A Tale of a Tampon

Good God there is a shortage of tampons in Delhi. Not exactly the best thing to blog about but I am so furious. I am furious at the lack of supply, I am furious at this very idiotic monopoly that Johnson and Johnson has in India, I am furious at the chemist who suggested I buy pads instead “ek hee toh baat hai madam” – little will he know how similar they are when I stuff one up his nose! Why won’t more brands retail them? And how are all the women managing without it? In a fit of total panic I called multiple stores around my house, around my area, even in Khan market which caters to all the expats of the world who are tampon-only users, I texted a friend, I even called my mother to check the availability in my hometown and courier it to me. Meanwhile I am trying to figure out who is travelling abroad in the next month so I can ask them to pick it up at a duty free store. This is ridiculous. How can something so essential go missing from the market? Another woman in the same predicament as me gave me the most sympathetic look and a nod of mutual grief in the pharmacy store. “I’ve been trying to get them for a month” she said with such sadness in her voice. My panic only aggravated, my despair deepened, my pharmacy store-hopping got faster.

This happened in the evening.

Cut to night time 10 PM.

A call from a random unknown number. It’s a chemist. Apparently the idiots at Just Dial have been circulating my number as “Tampons waali”. A chemist from North Delhi. North delhi? Really? I am desperate enough to go there. He says he doesn’t have it now but he knows I am looking so he will try and arrange. He assumes, in a smug voice, that since I am looking for it so badly, I would obviously be willing to buy more than just a few boxes. “Ten”, I say in a state of total last minute anxiety. Tiny pause. My heart is beating. Tiny pause continues. “Fifteen?”, I say encouragingly. He promises to try and arrange and asks me to calls back tomorrow. But North Delhi. Really? It’s SO far, I think in my head, willing to take on the task at hand, take metro, run and go, etc etc.

But I have exams in 5 days and I haven’t prepared shit. I am neck, head, all of me down into a bit fat puddle of obscure crap. Taking this course lightly isn’t treating me very well. The books suddenly seem really big. The reference readings are piling on and now a mountain of A4 sheets sit ominously in the corner of my study room. Basically, I am struggling to read up and how.

Back to the topic at hand. So yes, it is far. At least an hour and a half by metro, if I am lucky. So I gather the courage to ask him if he will home deliver. Tiny pause repeats. I offer to pay for transport. I offer to buy 20 boxes if he manages to scrape them from the corners of the earth. He agrees. I thank him profusely, send a little prayer to the female gods above and see a glimmer of hope at the end of the dark dark empty shelves.

And now I wait, I put 2 reminders on my phone to call him tomorrow, lest some other tampon deprived girl bribes him with a larger order. I wait for an unknown man sitting in Soni Chemists in some obscure corner of north Delhi to save my soul.

One of Those Days

Literature has been killing me. No, not with joy, but with its inescapable vastness and weight. This was supposed to be fun – this returning to academics. It is fun – till the exams came looming on my head like an unavoidable omen. Will I or will I not? I don’t know.

Meanwhile issues of the future continue to haunt me. What after this? Surely not the corporate rigmarole anymore. Surely not the brainless routine of the television life. Writing? Editing? More studying? I don’t know. I am the constant worry wart who seems to need something to fret about to add meaning to her life. It is not a good thing to do.

Yoga is supposed to help relax. But that also stresses me. When will the instructor come? Will I be home on time? Will I do justice to the 45 minutes? Will she train me well? Is she over paid? Am I being a spoilt brat by not going to classes? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Weight gain. Ah. But of course. How can one even forget the internal trauma of standing on the scales after a month and seeing a considerable shift. Give up sweets, eat salad, don’t eat after 8 PM, they say. I just want to sleep in bed all day and not wake up. Hibernate and escape all the worries of the world. Not want to look at myself on some days.

I have the moodiest hair in the world. My good hair days are almost as extreme as my bad hair days. I swing between the uncontained messiness of Medusa and the shimmery tresses of Apollo. On most days when I do have a thing to attend, a party to go to, a person to impress, I will most surely be blessed with the Medusan mood. It is inevitable. And adds to my rotten mood of the day.

