Wheeeee....gift!!!!!!!

YAY! my first ever 20th birthday gift!! Don gave. The bear is called Begun, because it looks a little like Don, and i call him Begun sometimes. So in his very own words, i 'transfer' the epiteth. It is too adorable for words, even though the photo quality may not vouch for that.
The book is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It is the book upon which the film Capote is based. Pretty good choice, though i have a strong hunch that the reason he gave this to me is coz he wants to get his hands on it soon after.
So..yay! I got vudday gift too. I can be such a kid sometimes, but little things like birthdays are so darn important.
Oh, and i also got a card...which does not present me in an extremely flattering light as it bears heavy references to my...errr...situation on Saturday. (Funny..ok..get over it!)
Butbutbut yayyy...am happy, all's good...happy birthday to me again...and I'll treat u for sure, and not just in Barista and not just beer. Ki fun!! I finally feel 20. Or 19. Or whatever! I feel a year older. Thanksthanksthanks.

Pathetic is not the word. More like downright disgusting. Is how i have been today.
With two of the few people who mean anything to me. And now i understand why sorry is never enough.
Birthdays are big overrated bullshit. And it took me 20 years to get that in.

This is to me me me! Not coz its today. But because i didnt see anyone else closeby. Bacause i was running too fast. Bacause slow walking is not in my system. Because i said that. Time to be fly again. Only it gets harder with every passing year.

Goodnight and goodbye kid. Its finally over.

Strangely enough, this time i am really sad to be leaving bombay. its something i cannot quite reconcile myself to. i never really have much feelings for this place.
But...its weird. i'll miss the folks too. and everything else. this has been one of the best breaks ever. and i wish it wasnt going to get over so soon. quite a neat little suspension of reality.
Oh well...one can only hold out so long.

i wish i knew stuff before that i know now. maybe i would have come up with a different equation then. right now its all a horrible tiresome Sudoku puzzle. Where at the last moment i find two 7s in the same row. back to square One kid! oh wait...not kid. not anymore. cant hold on forever, i guess.

from this side to that

Note to Pretty Boys on the Street:

Thank you for being patient enough for this hearing. It is of utmost importance that I get this through to you now before u die thinking that all is right with the world inside your pretty little head.

I saw u at a crowded pub looking err…dishy. Cute, very cute I say to myself. Just the right height, clean stuff-free teeth, great hair, great eyes and all other blah blahs. Lingering glances, hint of a smile. And the evening is more or less set. 2 beers and 3 cocktails down I finally swallow all my inhibitions (well ok, not all, almost) to look up and actually do a weak wave. And before I realize things are set into motion, and you are walking upto me flashing a wonky grin, things are going weak in my knees, and I could swear that the whole room is suddenly dancing with rainbow colors (hic!). Its all just about right, I’m already someplace else inside my head with you, my friends have left me alone with knowing grins, you are here…almost, almost…there’s that cute smile again…you sit down: You speak—

“ Your looks are vairry beaootiphul. Want to dance? Chick? ”

And suddenly all my thoughts are in a whirlwind—cute grin, white tee, wonky smile, three cocktails, friends, glances, all collaboratively cumulating in a head rush while I struggle to stand up steady. And all this is apparently not clear to you since you so obviously live in a different dimension that can only be occupied by great looking guys who cannot spell c-o-n-v-e-r-s-a-t-i-o-n.
Since you still look cute and I’m still quite high I make another weak attempt at sanity:
-Er…sorry?
-(flashy grin again) I wazs stearing at you all night from other side. I wish u to dance with me. We can be vairy good friends.
-MY spaceship awaits and I must leave.

Hasty retreat. Disbelieving silence. And all that jazz.

Pretty boy 2:

Me: What about Pulp Fiction?
PB2: Ermm…
Me: You have seen it haven’t you?
PB2: sure. With all those rewind things and loads of blood, huh?
Me: Maybe you mean Kill Bill.
PB2: eh…Kilbil?
Me: (Sigh!) Don’t you see films at all?
PB2: Sure I do. I thought KANK was pretty good. Did u see that?

I rest my case.

