Mahi and Barbie...

after all that ruckus about how hard it was to be single, i had a volley of comebacks... the folks whose weddings i had missed were mad as hatters... the singles were supportive but out-numbered, so not much help either...

but happenings did happen which did season me up for the whole 'settling down' and getting 'committed'... i still can not think of that latter word without the phrase 'to the asylum'... it's just a thing my uncontrollably imaginative mind does... my mind has a mind of its own... wonder if i can copyright that... or some schizophrenic clinic already has...

ok, there was this interview i had to attend and with no place else to go to, a mutual friend recommended a  friend's house for staying a couple of days... it was a couple of guys with their own place in pune... i travelled by bus and they picked me up... it was a little awkward at first... i'm not too good with new people... but these two, they were amazing... tried their best to make me feel comfortable... Mahi, the lean lanky one and Barbie, the plump one... yeah, i know Barbie's 'generally' a girl's name, but apparently, there was some old story and he was nicknamed 'Barbie'... they joked about stuff that went over my head all the way... the few grins i did manage were so fake i could only count on the shiny braces on my teeth to distract them...,

for a quick intro, Mahi's lean, with long, curly hair, and had more shampoos, deos and other similar paraphernelia than i'd be needing in a couple of lifetimes... we used to have long conversations on frizzy hair, straightening them, coloring them - the pros and cons,etc...
Barbie's chubbier... loves pattering about in the kitchen and scrubbing things clean... has a quaint charming quality...  like that milk-maid from some Thomas Hardy novel and even goes 'tra la la' every now and then...

they were so good together... while i was there, i envied the relationship between Mahi and Barbie...
they would stand together on their huge balcony and gaze at the night sky and stars...  Barbie would take Mahi for the latter's eye appointments and wish him luck...  when at dinner, many a time, they  shared the same plate... Mahi lamented on how he missed Barbie coz he'd messaged to say he was going to be late... and similarly, Barbie would make such a fuss when i took Mahi along for some shopping... and they even played their guitars and sang soulful music late into the night...

everyday, when Barbie came back home, Mahi would ask him how his day went though the answer varied little...
"hectic as usual" Barbie would say before coming in and sitting down with Mahi... on days when things hadn't been so good, all Barbie needed was a long hug from Mahi and he would cheer up just like that!

they were "oh-so-cute" together...  and it wasn't as though they'd just met... they'd been together for four years! and still, they were like newly-weds!

looks and sounds like some mushy stuff from a 'love actually' or '10 things i hate about you'... but seeing them made me realise it couldnt be that bad... tying the knot, i mean... though in their case though, i'm not sure if india's as liberal as to allow them to tie the knot... does the amended art.377 allow same-sex marriages too??

but when it was time for me to leave their place, i thanked them for their generous hospitality.... and as i walked out the door, i knew my whole apathy towards the institution of marriage had mellowed down... love can be found in the unlikeliest of places, in the unlikeliest of persons...

"oh, thank you so much" i gushed to my friend, for introducing me to such gentle, loving souls that seem almost wiped off the face of earth...  and explained the effect they'd had on me...

"What the hell are you talking about??" the outburst was the last thing i'd expected...

"well... what's wrong!! i can be liberal too... i'm cool with LGB or any other variations...if they're good enough for god, they're good enough for me!!" i declared my support strongly...

"can you stop?? they-are-not-gay" he said, real slo-w-ly...

"oh! oh! are you sure?? i mean, a girl's not wrong about such things, you know..." i ventured...

"one of them's getting married next month...to his 'girl'friend of four years...  he'd asked me if he should invite you... but i think he'll reconsider the idea once he's heard your story..."