Let me also get back to my first semester and say that the books truly suck. I can’t wait to get onto next semester. That is if I pass this one. Paradise Lost. Really? Isn’t this talk of Satan and Eden really quite overdone? Chaucer? Do I need to know of the worries, issues, debauchery, codes of honor of the medieval ages? Eh. I don’t think so. Donne? And his metaphysical conceit. Fine – it is slightly better than the rest. But who can even get started on Plato? Why is imitation so complicated for you? And pray Mr Sidney, do you need to defend poetry in such ridiculously complicated language? I am getting a little sick of their intellectual masturbation. I wish they’d just disappear.

Birds have taken over parts of my balcony and the AC area. To sit, chirp, shit and mate. Little dried blobs of black, brown and whitish stuff are found every day. It isn’t pleasant to scrape of someone’s dried crap. I used to hate rodents. Now I also dislike birds. I chase squirrels in campus. Scare them out of their tiny little wits. This, after one entered my house and threatened to eat at my sofa, stared at me in the eye fearlessly till I had to make the guard chase the hyperactive piece of furriness out with a danda.

I also have unfulfilled desires to be a writer. It’s the great new Indian dream. So many publishers, so many books. Doesn’t everyone get published anyway? One just needs the plot and the other elements Aristotle so elaborately puts down as a prerequisite for writing fiction, which is actually quite simple and one doesn't need to know him to know those.

Masterchef Australia has become my new found addiction. I cannot wait for the clock to strike 9 PM. I can’t get enough of the fact that food isn’t food, its art for them. Then I wonder – would I have been a great chef if I followed my cooking passion? It’s one of those questions one asks when they are on the other side of 25 and inching closer towards the big 3-0. It is all part of the great dream unrealized and a mid life crisis of ambition and purpose.

So what it is exactly that I want? Money, fame, intellectual satisfaction, professional acceptance? I just want to stop being the wary lamb that got lost somewhere along the way. I just hope this path is leading to the right destination. Otherwise, one will start on a new direction again. After all, there is always Google maps. And this, one of those vaguely lost days.

The Warmest Winter

There is nothing that takes my time these days more than Salman Rushdie. In my overarching, over ambitious, Icarus like project to do a term paper on the post colonial issues of his novels, I have doomed myself to constant reading and re-reading, mugs of coffee, hours of nerve wracking research and multiple moments of sheer desperation. This is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the current state of my life.

What comes a close second is the change of weather that seems to whisper to me each evening, urging me to step out of the house, take a lazy walk, sit and stare at the line of mirchi lights all over the lawns, smell the newly sprouted blooms whose fragrance has invaded every open space in the city, buy some neroli and jasmine moisturizer, sit at my balcony and watch the moody rays of the sun come and go.

This is my favourite season of the year. When the monsoon has been chased away to give way to the cold breeze that hits you with a surprise one fine evening, when the fan makes you shiver in the early hours of the morning, when the day ends early and the dusk demands a sweatshirt, when you start to dig into the deep recesses of your lofts and trunk to bring out those naphthalene smelling woolens.

This winter is special. Like that long lost lover you meet after years. Like the nostalgia that hits you when you put on that age old over coat. Like the friends you made in the open air of the concert. Like the smell of the barbecue chicken that mom made on cold nights.

My tweed coat calls out to me. The heaters and the gloves beckon me. I can’t wait for it to be November. The coldest season of the year is the warmest to me.

Lady D, A-Melle and Me

I would have really liked to go for a swim today. Swimming just takes every bit of shoulder ache away and every scrap of worry away – even though it’s only for a while. But here I am, sitting in my yet another new house in Gurgaon, having cutting chai that reminds me of Mumbai, leisurely inhaling a dangly stick of Marlboro Ultra Lite and not finding much to really complain about. Except the fact that I miss Mumbai like I once missed Delhi when I moved to Pune years ago.