Pretty Boy 3:

(talking to his reflection) Maybe I need to get my sideburns trimmed. If only I were 2 inches taller. (to me) Is my nose too shiny? Do I need to use a facewash? Do you think this hair gel makes my scalp oily? You don’t think I should powder my neck?
(to himself again) Darn, I shouldn’t have stayed out in the sun for too long. I’m too tanned for words.

Eeeks!
Repeat actions. Hasty retreat. Inward groan.

It concerns me to a deep, earth-shattering tragic extent that most of the males I encounter today who are inbetween wearing nappies and showing later signs of grey hair have temporarily (I hope temporarily) lost all powers of intelligent communications. That the so-called men of today have for some unknown obscure reason have forgotten how to talk. Really talk. Not as in move those jaw muscles and go “duh-duh-duh” but really talk. Communicate. Something that would make me think. Or atleast raise my eyebrows. And I don’t mean in disgust.
There isn’t any decent guy that I have seen in the last godknowshowmanydays who happened to have opened their mouths to speak and not made me cringe as an afterthought.
What have you done with the real men, you weirdlings? The ones who knew another way of using their tongues besides going yap-yap-yap.

It helps sometimes if you would talk about stuff that you actually know about, leave yourself out of the conversation most…well actually all the time, stop obsessing about your looks, and be in general a little well-read, with an IQ that’s scraped the average mark. And try also not to show off coz you will pretty much end up falling flat on your face and then I can only laugh and tell u to get a life depending on whether I’m sloshed or stoned. And if your bloodstream cannot handle alchohol, it would really be a wise idea to trust it and not consume so much that it becomes difficult to say if you are a duck or a geese, coz either way you are going Quack [hahah! That was ingenious!]
And if you are trying to impress anybody with some brains in their head by strutting your cell phone, it would be a wiser idea to put it on silent before it rings out and ends your sad game. And while we are on the topic of ring tones, an MP3 version of Jhalak Dikhla Ja (with clarity sound and disco beats and all that) isn’t really the height of cool. And stuff like opening doors, and saying ‘after you’ isn’t likely to kill you immediately as much as you would think it might.

Just a few things they never taught you at school as they already assumed you would know it! Their mistake for sure…but its never too late to learn, is it? And while we are at it…a few last bits. As much as you would like to ‘make friendship’ with me—spelling the noun as f-r-I-E-n-d isn’t going to make me think of you in a better light, howmuchever ingenious it might have appeared to you! And a full length conversation about the last time you had pet-kharap doesn’t do wonders either. Really.

Thank you for the time, Pretty Boy, and for staying with me through what I agree has been a fairly lengthy discourse—one that at first might not have made a great deal of sense in your head. But I promise, that if you would bother to go over it, slowly, with an uncluttered mind, keeping an Oxford dictionary at hand (just in case)—there will be a time that it will all be clear. As clear as you want your scalp to be. Yes, yes the shahid kapoor type.

PS: Sigh!

Its strange how you can feel both both extremely proud and extremely angry at the same time. The more that I show off before the firangs, the more proud I feel of this place that I was born in. And angry too, of an equal degree, if not more. For being another chip off the block, or stone off the whatever. For not being able to preserve what is, or rather was.
For not being able to gauge its value in any terms. For not understanding the significance, the beauty, and the transcience.
I saw breathtaking frescoes dating back to 2 B.C. defiled by cheap meaningless graphiti—that was not in any other language, but my own. I saw solid stupas with an empty silence where their original statue used to be. Vanished. Transacted like vegetables. Obviously adorning the living room of some eccentric, filthy-rich American. And what makes it even further tragic that you can blame the American only till a certain point. What about him, the insider who carried off this heinous crime in the dead of the night? What about them, the immigration officials who walked off with a blind eye and a fat pocket? What about the people who know about all of this, and yet, let it happen? Cave no. 17 in Ajanta had nothing within it. Except for this laminated painting with the caption- This 2nd century B.C. Buddhist painting has been defiled by graphiti and is beyond restoration.
Makes u sick? Your blood boil? But that’s about it isn’t it? You’ll ‘tsk-tsk’ shake your head awhile and then move on to lunch.
When I went to UK I saw stuff that was not even half , not even quarter as old as what I saw over the last few days…and I saw how beautifully stuff was kept there. And we have stuff in every nook, every corner of every darn city here lying and going to waste like this one. And its obviously not an issue important enough to be taken seriously by anyone anywhere.
The only thing we noticed was a lot of security in both the places. Because of suspected terrorist activity. Apparently there is a huge conspiracy of terrorist threats to blow up Ellora. And so as a protective measure, the authorities put up a couple of puny ‘security’ guards with no weapons who didn’t even know the way to each of the caves.
And I fail to get why any terrorist would want to blow up the caves. Its not a major place of worship, nor does it attract that huge a number of tourists. Destroying it wouldn’t mean hurting national sentiment because there are very few people in the country who really appreciate its worth as national treasure. No, more than any patriotic feeling, what they would be destroying is actually a lot simpler, and a lot more tragic. What they would be destroying is Art, an art whose form we can only imitate now, an art that is so ancient that reconstruction of any form would only be a ridiculous joke, an art that is so beautifully simple that it is beyond any of us today to understand its value.

