Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sigh!!.... Its the Quater Life!!!

1985 to 2010!

25 years that have slowly crept by me....perhaps not entirely slowly though..

at times it was draggingly boringly, monotonously slow...at times it excitedly galloped past me, sometimes it set the comfortable pace of the waltz ,sometimes it had an anxious, nervous sprint and at some other times, it simply whizzed past me like super mama of a mean machine!

Suddenly so much seems to have changed in these years...and I am left wondering when and how did all this change happen?

I have changed, my needs have changed, my likes and dislikes have changed, my social life has changed, my closeness has changed, my distances have changed, my inspirations have changed,my dreams have changed, my expectations have changed, what makes my happy has changed, what makes me sad and angry has changed, my body has changed, my mind has changed, my heart has changed,my soul.......well....guess somethings still unchanged...

Having lived through school, college, graduation, office, hobby classes, isn't one supposed to have a bigger, better, diverse social life?
Why then are most of us still struggling with a shrinking social circle? Why does the world suddenly seem to make much less sense? Why is there a struggle to find meaningful companions? I often wonder why does it feel so easy to talk, share and open up to strangers? Why are random conversations suddenly more preferred? Why is there a sense of longing, loneliness and search for peace in a room full of so called friends?

The anti social bug seems to spreading itself with vengeance in me! I suddenly prefer dates and appointments with my books and movies over socials. My parents are of course worried... and can perhaps think of only one solution.....(com'on its not too hard to guess what!!)

After four years of work, the thrill of buying "work pants", power dressing for work, making an impression and shotting out important and urgent sounding emails after a double spell check seems to have faded out of my system.

I hope that this is a rut that I am stuck into and that this 'phase' would pass....
My mind reflects back to the spring with it memories of college, romance and graduations!

I grow up with this feeling that I now need to invest in myself.
I decide to do something about it...decide to quit, take a break, , go back to college,learn something new, experience living in another country... but I have a sinking feeling that this 'phase' would return and perhaps next time I might not have the luxury of a break!

I look around and see so many like myself, this whole bunch of restless 25 somethings. I hear the reverberations of their thudding heartbeat, the the pandemonium of their random thoughts, the unsynchronized strumming of their chaotic feelings, emotions and desires, their screaming desire to find their calling, to be something...strong, powerful, rich and famous and happy. I hear their struggle to break through the rigid bored monotony.....

The struggle perhaps is nothing more than the desire to figure it all out... to move up and on and beyond and eventually to settle down into something that you hope you could commit to forever!

I often wonder if I am taking the right step, making a smart move, have the right criteria's for that 'perfectt' guy....the more I think of it, the more I realize that perhaps I may not entirely know what I really want but I sure as hell know what I don't!! Perhaps I am getting wiser.... perhaps I am just growing up!!!

Well growing up is a good thing, but do you what I hate about growing up? I hate this 'used to' feeling! that comes along with it!!
It's so sad that life takes us from,having those near perfect moments with the one we think we'll love forever,to,those moments when we become more 'used to' with those very moments (which earlier made us all weak and vulnerable).But then I think, at times this very change makes us appreciate some other emotion which we would'nt have experienced or appreciated.

Unfortunately life does have this annoying habit to MOVE on!!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Yeh Khush Nahi Hain Jo Mila.... Bas Mangta Hi Hain Chala...



Aaj Shab Jo Chaand Ne Hai Roothane Ki Thaan Li
Gardishon Mein Hai Sitaare Baat Hamane Maan Li
Andheri Syaah Jindagi Ko Sujhati Nahi Gali 
Ke Aaj Haath Thaamlo Ik Haath Ki Kami Khali

I have always enjoyed this song.. but never really paid attention to its lyrics..

Recently I have been doing a lot of long lonely walks...and my Ipod seems to have developed a fascination for picking this track up...


There I was taking a walk on a humid late evening...
The quietness of the dimly lit park and the sweet whisperings of scattered lovers behind bushes provided me hardly any distraction...

So I decided to for once, to LISTEN to this song...


Play.... 4.14 mins....Menu...replay...another 4.14 mins.....Menu...replay.....4.14 mins....Menu...re-replay...4.14 mins...


and it made sense...flashbacks of my life matched patterns with the words......


Kyun Khoye Khoye Chaand Ki Firaaq Mein Talaash Mein Udaas Hai Dil 
Kyun Apane Aap Se Khafa Khafa Jara Jaraasa Naaraaj Hai Dil 
Yeh Manjilein Bhi Khudahi Tay Kare, Yeh Faasalein Bhi Khudhi Tay Kare 
Kyu Toh Rasto Pe Phir Seham Seham Sanbhal Sanbhal Ke Chalta Hai Ye Dil 
Kyun Khoye Khoye Chaand Ki Firaaq Mein Talaash Mein Udaas Hai Dil 

and I smiled... feeling stupid and feeling foolish for the zillions of 
insecurities I harbor/ed while setting out to achieve the ambitions I stubbornly defined for myself...

