I Never Feel Earthquakes...

Do you remember back in the 90's the biggest problem men had when it came to dating was that talking to women scared the daylights out of them men? I remembering coming across a dozen articles everyday where someone had a brilliant advice how to break the ice-which usually was go-fucking-TALK-to-them. These days those articles have disappeared. We don't need them anymore, we now have the Internet.

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When I think about AB, I always remember the curt reply he gave me when I asked him if the Microprocessor lecture was cancelled; "apparently", was all he said and walked away like I was some lowly creature and he some God. He acted like one. At least that is what we all thought and hated him for it. He was one of those college topper boys and had an air about him that made people feel awe or hatred about him. As for me, I found him weird. And when Apeksha lost a bet, I asked her to go ask AB out for some Pineapple Milk**. She did and he said a "No" that sounded more like "In your dreams woman". (Appppuu! I am gonna meet you soon!!!!Yay! :) Baby! And we'll dance to the Pungi song! Fun times await.  Unless I die in a plane crash first :| )

Okay back to AB, I ran to the classroom, the ever late me, and true enough, the lecture was cancelled. And that's all the interaction I ever had with AB back in engineering college. Apart from throwing paper planes at him in the class when we got really bored and mean.

We graduated and went our different ways. Then one day Orkut came with the chat feature. Everyone on your Orkut list was added to your chat list on Gtalk. And suddenly, AB and I were chatting.

Today, not only do we chat regularly(I know, sorry for being tardy lately) and I must feature in his very small "girl friends" list, but also, I have come to understand him for the person he is and AB, sorry for throwing paper plans at you back in college :( You've been a darling of a friend, and one who's been always so, so practical! He's my "give-practical-unbiased" advice guy.


The whole point of this exercise was to tell you that the WWW has been really awesome, in bringing people together. I know so many awesome people, people I have never met, but yet who feature daily in my life, thanks to the WWW.

When I told my friends I was travelling alone all the way to Mysore to attend a friend's wedding, a friend I had known only on the Internet, every one of my friends thought I was crazy. But anyone who's been on the blogger and twitter has such friends and knows it's anything but crazy.


**We had the Aarey milk factory close to college which used to be one of our usual hangouts and the pineapple milk....simply yum!

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But as always, we have taken a good thing and turned it into a bad thing. In spite of having 1000 friends on FB, a thousand followers on Twitter, we are lonely and bored.


Boredom and loneliness is a problem today cause we choose to hide. And the WWW has given us that too. We choose to be lazy. We have lowered our standards and we are happy with it, cause not hiding and actually going and talking to people in person takes efforts, it means you can't be something you're not, you stand a chance of exposing your true self and you have to be vulnerable. It means we can go on pretending to be super humans in the online world and the real world doesn't matter anymore, cause look how many friends I have on FB! You can tweet about having a good time on twitter and post pictures you clicked last night with Katrina Kaif, but how many know that you're lonely? The WWW has given us that, a chance to be what we're not.


But why should we want to be something that we're not? Why are we so afraid? What do we have to hide? We have our BB busy status and we have the notorious invisible status on Gtalk. We have learnt to hide behind our FB walls and code life in our sly tweets. In a country of 1.2 billion people if you're lonely and bored, then the problem should be in you, no?


All you have to do is look up from your screen and at the people around you. So many interesting people, so many wonderful conversations await you. So many wonderful memories wilt and die, tired of waiting. I have a friend who's always busy on his BB, while I sit playing with my soup. I wonder if he'll miss these times when I waited for him and he was busy talking to people on his BB. And I see that happening everywhere. People enter clubs and restaurant in packs and then spread out in corners busy on their BB's. What's the POINT people? Retards.


When there's a person in flesh sitting from across you and you choose to talk to a machine instead, what times sweet lord! This is how these machines will take over us and this will be written as the beginning of the end of the human race. No, wait, I am not being dramatic here. You'll see! If you survive the talking-robot attack, that is.


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I am so exhausted that even the thought that today is the first day of my vacation doesn't excite me. Well, I still have to finish loads of work and pack!

But sigh, first travel of the year. God! I want more of these!!! I want more friends! I want to travel MORE! Argghh.

And God, if I don't get it in this life, I'll die and crib so much to you in heaven that you'll be forced to send me back to earth with the most awesome bunch of friends and loads and loads of awesome travel! Choose!

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And I am tired, I give up. Once I meet her, I am going to prostrate in front of her and tell her it's all in her hands now. She has to decide whether to revive or kill it. I am, tired.

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I want you to come and fold me into you arms and just let me be. Hold me tight and make me forget everything else. I am waiting, waiting, waiting :| Dude!

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I dreamt about you yesterday. You had written to me and you were telling me you were having some problems but now things are getting back on the track and you seemed happy writing to me, like you were not mad at me anymore. How are you sweetheart? Are you really so mad at me that you won't even talk to me?

You seemed happy in the dream. I hope you're so in real life too. I miss you, my Tarot lady.