I remember this particular bit from Aguntuk, where Utpal Dutta’s character talks about this prehistoric painting of a bison that he had chanced upon that was starkly beautiful. And he had vowed that whatever he would do with his life, he would never be an artist as no art school in the world could teach him to paint like that.
Why dont people understand that this kind of thing is never going to come back? Ever?
I just feel too disgusted to go on. I know I should have blogged about the better bits…but…

Warning: Boring, Unrelated, Corny and Absolutely Irrelevant to You!

Swamped, drowned, enmeshed, immersed, suffocated in guilt.
When i will meet her 19 and a half years later...i will not know her, thats for sure. She'll look the same i know...she always has...but she has changed so much already...that she looks as though she isnt, even though she is.
Traumatic adolescence? Check. Fat? Check. Average? Check. Ordinary? Check. Double check. Triple check. Check check check. Ok, u can enter. Third door to your left. And be silent.
But then...she said, "Its always the brave who go first." She didnt say where.
-So whats your cause?
-Upliftment of the poor.
-Hmmm. Poverty.
-Errr...not really. More like women.
-Sexual abuse. Violent marriages.
-Err...more like widows.
-Eh?
-Betterment of their conditions. Remarriage. All that.
-Ram Mohan Roy, are you?
-Ehhh? Who?

Nyam.Nyam.Nyam. Yes, yes, Eliot and all that. Nyam nyam. Ei ekta cha hobe? Tagore's? Shesher Kobita. Sheki? Poroni? Nyam nyam nyam. Arre dhur moshai, Proust! Keats, only Keats. "Fled is that vision...ei..cha ta ki holo? Fled is the vision...tarpor ta ki jano?"

-And what now?
-Coffee?
-Nahh..
-My place?
-Call it a night maybe.
-Ok. Call me.
-Ok. Bye.

The thing that i love most about being in Bombay, or rather to put it more accurately, dislike the least is the immense amount of indulgence here, so much, that its not even funny. And after my extremely frugal lifestyle in Cal (well, almost) its a big deal when i order a coffee for 50 bucks without flinching. Ah, les parents! Where would we be without them? Ahem..not to ponder on that one very literally ofcourse.
Train rides are the best. Next time i'm only taking the train...it just feels so much more like travelling. I love everything, the crowds, the smelly sweaty iron handle smell, the train foods (non-veg thali: Rs 37/-), having garam-chai 20 times a day, listening to wailing, impatient kids, standing by the door (that is the best part), window seats, upper berths, every darn thing!
And and...theres just so much more to see. So many shades of green. I mean its alright reading about it in a geography text book or something, but when you actually pass stations like Rourkela and Bhillai, and you remember about steel mills and the likes..well, i dont know, its a nicer feeling. And there is a sense of belonging. In some obscure way. Inspite of paan stained basins and suspicious loo-seats that i made sure i didnt touch!! And even though i looked all bedraggled and harassed at the end of it, i remember how it felt standing at the door 20 mins before pulling into CST...
Oh and i got off at Nagpur too to see if they sold fresh puris anymore...but sighh...frying stuff on the platforms have been banned!

