A Hazy Shade of Winter

Sometimes there is so much happening around you that you are afraid to write about it because it is so overwhelming. You are trying to avoid thinking about some things and writing about them reaffirms all your fears and insecurities. But then writing also helps clear your head, and gives you the chance to channelize your thoughts coherently. That is why I just decided to write today. It helps you move on.

I realized something. I was a spoilt little kid when I was growing up. I’ve been reading about the middle-child psychological traits, and most of us are attention seekers since we feel neglected during childhood. Everything the first child does is special and new and amazing, and when the second child does it, they go like “Yeah, so well what’s new?” So ever since I can remember, I’ve been a noisy little kid. My mom always says I'm so stubborn I always get what I want somehow. When I was about five, we were out shopping for my birthday and I wanted an expensive Mickey Mouse soft toy. Mom got me a Teddy bear instead. I cried and threw a tantrum. I didn't play with the bear, only cried for Mickey Mouse. Dad took me to the shop and got it for me. That thing was my life. I carried it everywhere, fed it, slept with it, even took it to the doctor, for his check up. The doctor still remembers the way I told him, "Doctor, iske batooke mein sui laga do." (Give him an injection in his butt)

A similar instance is about a fight I had with my mom over a frilly frock for my birthday party. I wanted a pink frock with a bloomer that had silver dots on it. She wanted to buy me a yellow one with NO dots on the bloomer. My mom did not get me that, and I was sore for the next few days. Another time. My brother decapitated my Barbie doll and I cried so much, dad had to go out and get the same one for me. I've always been pampered. My parents always got me what I wanted. And if they didn't, I knew if I make a lot of noise, they would. Maybe they were overcompensating for unknowingly neglecting me. Who knows? I guess I always felt that if you really want something bad enough, you’ll get it. Somehow or the other, I never had to face rejection or be desperate for anything. To pine for something. I pine for something today. A couple of things actually.

I did not get placed in the company I was vying for. My best friends got the same job. I wanted it. I really wanted it. After crying about it for two days, I finally let the most clichéd phrases people have been telling me, sink inside me. “There is something better in store.” “Maybe life has another plan.” “Maybe this job wasn’t for you.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It’s one rejection. One interview gone bad. But it HURTS. I really wanted it. So now I’m applying anywhere I can, not really keeping my expectations high. People say it builds character. Well, I’ve built a hell of a lot of character in the past few days then.

Why is it so difficult for me to let things go? People, relationships, opportunities, mistakes, memories. I cling on to everything, every smidgen of everything, till the very last thread breaks and I have no choice but to move on.

In other, happier news, I watched the first two seasons of Black Mirror. Waiting for the third season to come out. Wow. What a show. I’ve always had this theory that too much of digitalization and social networking and gadgets are going to turn us into these monogamous zombies who do not have any idea what the real, simple things in life are all about. And it has already happened. Well, Black Mirror takes it to a whole new level. In one episode, a woman loses her fiancé in a car accident and a friend suggests a software to her in order to cope with her grief. Now this software uses all of his tweets, status updates, emails, chat histories, photos, videos and all other information available online to create a virtual him. Freaky, right? She could chat with him, even talk to him on the phone. He talked exactly like him, but he DIDN’T EVEN EXIST. You know what? Let me not spoilt it for you. Please watch it!

Also, I’m watching The Office all over again. Oh god, I still laugh at all of Jim’s pranks, and when Michel goes berserk over a stupid reason and when Pam and Jim kiss for the first time. It’s like reliving graduation days again. What a time it was.

College is awesome. This is the last sem, so very few classes, a lot of free time to spend with friends, and SLEEP and do movie marathons late into the night. We had a DJ night yesterday in college, and we all lost our minds dancing. I hit so many people in the maddening crowd, and I tripped on a wire and my muscles are aching now, but it was so worth it. And guess what? My dissertation topic is on Breaking Bad: the emergence of the anti-hero as the hero. How cool is that?

