Arriving Somewhere But Not Here

Passion I think is one of the most important things in life. You need a drive, a force that carries you through. Personally, I think your driving forces can change from time to time; change is the only constant, is it not? 


It was only a few years back when I thought I wanted to do so many cool things and believed that I would be so fucking good at them!
Belief is necessary! There isn't any getting anywhere without that.
I think it was school when I thought I was in possession of super natural powers and was certain that I will nail whatever I chose to do. I think we all were like that in school. We were constantly working... not to score well all the time but to arrive; to get somewhere. We were convinced we were getting somewhere; somewhere we wanted to; somewhere we knew we belonged.
Unlike most people, I have never had qualms about passing on my textbooks. I never cherished them as much. The matter and information in them just didn't seem as important to me. However, the little of the five million books that still enjoy rack space in my house are filled with nostalgia. There are doodles about people we liked and didn't and tid bits and notes about our life crisis and happiness and life changing conversations and issues about the world and so much more. It is in these pages that our respective lives and our lives together reside happily and will do ever after too.
I miss the insanity.
I miss the confidence.
I miss the passion.


I have had my share of very weird trajectory when it came to choosing life paths for myself. I would like to believe I am not the only one.

• In the second grade, I knew this women who was straight out of a painting- so pretty, so young, so elegant, so pure, so loved. She was my math teacher..One of the only time I understood anything about the damn subject was back then. Everyone used to like her and all the male teachers would act like lame losers vying for her attention. I knew it then; I wanted to be her- A Teacher. After two years, I think, she got married and left. Took my dream away with her. Just didn't seem worth it.
• I turned to dancing and I was, if I may say so myself, pretty darn good at it. Hence, a big shot choreographer in Bollywood was where I placed self mentally. Soon, that phase got over too.
• Then for the longest time I wanted to become a full on glam doll Bollywood actor. I knew I would go straight to the top. I knew it was my thing. I knew I would rock. I had techno-colour dreams, for crying out loud! I was consumed by the glitz, glamour, commercialization, futility, pretence and of course, the costumes of this world. I would practice interviews under the shower for when the paparazzi would stalk me for a quote after I would get out of the success party of my latest release! Then I got fat and the dream couldn't take the pressure of the weight, clearly! 
• I still wanted to be on TV so bad.. hosting chat shows or something!
• Through all of this, my very weird parents kept telling me how their being doctors automatically shut all other doors for me and they wanted me to believe that Science was what I would voluntarily choose for self. So much for being supportive and liberal modern working parents. Parents are hypocrites.. more about that later. Being the victim of circumstances (yes yes!), I thought I would have to work around the given framework and hence decided that being a dentist might not suck as much. Reason, you ask? A doctor friend of my mom's husband had told me (I think as a joke) that out of all other medical nonsense, you study the least to become a dentist. That became and obvious calling, hence. Then, magically I just quit passing in Science. Obviously enough it would have been way too far fetched for me to still stick to this. Sigh.
• Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With The Wind became a fleeting icon too. She has written just this one master of a book which earned her fame and fortune to last her a lifetime! I thought it wouldn't be as hard.I started writing a book too. Only, it got lost somewhere in those years of major experimenting regarding boys, toys and some other unmentionables. Poof. OVER!
• So much so, that I have had very serious conversations with extremely serious people (read: best friends) contemplating the idea of taking up prostitution as a serious profession. Did not get as much support as I had hoped for. Anyway.
• Finally, I though I will marry a really rich and fair man who spoke good English and had beautiful hands, become a trophy wife and give him beautiful kids. I don't want to get married anymore! :(

Now I am halfway through finishing my college education and though I love my life and everything about it (almost all the time), there is nothing I am working for or towards. I am just here. Back then, so what if I was on the wrong path? I was still on a fucking path!

You need to have tremendous knowledge and passion about at least one thing if not more. None of that I am in possession of. Not yet, anyway.