Gurgaon is alright. I am quite enjoying where I live. But more than anything, it’s the fact that I am back to academics is what keeps me happy and content. Delhi isn’t what it used to be. The roads aren’t the same, nor are the people. Everything has changed and the little time capsule that I had preserved in my head is now split. I am not complaining really. I am more comfortable with the idea of change now than I ever was. And in a way its making me experience the city with a whole new perspective. Friends who have matured, acquaintances who are now close, new family, new street food stalls, new metro lines, new flyovers and new ways to kill and use time.

Lady D is my new friend in college. Oh for the record I am back to my unreal, impractical yet joyous world of literature. I am friends with Kafka and Freud again. I am finding a new found love in Moliere and Rabelais. I am in a constant love-hate relationship with Plato and Coleridge. Amidst all this, Lady D (who was at Mumbai for the last 3 years too) and I, find moments to reminisce about the city, to miss the rushed streets of Colaba, the drunken nights at Mondys, the sound of the locals, the chaat at bandstand, the midnight gigs at Blue Frog and the sheer freedom of being who and where you wanted to be. I’ve come a long way since I first moved to Mumbai. I’ve fallen hard for the city with a fishy smell, the musty air and the mad energy. Honestly, I can’t wait to get back and continue what I left incomplete – my long and rocky affair with the city.

A-Melle is another new friend. She usually doesn’t know what Lady D and I are going on and on about Mumbai. I can’t wait to take her there and make her another victim of that overcrowded city’s charm. College is nice. I go everyday like a geek who needs her dose of lecture to survive. Not really though. I also take great pleasure in bunking when the professor sucks, almost as much as I love scribbling notes like a maniac when I love the text. It’s nice to have lunch that costs Rs 25 and cold coffee that isn’t a buck over 20! I can push A-Melle around and get shoved in return when we are dragging ourselves to the library, or sit under the hot sun while Lady D fills me in on the latest dope in class. Being back to college has given me the joy that was essentially missing in the last 5 years.

And even though I miss Mumbai like a dog misses his favorite bone, I am happy to be doing what I like doing. I feel stable, I feel like I can have a decent conversation again, I feel like all that rust is off my brain. After years of scattered mindlessness, confused existence, meaningless jobs, ridiculously pendulous interests, being everywhere and yet nowhere, I finally feel like I am home.

From the Journal of a Gypsy Girl

So many things have happened in the last few weeks. I have had a whirlwind trip to Gurgaon and back. I have spent at least 35 hours in 5 days on house hunting and seen at least 30-40 houses. Some have been indulgently beautiful hence overpriced, some have been passable but with miserable blackish mosaic flooring, some have let me down by its badly planned kitchen, some have had black chart paper pasted onto the windows to save curtain money and some have had landlords vain enough to detest. Week 2 of June 2010 will be marked as the most frustrating week of the year for me. Day after day, hour after hour, unhealthy burgers after burgers, heat and muck, annoying brokers and liking flats which were not in my budget finally got to me. Saturday night was my desperate attempt at throw some positive light at this location move, so I stood at the balcony of my guest house and watched the glittering gurgaon roads and phase 5, and thought of what I may like about this place versus Mumbai. Honestly, not many points came to mind except that the roads would be better, the winter would be glorious and people won’t ramble in Marathi expecting me to know it just because I live there. Hindi will be the new language – even if its interspersed with some gaalis and a haryaanvi accent. But apart from that, I couldn’t think of any more reasons.

I am the newest lover to Mumbai. I am suddenly appreciating the people, the ethics, the warmth, the respect for some semblance of lane driving. Yes I haven’t gone on the Metro in Delhi yet and I don’t particularly like the locals of Mumbai, but at least I have the option of taking an auto or a taxi in the middle of the night, without holding a pepper spray to my heart. I like the monsoon even though it’s a mess on the roads. I like my house, it’s gorgeous. I have fewer friends, but eventually it doesn’t matter. Everyone gets wrapped in a life of their own and socializing isn’t top priority. I like the weekends here. I love the strictness of the drinking and driving rule. I like Party Hard Drivers! I like that my ex driver is an ex underworld goon who is super fond of me and would take me out of any pickle that I may slip into. I like that getting a gas connection is simple and a replacement comes promptly.