The only looming tension on our heads right now is placements. It seems as if that’s what everyone is always talking about. I am tired of people asking me about it. Whenever someone gets placed, there’s a lot of congratulations and happiness, but there is also panic. It’s like we are all in the ocean, grappling in the icy cold water, waiting for our lifeboats. As soon as a person gets a boat, we feel happy they’ll live, but we fear our own safety. We look into the distance, hoping and waiting for it to come. And I know it will. It’s just that the wait is distressing.

I’m trying to be positive now. Being with people, trying to absorb all the good things about college life, and shun out the bad ones. The weather is perfect, the right amount of chilly and yet warm enough for me to crush the crunchy leaves on my way to class. The skies are clearer than ever before, and the sunsets are as beautiful, as they always are in Lavale. Chai time everyday is what I look forward to. They have opened up a couple of eating joints down the hill, and they have started giving this divine strawberry milkshake at the Coffee Stop. Possum, as usual, is awesome. We have the most hilarious, most crazy times in the room and I don’t care about the fact that people have officially declared us insane even one bit. I’m glad we are lunatics. I wish she was my roommate last year too. Oh well, it all ended well. All in all, can't complain. So, last two months. Sigh, never thought this day would come so soon. Pune, before I leave, I’m going to soak you up like a sponge. Just you wait.

Arrivederci, Mumbai

Two days back I was going to Thane in a local train and a long distance train was running on top speed on a parallel track a little distance away. That’s when I saw them. Two boys emerged out of an opening in the engine and started to walk on the roof of the train. I couldn’t believe it. They were laughing, thrilled by the risk involved in what they were doing. One of the boys moved ahead and sat at the very edge of the train with his legs dangling, and the other one followed and sat behind him. They were screaming in utter abandonment, their hair and tee-shirts fluttering crazily in the wind. Their arms were raised in the air, and it reminded me of DiCaprio in Titanic. They were clutching each other, looking ahead and just laughing.

I could not stop looking at them. How happy they looked. How close they seemed. I so wished I had my camera at that moment. It just brightened my day. And when I saw them, I was listening to The Shins, and the image went so well with the song I was listening to (New Slang). It is funny how we can just forget all our problems and worries in the sheer happiness of moments like that one.

Today is my last day in Mumbai. I have mixed feelings. I can’t wait to sleep on my bed (which is not prone to breaking after every few days) and feel my soft pillow under my head. I can’t wait to eat all the home food, and meet my family. But I know I will miss this place. It has been a bittersweet experience. More like a saccharine sweet and a tangy sour type, actually. Some days have been unbelievably good, and some days have been the worst ever. The past two days I have just been shopping. Linking road, Hill road, Colaba Causeway, Fashion Street. Chattu and I went to Gokul last night. And there, just sitting there with him, talking about ‘work’ and stuff, I felt so grown up. I could not stop smiling. I can officially live on my own now. I don’t need anyone else. I have proved that to myself, at least. The only thing I need now, is to start earning. I cannot wait for that to happen. Having my own money to spend, on myself, and everyone I love. That’s precious.

But now I am thinking about all the things I will miss. I am going to miss the announcements on the railway stations “Overhead wires panchees hazaar volt te pravahita hai. Gaadi cha tapavan nu jaan leva ho shakte. Kripya gaadicha tapavan nu pravaas karu ne.” (Okay, I don’t know Marathi so pardon me if I got that wrong.) And I will miss the surge of relief I felt every day once the train would reach Dadar and most of the people would get out. Which reminds me, I bought a tee-shirt from Colaba which says, “Darr ke aage jeet hai, Dadar ke aage seat hai!” :D

I’m going to miss the clawing, screaming, pushing aunties who were ready to stampede their way in the trains all the time. Okay, I won’t miss them all that much. But I will miss the innate Mumbai-ness of the places. The Victorian architecture in South Bombay, people living in orange tin boxes, the pretty churches in Bandra and Christmas decorations everywhere, the salty smell at Nariman point, the hustle bustle at CST, the little trinkets people sold in the locals.