I had the weirdest things in my school bag- old letters, poems I wrote, friendship bands, oregano and chilly flakes sachets from dominos, broken glasses, ribbons and so much more things that are seemingly crap!

Now, it's all about hairbrushes and lip gloss.

Then, it was fun being weird. I liked being at that thin line between weird and popular with so much ease.

Now, it's almost like people act crazy to conform. To belong.

There are star-studded fantasies about making it. Somehow. Somewhere.

Just not here, maybe.

Must.Find.Out.Soon.

One more kiss could be the best thing Or one more lie could be the worst...

You know how you have wanted to be with me since the beginning of time, apparently.
You know how I've been telling you that you just think you want this when, in fact, you don't.
So I thought that maybe I was being too paranoid. I thought maybe you will do all those beautiful things you claim to be wanting to do for me; make me feel all those beautiful things you claim to be wanting to make me feel each day; bring all the beautiful words to life.
So I decided to let one of my, twelve thousand and eighty two, fences down to test waters. You'd told me you'll spoil and pamper me forever.
You'd told me you'll me love with all my flaws.
You'd told me you'll  embrace all my shortcomings.
You didn't.




Too Bad.



For You.

Much Ado About Nothing

Working Parents.
They aren't bad. Really.
There are a lot of perks of being born to them;
You get more money, more permissions, more freedom, more friends.
But there are those times, like now, when you're down with dengue. Yes. Even I though only poor or ugly people got that. Clearly, not anymore.

I have almost recovered now, though. But it does make me stop and wonder that it would have been nice if my mother wasn't working all the damn time that I needed her; if she could come to the phone every time I called her; if she hadn't left the house to work each morning that I woke up with a hell lot of fever. I've grown up in a society where kids are fussed over for no rhyme or reason, Anything they do is cute. I think seeing those shabby little annoying monsters capable of any activity of any kind seems enough reason for appreciation. My brother and I were always cooler than that, or so we thought. Our working parents left us with maids who were nice to us because they were getting paid to do it. In the playground, only that kid can cry about each wound whose very fat mother is present in the background, bitching about the pretty young thing of the block and her new found sexuality. We never had any of that. I never had any of that. No wound was deep enough, no fever was high enough, no issue was big enough!
Hence, I cried less.
No. That isn't a bad thing at all.

But did I not deserve my share of fussing over about bullcrap? My personal area of much ado-ing about nothing? People need attention. I know I do. Only, I get it from other people for sometime now.

I like my mom. A lot.
I try and hang out with her as much as I can.
Just that,
sometimes I wish she did too.
More evidently.

"...You know what? You can actually see old lobster couples walkin' around their tank, you know, holding claws like..." - Phoebe Buffay

"psst.. Do you know the answer?'
"no!!"
That was the one of the weirdest expressions I have ever seen in my life.
Why would one classmate not help the other classmate pass a test, when infact, she knew the answer?
Just because we are not friends, I thought.
Freak, I thought.
Who is she, anyway? I thought.

We lived in denial of each other's presence for most part of our ninth grade. It didn't matter. We didn't know each other. There was an unsaid divide between non-sluts and sluts... between You and I.

"Hello?*you*?"
"hey.."
"hi.. whats up? How are things at home? Peaceful?"
"yea yea. Almost. Nothing great happened. It was over by yesterday. What about you?"
"I got grounded. But working parents, so doesn't really count! I called the others. They're fucked!"
"yea? Oi. Let me call you back? I have free calling!"
"Oh. Cool."
Ah. The suspension!
So we spoke for two hours, I think?
Remember how you cried like a kid the day we got suspended? They did go on to reaffirm my belief about your rightfully deserved nerd status. Not that it has changed much.
I don't remember what we spoke about. But I do remember it lasted damn long!

Rest, as they say, is history.

Really? It can't be THAT simple!