But then again, I also like the India Habitat Centre, I enjoy plays at the IIC, I like American diners, I love winter evenings in Dilli Haat having a hot plate of momos, I like scouting for funky chappals in Janpath and I like trying really hard to find something that fits me in Sarojini nagar! I like the fact that some of my girlfriends are still close and here. I like it that I will be staying very close to the fancy ambience mall and walking distance from the DLF city club. There could be quite a few positives to Gurgaon/Delhi. Because it’s been more than 5 years since I left, I think it takes really hard thinking to fish out what I used to like about the city. True that I detest the public transport. I plan to be a metro regular if it turns out to be bearable. I don’t particularly like being armed with my pepper spray at all times but does give me a sense of self defense. Also, it’s a big plus that my parents will be a 9 hour drive away. I can run home any weekend I want.

It’s an age old debate – Mumbai versus Delhi, Delhi versus Gurgaon, etc etc. But one has to learn to detach oneself from the four walls of a house when moving is going to become a two yearly event. One has to learn to adapt, adjust and find joy in life. I have finally found a pretty house in Gurgaon that I intend to make a gorgeous home. Meanwhile, I am sorting out the other aspects of my life and submerging myself in the essence of Mumbai in my last 2 weeks here. Mumbai has given me a lot – a job, an opportunity to grow as a person, it’s given me M and the happiness of moving in our first 2 homes, it’s given me few thick friends and now I hope to find something more in a new city. I am a gypsy girl. I move every 2 years and I will love each place I go to. To new cities and new plumbing work! Cheers!

Of Resignations and Dancing in the Rain

Today has been quite a day. Well, for starters it was my last day at work. You know how it is. Everyone is saying they will miss you and will stay in touch with you. Random people who you have met just twice in the cafeteria, women whose names you don’t remember, men who have given you the polite nod and let you take your cappuccino before them, the receptionist who is probably a bit sick of receiving your lunch sandwiches and the boss you may not love so much. It could be an excruciatingly fake exercise except today, it was not.

So what has changed? Surely not the people who promise to call but don’t have my number, or colleagues who immediately add you on facebook but may never drop a note. I think it was me. I think some of my cynicism about people in general seems to have reduced. My smile has become more genuine, my laugh less sarcastic and my one liners less personal. I find it easier to have a chat with a new acquaintance and I actually notice a subtle haircut and remind myself to drop a compliment. I don’t shut myself out anymore and it is so refreshing. My last day wasn’t spent running around with the clearance form, frantic to get out of the office. It wasn’t spent counting hours and minutes. It was a peaceful routine and in the pool of multiple goodbyes, the genuine ones that I could spot made me happy.

With that done with and the relieving letter tucked under my arms, I gallivanted around the city in an auto rickshaw and remembered my initial days in Mumbai. The weather right now is hot and sultry, but there is that weight in the air and that smell in the evening breeze that whispers in your ears about the impending rains. The promise of thick droplets of water crashing at my balcony doesn’t scare me. I know the roads will flood, the autos will refuse to budge, the pot holes will disappear into menacing little marshes waiting to swallow you in. But the rain will also do what it does each year – wash away all the sadness, the resentment and grudges of the year gone by and give me a fresh start, a happy beginning to another phase.

I will only witness the first few weeks or maybe even days of monsoon in Mumbai. A series of snapshots in my head show me the slushy train ride to andheri, the gorgeous evening walk at carter road, the folded jeans, the squeaky flip flops, the broken umbrella at worli, the drenched me witnessing my first violent downpour and the room I once lived in at my aunt’s house. There is something about the water, the puddles, the frogs in the pool, the lush green weeds, the noise of the splashes, the fear of the flooding, that completely fascinates me.

If there is something about Mumbai that I have loved more than the city itself, it’s the monsoon. The most inconvenient season of the city has been my favourite and will continue to be. Till I return again, I will always remember Mumbai for the joy the monsoon has given me. Like someone once said, “Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness, has never danced in the rain”.

Counting Stars

There is something beautifully wasteful about counting stars. The futility of the counting doesn’t deter me from finding excuses to stare at the shimmer splattered sky. So there could be a million sparkles up there, but why must I not count? Must I spend my time doing something less wasteful, less pointless? But the stars in the sky were put above us, to count and to stare at. What else could be the reason? Except it being god’s little gesture of prettifying the world.

