*#&^@*.....

Obstinacy of vacant undesired spaces in relationships feels like a prized clutch trapping pure air.
You can neither duck your head to breath in and nor can you let it merge with the smog.

Thermocol love

Bombay weather, books and nothingness provokes the not so good elements in me. After mulling for a while, I concluded -'what the hell? It happens to almost everyone!' So here I go...

"We had been careful, you had not left anything behind" - Hema, Going Ashore. Unaccustomed Earth.

All you now remain is a name. Just a name, a name that does not even look like you. A name that sounds fundamentalist, a name with a beard and blood-shot eyes.*You had mahogany eyes.

A name without a face. We never took a picture in those two and a half years; it surprises me now that we didn't! *We weren't even the shy, unfriendly types, then how come I don't have an image of us or you?

A name without a face or a location. You left B'bay for Padua, then moved to Vancouver, then to New York - it took you 4 years to come back and ask about me. When V met in a stray street relishing his beer - he wanted to know if I had a word for you... I knew, once he had spoken with you, you would've been ready to move again. *However, fate refuses me to budge from this constant catharsis of a city.

A name without a face, a location or a number. There is little I can complain about not being in touch, not taking your number from S when she urged me to. *S, being the idiot she is, didn't leave it on my desk - things never strike her! I have no way to call you. Would I have called you, if I had your number? I am unsure.

All that is available is a mail id that came with your last mail months ago; reading "this is the deepest secret that no one knows... I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)" *Quoting Cummings, I thought was very sick trick.

You'd always known what to say and do, all that I would avoid confronting; saying things that I knew but never wanted to hear. I have never had the will to press 'reply to sender'. Hunting for your whereabouts will take more courage than I claim to have.

I am never sure if you are awake or asleep or working when I am thinking of you; like now. I wonder whether you get hiccups? And do you, like me, recall everyone only to await my name and then the hiccups magically go away. Do you, like me, relish that moment, knowing that I could too suffer that bitterness of silence?

I yearn for what we so actively absolved, not realising then, the curse of long-term-memory. *I have become forgetful in an attempt to forget those moments. Silly me, I fictionalise, birthing them in ways less obvious - it's the cheapest attempt to keep them alive.

Sometimes I look for signs. I could see them like glaring errors when I walked into Regal or in Leo's, or on the Town Hall steps or at the NCPA corner or in the University's library .... I almost relived our Sartre-Beauvoir fight. Btw: the glass lamp shades haven't been changed, just as you vouched. Nonetheless, for a while now, I have been quietly thankful for not unconsciously finding those signs...

I live around these cluttered memories, while you, after a long time, have successfully vanished....
We had been careful to not leave a proof of us.

Moments

My needs surprise me, and the way I deal with them amazes me even more.
Can someone be stupid and wise at the same time?

realization - reconciliation

It takes courage to pack your bags and leave never to be taken for granted again.
It also takes courage to step back and live it through, knowing every single day that you were capable of a different life - only you chose not to live it.

Yesterday, after a long conversation with the monk, I realized why Loudmouth had let go so many opportunities; for the same reason I had let go mine.
I do not think the monk is capable of doing that. He is lucky in ways and very unfortunate in many others.
Thank god for small mercies.

Bonding

Women rarely bond; they may converse, ramble or critique but not really bond, they never slide under a skin. It is often a 'She and I', identification, comparison, complain, etc. Rarer are the silent understanding of the other person - (I would often conclude that because the gender is so obsessed with the opposite one they never see themselves in any light). Nonetheless, we all have had chats with other people whilst travelling on the local train. I have had conversations while reading a book - a hangover from college that I refuse to shun. It often starts with a question, remark or compliment; and I do my best to read 'intelligent' books with a Booker, Nobel, Penguin, Frankfurt backing them (some justification for my choice of books). If you are reading a Sheldon or a Forsyth, they'd look at you and turn away and if you are reading kitch the *sigh* is just not ignorable!

Yesterday, after a finishing Unaccustomed Earth, I picked-up a Mills and Boon 'The Executive's Surprise Baby' (honestly, they aren't as ridiculous as their reputation), a joy that I have very recently discovered. As I comfortably snuggled into the tote, half way through the book and blaring Roja music; bevy of irate women got in, urging everyone to make more space. In that bustle, I happen to notice that the girl beside me was reading as well. I did not bother to check what she as reading as my protagonist had just discovered her fiance's infidel nature, and she being 7 months pregnant - I knew there would be a major twist in the next paragraph.

She politely made space for me to come closer in order to allow the lady a comfortable fourth seat. Then she spoke
She: "Mills and Boon, you too?"
Me: (jostling with the guilt of being caught) "Ya, I know it's trash!"
She: Ya, but it's just time-pass, sometimes it's okay (certainly re-negotiating with her Id and Super ego.)
Me: Ya. This one isn't that bad.
She: Yes, mine is just about okay, as well.