Right now, sitting in my empty apartment, I am realizing how lonely one can feel in this city when you don’t have to run about all the time and do not have friends to keep you company. The loneliness can be haunting. I’m going home tomorrow, but I am taking a huge part of Mumbai with me, and leaving an even bigger part here. A part of me at Andheri station, a part of me at the Mc. Donald’s besides it. A little part of me at Marine drive. A little part of me in this flat. And a very special part sitting on a roadside pavement talking about parallel universes in front of Bombay Blues.

It has been one of the most challenging, and ergo, one of the most satisfying experiences in my life so far. I am looking forward to home. Looking forward to the winter chill and fog. Looking forward to the new year. Bring it on, 2014 :)

This is my December

This is my time of the year. I still happen to like that song, by the way.

Guess what? Music can really soothe your soul. Fleet Foxes, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, Porcupine Tree. Ahhh :) And what is better is to put earphones on and not care how you sound caterwauling :D 
I went on a sort of movie-watching rampage after my internship got over. I finished reading the Hunger Games part one in a day and watched the movie at night. Can’t wait to read the next two parts. I guess I will always be a sucker for fantasy fiction. Then I watched Half Nelson. Man, Gosling, he never fails to amaze me. Watched Annie Hall next. How come I had never watched his movie to the finish? What a movie. So progressive. I’m a fan of Woody Allen. I really liked when he said “I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. The horrible are like terminal cases, blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful you are miserable. Because that's very lucky, to be miserable.” Haha, what a man! Then I watched Lolita. I couldn’t read the book completely because I thought Humbert Humbert is really sick. But the movie was good. Especially the man who played Quilty. Very nice. And then I watched Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. I had no idea how these big corporations had sucked the blood of the lower and the middle classes. You should really watch his movies. He’s a crazy genius.

In other news, I cannot believe my internship is over! In hindsight, it seems as if it flew by, but it was really crawling when I was counting the days. There was a point when I was utterly demotivated to work because all my efforts were not bearing any fruit. And it was a bitter, bitter pill to swallow. To work on a story all day and not seeing it in the paper because there were better or more important stories. It is a feeling every reporter goes through, and it can really deflate you like a balloon.

But then my sister reminded me of something my granddad used to tell us, “Karm kar, phal ki chinta mat kar.” Roughly translated, it means “Do your work, and do not think of the outcome.” And then my mom told me the same thing. It doesn’t matter that my stories are not coming out, I should not take life so seriously. Plus, the entire process of doing the stories itself has taught me so much. This has been probably the best internship I could have had. Worked in a healthy environment, got some good work to do, met some really nice people, got to travel all over the city. Seriously, I was not even expecting so many experiences packed in under two months. I have seen the dark side of Mumbai. The underbelly. The dirt and grime. Not to mention, a lot of crime. (That rhymes!) I have walked in lanes so narrow I felt they would cave in on me. I have smelled places so bad I felt I would faint. I have witnessed various cultures, people and lifestyles all in one city. And the biggest achievement, the oh so many lunches I had alone. I have always hated eating alone. But now, I think I can eat in a roadside restaurant without being self conscious. When hunger takes over, comfort takes a backseat.

Also, I always start smiling to myself now when I look at policemen. I’ll always have a special invisible bond with them, no matter where I go. I have met some interesting ones, some really good ones, and some really oh-my-god-will-he-ever-talk-sense type, but I’d have to say one thing. The Mumbai police force is good. I’ve seen cases being cracked in a day. Some impossible crimes being solved with the most ingenious methods. Then you should see them gloat. It’s almost cute the way they gush over when they talk about how they nabbed the criminals. It’s really interesting to see how the cases unfold though. The biggest thing is that I never thought I would be able to handle this. And I did. Now I feel like I can work in any beat. I can’t believe I’m saying this! I think I have grown up!

Okay, now this post is going haywire, so I shall write about my challenges in point form.