Dil Ko Samajhaana Keh Do Kya Aasaan Hai 
Dil To Fitrat Se Sunlo Na Beimaan Hai 
Yeh Khush Nahi Jo Mila, Bas Maangata Hi Hai Chala

and I smiled... once again....

Jindagi Sawaalon Ke Jawaab Dhudnein Chali
Jawaab Mein Sawaalon Ki Ik Lambi Si Ladi Mili 
Sawaal Hi Sawaal Hain Sujhti Nahi Gali 
Ke Aaj Haath Thaamlo Ik Haath Ki Kami Khali

and I smiled...feeling stupid  and feeling foolish once again at the millions of questions that I asked and troubled myself with.... hoping that the answers would help change what has past, ease the loss or the pain or perhaps  remove the guilt....







Wednesday, April 14, 2010

They sang goodbye....and we never knew why....

"Hello"
"Ahh.. hi... sup?"
" I need to meet you..need to talk.."
" Hey listen I cant meet you now. I am really busy... in the midst of exams.. History paper day after..."
"Ok... give me an hour.. let me meet you after that"
"Alrite!"

click...click... beep beep..disconnected....


A horrifying scream.. the color spilling all over my canvas.. the lump in my heart... the pinching of my eyes...I looked up and I knew it was done...


it was all over.... it was all over.....


they said he hung himself from the ceiling.....using a pretty paisley printed
chaddar...
his tongue tightly clasped between his teeth struggling to battle the suffering of the choke...
his perfectly sculpted, tanned shirtless body...cold, stiff, blue and yellow.....


Disbelief, denial.... I ran up to him ready to slap him and wake him up.. put an end to this nasty joke...
Slap I did... and i did more... i tugged, i pulled, i pushed, i pinched, i cajoled and coaxed, i scream t and i swore...
He did not wake up and it wasn't a joke...



I was 13 then....


12 years later...
Another phone call...


"Hello"
"Can't find Ria anywhere... she just went out to play video games at the neighbors...
its been two hours now....she doesn't have her cell"
"Did you try calling all her friends..?"
"Yes.. all who we know......they don't know anything"
"Hmm... she had called a friend from my cell last night... let me try checking"

click...click... beep beep..disconnected....

"Hi, are you Ria's friend speaking?"
"Ummm...errrr.....ummm...yeeeeaaaahhhh...can to come to the hospital immediately..."
"HOSPITAL.......??? ok yeah yeah I am coming"

click...click... beep beep..disconnected....


There she was.... my little
shona bon......lying silently on the stretcher...
The distant but familiar lump in my heart... the pinching of my eyes...I looked down and I knew it was done...

it was all over.... it was all over.....

they said she jumped in front of the metro rail.... she jumped just when the train was about to stop...
her petite body... cold, stiff, blue and yellow.....
This time there was no denial.... only disbelief!



She was ready early in the morning... 6 am!
Dressed in her favorite ping ghagra choli....she looked like a princess as the first rays of the sun broke behind the clouds and kissed her unbruised face...

However this time she wasn't the loud chirpy vivacious 16 yr self she used to be..

she was unfamiliarly calm and peaceful........


She lay on the pile of sandalwood....on the ghats of the ganges....the water lapped silently by her feet.. singing her the last lullaby......
the crimon sky perfectly complimenting her attire...


She looked composed......

Its been 12 years and I have still failed in all my efforts to understand, comprehend, accept identify or prevent self death ( i hate the word suicide.. hate the way it is spelt and hate the way it sounds on the ears! )

The verge of reaching a point where the pain of taking one's life feels easier than dealing with life's pains is still a mystery...and perhaps will always be...
and in a way I am glad to be so very very distant from unravelling or understanding this mystery...
but alas the loss is something so personal that I cant help ponder.....

Its strange how wierdly complicated and yet simple the human mind and heart can be....
It sometimes finds a simple solution to answers life's complications!!

It is said that self death is never an impromptu act... its never an out of the blue activity.
There is always a lot of thought, pre thought, a lot of planning and attempts and try-outs...
And yet in most cases individuals appear so normal that even the closest people surrounding them are completely oblivious to their state of mind. The act always feels like an abberation of character, so abnormal....so unnatural....so shocking.. so uncomprehensible...so unacceptable...They walk among us, talk among us, laugh and cry and play and dance among us...being so much like us.....and one day they are gone....just like that...

