Hi.
Day 0.
1. The problem with writing after a long time is that you have all these stories tarrying along in your head that you need to take out, then ofcourse, there are a lot of little-bits about them that you forget but you should have told. But it would have been so much better if we had a pensieve and we could store all our memories. So that the impact is not lost.
2. life in mumbai has been a bit of a treadmill of events, revelations and realizations.
3. I come back crying a lot of times home, saying i'm quitting work. I'm quitting mumbai because of the sum of things that I continue to dislike about living here. But Zoo abides by me and cools me down. I think she's scared to face a disgruntled and upset sister.
4. The other day, I got caught in the smidgeon of the balcony because I accidentally slid the sliding glass door shut. So the only way one could open it without breaking it was by inside. I yelled and yelled and asked for help. Ofcourse I was rescued and hence I'm writing today. But I got a very Prince-like feeling. No, not that Prince. The one that got caught in the pit/man-hole.
5. Meanwhile people continue to scramble in the buses and trains. But the interesting thing is that I do manage to find familiar faces in the trains. Sometimes they're so familiar that it occurs to me, Id just seen that lady in the morning train.
6. The city might be a little difficult
People can be seen talking to themselves or crying to themselves. Walk through my office in fort to the VT station, and despite the rush that you might be in to catch up with office or train, you can take notice of such people.
It is quite baffling to see the immense poverty in this city.
7. Ive come to the conclusion that it's a test and i'd hate to give up
I feel angry for feeling victimized.
it's easier to advise someone, but very difficult to do the same thing. No matter how much this has been used and said, I've only started to understand it now.
8. It's rains in Mumbai every now and then. But the threats of floods have sort-of been empty. Mummy worries sick over that while things run as-it-is in office. She worried sick over swine flu while things ran as-it-is, without a flutter of an eye-lid at office.
9. Weekends come back reallly soon. So do weekdays. But I look forward to weekdays more than weekends. Working on weekends hurts just a little more than working on weekdays.
Day 5
1. Running a household is also quite a task. There's gas, water, laundry, everything to be taken care of.
2. I hate to say, there's no time. I was a big believer of 'taking time out'. I was not so fatalistic either, blaming my mishaps on the city and its many hooks that keep you from flowing uninterruptedly. But I have changed, and I'm due to change again. I'm a small-town girl. And want to go back to that. For ever and all time.
3. But wait a second. Am I putting you through this drone again. So here's a promise for everyone's sake. I will fill up the glass quickly, so that I'm able to see it full again.
Day 6
1. I made a cute little friend in the bus. he kept shooting stary glances at me every now and then. In the middle, he would make faces at his coins.
2. I wonder if I were to champion for equality and not women's rights, then would I ask the guy to get up for me, on the seat, reserved for women??
3. If 2 people are feeling hot and cold, then should the fan be switched on or off? Is feeling hot potentially more harmful or feeling cold.
4. I realize more than ever, we almost always live in greys. Only black and white are black and white respectively. We are the product of our circumstances and now more than ever. Bathing time changes from 30 mind to 15 to even 10, from shower to bucket, from bidets to health faucets to mugs, from everyday, rugged jeans to Indian suits everyday, yes every single day, from being juniors to seniors, from being dumped with work to dumping in turn, from a full-blown meal of raita, papad, butter-milk, friums to a precipitous meal. From tea to no-tea to black-tea. People and ethics change all the time. School, college and work are such different settings. Just for instance, proxies are ever-so-common in college but I wonder how people would take it at work.
Day 4
1. Oh, now I know, why everyday, mundane life might be called a journey. There are a million things you can think of. Trying to come down a slippery, gradient and difficult terrain can be done much better if you can just cruise through, instead of fussing over the stone here and the hedge there. Alternatively, it can be crossed just as well, sitting down at every stone and breathing over it. Even more alternatively, holding someone's hands through a ravine.
2. But the trek was fantastic. It had it's waterfall, rainy and cavy moments. I wonder how much patience those Buddhist monks may have had, trying to carve out those caves in the neck of somewhere.
3. I also get how our fairy tales were so important. We wouldn't have been we, had it not been for hansel and gratel and their crumbs.
4. I realized, how ever much I dread water, and running water, I feel this strange thrill, sitting under the gushing, bouncing water off the cliff.
5. And there are days, when my blonde moments don't end. First, discussing over, whether we were entering the mainland India from the island India through an isthmus, my eyes looked both sides trying to spot water. Ofcourse, spatial intelligence escaped me then and I thought, there was no water on the other side because the world might be my oyster, but definitely not 100 yards long. Similarly, you might be crossing an isthmus, but you might not see water on either side.
6. Oh yes, the world is my little oyster. I have the freedom to do what I like and fight for my rights. And my weekends are mine, and I refuse to let them be intruded upon by anyone. But once the leash is loosened, it is loosened. To get it back, in your clutch might be difficult. So if you allow someone all your time on weekends, over and over again, you start to feel guilty if you try to claim it back later. So start doing it sooner than later. If I have to say, I refuse to work on weekends, I must say it with confidence.
Day 3.
1. Corporate presents itself as a bit of demon. Working is getting crazy. There's just too much to do in too little time. I never thought there'd be no time to stand and stare. I never thought that i'd have no time to write back to people or be so rushed off the feet that 'brb' is the only thing that can be managed.
2. Besides there are too many rules up there. There are corporate manners and etiquette that I'm learning surely but have very little clue about.
Every thing is very measured in that prissy world, with no room to make mistakes. Be careful in writing 'Dear', 'Thank You', 'Regards' and such.
3. Boss takes employees from behind. Walks from behind you and asks you, hey, how’s it going.
4. Standing on the footboard and feeling the Mumbai air, free from its characteristic stench is pleasing.
5. I scratch myself harder, thinking it was a t-shirt i was scratching
6. Work takes over work again. The first work is the politics of work that I have to deal with, the second one is more interesting, it is that I do- ttalk to consumers, analyse their behaviour, etc.
Day 1.
I lament it. With grief. I lament my ant-hood in this vast mess I've gotten into.
I lament the vicious circle.
The daily grind.
I lament my own two appearances all the time.
No, I'm not vulnerable.
You mess with me, and I will be quit of you. And you of me.
We will both be better off.
I lament that I feel spent, in this swamp. And now it's creating such horrid situations that'll be QUIT (in capitals.)
I lament that I can't speak out, that I have the fear of crossing the line, of being thrown out, and when I do, it's met with scorns of 'Oh, you want it easy'. 'These kids'.
But I say, it doesn't matter.
Day 2
Saw Kaminey in Indore.
It is an intelligent film. It dodges one all the time. My parents, ofcourse thought we had a lot of catching up to do everywhere with the film and my mum would actually keep asking my dad or me about what just happened, about what was going on, making us lose the track just a little bit.
There are many other things that I like about the film. The lisp and the stuttering. The use of multiple languages. It dwarfed me in a way.
There was immense dichotomy also in the film. 2 crimes in the same hotel at the same time, 2 Shahids, 2 speech problems, etc. More importantly, such films increase the scope of the film by that much. If they had to tell us everything on reel in 3 hours, it would be difficult, instead it’ll make us fill the gaps ourselves, hence spreading it’s wings far and wide.
