Rendezvous.

So you go to your terrace
For your post dinner smoke
And you're startled to see there
Not one, but two blokes
Then one things leads to another
Somehow you all end up drunk
Some laughs, flirting, stupidities
But no one's touching your junk
You go back home so happy
Smiling like a fucking fool
Thinking, for only a second,
That not each man is a tool
You  remember their names
You vaguely remember their faces too
But what a fun night it was
What a great rendezvous
How are there so many 'stories', you wonder
In a life so mundanely bourgeois
Anyway, you're just happy about one thing
That unlike other nights, you were wearing a bra.

iQuit?

I love smoking, I do. But do I need it? Perhaps not. Apart from the very rare bouts of  'need to smoke because I ate too much' or 'i'd smoke instead, lest I say something horrible to you because you are ugly', I never really need it I believe. Except, for when I am being faaaabulouuuss (for want of a better word). Look at any black and white movie, everyone is smoking. Smoking is glamourous and I'd like to believe I'm a fairly glamourous person. Could that night at the balcony be equally thrilling if there weren't smoke signals passed between him and I? Wouldn't the silver outfit look a little incomplete with just a glass in one hand and no smoke in the other? Could the long conversations be the same without the Marlboros dangling from everyone's fingers? Of course, the sincerity of the post coital fag can't be ignored. And what about the thrill of sneaking a smoke at the most unnatural moments and places? Bumming cigarettes off friend's dad's collections, going to the loo and then making one another believe that it isn't smelling of the smoke thaat bad, collecting cigarette butts of the expensive ones we smoked.. too much is coming back to me now. And that's the point, smoking has witnessed too much of our lives. In that moment of rebellion against the father figure, we smoked; in that moment of love with the boy we wanted to travel the world with, we smoked... It can't be explained, but it is liberating. And of course, glamourous!

Of course your lips get dark, but you will find a pair of smoker lips to kiss. Or a pair of lips that love you for you. Of course, girls shouldn't smoke because of pregnancy issues, but then who needs more kids in this already noisy and dirty world? Of course, even the packs tell you that smoking kills, but then so does walking on the streets of Bombay.

I decided to quit day before. I am not quite sure of my reasons. But I have only smoked one cigarette since. I guess I'm cutting down then. But in the moments that demand the air to get smoky, I am sloowllyyy going to release enormous amounts of smoke from my nose and mouth, not to show off like I tend to do about my drinking capacity ''that's pretty good for a girl'', but to expose the little private achievements of a young girl, who at one time or the other, walked around in fake jewelry, makeup and high heels on a morning at home; with a toothpick in her hand that posed as a cigarette.

...When I am being faaaabulouuuss (for want of a better word).

You get twenty five whole years to ''grow up',' and I get just two decades. It hardly seems fair.

Honesty.

It's funny how nobody else thinks honesty is selfish. 

If I screw up real  bad, then being honest about it is going to free me off the guilt.. clear my conscience... the works. However, it is going to hurt everyone else involved. I am trying to protect them by nor revealing the truth.
I've always been on my high 'i-never-lie' horse when in fact I've often held back.
They say it's equally bad.

All I'm saying is that having people close to you bear the brunt of your actions by virtue of truth. hardly seems fair.

I don't know what I'm saying. I hardly do now.

Holding Hands and Other Redundancies.

The sudden hugs from the back when she is pretending to sulk about something silly he said. The 2am 'I think I miss you' call, when in fact they hung up at 1am. His sudden disappearing for a few hours just to tease her. And sometimes just the sitting together quietly with his arm in hers. Setting the sun by the lake. Then making the moon appear at night. The wandering through Mumbai streets at the heart of midnight. The speechless listening. The having his breath drop on her ears. Her hesitation in throwing around "I Love You" like chewing gum wrappers to him. The realization, however subconscious, that it might mean something more than she'd have liked. The smiling foolishly over text messages. The staying up late at night to talk about nothing whatsoever. The extra cigarettes she smokes just to make him stay longer. The sudden urges to touch him. The bites on his arms that she affectionately brands him with. The feeling she gets of being owned; not by force. The feeling that's so strong that it almost makes her believe in the redundant 'human' concept of marriage, however fleetingly.

Not Her Marriage, Though.

That's just not happening.

It all feels hugely stupid to her. Stupid, to say the least.

Nevertheless, It's all happening after a long long time. Maybe that just makes it nicer.

Sudden Realization # 4

The thing about always doing whatever the fuck you believe in regardless of what they told you is that you can't quit.
Even when that's all you may want to do.

"Chest"

I met this guy on my second day in Mumbai. Such a beautiful boy he is. An extremely good-looking North Indian boy. I stress on North Indian because you knew it as soon as you laid eyes on him.. Punjabi boy, joint family, chest out when he walks, fairer than milk, redundant tattoo.. the works! Let's call him chest.

I took chest to a bar. Chest told me of his family. The mother who loves chest, the father who is seemingly very strict, the overprotective brother, the grandfather whose death crushed chest. The doting grandfather whom chest still can't imagine life without. The only one in the family who ever expected good things out of chest. The man who wanted his lovely grandson to become the next Sachin Tendulkar. Chest obliged. Went for practice. Chest started off as wanting to prove the world wrong and keep chest's grandfather's word. Chest needed everyone to know that he was capable of much much more.

Chest told me all that over one drink too many.

So after a week of 'rigorous' practice, chest quit.

Chest told his grandfather that chest can't because chest doesn't want to get tanned.

Chest's grandfather died a month later.

I choked on my drink too.
We made out later that night.
We don't talk anymore for obscure reasons.

I think chest killed his grandfather.