For a brief moment I looked into her eyes and there was something unspeakable, something that was understood. It wasn't the 'Desire series' that incidentally we both were reading. It was something beyond that, an understanding of allowing the pretentious, polite intellectual her raw space. It was a reconciliation with one's primeval yet silent needs. Emptiness fell back in and moments later she alighted, leaving me guessing. How many onion skins does one need to peel before really knowing the other's never expressed desire?

Sometimes

Sometimes life seems so wrong. I seem lost, out of tune, fat and partially blind.

Sometimes stagnation hits so bad that it feel like a listless, spineless leaf ... turning to the breeze to direct my life some where.

Sometimes, one is just sitting and waiting for things to happen... this sometimes seems every time to me.

Sometimes, one is so unhappy and jealous that a smile won't break out ...

Sometimes a terrible void gets created that a pair of Ferragamos won't fill.

Sometimes all hope seems false and all 'arts' of living farcical.

Sometimes saying good bye is more painful than any pain ever experienced. Silence is the only one that will block this pain. The pain of knowing that it hurts you more than it will hurt the other person - because sometimes you remember friends in ways that you can't expect them to remember you.

Sometimes sleep and dreams are futile refuges. Sometimes you don't want to wake-up after you have put yourself to sleep. A perfect time for sleep to start avoiding you.

Sometimes the refrained risks, the walk aways, the shunned loyalties just feel like a slap in the face...

Sometimes cliches do not sound funny. Just as sometimes your odds are not cute, they are pathetic.

Sometimes the most difficult thing to say is, "I am so happy for you."

Sometimes you don't mind walking down his street in midnight rain only to attempt to make everything right and everything disappear, however sometimes the mornings are just not so bright...

Sometimes the cosmos avenges you for not warming a friendly heart, for selfishly leaving a flawed love...

Sometimes it gets cold, very cold.

Sometimes, irrespective of how desperate you are to settle for less, you won't do it. Simply because you were not born that way.

Sometimes it's time to remind oneself that this too shall pass. But sometimes it feels foolish to even believe so....

The Other Within Us: Women

I am obssessed with this plural. Mine is often a love-hate relationship. I applaud at the intensity of courage and craziness that women display. Squirm, frown and scowl at the core of their characters. The paradox is sometimes just too contradictory to fathom.

Women in general are fickle and unpredictable - they are more farcical than most male comedians ever born. Although, I want to refrain myself from 'generalizing' the gender, I am rendered helpless. And here, because it is my space - I am liberally forgiving myself for making sweeping generalizations. My closest friends are men, only because I can not trust women, only because I know them too well, only because if I were in their shoes - I would bite the other person raw.

Still, (paradoxically) every woman in my life has a special place, her wit, beauty, arrogance, courage, surrender and love has taught me more about living than 25 years of my living. They are the kindest and the coldest - and are best at being both. However they are very unreliable, especially when it comes to the men they love. Their sense of achievement, their pride, their values - everything can be tossed out of the window with the blow dryer. Time and again, close friends, siblings, acquaintances behave and react in ways that would make me doubt their level of common sense (forget intelligence).

I can now firmly conclude (after enduring women bosses and HODs) that women can not handle power - every time they raised to the position of responsibility and power - they became tyrannical. They fret and exploit and get more insecure, apart from the emotional part - professionally they take up too much responsibility to prove their mettle. Never heard of biting more than you can chew? Ahhaan, that does not mean that they will not complete the task, they will - even if it means tearing their hair and everyone else's!

Incidentally all world's evils are rooted in mothers - they teach a whole lot of drab shit to their kids, including yours and mine. The lessons may seem wise and right to us especially now, but gradually when you see yourself as a decimal in the cosmos - you know it's an abysmal pot hole that you will have to fill.

At a recent ashram visit- I met this global philosopher who was enjoying being treated as a god man. He is talking of Karma and that everything happens for the good. Amidst the questions, an old lady comes to him and says

Old Lady : "I have spent all my life behind my child, I taught him everything, cared for him, loved him more than myself. Today he left me at this Ashram's main gate to spend the rest of my sick old age."

Philosopher (a little enraged, stares at her and questions) : "Whose fault is it?"

Old Lady (with tears in her eyes) : "My son's of course, what kind of question is that?"

Philosopher : No, It is you. Didn't you always tell him to have everything for himself? Did you not forbid him from sharing anything of his with fellow students and colleagues, be it a silly school lunch box or a toy, his poor troubled friends or his study notes or his work. You, for years and years over taught him to exclude everything - now he has excluded you. He has done what he was taught.

The lady went hysterical, and so did the crowd. I have no clue, nor did she as to how he knew about it but that is not important. The fact remains that mothers' do this and a whole lot more. The moment I thought of this - I had a list of parents who had, have and would say it to their children. So many times my mom has asked me to 'have it all', don't give, don't trust - silly goose!

I do not know if it is the right way - the Wise Capitalist believes it to be so. I am as usual caught in constant conflict.