1.  The huge amount of courage it always took me to enter police stations and handle the stares. The curious eyes always seeming to ask ‘Okay what is SHE doing here?’ ‘She looks like a kid. She’s a reporter?’ ‘She doesn’t belong here! Go away, little girl! This is a dark place where bad things happen. Go on, go to a candy store.’

2. The infinite amount of patience it required to sit outside the officers’ offices, when they acted important, when they were busy attending their never-ending ‘meetings’, when they had more important things to do. When I waited for hours, only to hear “I cannot tell you anything about this case. You should talk to Mr. So and so. And Mr. So and so is on chutti.” Grrr. Why, god why?!

3. Visiting a crime scene after a murder or a suicide and talking to people about it. Just how are you supposed to start a conversation with a random passerby about someone else’s death? It took everything it had in me to approach a stranger and talk about it. Most of the times, they stared at me wide-eyed, dodged all my questions and ran away.

4. When I had to try all the tactics in the Handbook of rookie reporters to get information out of a cop. Stern expressions. A confident voice which said ‘I’m not going till you give me all the information’. Puppy eyes. Shadowing a cop relentlessly till he had to give me something out of sheer exasperation. 

5. Realizing you never find any other female crime reporter anytime you visit police stations for a story. And that it is such a boys club. And that police officers are so much more comfortable talking to men, rather than a skinny little girl. They even joke around with them. Sigh.

6.  Sitting in Marathi press conferences, blank and uncomprehending. Then leaning over to a fellow reporter and saying, “Um, could you give me a teeny tiny idea of what the heck is happening?” And many time, telling the cops, “Could you puh-leez be kind enough to talk in Hindi?” and grinning.

7. The frustration and the anguish of knowing that after travelling in unimaginable conditions sandwiched between people of all shapes, sizes and smells, you do not have enough to make a story. After spending your entire day bumping into dead ends, you have to go back to office empty handed. I felt like crying then. Because it made me question my abilities. But somehow you had to file in the story. Talk over the phone, make a million calls. But get it done.

8. The exhaustion that hits you on the way back home. When you sit by the window, with your hand over your head, listening to music, looking at the tired faces of the fellow passengers and thinking “This is not easy.”

9. Having to go through the arduous task of being in the midst of so many unthinkable things humans do to another. How they can be so heartless as to take someone else's life is beyond me. It's depressing. 

Apart from all of this, there have been some good times. So, naturally, it calls for another list.

1.  The feeling of seeing your name in the paper. A byline! Your efforts are there for the people to read. That some space has been carved out for you, amongst so many other good stories.

2.  The seemingly endless Monday meetings with the entire team. The intelligent discussions that made you feel like they are speaking another language. The story ideas peppered with jokes and leg-pulling. The feeling of being a part of a proper newsroom, where people churn out so many stories about the city every single day.

3.  The lunch with my team members S and G after the meetings. S’s home food. His silly quirks and jokes. G’s one-liners, the way he sang old hindi songs in office. His encouragement every time I felt down. His support every time I doubted myself. Making fun of certain people. Laughing at each other. Mostly them laughing at me. 

4. Asking T to go for a tea break. Sharing her dabba with her. Having tea and uttapa and cheese sandwiches in the cafeteria. Going outside the office and having masala dosa with cheese. So many cups of chai. Cribbing about the day, joking about our experiences, sharing the mutual problems and talking about college.

5. Stealing time from work and sitting at Marine Drive. That one time T and I were so bored we sat and stared at the crabs. For half an hour. And it was one of the most interesting things we had done that day.

6. The entire feel of Nariman point. The roads, the tall commercial buildings, marine drive, the cool breeze, the lack of noisy crowds everywhere.

7.  The overall atmosphere in the office after 7. Phones ringing, fingers tapping at the keyboards at top speed. The chatter, the excitement, the rush of meeting deadlines, the jokes.

8.  Sunlight. The drinks. The conversation. Crossing the road like little kids. Laughter. Abandonment. Popcorn stuck in the hair.