I cannot write much about the mental or emotional state of a person going through this phase except for the obvious that they are depressed, in pain and confused with a lot of anxiety. Supposedly sane people like you and me use a lot of adjectives, some say they are weak, losers, cowards, selfish, ungrateful or plain fucked up morons..... I am not sure I agree with any of this...

They are neither weak, nor crazy, nor do they lack willpower. It is perhaps very easy for us to comment " Hey, that is not reason enough for being suicidal! ". However as individuals we deal with a lot of different pain . Individuals differ greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. Different individuals have different sensitivity towards pain and even to different kinds of pain. And each individual is blessed with his or her own resources to cope up with pain.
Whether or not a pain is bearable differs from person to person based on the kind of coping up resources that a person has. And it is when the pain exceeds the person's coping up resources, that death changes from being and idea to an act.


Self death cannot be categorised as right or wrong. It is not a flaw or a defect of character. Its morally neutral.


Being on the receiving side, what I can however write about is what such an act leaves behind....


the difficulty of accepting it...
the difficulty of accepting it...................because of the lack of a closure....
a lack of closure......................because of the innumerable unanswered questions left for one to ponder....
the unanswered questions........... always leave behind a sense of guilt for the loved ones to deal with..........
the guilt.............slowly adding shades of frustration, anger and hatred to where once was pure love.

They leave you incomplete............you learn to move on...........
you smile and dance and love and live again............. till you feel the familiar incompleteness once again and ask........WHY?.......................................... WHY?



They sang goodbye..........and we never knew why.....

Monday, March 29, 2010

Saturday, February 13, 2010

In search of my colorful perception.....

Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8-color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64-color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I've got a few missing. It's ok though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8-color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation.. so when I meet someone who's an 8-color type.. I'm like, hey guy, magenta! and he's like, oh, you mean purple! and he goes off on his purple thing, and I'm like, no - I want magenta!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Roommates.. Soulmates..?

Well its the beginning of a New Year and this time it happens to be the start of a new decade.. oh yes welcome 2010. Everyone's sure as hell excited...
I often wonder what is this deal with the New Year.. isn't it like any other day? Well perhaps not...it is about getting used to writing a new year in our dates you see..

Perhaps our obsession with this date lies in our desire for the things that we cant do - the desire to change whats past.. the desire to start things a fresh...
Well at least thats how it goes for me.. be it new years or a birthday... its a hope for things to be different... hope for things to be better.. hope for things to be the way you want them to be... ( well its a different story that i don't really know how exactly I want them to be!!).

So here's wishing one and all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!
( yeah yeah i know this is stale now.. but hey its never too late to wish! )

Anyways so the other day I happened to get a few mails from my
female (yes i emphasize on this word - if you knew me u'd know why! ) roommates from my US days. Now we have been out of touch since I left the States, which is quite some time now. ( though not in my heart.. sigh! :-( ..) So their mails in my inbox did take my by surprise. I think by now you get the point that we girls weren't really the best of friends, hell yeah we weren't even friends... we were ROOMMATES!

Growing up in Mumbai and having studied and lived in the city, I always had the luxury of living with family. The luxury of mom and dad taking care of all my things. The luxury of having things my own way in my own house. So much did I take it for granted that I never realized things would be any other way for me and I was anything but prepared to accept them in any other way!!

So, here I was, lying on this bed that I slept on for over 15 years, wide awake...my heart beating fast and my mind running through the last so many years of my life spent in this room that I called mine. It was this room that I took so totally for granted, the room where I shed all my inhibitions and pretense, where I was never hesitant or insecure. Attachment of a body and soul to a space!!

Not wanting to sleep, not attempting to sleep, I stared at my bags packed and stacked neatly in a row and then at my room. My mind kept wandering to the new house that I would go to... to my new companions... I was scared.. apprehensive. I dint know any of them. All I knew of was their names, their telephone nos. and the address.

Oh yes and one more thing - that they were vegetarians!!!!!

My friend tried to pacify me by saying that hey one of their names sounds stylish I am sure they are going to be fun... well yeah for sure.. if you say so!!!
Its amazing you know, being human how our insecurities make us cling so desperately to our hopes - like a lizard clinging strong to the wall. We try so hard to fool our selfs, to pacify our apprehensive heart... to give ourself's some reason and try hard to believe it... ahh Hope so much we do for thee!!

So here I was, with two suitcases and a handbag standing in front of a door and staring down at the chit in my hand which led to me to this door.