When I think of stars I don’t think of them as what Wikipedia defines them – a massive, luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity. How does the dictionary define them? – Star [noun]: any of the heavenly bodies, except the moon, appearing as fixed luminous points in the sky at night. The only redeeming word in these definitions is ’luminous’. Luminous – radiating light, shining, bright – now that’s a bit of poetry in itself. Just as a star is.

For me, every inch of the sky holds something - A wish, a longing, a prayer. Dead people become stars. Hopeful moments become stars. A dream is like the star – revealing itself only at night, showing itself to you the way only you can see it. Every artist sees the stars as they like it. Van Gogh sees it as a shocking whirlpool of light. “That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars”, he says. Anne sexton says in her poem, that like a star she wants to die. Don McLean sang of the stars as the “Flaming flowers that brightly blaze”.

Though I don’t remember when was the last time I stared at a clear sky filled with stars. Cities are not pretty. No time to sit and stare. And even if you do, it ensures the pollution and the smog doesn’t leave you with much to stare at. I was brought up in a hill station, closer to the sky, away from the rush, where an old, green painted bench still perches invitingly outside my house, where lovers meet and gaze at the sky, where children gather and spot constellations, where I sat at the age of 12 and got inspired to write my first poem. There is something so magical about stars that I refuse to let the science enter my head. I would like to still tilt my head and marvel at the miracle of creation. I would still stick fluorescent, glowing stars on the ceiling of a room. I would still like to lay flat, in complete abandon, and stare at the sky for hours. One doesn’t see that in the city. And that is why I love returning to my small hometown every once in a while – so I can stretch my arms and feel like to can touch the stars again and count them endlessly. I like to revisit true beauty every once in a while. And there is nothing as gorgeous, as eternal and as pure, as a sky clustered with stars and dreams and joy.

Things I would like to do when I don’t make excuses

To write like the wind is caressing the paper is what I want to do. Free flowing and refreshing. Word after word after word -like a row of soldiers, dancing across the sheet in perfect synchrony. The pen is light and the words, effortless. No thesaurus by my side and no list of things-to-do hanging over my head distracting me.

The sky above me is so blue and the air has a reassuring smell of familiarity – of the sea and the fish. Life is rushing by me like everyone is in a hurry to get older, richer, busier. But that isn’t how I like my life to be. I hate to run. I would rather take a lazy stroll in a garden while there is still daylight, eat a cucumber-cheese-tomato sandwich, peel an orange and luxuriously pop each piece in and just stare at the grass, the flowers, the children.

I like cooking non-hurried food. The pressure cooker isn’t the answer to life. I like roasting and sniffing the spices turn from a sandy shade to a golden brown. Sit at a restaurant and taste the prawn masala fry slowly to decipher what went in it. Take a bite, speak, talk, discuss, savor the flavor and digest the moment leisurely.

Must we buy a house in the hills? Where the life is slow and moments come more easily. Memories are made at a barbecue in my backyard. The cold wind turns your nose blue yet you are perfectly warm on the inside. Cities can make you cold, routinely, mechanical.

There is a pot hole near my house. On and off, it is filled by some random water. It isn’t monsoon. One day a dog was sitting in it like a king. His head was titled towards the sky. His expression seemed to be that of pride. He looked like a delight in the muck. How often do these sights arrest me? Not often. Very occasionally now I see the clouds turn black or the flower sprout from the bud. It’s my excuse – no time to sit and stare. But it’s hardly an excuse. One makes time.

Happiness finds me. I delude myself with fake misfortunes and shut it out. Truth is I am a lucky one. With love, life, like minded friends. Sit at a coffee shop, do a night in, just talk. Shut out the internet, the wi-fi, the television, the distractions. Soak in the cloud of joy just suspended all around me. Making time is an art, making excuses is easy labor. I would like to be an artist. I’m abandoning excuses. I am going to do things I like to do.

