A horrible chaos of thoughts

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.

from 1 week to 2 to 3 and 4. first encounter with the baap of pitter patter :d

The other day, the entire paper was plastered with stories of homosexuality becoming legalized. It seemed a whole lot of people were elated with the Delhi court coming out with a historical verdict. I'm told, it might be an issue of a huge vote bank. I love it that we're living upto all the constitutional promises of liberty and equality. But I wonder if a law ever deterred a lover or how criminal he must feel loving. I wonder more at what 377 had to say and how straight and not-so-straight people did unlawful things inadvertently, without anyone ever knowing ofcourse.

Lovely looking sea-links get erected reducing 40 to 7 mins, or is it just alleged. I believe, that all these great pieces of architecture over-promise. Just like work expands to fill up the time, traffic also must expand to fill up the space.

Presently, travel causes more and more problem. It's becoming more and more menacing to thrust people ahead in the train, skip trains in hope of an emptier train, pacing slower or faster with the crowd, avoiding leeking man-holes, cringing from pelting rains, et al. On the streets, the crowds aggregate to be one mass. There is an aggregate speed of that mass auto or manual traffic.

Game theory fits perfectly and explains best this whole rut. People say, I should leave early from home and office to find less rush, but considering everyone knows that and is being told that, implements this and advance the peak hour, down to a lesser hour. Sometimes people stay back in their homes and offices to join the parade a little later, on which days everyone else also mysteriously decides to do the same, thereby pushing the peak hour later. Therefore, the best idea would be to not think much, go out there, fight the travel travails and emerge a winner. :D

People are forgiving and probably the busiest in all of this universe. The other day, a friend said, it'll just take half an hour, what is that in Bombay standards, and I thought, in any other part of the world, I would've wanted to do things differently in that half an hour. But people are quick to forgive Mumbai in that sense. Over time, they don't curse the traffic jams, howling crowds, alternating bouts of heavy rains and sweltering heat.

Central line, I hear is the first one to close down during rains. That would send one in a state of dither and pother. It also has a smaller first class, women' compartment than the western line. One would complain, but like everything else, that also is forgiven.

In the train, new phenomena emerge everday. A crash course would be helpful but experience is also fine. Getting on the train is a fine art. Getting down is also one. One must learn about which side the destination platform would come on. Getting on a long distance train, hoping to get out on a mid-station could be anything between difficult to nightmarish. Having a back to lean on would be good, so you can book your place against the wall by asking people who will alight sooner than you. There will be much more jostle in the close-by second class men's compartment and that MUST goad you on. I become more and more thankful for my gender then.

It's a good thing, I've seen the people for a month before reaching conclusions. I'd said it was an unwelcoming experiece with people aboard the train. But I can understand their surly temperaments and testy dispositions. One tends to become like that when their every-day lives are so heavily dependent on external factors. I have also started to sass people when they ask me get rid of my sack. I've learnt to ignore their pssts and tchtchs. I've also encountered familiar faces, to which I simply smile.
Outside of trains, people just help. Auto-walas are curt but definitely not out there to cheat. You are safe, coming at 2 in the night. And very protected during unfriendly tides and attacks. The same crowds that suffocate the mind, give it humane leases at such times.

Meanwhile, there've been some close and not-so-close friends to meet and chill with. There've been first experiences with hosting with home-made food, appreciation and criticism. There've been pangs of lonelinesses and joys of living alone. Truth be spoken, even in MICA i lived alone, but the system took care of you. Here, without Zoo, living by yourself, running a household with a maid, broker, laundry seemed just too large and overwhelming.

Work is panning out better. It's opening a whole new world of corporate and research. Fieldwork, somewhere in the parallel universe, might be about conforming to very demanding research designs. We were made to do cold calls, which were rather cold, some warm calls and door-to-door. These are two disparate worlds of design and field, both complementary to each other, extensions, different arms of research. More than consumers are king, respondents are king would be more appropriate.

Home continues to be great consolation. Support systems going good and strong. New songs by Iron and Wine, Zoo's melifluent sing-song, Debo's extreme listlessness and Minkie's fits of mirthful laughter and crazy talk delight my ears daily. :D


The other day, I had my first encounters also with pitter-patter rainfall that assumed gargantuan proportions. While I was at Bandra, chilling with a friend, I'd hear things like 'galat bhada utha liya hai', 'don't cross so-n-so subway, there's water clogging there', 'maybe you could check into a hotel or something', I hit the panic button. It became worse when the taxis and autos would refuse straight to take me home. And then the straw, central line closes. But I reach home safely, so does everyone else. People weather these weathers all the time.

Anyhow, i think it's become much longer than I'd expected and much much longer than anyone can stand. Next time, I'll not wait for such leakage and piling.

In the hope of becoming one of them or not.

Later

P.s. SuZoo ka ghar and friends coming soon

andheri, fort and everything in between~

I've been in Mumbai and dying to write every day. There's a lot to write, and a lot of resistance and stalling off too, but I'll try and remember everything about this last one week.