I have a houseguest, and i have to share my room...and since i'm not the type to mince my words..let me tell u, i hate it!! I hate not being able to play music in my own bloody room at 2 am, and having to blog in the dark (like now) coz someone needs their precious sleep!! Grrrrr....
Went around Bombay today, Lands End, Colaba Causeway, Churchgate...a lot of the South mainly. This place always gives me such mixed feelings. When i'm dissing it, i'm never entirely convinced, and when i'm heaping praises...i know i sound false. But i cannot tolerate other people dissing it either. What are u expecting to see here anyway? Old castles, elephants, and poor people earning their living through weaving handloom fabrics?? So..we have Louis Vuittons and Jane Shilton and 10 flyovers and malls and high rises and sports cars? Did u expect us to remain in the 19th century forever? Yes, we have progressed and we have worked bloody darn hard for it. And if Bombay is the way it is and looks the way it does...well, the credit is entirely its own. No matter how much i complain about its lack of certain things...Bombay's vibrancy, its colours, its success are undeniable facets of its magnetism. Its a symbol for sure...of how this country can grow forward and ahead. Sure, it isnt all black and white...and there are patches of extreme duality...but so what? we are getting there...its a beacon, and it makes me so mad when people cant commend the positive as easily as they can demean the negative.

Oh anyway...I am bored. As always. And i thought Woh Lamhe was besh sad. Inspite of Shiney Ahuja. And especially because of that chick whose name i dont see any reason of mentioning on my blog. Though i must admit, she has great legs.
Tomorrow is an important day. Hope everything goes well. For everyone, in more ways than one. I suddenly want to go to Sunderban. Maybe in December.
(Grrrr....houseguests!! I hate sharing my room..otherwise i'm usually nice. Really.)
Ok bye.

Sometimes...i just don't know. I mean can there always always be a logical explanation for everything? I swear I am a rationalist at heart...never mind my so-called romantic tendencies. There are really few things in life that i have done on impulse...everything else that seemed impulsive was carefully carefully thought out much before. As in, they might have appeared to be one of those spur-of-the-moment things, but thats just because my brain was working overtime even before you could say 'good-morning sunshine!' Yeah, i have a fast brain, get over it! Even when you think that I'm sleeping or dreaming or high...my mind's not on vacation. The only time that i dont think is when i'm angry...which is another story again.
So yeah anyway, impulse. I am not the most impulsive person, and thats the truth. Except for a few teeny times. That have inevitably inevitably led to severe repurcussions. (Do u realize how i keep repeatin words in this post? Its so funny.)
I tell u, i think way too much. It cannot be good for health, i just know it. Except before i talk. I barely ever think before i speak. And the consequences are, well..hilarious, disastrous whatever your perspective may be. Its funny coz, its always the truth that comes out...and awkward, coz its never really a pleasant truth. And sometimes i can ask really embarassing questions without realizing what is coming. But thats another story,too, which i dont particularly feel like relating.
And whats the point of this post? I dont know, i just got tired of seeing the previous one. Am ektu Eliot-obsessed right now (howmuchever presumptious that might sound) and i feel like i want to quote it everywhere. But i shall refrain for i know that in a few months time i shall be embarassed about it. Except for these two lines that i simply adore:
"Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room"
I probably got the punctuation wrong, but whatever. Aren' those wonderful lines?
I have so many things to do, but i have only one thing on my mind. One track. Ajkei bolchhilam. Never mind. I hate definitions. Boyle's Law and all that. Ugh!
There are some people i'm really happy for. the yay-yay types! And there are somethings really really bugging me. The last time life felt puro perfect was...well, a long time back. Not for too long, but oh well. Absolute perfect...as in, you know, no pet-batha, no slight headache, no chin-chine feeling, like that. Just a nice pleasant buzz. Sigh! Nowadays only beer gives me that. Along with 300 or so calories.
I am going to Bombay. Yay-yay!! Anything to be outta here. Its been crazy since May. Insufferable. Except a few times and a few days and a few things. Bad bad times.
Ummm...i blogged. Now what?