcoms and love the fact that every dysfunctional character in every show can make me laugh. By that logic, I can make myself laugh at me too. And that keeps the peace.

I will be heard more often from now on, pinky swear!

Monday, February 6, 2012

windy waffle love-2

She asked for a waffle with chocolate sauce and cream, and he said he wouldn’t like fruits on it. She knew he enjoyed eating bananas so she ordered for some banana slices on the now divine waffle. When she was given the piece of heaven, she fed him a spoon to which he refused saying he hated bananas during the night and she put it without thinking about him. Well. Here she was, sacrificing on kiwis and strawberries and choosing bananas just because he liked them and this is what she got. That was just too bad.

The argument got bitter and accusations were thrown which would look hilarious on a good day. Making jokes on how he ate bananas in fixed hours of the day and hated them on others got out of hand and the date was abruptly over. From fruits, they moved on to the nagging issues of life like place, culture etc and there was no way of redeeming the date thereafter. They both decided to walk instead of taking a cab just to release the pressure. Without acknowledging each other’s presence, they kept walking. Soon, she got tired and took a cab and asked him to get in, to which he behaved like a child and said, ‘You called it. You get in.’ she was pissed and asked the cabbie to go ahead. Once at Kabatas, the tram station, she missed him dearly. For the next twenty minutes, he was nowhere to be seen and the tram station fellow kept coming to her and asking her which tram was she waiting for. It was close to 12 and tears were stinging her eyes. A cab stopped in front of her and an Indian boy came out of it, took one look at her and asked her if she wanted to be dropped somewhere. She refused and turned the other way.

The tram guy closed the system and told her the last ride was over and said a sympathetic bye to her. Suddenly, from afar, she saw him walking towards her, looking tired and completely put out. Rushing to him, she asked if he had walked all the way. He nodded, called a cab and they got in. she cried silently while he looked the other way, asking the cabbie for extra bills. Once inside the hotel, she saw the same Indian guy from that night, who had one look at both their faces, and gave her a sympathetic smile. Forget sympathy, she could do with some vodka right now. Inside the room, the travel and the heart ache gave way to sleep soon enough.

Early morning, she woke up, way calmer than the previous night. He had already left for his meetings, so she went to the washroom, sat on the pot, and started to think. How could they manage a fight in the most beautiful city in the world? How could they not keep their short tempers in check for one little exotic week? How is it love if they cant trust each other and do things that hurt, simply on an impulse? And most importantly, how were they supposed to get past this and enjoy two more days of the vacation? She turned her head towards the wash basin and was caught by surprise. There was a cardboard sheet, torn from the box of khaakras she had got from home. The sheet had a pen drawing of a round face with hair and 3 tears each coming from both his eyes. It said SORRY underneath that. It was hard to believe and too cute to not melt. Clutching it close to her heart, she laughed and then cried at the madness of it all.

He had woken up, felt bad and had taken the pains to tear a piece out of a box to make that hideous drawing and write what he couldn’t manage to say the entire night. There are certain things about love, the most important one being that it isn’t extraordinary. It is simple, right there in front of you. In little things, it can trigger. You don’t have to be a talker, you can be the shy kinds and still have your place under the sun. a vacation doesn’t have to be perfect, it can find perfection in your fights and then, in your Sorrys’. There is no sure shot way to tell what keeps you happy. A banana slice in your waffle can spoil your evening and a little boy cartoon saying sorry can make things alrite again. It is that ordinarily extraordinary. Believe you me.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

windy waffle love-1

It was yet another super windy day at Istanbul. But that had not deterred her from exploring and loving. Being more sensitive to cold than most people she knew, she struggled with the cold winds that thrashed the only part they could get, the face. Nonetheless, she braved it the whole day and had a dekko at the famous Topkapi palace, the best archaeology museum in the world and the creepy Basilica cistern, and by this time, it was raining too. Coming to Istanbul on a December week would not be great travel advice, but seeing the city when no one else has a beauty of its own.

Tired from the excursion, she warmed her feet by the heater and watched some more random language music on Viva TV and waited for him to get back. Tonight’s plan was to head to Ortakoy, a north western pretty village which boasts of a lovely pier. He came back and together they took the tram to Kabatas and then a bus to Ortakoy.

The village was scenic to say the least. Walking, not hand in hand but laughing and talking about the simplest things in life, the two lovers enjoyed each second of the windy night. She squealed at the sight of Gloria Jeans’ coffee shop but had a hookah from the local shop instead. He fell in love with the sea side coffee shop and pledged to come back, no matter how full he was after dinner.

A heady meal later, they walked towards the sea side coffee parlour but now they weren’t very sure about that last cup of tea. Maybe they couldn’t have it after all that food they had. His heart won over his head finally and they did sit right next to the splashing waves and had a typically strong Turkish cup of tea in the surreal coffee shop. She was ecstatic because yet another cat of the city had warmed and cosied up to her, much to the frustration of the burqa clad women and their men right behind their table who had tried to win its affection for a while now. There was a Jack Black look alike who preferred to stare at her rather than in his coffee cup. They made jokes in hindi and tons of photos and crazy winds later, she decided to go to the lane that was selling her favourite, waffles.

That was the beginning of the typical end to a happy date between these two.