"oh!!! oh!! oh, oh!"...  words had always failed me when i needed them the most...

and somewhere in the background, the words echoed...
"somebody's gonna get hurt today... "
:) :)

the ordeal of staying single...

one of the hardest things in life has to be 'staying single'... especially if you have slipped into the late-twenties & live in a small-town... it's considered almost rude to make a public appearance without a bloke by your side and a kid/two in tow... so, i keep indoors most of the time and get out only early mornings or late evenings to get my daily quota of sunshine/fresh air... my doctor laments that i've grown quite pale... i would've been flattered except that it was another power-cut and there was only a flickering candle in the tiny 'clinic' and there was no way he could have distinguished me from sun-burn-tanned or anaemic-pale...

but when i meet friends, especially the ones who've already thrown in the towel and 'settled down', 'committed' and any of those words that mean the same thing to me, the question pops up... or worse, gets bandied about harmlessly as in..
"hey, guess who recently got engaged??"
"i just went to so-and-so's wedding last month..."
"you are coming to so-and-so's wedding next month, na??"
the bush gets beaten black and blue and finally arrives where i knew it would even before they picked up that stick...
"aur saras, when are you getting married??"

there are times when it does catch me by surprise... and those times i go
"me??" looking around for another saras hopefully
"yeah, you, when are you getting married?? " they spell it out real slowly, like i am retarded...
"why?"
"what do you mean why???"
"why?? i mean exactly that... why would i get married??" seems a perfectly logical question if you ask me.
"well, it's the next step in life. and as your friend i think i should bring you to your senses."
"huh??"

i am not dense... really... in fact, on occasions, i tend to be downright smart... but i am unable to grasp this new found knowledge... "the next logical step??" i had totally missed out on that... i didnt know life had logical steps... damn! i didnt even know life had anything to do with logic... it seems quite hap-hazard to me! and his claims about being my friend seemed really far-fetched too... sure, we had a few common classes when in college about five years ago... and i have met him about twice since then... including this enlightening, interrogatory meeting...

the most dangerous territory to be caught in for the likes of me is another wedding... i feel like a cornered animal in a jungle... and not dressed to run either... yards and yards of cloth, even shimmering silk, draped precariously is not the ideal choice of athletes for a reason...
so, i miss them... and then come up with excuses... i wait a while... a month for some, a financial quarter for most... but for one particular case, i had to wait 1.5years before i even called her...females are so unforgiving! i still haven't met her... but that's just a string of co-incidences... next time i'm in her town, i'm definitely meeting her...

you wouldnt' believe the excuses i have had to come up with in the past... some of them, i'm quite proud of...
" i went to turkey, the country, not the bird/towel.... the noun, not verb"
" i got the address wrong and went to delhi instead"
" i promise i'll come to the next one!"
that last one's gotten me into more trouble than it was worth making it up...

if you've gotten this far... i am really, really sorry if i missed your wedding... i promise it won't happen again... :) :)
if you still want to kill me, get in line... :)

making lists...

i like to think i am a happy and gay person... (no pun whatsoever)... but people frequently disagree with me which tends to take away the happiness and gayness a little... we were watching some hindi movie and all i made was an innocuous remark,

"i hate that guy with the dimpled chin"
"oh, and why??", vin says snidely...
" he has a dimpled chin... what's there not to hate??"
"ah, John Travolta has a dimpled chin... you dont hate him, do you??"
"well, of course not... he can have a dimple anywhere... he's Travolta" my argument doesnt seem to convince him and he mutters
" you know you hate so many things, tell me when you dont hate something..."

i entirely disagree...
"i dont hate that many things really..."
"well, there's only one way to find out... why dont you make a list...?"

hmm, sounds like a task... so i start...
now, when i say 'hate' it's only a loose connotation... all it means is that i don't like it too much... or it just doesnt strike the right chord... ok, here goes...

1. cold water - which is why i didnt go into the water in Goa; i still prefer to skip a bath than stand under a cold shower; hate getting wet in the rain...

2. listening to others dreams - have you had your friends start off a 'you wont believe what i dreamed last night!" - it is as though they are immune to the blank, scared look i give before they start off... if i'm not there in the dream, i'd rather skip it...!