The Final Exit Mode

I am in an exit mode of mind. The new office hasn’t worked for me. Truth be told, no office has ever worked for me though I have been good at my work but never enjoyed it really. And I have sat myself down and racked my head to figure out what exactly will work for me? And the decision happened almost automatically. I want to study. Always have. Always will.

Going back to academics is a tough choice to make. Especially when one is used to the idea of the cheque arriving at your account at the end of each month, especially when one sees all most of their batch mates climbing the corporate ladder in full speed and especially when one comes face to face with your own convoluted idea of self worth.

At 20 I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was passionate about my subject but somehow I got fed in with external opinions about how a professional course is the only way to be. So I followed the herd, did a painful course, sat for placements and bang – I was now a management trainee at an office with a little cubicle. I wasn’t happy when I prepared for the entrance, I wasn’t happy to figure out math problems and who is whose aunt in those god forsaken logical sections! I was miserable doing my 2 year old course and I by the time I started working, I was numbingly indifferent and mechanical about my work. I thought a lot about returning to academics, pursue literature, do what makes me happy and finally be interested in something but then the demon of false-self-worth possessed me.

I think most of us paint our self worth according to how much money we make and what’s our official designation. Even if it isn’t something we love doing, at least its something we like being called. So when I go to a party and ask someone about themselves, 90% of their conversation will be about work. Why not talk about what you like, what you read, what music makes you the person you are, etc etc? Why only talk about the fact that you are so stressed because you are worried about how much your next bonus will be? I am not saying that money isn’t important. Of course it is. But sadly, money is now the only thing that seems to derive our self worth and that’s kind of shitty.

I had also fallen in the same web. Not working in a respectable office and not having something to talk about at these get-togethers would make me feel bad about myself. My parents would reiterate that how I need to work for people to respect me. When I took a break between 2 jobs, I didn’t like telling people that I am not working. I felt small, insignificant and worthless. Though when I wasn’t working, I was freelancing, but somehow I always thought that people will think less of me. And it wasn’t even my parent’s fault that they said it or that I felt this way. I think it was some kind of illogical social conditioning that just seeps into your head after a point of time.

But it’s been 3 years of working and 3 years of hating each morning that I had to go for work. And now I am in the final exit mode. I have realized that my self-worth comes from within me and no corporate snob in a party should make me want to redefine that. My husband makes me proud, he understands my love for studying, he wants me to return to academics, he respects it and that gives me an immeasurable amount of support and confidence. So this session onwards, I am a student again. I hope to make it through to the entrance, I hope to realize true happiness and I hope to reinstate my new definition of self worth. :)

The Hate Club

Of all the people I have known, this girl I knew in college has been by far the worst yet. There are others I haven’t liked. Well, who are we kidding? There have been plenty of additions in the hate list but she is definitely the uncontended president of the hate club.

I went through this very strange phase in life. I was a very well liked person till school and under grad – peaceful, fun person who got along with everyone and never felt the need to really despise anyone. And then post grad happened and something changed. Was it me or the people? I’d like to think it was the latter. I met the most rotten, most annoying and the pettiest bunch of people that I had ever seen, all in one single room. It would make me want to throw up. I had such few friends that I could count them on the fingers of my one hand. And that few also took me a really really long time to make.

I am a very loyal friend so my basics are as in place as is the characteristic of loyalty in a dog. If I love you, I will stand by you even if you have to kill someone. I will defend you to death and only reprimand you in private. I will be the rock solid, illogical wall and ward off any shit that may happen to you. In the process however, I will expect something similar and hence be vulnerable to insurmountable hurt. So I open up these positions to only a few that I am completely sure about. But that doesn’t mean that just because I have very limited stars in my own private sky, that I will hate the rest of the world.