Mumbai is colossal. It's from everywhere to everywhere and why I know it so much is because I've travelled a good deal in this time. Office is in Fort, the towner side of Mumbai, and home is somewhere in the neck of Andheri East.

I take a walk to the bus station, take a bus, take a train and take a walk. The commute divides in 3 legs. And walking is the best, which is to say that the train and bus are nightmarish and ordealish in any combination. Everyday is a new day. In which any generalization could be sweeping. One day the bus or the train journey manageable and the next day i'm disposed to thinking otherwise. I have to say I havn't encountered the most humble people in Mumbai. They scorn all the time. Or I think, it could be just me. They know that crowd is a commute reality but they still sulk at others. They know that you're being pushed by someone else in the train from behind, but they will still mutter something completely incomprehensible in Marathi and make you feel like an outsider. I daresay I feel like one here. So train's been a little unwelcoming in that sense.

I dread Dadar station like lightning. My fingers cross in hope that somehow we can pass it by, without stopping. I love it at other times in hope that it comes 5 minutes too soon and people get off the train.

Fragrances, aromas, stinks mix everywhere. The fish stench on CST skilfully transforms into the shoe-polish smell and then the collective odours of the shampoos and powders and deodorants people use.

Queues are rampant. From everywhere to everywhere again. But people don't complain. Oh, no, they don't complain. I'm told they revel in this discomfort, or should I call it rut. It's everyday for them is fine, but it's fine it's everyday for them. Standing in the bus I felt like a soldier one day. Then I looked at the other lady standing too and I didn't think she would complain and think of herself as brave. When I do manage to find a place, people hit my head all the time. Sometimes their crotches are so close, but it's nothing to worry about.

People also mock here. One day I waited for the bus for 15 minutes and it came, stopped for exactly 2 seconds, and left without me. I stood at the stop in shock. Looked around to see some people smirk. Yesterday, I stepped on dung, fresh from the oven, and I looked around again to see people smirk. They laugh at my complaints of distance, of noise, of people.

But it's all played in the mind. If I get used to it, I get used to it. Besides not having a definite time frame in mind of how long I might have to repeat this abominable ritual is comforting. It keeps one from breaking down everyday. There is comfort in Zoo's and Minkie's parenting and encouragement in all combinations. There's some consolation also in the cooler office. There's definite solace in mom-dad's conviction and then there's time.

Weekend was fun and lazy with Zoo. Now she'll be gone for the weekend. Minkie will be gone too for the trek. But it's all good. I have some catching up to do and some things to be gotten in order.

Later

Bullets of my sleepy vegetation!

1. I vege out at home, like i've never done before. And like a vacation. In normal circumstances, I'd have become extremely restless at not having much to do, but this is like unwinding at it's best.

2. I'd worked a one-day interest in democracy and polls. We were inundated with messages about how we must not, as educated citizens let our vote go to waste.

However, I have to make a clean breast of my lack of knowledge about the candidates standing from this constituency. I also have to admit, that I knew little about their agendas and I still went to vote for the immense electoral pressure from media and everywhere else. But I do also know more people like me, who decided to stay back home and refrain, which as an afterthought was a better thing to do. This of course also emanates from a little bit of apathy, a little bit of despondence in parliamentary democracy.

I also feel that the low turn-out amongst electorates like me might be because of constant migration from everywhere to everywhere. They havn't stayed at a place for long enough to get a voter's id. That's a little sorry, considering how important we are as targets to a lot of election campaigns.

3. IPL is spiffy, crisp and interesting.

4. I don't like black-n-white as much as I like colours, considering works of nature, expressions and countenances describe well in just hues.

5. I feel at a loss for words sometimes. No not so much a language problem as much as just the lack of putting thoughts in words.

6. Conflate moon-lit nights, appearance and disappearance of our blotchy, fluorescent from floating clouds with crackers in the wedding season with terrace, personal and intimate thoughts and Phil Collins and it'll be worth it.

7. Lots of things about which to know, the urge is rising in the chest but the overload of information online and the fact that one does not get to learn from the internet when one knows what he/she wants to know forbid me in that endeavour.

8. It's partly the heat that takes me down a lot sometimes. Sometimes it's topped by the most heinous mosquitoes and the shortage of water. It's these times, more than anytime else, I like to live on a mountain in a mosquito-proof valley. On road, I see mirages everywhere. The road and suspended somewhere in air also.

9. Shed thy ego in driving and relationships. Don't say to yourself, 'let the car honk, I'll not let him pass' or 'Let me show that indiscriminate driver a lesson' or 'I'll not talk till he/she talks' or 'What the hell, it's not my turn'.

10. Let it flow, let it go.

Later

IPL- It's Pure Lure.

Long time.

I have started a new regime these days (read: the last 3 days). I do some wall practice for tennis (yes, the long lost friend, about whom I used to write so fondly). It's like playing with myself :). No no, don't get me wrong. It's like returning your own shots. But the hope of a cloudy afternoon always outSHINES the will to get up early and hit the court. However, today, as I saw the day turn silver(from clouds) from yellow, my heart leapt with joy. The line between shade and sunshine on the court blurs too subsequently. And then another leaping in joy.

