On Love...

"Love should bring joy, it should grant a person peace, but here and not, it was bringing only pain."

Love has always brought me pain. And I realise, it is because I have always been running away from it. I've been thinking about a lot of things in the past few months, and feeling depressed about a lot more. There's comes a time when you need to stop moping and evaluate your choices, yourself.



I've tried to be honest here and I will try to be in the future. But I promise I'll be honest, not only here, where I know few people read me and fewer still know me in "real" life, but I promise myself that I'll be honest, in the real life, about loving. I will love with complete abandon. I won't hold back. I won't run away. I won't hide. I'll love without the excess unnecessary baggage. Without brakes. Without thinking about the scars I wear. Without worrying about the future. Without worrying about getting hurt.



Anything else, I realise, is a travesty. A lie. It won't be easy(Even as I write this, a small voice mocks me), but I hope such a love won't suffocate you, won't suffocate me. That such a love is possible. And maybe, just maybe, such a love won't hurt.

You Should Date An Illiterate Girl...

This made me weep and jump with joy; joy of coming across such beautiful words, almost like finding a lottery.

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.[...]

[...]Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

This article made me feel grateful that I can read.

*****
I realise, there is a certain beauty in failing. Of not going through life being happy always. There is a certain meaning to living a life that's mired in sadness, misery, failure and loneliness. I realise, maybe, it's good that I am still struggling to find my calling in life, that I didn't meet my soulmate at a college fete 10 years ago, that I found and lost, that I tried and failed. There is a certain beauty in struggle too. And when all this is over, maybe I can say I lived a life worth talking about.

The Idea Of Our Happiness...

Wouldn't it be so much better if we remember where we came from before this life? We might actually like this life. 

A Mouse, A Helmet And A Motorcycle...You Know What Else? A Camel!

Compulsive Confessor could not have put it better!

Rule number two, and one I’ve learnt the hard way. I’ve just come out of a pretty long, pretty serious relationship. Now, the problem with that is that you expect the next guy to pick up exactly where you and the old guy were when you broke up. Start at square one. Remember he’s not in love with you (yet). Remember he doesn’t know all your stories. Remember this is new territory, and you, even you, are a whole new person.

I have had more failure than successes and one of the main reason(Okay, fine, there were 200 main reasons!) has always been that I was stuck in the past. Well, one can't be entirely blamed. You are used to a certain person, a certain routine. You are so set in this life you have built, that it's hard to come out of it, harder even to see what you're doing-what you end up doing is essentially replace the old guy with a new guy, in the same old world.


I always thought I was same with everyone. I am not. With certain people, I feel safe enough to be myself, with a few, I am fake, with others I am guarded and controlled, but genuine. With a certain few, I am toned down and sobered down, essentially, not genuine not even fake (You get the worse deal rabbit). With a few, very few, I am weird and nuts and totally uninhibited (I think you'll love me like this, I like myself like this too).


You are a different person with each friend/colleague/acquaintance in your life. And if you think back, you were a different person with every guy you were with (or girl). Each love was different. You can not expect the same love! You have to let the new world unfold in its own time and in its own unique way. But you get into a new relationship, and you end up expecting same answers for your questions, you expect same gestures, same emotional responses, heck, you behave and talk the same way too! It's really stupid, but I believe it is something quite natural. You expect your new world to be the exact copy of the previous one. Cause you don't know anything else any more, you have forgotten any other way.


I think the solution to this is that you take time off. Don't get into a new relationship unless you have given yourself enough time to recover. "Enough" can vary from person to person, I normally take atleast a year(Yea I know!), a friend I know takes 2 months (How cool!). But never rush! You are going to end up hurting yourself and worse, the new person, who doesn't deserve the burden of your baggage. No one does. Not even you.


This is for a friend who wants to move on. Take time off. With love, you'll find old memories at every corner if you want to and aren't they just so painful? And what you end up doing is look for a band-aid. D, you're young and beautiful and smart and funny. And you deserve so much more! Take time off. Go see new places, meet new people, talk to strangers, read, cook new food, dance, sing...laugh. Do all that till you forget how your old world looked like. Then go out and make a new life.


Now if only someone had told me all this 5 years ago! :| 

Pour Me Some Rum!

So Mommy dearest has been most anxious these days. "Get married! Get married!" She keeps saying. So dearest astrologer was consulted and as per her, I shall be shooed away by 2012. Mid of 2012 she says. That means I have 1 and 1/2 year to have some real fun!