But for some odd reason, in my post grad, I hated people and they hated me. I thought they were idiotic and completely malicious, they thought I was obnoxious and completely unapproachable. Ah well. So anyway, I hated a lot of women and men in my class. The woman who was overly sweet and suddenly flipped sides behind my back, the man who was a devil in disguise, the woman who was so nice it seemed fake –and turned out fake of course, the man who hit on everything with boobs, the woman who was judgmental to the point of me wanting to lunge at her throat every time I saw her, the pseudo intellectual fool who suddenly switched his taste in music, the attention hungry-lycra wearing-love handles bulging dimwit, the man who suddenly thought he was Casanova, the woman who used men to do all her dirty assignment work and the list is endless. But the one who tops the list is a new discovery – a friend who I discovered, used to bitch about me behind my back. That’s the worst category yet. And in my world of loyalty, that’s unforgivable sin.

So I guess she didn’t like me. Fine. Tell me that. I prefer hearing that any day. Why pretend? I didn’t like her much either but because I had no choice, I stood her mood swings and her tantrums and her completely selfish behavior. She certainly made me believe that I was a friend, reached out to me when in trouble, used my stuff, demanded my company and blah blah. And one fine day, convenience struck, and she chose to erase me out of her life and her social network. Am I sad? Upset? Disturbed? Absolutely not. I just gave conferred on her the presidential position of my hate club. After thinking of ways to get rid of her from my life, I guess I found the perfect way really - auto departure - without feeling guilty or mean, without making some random excuse. I’m just glad she chose to leave. We call it the divine intervention of the gods of the hate club. All hail!

Dawn Intolerance

It’s a client visit at office today. I can’t open facebook. I mean I can, but it will only attract dirty stares and maybe a snide remark about lack of respect blah blah. I don’t understand why though. I mean as a quasi marketing and an almost corporate communication person, isn’t it supposed to be in our blood to network, network, network till we succeed? But anyway, who can understand these things. So no facebook at work today. That’s new. Another thing that’s new today is the early morning rising. So client visit at 8 am means waking up at 5.30 to switch on the geyser and then re-waking up at 6.15 to get ready and leave at sharp 7.15. Sigh.

So I am not a morning person. No sir. Never have been. Never shall be. Never do I aim to be. When in school, I always woke up at the nth hour and was the last one to get into the car pool. I could study all night but never manage to wake up in early to save my life – and subsequently that day’s exam. In college, I barely made it to class in time, sometimes scrambling halfway in my bathroom chappals and specks. When I joined work, I loved the fact that all my jobs started at 10 AM. And this one starts at 11. So no complaints there.

Though surprisingly it didn’t feel so annoying waking up early in the morning. Usually I get cranky and feel sick, want to even throw up sometimes. I think I have dawn-intolerance.

To explain further, Dawn Intolerance is the inability to raise your eyelids early in the morning. A sense of lead-like heaviness takes over your eyes. Any accidental exposure to sunlight brings out the monster in you. In case of exceptions like meetings, early morning flights or exigencies result in making you feel disoriented and sometimes even unwell. There is obvious lack of appetite but a necessary need to reach out to any form of caffeine for assistance in making your mind alert.

But today things didn’t seem that bad. Is it a sign of becoming older again? My grandma wakes up at 5 for puja and my dad wakes up at 7 for yoga and they say it’s the freshest feeling in the whole world. I liked the morning breeze and the transition from dark to light. The sun seemed pretty and I could take a really deep breath. I even contemplated changing my swimming time from late evening to early morning. But then again, the thought was transitory, as were these subah-subah ki feelings. Someone once told me that dawn is the time of the gods and late night is the time of the devil. And I prefer the hour of evil? Well, I am not complaining. That is the mighty fate of the dawn intolerant.

Work Shirk

I don’t know why I work. As I type this, I’m sitting at my workstation, not too enthusiastic, not too kicked, glancing at my watch every now and then, waiting for Monday to be over so that Friday gets closer. Work is a bitch. Unless you love what you do. Which is a privilege that only a few lucky ones have.

It’s not like I can’t write for a living. Yet I choose to do it in the garb of a corporate veil and try extracting some semblance of work satisfaction from it. Ideally I would want to do features and write about why Blue is the new hue. Or scribble about some place dug from the past or a leader less remembered. I would want to write a book. Only that I don’t know what about. Once in a while an idea does present itself to me in form of a dream or an ephemeral thought. But then I am stuck and I don’t know how to churn words by the hundreds.