So there we were. Two people. One, with lots of problems (Read:you). Nah. I had my fair share of issues too. Loads, at that. So, somehow, somewhere, we just sort of fit. As different as chalk and cheese, we walked together hand in hand and made it work. Yes. There was a lot of walking. God knows there was!
"what? I can't cross this!"
"you WILL! it is easy.."
That fucked up wall we had to cross to reach D's house and I swore with all my heart that there is no way in hell that I was going to, primarily because I couldn't. I hated walking. Still do. But you made me walk some five thousand kms from school only to tell me that I had to leap over a wall?? No fucking way! I was certain.
But eventually, I did. Overcame that tiny obstacle course. Then was then, This is now. We have crossed all ways together.

That time when you were convinced that you are incapable of any luck with the opposite sex and how I knew the myth that was and would tell you so.
How I knew all these guys and would gross you out with the gory details of my escapades. Ha Ha.
I still do.

In school.
You were such a creep about your stupid food and would hide and eat it. You would hide it so that none of us would be able to eat. Clearly, 'sharing' was not your favourite school lesson.
I always knew you were weird.
I never knew you would be so important to me.

I like you. A lot.
My one million and one ambitions I decide to achieve, you listen to them. I think that is because you made me buy my first sanitary napkin, FOR YOU! That evening still gives me the creeps.
Our conversations about the world and the things and people in it. Very meanly, so.
How I intimidate you for no rhyme or reason.
How I am turning bi-sexual.
How saving for your birthday was very hard.
How your case will always be taken by yours truly. ONLY by yours truly, No one else.
How you are my only friend I want to hug all the time.
How one day you will know that amidst all my fifty lakh friends, you do enjoy a slightly higher pedestal.
How I'll take you to Big Chill the day you are okay with me having fifty lakh friends.
How we eat and get fat and you crib about getting fat and I listen.
How I listen.
How I am sexually fucked up and you get it. You pretend you do. You listen.
How you listen.
"*you*?"
"yes?"
"I farted just now! hahaha"
"I don't want to know"
"er.. Notice how I just told you hence NOW YOU KNOW! ok bye"
How you text ten years later after one of these occurrences to tell me how I am always mean to you and you get hurt.
How I fight with you then because I am so pissed at you for not telling me there and then.
How you are so ugly! No, No cover up there, You need your best friend to tell you this. Really.
How it sucks that we'll drift apart eventually. I know we will. And my entire life you'll take away with you.. Maybe tell other people too. But that does not bother me. The fact that you know the 'story of my life' suffices.

I will call you when we're 85 years old.
You will obviously sound like a man then...err..let's rephrase. You will sound manlier then. I will be the epitome of the 'mature' single women your horny son would be having wet dreams about.
And I would still hold you like I do now.
And I would still like you like I do now.. barring the days I want to kill you. But I want to do a lot of things randomly so I don't think it counts.

Remember how we had a plan.
A plan that painted us both in Hansraj. Economics and English. You and I.
The never ending quest of wanting to hold on. Forever.
Clearly, none of us got through.
But here we are.
Still as lobster-like.
Still walking around our tank holding each other's claws.
Never letting go. Not yet, anyway!

Parabolic.

I am sorry for having had you dressed up and then not calling.
No, wait! That was you.

I am sorry for painting pictures of happiness and then splashing dirty waters all over them.
No, wait! That was you.

I am sorry for undermining you and for treating you like a back up furniture.
No, wait! That was you.

I am sorry for telling you that I loved you, when in fact, I did not.
No, wait! That was you.

I am sorry for failing to keep the promises I made to you.
No, wait! That was you.

But, most of all,
I am sorry that now I am the center of your universe, seemingly.
No, wait! THAT IS YOU.

I think you let me control you too much.
No, wait! Still, you...

Get out of my face! I have a gig to go to...