Mom's Punjabi friend is most interested and suggested some Punjabi guys and as soon as sister heard, she was shouting over the phone,"No Punjabi men! No Punjabi men! They beat their wives!".

Like really :| Generalizations abound? In my family, most definitely.

Astrologer also says I would end up getting married to someone from my friend's circle. Someone I know. When mom heard this, she was like, "Yeah! I like that friend of yours. He looks good. Why don't you marry him?". Like it's as simple as buying soap from the supermarket. It's not of any concern ofcourse, that I think of him more in the brotherly sense. And so she kept talking about him all the time. Frustrated and angry I finally said, "Mom, he's sleeping with my best friend. Do you understand that? He's just a good friend!". That shut her up nice. Actually no. That shut her up nice about the friend, but then she started shouting, "You girls!" and went on to give me a lecture. Arghh, bad, bad move! I am a bad girl now.

Then, mom's best friend has suggested one guy from Umrica. Very rich and good family. Mom was floored. "He's tall and fair and so very handsome".

"What am I going to do with tall, fair and handsome Ma? Place him on the coffee table as a showpiece?!"

"I don't understand what you want".

"I agree", I said, "you don't".

It's been peaceful since then. Nice.

*****
The thing that freaks me out about marriage is that one day I'll end up posting my kid's pic on Facebook and my friends will comment, "How cute. New clothes for baby xyz?" And I will reply, "Yea. I bought new slacks for her/him." And someone will reply "how cute" and that will be the most exciting thing in my life!

Terrified. My-heart-can-pop-out-and-run-away-and-hide-and-my-brain-can-come-off-in-pieces-terrified.

Trees Are Tall...

Went for a walk the other day and came home with a nice ego massage. (For a moment I did feel that I had left my pants home or something.)

An aside, "Stay fit without being stared at", gymns could definitely use it as one of their marketing slogans!

Also, on my way back bought some almond oil and a couple of earrings from Fabindia. "Go jogging and come back shopping, typical chhokri", a guy friend said. Heh! Yes, typical chhokri indeed. So I have decided I won't be carrying my wallet after all.

*****
I have stopped fretting over my pics now. Really, it's useless. I mean, what the bloody hell! I stay fit and eat well and sleep on time and sleep all 8 hours that too, just for Munira's wedding! And then when the D-day comes, I am sleep-deprived, terribly hungover, extremely tired and then I have to pose for pics too! Arghhhh! It's not fair God, not fair!

And if the pics are so bad, one can only imagine the dance video! I actually danced for Munira's sangeet! Can anyone believe that?(Vodka is awesome!) Yes sir, like proper steps-walla dance, I did! That too on the stage! I did dance-dance to "Zor Ka Jhatka" from Action Replay. And from what I heard, I refuse to watch the video, I look quite adorable dancing and specially when I forget the dance steps and even more adorable when I trip! :|  Adorable is not an adjective any one can associate with me, no really, I am not being modest, so only thing is possible: they're laughing at me! Liars!


*****
I have realised I am a "phases" person. I have these no-fixed-length phases I go through from time to time. There are phases when I am extremely nice to people, phases when I am actually stupid (no, really!), phases when I am all witty and sassy and funny, phases when I am really depressed, phases when I hate the world ( this happens quite often), phases when I want to paint the town red, phases when I just want to sit at home and read or something, phases when I am all "Indian", phases when I am constantly talking and behaving like a phirang . And now I think my favourite phase is coming back, the one where I am mean and bitchy!

So yea, I don't owe you an explanation!

*****
But I am terribly bored of myself. I need some stupid people to make fun of! Hello Life, where are you hiding them?

*****
I miss my friends. It's always so much fun bitching with them :( Even when they're bitching about me.

*****
Fabindia's newest "dew plum" lip butter...not as yummy as the plum passion, but they could definitely use "Eat a smile" today tagline. I would totally buy it!

Erm, maybe marketing is not for me after all.

*****
This is by far the crappiest post I have written. But I have no regrets.

I am also trying my hand at fiction, practicing for a short story competition. Lalalala, hey! One can definitely dream! :|

And ooh, I have been looking at trees from my window(s) for so long now, that I forgot how tall trees can grow. As tall as a building. Or taller. Really.

A New Sky...

I am looking for a mountain and a desert, an elephant and a camel, a hawk and a mouse, a new traffic signal and a new chair, a new lamp and a new parachute, a new smell and a brand new mattress, a new cup for my morning chai and plateful of sunshine, a new book and a new reader, new disco balls and new sweat, a new river and some rain...all new and something old...