When people say 'it's all in the head', it all falls in place. The trick in tennis, I've found out :d, is to slow-motion the ball when it's landing back, after the bounce, see the last of it's revolutions before you hit it with all your might, straight from the centre of the racket. Every ball, every time, with might.

Then a little run on the treadmill, some crunches and squats follow. And then some thigh pain, and fatigue follow. I vacillate between sport and fitness and fitness and sport. I have moved on from non-belief in gym. As one looks at himself slogging it out on the treadmill, the feeling of being fit is half the battle of fitness won.

Later in the day, I watch some action in IPL. The other day, I saw one of the most nail-biting, cliff-hanging match between Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders. These matches are bigger than loyalties. While I saw Shahrukh Khan pray and Shilpa Shetty rejoice, I felt galvanized. That's the stickiness about T-20, it's pace, it's assortment and glamour.

And today, when my favourite Chennai gets to draw with Kolkata (a fairly easy game, in favour of Chennai), I feel a little 'sinking'.

Things change all the time. In the wedding season, I no longer like to put mehendi (henna) in my hands. There was a time in my childhood when I used to crave such things. I would wear many bangles, put mum's lipstick like a shabby girl without taste, wear 'chunnis' for saris all the time (just the way I do now), make a wig and hang it around my neck and keep jerking my head in that sexy way heroines do in films. No more. I think, madnesses of childhood just peter out like this in adulthood.

But some things never change. Mums never become indifferent to us, however much they say- 'I've stopped to care about you children'. She will still come and see if we are sleeping even if we have had a battle with words just moments back. And the taste of Amul butter never changes. The assurance of the sweet voice never changes. The sting of the pernicious and scheming mosquito's bite never changes. And the promise of the eastern sun and the warmth of the western sun never change too.

So Long.

ordinary but super

holidays slip out of my hand like a chocolate chip from a cookie falls into one of those sofa cleaves and edges along while I try to pluck it with my index and thumb. feeling like a mother missing the 9 months old foetus, to the book i just finished reading. have lots of fun in telling half the details to Debo and witholding the other half, that unhinges him completely. have many a bee in my bonnet. Sometimes its working out. Staying at home and squandering the holidays away evokes crazy, gory images in my mind. I see funny things happen to myself and it's not pretty. sometimes it's someting else. But they are all too many and too small. Sometimes it's taking a back-packing trip somewhere. I open many a link to see some nice vegetarian recipes to fix something in the kitchen. But the moment passes, I bookmark those links and I never go back to that. Later I open many a link for architecture types and forms. Bookmark those and then never go back to them. Sometimes, I have many pages(Tabs * Windows)open on my computer that are never visited again. In the meantime, Zoo goes to Amreeka and Debo takes exams. I think about Minkie at times and the time-zones and the one-way-ness upset me then. I want to pole vault time and space then. Anyhow, these are momentary things and pass me by in another instant.

Later

cocktail

now that i have shifted my base from ahmedabad for good, there were some things that needed winding up. For eg. I spoke to Vodafone executives to solve my post-paid problem. D'abbord, cest moi, que presente les problemes grandes. Deuxiemement, les executives sont tres prepare, comme, ils soint tres exaspere pas mes problemes, finalement, they breathed a sigh or relief, continue a me demander si ils peuvent faire quelque chose pour moi, in a long and boring drone of 'i hope mam, the information we provided you helped us, if there is anything we can do for you, please let us know.'. And while they neared the end of this refrain, je pensais d'une nouvelle probleme, et ils repetaient la meme message.

Je crois, mes probleme restent comme ca. Mais, au'jourdhi jai recontre plus qu'une fois, un exposure of service. Et ce sont les educateurs qui nous servent le meilleure. Ils sont dans la profession, plus noble.

Anyhow, service est tres important dans la travaux de ordinateur aussi. La diskette et chargeur ne travaille plus. Pourtant, je suis sure, les gens qui me servent le meilleure, n'ont pas etudie 'service marketing' dans le college.

Anyhow, from the top, everything else looks like a small speck. Tall buildings that were once visible, the view is completely obliterated by many more buildings in the middle. While I saw the scorching sun turn into a less bold colour of orange but a more defined round ball, one huge leaf from the coconut tree fell, from the first tumlt of arriving monsoon. And listening to reminiscent songs, I was taken two years back to another chapter of college. Anyhow, that's another story.

So while shoes are being thrown on important political people, earthquakes ravage pretty landscapes, Taliban rears it's head, mass protests take place in Maldova, India draws an almost-won match, the heat of elections becomes thicker and new sensational stories unfold everyday, on my turf, closer home while mummy and I fight, learning is becoming a little difficult in the kitchen. A few failed attempts at cooking cut me to size. Hope things are better in a few days. We'll get to feel better and eat better.

Later