i hate my life!

keeping up pretences is just too hard on some days than other... today was one such day... the whole idea of what i'm up to seems mind-numbingly stupid... i hate the whole idea of studying, reading, learning... i turn around all the books in my room(a lot more than a mentally healthy person ought to have) so that i cannot see their titles... and thus i pretend to ignore them... when the newspaper thumps outside on the porch, i read only the comic-strip and don't even attempt the sudoku or the crossword... the opinion page is left unopened...

i treat myself to a heavy dose of more numbness by sitting through most of Channel V's Dare to Date... i get my glimpse of hell...

my job applications are not getting anywhere close to where they ought to be... and the idea of my not being able to snag the same thing i had two years ago when i was incredibly much less wiser is incomprehensible... recession, people slowly explain to me...

so, i run... to bangalore... to J's house... she's got laryngitis... so instead of talking, we have to chat online... i mean, if i were making it up, i couldn't have come up with a more Murphier person!

a trip to mandara giri

life's inching towards the black doom again... but before i get sucked into the swirling abyss that is my CS preparation, i strike out once again, hopefully not the last time...

there's a hill close by... so we set off to visit it... it's one of those nearby places you live next to all your life but never visit coz you can do so anytime you want... we had plans of scaling a bigger hill which didn't work out coz things have a way of falling apart around my plans... anyway, this hill, mandara giri, is a huge boulder... not much scaling... 436 steps carved into it, one way... the railings helped as we huffed and puffed our way up... there's a small compound in which there are 4-5 small temples... idols of different Jain saints... we then come out and walk around for a while... i decide to climb a few rocks and do so... get stuck on one of them and have to be rescued... it always surprises me... even while i'm stuck... on trees or boulders... that the climb is so easy and then, when all you have to do is turn around and climb down, you cant... hmm...

next we find a spot on a ledge... eat stuff... and while the others chatter around me, i find myself a cozy spot... the stone is warm with the sun and the wind blows in gusts... i lie down and trace a lone eagle's path for a while... it struggles against the wind before diving down suddenly... my perch on the hill is so high, i'm looking down on the eagle... i doze off sometime in between... wake up... click a few pictures... we decide unanimously that the phrases, 'the world at your feet' and 'on top of the world' must have been coined by someone similarly stuck on a ledge above some hill...

we torture a few frogs in the little water hole before a steady crackle behind us brings us to our feet....some degenerate has set ablaze a patch of dry grass... and coz it's so dry and there's a steady wind, the fire spreads everywhere... i only wished i had done it! :)

another new year...

it's the new years... i can not imagine why anyone would want to celebrate this particular day... it's not really special by any scientific explanation... not the perihelion or aphelion... nobody really important was born this day... and we Indians should especially not be celebrating it coz we've been stalking this planet for longer than this calendar!!!

ok, all the righteous ranting done, i'm just sore coz i didnt get to go to a decent new year's party... on the last day, things fell apart coz my usually crystal clear calendar was just too stuffed to permit my travelling to blore, where the the few people i still call friends are...

so, i sat down to watch 'the top 50 music videos' on zee-cafe... my brother, who'd been out all day(snooker addict) came back and laughed his guts out in my face that i'd not be going anywhere to party... i sulked in silence and watched all the k-serials for retort... 'she who has the remote, decides the show'...

it was 11pm, and the parents were fast asleep... we were still watching tv...
"CCD??", i asked...
"ok..." he agreed

we set about quietly like a pair of synchronized burglars... with absolutely no noise, we got our jackets, the bike keys, locked the door behind us, turned off the lights everywhere except in Vin's room(so they'd think we were still there) and crept out... the gate unlocked, the bike taken out and pushed a 100 yards so they wouldn't hear it start...  and then we rode all of 17km to the nearest CCD.... there's one on the NH-4, open 24X7... that usually uninhabited place was crawling with people...

we found a decent place to sit... it was a good night for new year's... there was a full moon, warm and cloudy and coz the newspapers had said there'd be a lunar eclipse, i imagined i saw one...

we sat and talked... it's hard to recollect what... a million little things non-stop that you can't recollect as late as the next morning... after about an hour, when the place got crowded enough for it to be unsafe to be seen without the food trays in front of us, i went in and got our traditional 'usual'... a mocha, a slice of chocolate fantasy  with chocolate ice-cream... i trapeze through the crowd with the tray balanced in one hand... the other pushing people off my way... well, trying to, anyway...

we take a break from talking nonsense for a while...and concentrate our energies on the chocolate abundance in our middle... but soon i have too much chocolate in my system and i sit back... i try to explain the lunar eclipse to Vin who can not be bothered... to make things clear, i draw on the plates... my lines go through the cake and the ice-cream... Vin drags the plate away...

"fine, your loss" i declare and sip the mocha... scald my tongue... again!... that luke-warm froth is so deceptive...

"do you want to hear about my accident??" Vin insists...
i've told him a gazillion times i don't want to hear of how he missed being killed... again... by a hair's breadth...
"oh, come on! you're in as good a mood as you're gonna be...and i didnt even get hurt this time" he grins...
"alright...alright"... i submit...

he goes on to tell the story of how on a bike trip, his friend who couldn't keep his eyes on the road missed a right turn, fell over, broke his crown(head, like in the jack n jill rhyme)... a passing truck came to a screeching halt to see/help them... the speeding bus behind rammed into the truck grazing the whole of left side...and setting off the truck down the slope... an ambulance was called, and while they waited, a crowd had materialized from nowhere... looking for some action too... lots of raised voices... everybody yelling, nobody listening... and when the guys tried to take off, they were chased by the onlookers who looked sore they hadn't gotten anybody to beat up... if that is hard to believe, my compatriots beat up people, burn bikes/cars and demolish buildings when seventy year old actors die of natural causes!!!

and then more nonsense... finally we decide it's been long enough and set out home wards... not much there... except when we chased down a lorry coz it's license plate said 'GB 7564' and i was adamant on learning which state was GB... when we did catch up, we realized it had an 'RJ 05' above it...

we switch off the bike at the end of our main road and the whole 'quiet thing' is repeated again... and we're back in the house, parents still as asleep as we'd left them...

so, that was new year's for me... not what i'd planned for... but not too bad, i suppose...

P.S :
1. "108" is the emergency number for calling an ambulance. arrives in two minutes.
2. the roadside 'emergency phones' on NHs do not work in emergencies.

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... :)