back to normal...

i must feel like that guy who wrote 'paradise lost' and 'paradise found'(i haven't read either).... after my unpleasant rant yesterday, i am back to normal... things aren't alright... they never are... i'd be bored to death if they were...

i induce J to break her vow of silence... we call over ashwini for catching up... the usual oooh's and aaah's happen... it's been more than five years since i last met them... they remind me of my escapades in those days... apparently i wasn't good at much even then... i learn of the tests i nearly missed, the books i never read, my stumbling into CAT coz there was nothing much to do that vacation... no wonder i'd blacked out most of those memories...

more interestingly, there's everyone else to catch up about... most have progressed from marriages to children to fourth/fifth jobs... people have migrated to various countries... temporarily, permanently...pictures of month-old kids are compared...

"she looks just like her mother"... they chant
"huh??" that'd be me...
"look at the eye brows"
"huh??"
"oh, she's so pretty"
-blank look-

honestly, it looks like a lobster taken out of boiling water... red.. blotchy... unfocused eyes... droopy, drooling mouth... it's probably the worst it'll look all its life... i mean, it cant get worse, right??
my opinions shock the bejesus out of them... they look at me like i'm something straight out of a psycho movie... the bad guy, not the good victims who die...
so much for honesty!!

i fall asleep when i can no longer stay awake... i try watching 'the holiday'... before realising i've already watched it...

the sunny window beside my bed interrupts my sleep at the ungodly hour of 8am... J's friend, another classmate i hadnt imagined seeing in the next couple of lives... we have a lunch of sambar and rice J's managed to conjure up... it's surprisingly good... my cooking's like my drawings... i never end up with the pictures i'd intended to draw... so it surprises me that anybody can get it right at all...

i feel sunny all day... so i talk to a lot of people... i do that when i'm in a good mood... talk to a lot of people... "catch up"... i even manage a few wrong numbers... but i'm in so good a mood, i talk to him too... 

i learn of alok's quest to improve security in his Towers by impersonating david deadley or was it headley.... he has a whole list of other celebrities he's planning to impersonate for various equally good causes... Albert Einstein, Julius Caesar, Cameron Diaz... (the last one's not a typo)... a full blown halloween!!

my catch ups are predictable...  i gush to everybody about how much i really like them... thank them for being my friends... wish them all sorts of happy days... it scares quite a few of them and they want to confirm if it's really good old nasty, snappy me...

i watch 'forrest gump'.... again... coz J had never watched it... the other two of us keep up a constant commentary in the background... until J threatens she's going to ditch the movie and kick us out... we take our chances...

we go out for coffee at a Kalmane's Coffee... authentic south-indian stuff... i scrape my knee on the way back... long story...

that bloody registered letter that had gotten returned from the post office coz i was out of station the last time is back again... as soon as i was out of station.... my string of sour lemons!!! lucky my favorite drink's lemonade!

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...

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...