3. cars/bikes - now, i dont know if it's in the Y-chromosome but the guys universally seem smitten by engines and anything with engines... to hear them gush on and on about the double silencers and the 'road-presence' of an Audi Q7 which left them behind in a 'whooooosh' a full half hour ago is painful...

i think i ran out of things already... maybe i can add them as i come by them...

dogs chasing cars...

have you ever seen a dog chasing a bus/car/bike/cycle?? i'm sure you have, if you're not entirely blind or a goof... but have you really wondered why it does that??

is there a purpose to it?? what'll it do if it does catch up... i've had my fun watching bikes/cycles chased into sidewalks and gutters with the rider in unflattering positions... call me a sadist but at least i dont lie! not often anyway... i'm digressing again!

anyway, what does it do if it does catch that car/bus?? ask for a ride?? admire the engines or the tinted glasses?? it'd probably have peed if it were parked, but on a moving car?? i dont think so... so, the whole deal of chasing the moving car/bus seems purposeless...

i believe the dog wouldn't know what to do about the car/bus if it just caught up... maybe bark a little... but that's it..
.
if you looked at a dog chasing the vehicle though, you'd think it had a purpose... or why would it chase it so hard?? with the wild look of a marketing/sales guy set on achieving targets... and when the vehicle drove off or turned that corner and disappeared, you'd think the dog would be really, really disappointed... almost lie down there and die... but guess what...

it's just a few seconds of looking a little forlorn, a little puzzled... and the dog's back in the game... chasing the next thing that comes along... maybe it's just about the chase... and not about catching anything...

is there a moral to the story?? i dont know... i'm not really into morals and stuff... someone else's lessons somehow dont cut it for me...

it's not that i dont know right from wrong... sometimes, i choose wrong on purpose...

re-discovering old friends...

what does one say to a good-friend one hasn't talked to in say five years???
'hi, howzit going??'
'howz the work?'
'all well?'

with my communication skills, i was glad i had a reason to run within a couple of hours of meeting J... it all happened this saturday, when i came to blore for my first walk-in... that experience will require a half/full blog by itself, but suffice it to say it didnt go too well and i snapped at everyone who asked me how it went...

around noon i note that i have a missed call from J i can't ignore... i call back...
'come over... near ashoka pillar... ' J's bad at dispensing directions... columbus could've been a victim...
i catch a bus, and then an auto and then walk some more... walking in 2inch high heels over broken pavements isn't my idea of fun... i finally reach...

i cant recollect if there were any awkward silences, but before i knew, we were catching up on old classmates... telling each other we looked the same... and then i was hungry... so we had a quick lunch at a nearby darshini... decided to do some window shopping on the way back... bought stuff we probably wouldnt wear anywhere... you know, those "i could wear them in the bahamas" or "the next time i stroll through streets in istanbul" kinds...

J has a sister who'd left the keys behind so we raided her house... you'd imagine one would run out of things to say... i was chided for my choice of channels... i'm back to my choicest mode of self-abuse... reality shows... a recent switch from the k-serials... while splitsvilla-3 droned in the background, we compared notes... parents, brothers, colleagues, classmates, and more interestingly, the past and present crushes...

it was soon evening... and sandwich was voted for dinner... we got out to get some cheese... J drives the bike like a maniac.... i clenched my teeth and held on for dear life... so much so that i sorely missed that comforting feeling one gets when the giant wheel swoops down... we considered chocolate ice-cream but it was harder finding it than you'd imagine... we settled for some street chats... ate till our eyes teared up and our noses ran... followed it up with a trip to the KC Das (the bengali sweet shop)...

skipped the ice-cream, went home... looked for a bad movie... settled for 'Alvin and the Chipmunks'... i might have fallen asleep a couple of times... i remember eating a good sandwich sometime when i woke up... and then the movie was over.... and i fell asleep to strains of music from J's pearly macbook... under a thick, oversized comforter...

i fell asleep making a mental note to catch up with more friends!!

another candle in the cake....