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Look up from that screen and you'll notice the bare hill in front of your window, the blanket of purple flowers has disappeared and the wild grass has now turned brown, that summer has arrived and that it's time to go out and make new friends.


And while we're at it, I want to dance to this song with my new friends.

And I want to lie on grass under the midnight sky and listen to this song.

Banana Pancakes...

I am listening to this song in a loop (btw, I have fallen in love with his music):

And then I have a sudden craving for this song: 

I can be like that.

P.S: How utterly delicious does Aamir Khan look in this video?

Like 70% Cocoa...

I love you

like dipping bread into salt and eating

Like waking up at night with high fever

and drinking water, with the tap in my mouth

Like unwrapping the heavy box from the postman

with no clue what it is

fluttering, happy, doubtful

I love you

like flying over the sea in a plane for the first time

Like something moves inside me

when it gets dark softly in Istanbul

I love you

Like thanking God that we live.

-Nazim Hikmet

Unbolted...

It's a good day when you find your old self again...even if it is for a few hours :)

Nightcall...

The night. Deep, smooth, eloquent.

The Tucked Away Home...

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

Your Mother...

I loved this story: Your Mother

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Your mother hated being photographed. She had romantic notions of how perfect her body looked at certain angles and to have them crushed by the awkward reality of a still life was simply unbearable. So I learned to capture moments using words and silences.

On this day, she sat perched on the first floor balcony’s platformed railing. Our room overlooked the magnificent Bay of Bengal – swollen & angry. We’d mistimed our vacation and landed up at Chinnakalpet in the middle of the Tamil Nadu monsoon. Swimming in the choppy sea was out of the question & even when it wasn’t raining, the weather was spectacularly wild. Earlier in the afternoon I’d run my hands through her hair and lightly kissed her neck as we looked at the stunning view afforded us by the balcony. When I’d asked her if she wanted to walk along the beach with me, she’d pushed me out of the room – “We don’t have to do everything together, do we?” And she was right. I took off with my camera.

With every step, my feet sank deeper into the golden sand. The effort it took to take the next step reminded me of how we were both getting older and how my body was beginning to express its tiredness. We had tried, your mother & I, to have children over the past two years but two miscarriages later she decided we needed to stop. “I have run out of tears, Arun,” she said. Instead, we decided to get into our tiny car and head off anywhere the wind would take us (her words, not mine).

The wind had led me here and if I wasn’t careful, it would sweep me further into the Bay. “Hold on to your hat, man!” cried a man coming at me from the opposite side. Considering he was the one wearing the hat and not me, I found him amusing.
“Nice weather we’re having, aren’t we?” I joked.
“Absolute perfection. I hope you’re bracing yourself for Cyclone Leela!”
“What? No! I mean, I haven’t even heard about it. My wife & I here on vacation.”
“Vacation?!! That’s rich, dear chap! I’d turn my ship right round and head back for shore. Nigel Forman, by the way.”
“Arun Desai.”
“Pleasure to bump into you, Arun. You will not be soon forgotten. Good bye & good tidings!”

And off he went, striding strongly, pushing back against the strong winds. I stood and watched the strange old man as he climbed the slippery rocks leading into the ocean. When he reached the farthest rock he opened his arms out wide, embracing the elements: the violent spray of the sea, the full force of the wind & the unending sky before him. You might say he had a few screws loose but in that moment I envied him his freedom.

I walked further, clicking photographs along the way. Perfect little seashells, fishing boats making their way back to the beach and the odd little picture that our resort’s quaint cottages made on that stormy evening. I began to miss your mother and so I turned back.

I took the cobbled stone path to our room. Along the way, I came upon the family that was staying across the hall from us. They were out on the lawn taking advantage of the few rainless hours. Two little girls played in the dirt as their parents relaxed over a cup of coffee. The younger of the two was an independent spirit. Barely 3 or 4, she wandered off repeatedly on her own, digging holes in the ground en route. Her mother would call out for her at regular intervals, but she wouldn’t listen. She would carry on on her quest; now a flower to be dissected, now a butterfly to be chased. And then there was the matter of jumping into that puddle. Eventually, the mother caught up with her little imp and hoisted her over the shoulder. Both mother & daughter, laughing, disappeared into the bushes and then out of sight.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I looked up at that very instant and caught your mother looking right at me. There she was, seated cross-legged on our balcony’s platformed railing. She had wrapped a dupatta around herself, one end of which was flying unrestrained in the wind like her uncombed hair. She had never looked more beautiful. I instinctively lifted my camera to capture her breathtaking image. But in the very next instant, I changed my mind and there I was, running up the stairs as quickly as I could. The door was open, I rushed right through it and scooped her up in my embrace. We held each other so tight that not even the cyclonic winds churning up outside could have torn us apart.
The next morning, we admitted defeat in the face of Cylcone Leela, packed our backs and returned home. Not long after that your mother announced that she was pregnant with you.

From, Aquatic Static. Do visit the blog, one of my favourites.

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Stories like these make it so hard to come back to the real life, no? Sigh.