Also, it’s all very messed up because I know I can take a break and stay at home, write from home, edit and freelance, try finish that book I once started, go for a swim and get more ideas hidden in the bubbles underwater. But I choose not to. And that is a pity. But there is a story behind that too. On days I want to pursue a management course. Will I be good at it? Yes. But do I want to be good at it? I don’t know.

Like many of us, I have come to associate self worth with work, with money, with jobs that sound important but at the end of the day, are not important to you at all. Like many would, I am also scared of starting from scratch, from going and asking a magazine for internship at this age, afraid that when I see other women my age already have reached where I should have after these many years, I will feel disheartened and return to the corporate ladder and slot myself in the stereotype again. So why leave? And hence, get stuck in this rut all over again.

I get to hear of things like, treat work like work. It’s a job at the end of the day that helps you buy worldly material things. So stop right there and stop getting emotional. I find myself wondering very often how would it have been if it had chosen science instead of arts, economics instead of literature, mba instead of mass communication but then again, would I have been happier then or even more miserable?

It’s a complex maze we weave for ourselves. A web of thoughts where getting stuck is so easy and getting out, so tough. I want to work where I can write and smile when I get published. I want to pursue academics and also teach literature. These are the two things I really want to do. But I am headed in the direction of neither. Either my passion is not strong enough or the corporate lady alter-ego has taken over me. Or maybe its sheer laziness? I don’t know. In either case, it isn’t a happy world.

Growing Up

I realized that I’ve started appreciating beverages when I started rejecting cutting chai for my brewed Darjeeling tea & when I started preferring to go to Indian Coffee House for pure filter coffee than sit amongst teenagers in Barista over a cup of really pointless cappuccino.

Likewise, a lot of things around me & about me started changing. The jholas were replaced by bags. Quieter, simpler earrings replaced noisy, junk jewellery. Cocktails replaced tequila shots. Dinner outs replaced pub hopping. Yoga replaced couch-potatoing in front of the tv in the evenings. And most importantly, infrequent but happiness-inducing conversations with close friends replaced the constant need to be in touch with the whole world.

Of late my world has become smaller, tighter & clearer. Now a quiet evening alone at home is counted as quality time that I really look forward to once in a while instead of what was earlier termed as having no life! Suddenly I have no desire to stay in touch with everyone I know. I count few as friends & get in touch with them sooner or later. I can’t hold a random conversation with an acquaintance for too long. I have lost my tolerance for shallowness & convenience. Family has become a big priority. The well being of my brother has taken a predominant position in my list of daily concerns. Following up with Mom on her diet control & medicines and reminding Dad to consume healthier food is now a voluntarily imposed routine.

The water suddenly seems very calming. Swimming has become a route to escape within myself. Just sitting beside M quietly makes me feel content. I don’t seek for constant approval & reassurance for all my insecurities from the world. Miss P & I have started talking about real life, real problems. With age, like scotch, our bond has matured & become finer than it was.

Soup has become good dinner. Crushed ice with Baileys has become a favourite after-dinner indulgence. Investments have become important. Splurging has declined. Hair appointments are crucial and well timed. But buying a French manicure kit to do it at home gives me some satisfaction of being thrifty! Holidays are sensible & so is the spa package one opts for. Taking extra care before getting all the whites washed is also a recent development after heart breaks over them getting ruined & then getting them dyed.

Career is no longer a blind road that I once rushed into. Boredom is now no more an option. Hobbies have resurfaced. Some old books, some tattered diaries have been unearthed from the recesses of my old room in my parent’s house. Toying with the idea of writing a book someday is now a dream that shows itself often at night. Helping the sincere maid escape the egoistic, slightly demented rich neighbor is an important agenda that one must achieve. The idea of having a child in a few years doesn't seem that scary anymore. Knowing the latest property rates & following up on new projects seems like a good time pass.

Some things however, have thankfully remained the same. The nuttiness hasn't changed. The laughter hasn't reduced. The love stays strong. The friends remain as family. The family continues to be the rock. And the silent prayer I send up for letting me have the constants & the changes will still go everyday.

One imagines this is all part of growing up not growing old. :)