YOU.
The things I'll never be able to tell you in person because you are almost a suicidal piece of crap!
Your neediness disgusts me. It breeds hatred in me. I choose not to cultivate. I cannot heed to your constant need of attention. I understand break ups are hard. But that does not make it okay to swing to and fro between that girlfriend of yours and me. And oh! the snooze fest about how you miss her and how she is everything you ever had and *snooze*.... Just talking about it is nauseating. And then there are those days, when seemingly I am the most beautiful person you have ever come across and to pamper and spoil me is where your calling in life lies. If only you could see how abnormal this is. "please hug me!" "please kiss me!" "please love me!".... PLEASE STOP! I have every right to not take your calls when I don't want to; I have every right to not reply the very second my phone flashes '1 new message. *You*'. The last time I checked, this was a free country! I have enough problems of my own for me to devote my life to yours.
Hence, for your sake and mine, I need you to get out! Get out of my life! Let me be. I have friends to meet, people to fall in love with, things to create, paths to tread, materials to buy, gigs to attend...

My drummer best friend. I have never heard him play, yet. Sad, I know. However, today the glorious day has finally arrived!!!!!!! I am attending his gig, and very excitedly so. This is the first time ever that I have got the deadly combination of self will to go and permission to go :)
Must look like a girl, smell like beautiful things, kohl eyes to create the illusion of big-ness and scream and shout! You will find me holding out a placard saying 'I AM WITH THE BAND' in one hand and a lifted lighter in the other and jumping in my happy red converse. :D

YOU. Get out of my face! I have a gig to go to!

She has got to love nobody...

The success of a clubbing night party can be measured based on the following parameters :

• the puke generated.
• the random hook ups of the night.
• the friends you make in the loo.
• the men/women willing to grind with you through the night.
• the possible fuck up.
• the pain in the body the following day.
• the drunk calls made to the love(s) of life.

Anyway, Wednesday night. What a night! 

Happy Birthday T and the best birthday ever, for sure. 

THE PUKE.

No scene was created, really. It was a little after one of us had had her fill that she innocently slipped away to let out. Personally, I think party pukes should steal the show. No, this is not being sadistic one bit. I don't want for anyone to poop anyone's party. But there is something about your puke that makes you legendary. I understand being identified by one's puke is not everyone's ultimate dream but having been a part of some of the greatest puke stories, myself, I can't help but feel sorry for people whose pukes haven't made a mark in World History. Sigh.

Anyway, "the puke generated"- CHECK.

RANDOM HOOK UPS

Amidst all the dancing, screaming, drinking, smoking and other nonsense, one of us went missing. The fact that she was the one in possession of maximum mood swings, vulnerability, general hang ups in life and the maximum intake of intoxication at that time, did not help too much. A frenzy was launched, obviously. Suddenly the humble little Urban Pind seemed like a huge ass mansion. Love a person, hate a person, you CANNOT lose a person. Finally, the back of her head was recognised, courtesy the helpful bouncers and the photographer. A sigh of relief was soon cut short as while pulling her away, we found her face stuck to this thing with very eager lips. Getting a drunk, horny and big person to stop the 'action' is harder than one could crack it up to be.

Sigh.

Anyway, "the random hook ups of the night"- CHECK.

LOO FRIENDS

Ideally, when you go to take a leak, you do just that; take a leak. But when has 'ideal' been a favourite word, anyway? So, one of us goes to the loo, only to bring back a companion. What do you know? The new companion was gay and being surrounded by us (since we are not particularly ugly), gave her immense pleasure. Yes, she chose to be very evident about the pleasure, inappropriately so. She claimed to be a DJ from Mumbai, amongst her other claims. We did wonder why all of her 'claims' about self included her vigorous touching of our body parts.She danced and kissed in manners that I might not be too willing to mention. Anyway, seemed like a sweet person, however sexually charged. We didn't mind her little over the top dance moves either. Ah, Our humility.

Sigh.

Anyway, "the friends you make in the loo."- CHECK.

GRINDING ACTION

One of the (many other) advantages of partying with very close people is that you can dance slutty with unknown people on cheap songs and no one judges you! Paraphrasing what was previously mentioned, none of us looked completely ghastly hence there wasn't any lack of attention. Also, no one reallllyyyy wants to say no to a guy who can dance, right? Fortunately enough, we all managed our own personal grind-ers for the night. Obviously, the gay loo friend refused to leave are side hence, every now and then we almost gave in to our bi curiosity...or wait! was it just me? 