The door that would open into my new home for a good few months from now.

The door was anything but what I expected it to be! It had a '
toran' hanging loosely over its head with pictures of goddess lakshmi smiling down at me. I dint smile back at her.

With a huge prayer in my heart I finally managed to ring the bell.

There she was standing.. a slim tall girl with a somewhat pretentious smile.. she welcomed me in..

I received a red carpet greeting at the entrance!!!!!

Yes, our walkway had a red carpet laid down with it walls adorned with pictures of the hindu chants, the holy godesses and Ohms!!

The room was spick and span and there sat smailing my two new roommates.. Miss R the tall petite one with a soft voice and Miss M with the stylish name...A lil later we were joined by another girl.. Miss J,
a sardarni with a super loud voice! She too arrived the same day as me and was to join us as the fourth pillar of the house..

So here we were, 4 girls on a couch smiling at one other...
pause.....awkward silence....fake smiles.....pause.....4 faces staring at different corners of the room....random eye contact....pause..more fake smiles.....pause........the same old cliche'd introductory questions.....pause.....more awkward silence.... finally lame excuses and everyone moves into their own room/space.

Empty couch and an empty coffee table...

We settled down.
Empty hangers....
tags pulled, flaps pushed, hands sorting, pulling, unzipping and unbuttoning,
piling and unpiling....
toileteries in place ( some hidden and some on display!! )...cutlery in place..

mom's home made ladoos possesively stacked away...
clothes on hangers, hangers on rod, rod in the closet.
.


and I was all set and selleted.

and then it all started...

1.) Oh I think you are not aware,we have a 5th roommate to accommodate...
Hell yeah.. I am not aware coz u never chose to inform me in the first place!

2.) Then came the long timetable! 9-5 routine was bad enuf!!


Monday: cooking and dishes
Tuesday: Garbage and posts
Wednesday: Vacuuming the room
Thursday:Laundry
Friday:Toilet and dish washer cleaning
Saturday: Dusting and cooking unit cleaning
Sunday: Grocery shopping and fridge cleaning!


PHEW!!!
And along with the timetable came the innumerable confusions and fights..

:Oh I cooked last to last to last to last to last Wednesday...
:Was it my turn to pick the post..? oh i thought it was Miss X's
:Aww i forgot to get your juice and yogurt during grocery....
Sorry!
:I did not use this spoon.. i aint cleaning it!!!!!!!!!

:I forgot that your clothes are still lying in the washing machine!
:I accidently threw your magazines while dusting the table!!
:Ooops! u shampoo spilled into the sink while i was cleaning it...
etc....etc.....etc.....etc.....

I was to share my room and bath with Miss M.

Living with someone is an altogether different experience in itself, specially more so when you happen to share a private space such as your bedroom and bath with that person. I and Miss M never really bonded. Our bond was restricted to the hot cup of tea that I made for her every morning. We never shared.. we never discussed.. we never opened up to each other...we were different personlities...as different as chalk and cheese.....and yet there is so much that I knew about her and perhaps she bout me...

all this just by the virtue of a shared space you share.....

You overhear her fights with her fiancee, u overhear the abuses, u silently overhear her take out her frustration and hurt by throwing things and at times screaming out.. you overhear her silently crying alone in her bed after the fight, hoping that you are asleep and unaware of her pain... you pretend to ignore her so as to not make her vulnerable. You know every gossip and event of her family...you know her excitement as she awaits a package from her beloved, you know her nervousness as she cries over her lost wallet, you know her attachment as all she wants back from her wallet is the $10 note given to her by her mother-in-law on her engagement.....you see her mood slip at those times of the month....you know when she is starting to get irritated or annoying by the line folds of her forehead... you know what lingerie she would wear tommorow as you see them peeping naughtily through the piles of her clothers stacked neatly for next morning, you know what perfume she has used today as you walk into the shower after she is done and you know you are angry and irritated when you see it wrapped in a plastic, hidden behind the shower curtain which she has conveniently forgotten to dispose away... once again!!!!

Come to think of it... knowing someone is really all about knowing these many small things about the person...its not always words or thoughts that need to be exchanged to know a person.. One's actions and reactions during ones most vulnerable times perhaps paints the person in a more truer color than the persons rational chain of thought...

Miss M left US a month before me. The day she was to leave, I came home in the afternoon and made her a last cup of tea...
We sipped the tea in silence, I hugged her and saw my reflection in her moist eyes.
I said goodbye and turned away.
As I walked back into life's routine somewhere a corner of my heart felt heavy.

Some one asked me if Miss M was my soulmate in US....
No she wasnt. She was my roommate.. a roommate who I knew well!