it was my bday... again!... the 53rd or 54th... i look younger than you'd think...;)
it hit me a little hard on the outset... OMG what am i doing with my life!... i'll never find a job i like/love... never settle down... never find my john galt... so many 'never's.... so i drugged myself to sleep, unwilling to be awake at the hour i was born...

after many nightmares on similar topics, i woke up to some unusually chirpy birds... the cat was in their nesting territory and all they could do was try and chirp it away!!!

now, b'days can be celebrated/not celebrated in a million different ways... my folks believe in subdued celebration... all day they never wished me... or made direct references to the b-day... you'd have thought i was volunteering for a cancer-cure instead of it just being my bday... they would've considered it awfully rude and forward to go around wishing their offspring b'days!... but they did quietly bring out and light the special silver diyas... and might also have tried bargaining some sense into me with their gods... very quietly... pretending all the while that nothing was amiss...

in the evening, i went on the inevitable annual trip to the temple... like a visit to the dentist or TT shots... it's a pretty little lakshmi temple... there were the usual teeming devotees, the usual prasad(reason to go)... i kept looking back anxiously towards the door the whole while... i have a phobia of losing my footwear in public places... that's the one reason i avoid temples... the other is that i don't believe in gods... but it went off without a hitch... well, mostly...

for me, mostly, the difference was all the friends i talked to after so long... though i thought i'd taken out my bdate off the facebook/orkut pages, some still remembered... the others will get called and abused today for forgetting my big day... there were wishes ranging from the terse 'btw happy b'day' from Jerks to poetry in kannada from a mysterious sender...

there was a lot of 'walking and talking'... catching up... promising to keep in touch... (though this time, i actually meant it! :) no, seriously! )... i think that's gonna be my resolution for this year... a little less anti-socialism...

evening come, cakes came out... 20 little similar colored candles and the rest 7 in an assortment of every other sort... somebody hadnt thought the whole thing through!  i chose the biggest helping of cake... got tired midway... my selectively-helpful brother happily finished it for me... and i guess i fell asleep trying to watch a marathon of 'Pirates of the Carribean'...

a decent b'day in all...
the only thing missing was balloons... helium balloons... maybe in 6 months...

return to malshej ghat...

i'd just travelled abt 18hours on a bus, slept for 4-5hrs before heading off to malshej ghat... one friend, one nemesis and one me... a long drive to the chateau indage near nasik... an aesthetic place with good food and wine... the chicken was superb, the wine looked like non-subsidised kerosene, tasted nearly the same... (apparently, i'm not a 'wine connoiseur'... hell, i can't even spell the damn thing...)
it was a twisty, turny road to the MSTDC resort... and bbt drove the car so fast i had to leave the contents of my stomach behind in seven easy installments... i have not much recollection of that phase... but a bottle of sugared water did the needful and i was pretty alive when we met more friends from bombay with the usual boisterous back-slapping and calling unspeakable names...
the night sky looked so different...we discovered the milky way for the first time... argued if the shooting stars i claimed to have seen (i DID see them) weren't just planes... about the planet/star status of sirius... and sulked over the location of the pole star...
sat around on the grass and tried scaring each other through half-baked ghost stories... missed those old days when we did get scared... learnt optimal methods of looking like the devil(the lit matchstick in your mouth thing)...
we were supposed to go on a trek, but the star-studded night study had robbed us of any inclination for it... we settled for a stroll on the flat mountain... it reminded me of another trip i'd made years ago... as i later realised, i had been there!... the cliff was steep and scary and you could look straight down hundreds of feet... a good place for rappeling...and threw stones at the frogs in the pond... a pond on a mountain!
next stop was the shivneri fort... birth place of shivaji... those huge steps got boring within minutes and four of the more adventurous ones set off right across... we reached the outside of the fort after a sweaty, hard, huffy-puffy climb... unable to figure out the way further, coz there wasnt one, we climbed down and waited for the other, more conventional ones to show up...
all in all, an eventful weekend...