Sigh.

Anyway, "men/women willing to grind with you through the night."- CHECK.

FUCK UP

I know how there is dramatic rolling of eyes every time one hears how 'teenage is hard'. That, however, is not going to stop me from supporting the fact that it is. Yes, somewhere down the line when I'm facing my quarter/middle/end of life crisis, I would probably kill to come back and yes, it IS a hell lot of fun; However, it has its hardships. One, of the many, being that the most fun things you ever do has to occur (most often than not) under the veil of a lie to parents. 

Over the past few years, I've realised that the only time my mum would call me on my phone is when there had been a death in the family. No, not even then, actually. If my call log is traced, the last call by my mum is when I was ringing to my cell because I couldn't remember where I had kept it. Point being, she doesn't call unless it is an absolute emergency! Now when you're bringing up your kid with that insight, it is not cool when you think it's funny for you to suddenly decide to call on your kid's cellphone!! 

yes. SHE CALLED! It is hard for us to fathom the intensity of the drama that would've been caused had we been a little more drunk, or a little more close to the loud music or a little more naive in lying...

Sigh.

Anyway, "the possible fuck up.'- CHECK.

BODY PAIN

I don't think I need to waste any writing space on this. Hangovers and bad ones, at that are factual element. The fact that we chose to not sleep through the night at all and continued a mad house party the next day with more people, didn't help matters.

Sigh.

Anyway, "the pain in the body the following day."- CHECK.

CALLS

There is that moment, every time you are under the influence of alcohol, that you want to fight this unbelievable urge of embarrassingly calling a person! This usually happens right after you're done dishing out some major pseudo philosophical crap about life, death and all the in between. The calls maybe for various reasons, generally designed around the emotion of love.

You call people you are not 'supposed' to have feelings for, to tell them you love them.

You call people whom you had only subjected to your hard exterior, to tell them that you miss them.

You call people who haven't been the nicest to you but you can't help thinking about, to tell them how they need to get out of your life.

And some others...

As embarrassed as you may be the very next day, you must stop to ponder over one beautiful thing; that you feel. that you love. There is nothing more precious than that.

So at the climax of my high-ness (?) that night, as I smoked like there is no tomorrow, it hit me. It hit me that I had no one to call. How can I not have anyone that I want to make a drunk call of love to when I am too drunk to think straight?? It hurts. Really.

So there I was, stubbed the cigarette and went back to being touched by strange men on pretext of dancing. Was it only a coincidence that the very next song was 'Poker Face'- Lady GaGa.? "...No, he can't read my Poker Face... She Has Got To Love Nobody.."

Sigh...

Anyway, I have a cold after one million years. It is a strange feeling.

P.S- I don't like the man I am with these days, anymore. I miss calling my guy, 'guy' over 'man'. As much as I loved the whole 'older man' part, it's starting to tire me out. Also, he is too nice for me. There is too much pretence from me to keep this going. Sex isn't keeping anything intact anymore... though, he IS the best I have ever had. I like imperfections; keeps me sane. This is too much pressure. Also, he probably wants to and will have to 'settle down' soon. I have always had a problem with the phrase 'settle down'. It is way too demeaning. Point being, I'm lost. Sometimes we don't get each other and sometimes that becomes a little too clear for our liking. He calls me 'kid' and I refer to him as 'Good English', but amidst all the cuteness is a lot of chaos (READ: urgency to break free). I like to be in control, I feel incompetent otherwise. Feeling stupid is not my favourite feeling. His 'kid-ing' me around is nice, alright but a little clingy for my liking. If only i knew clearly what my liking was but this is not it, I know. I hope.

Go on, call me a fickle minded escapist, if you will.

"...She Has Got To Love Nobody..."