9. Having N to talk to. The way she entered my room when I was curled up in bed, and talked to me and always made me feel better. The way we went out to have coffee or just 'some place nice'. Having my college friends as my flatmates and knowing I can talk to them and laugh with them and meet them back on the hill again.

10. Always having someone or the other to be with. Trying out so many new places. The Little Door, Theobroma, ChaiCoffi, Bistro 1, Big Bang Cafe, Firangi Paani, Banana Leaf, Woodside Inn, Hawaiian Shack, Hearsch and so many more. 

10. The feeling of ending the day with a fulfilling story. A good story. The feeling that you contributed to the paper. You did something worthwhile. Sitting in the train, looking out and just feeling good about yourself.

I did not realize how long this post has turned out to be. And there is so much more that I have to say. Well, I’ll have to leave that for the next time. There’s so much more of Mumbai inside me that I have to share. Christmas is almost here and tomorrow I’m going out with one of my best friends to shop and roam around Bandra. Oh I am so excited! Life can be so amazing sometimes. I shall write more. Soon.

P.S. Today a friend texted me “You know, if all human beings were more like you, I wouldn’t have hated humanity so much.” How adorable is that? :)

Mumbai Diaries

They’re like insects here. The people. They dwell in every nook and cranny of the city. While some live in majestic bungalows and villas facing the sea, most of them live in one-roomed, cubicle like flats. Their buildings look like beehives. Each window reflecting different stories behind it in their 10” by 10” rooms. Some of them who do not have a permanent roof over their heads settle down anywhere they can. Beneath flyovers, beside railway tracks, on the footpaths, on open fields under tin roofs. When it rains they crawl out of their humble homes, and wait till they can fix them again. They scurry around everywhere, on railway stations, on the roads, in the trains. They are always walking. It looks like an ant colony. People walking so fast the world seems like a blur to them. They bump into each other, but they don’t have time to look back. They stand in queues. So many queues. Long human chains waiting for the bus, for the tickets, for taxis and auto rickshaws.

They spend half their day stuck in traffic jams. The continuous, ceaseless, mind-numbingly infuriating traffic jams. While you are praying for the bottle-necked roads to clear up, you listen to some music, but then you are surrounded by children. Oh, the children. They sell flowers, they sell balloons. They sell children’s books which they can’t read themselves. They sell bangles which they cannot dream of wearing on their tiny, dirty wrists.

Walking on the railway platform sprawling, overflowing with people, you can’t help but wonder what everyone else is thinking. Their faces flash past you in under a second, but you imagine what their life must be like. That man, running with a briefcase, wiping the sweat off his face. Is he late for a meeting? Is his boss going to give him a hard time for being late? Or that old woman, barely able to walk at a regular pace, where is her family? Is she waiting to meet them? Is she alone? Sometimes you see a lanky young boy, wearing his bright orange earphones dancing while enjoying his music, dangling by the door of the train. People grabbing vada pavs and samosas on the go. Eating while running, eating while talking on the phone. Sometimes you see young people walking holding hands, completely immersed in each other. Their fingers are intertwined with each others, their eyes twinkling with love.

So many people. So many stories. It’s a never-ending sea of people going about their everyday lives. I cannot help but think of something Kafka says in Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. He says that all these people he sees walking past him, a hundred years later they would not even exist. They would be gone. Gone from the face of the earth. Including him. And me and you and all of us. The future generations will have different stories, different experiences. Wonder what life would be like then. How much of it would have changed? One of my friends yesterday in one of his ‘mellow’ moods said “we are lost in a mist of time. Stumbling and groping around in the dark. Then we suddenly hit a dead end and we look back and realize that the mist was all there was and the journey was the only purpose. The journey that led to a blind alley. In the end, I think, life is a purposeless journey undertaken by a blind man in the dark. We continue to live it for no other reason other than that it’s there. Even though we know exactly what lies in the end.”

Does it make sense? To me it kind of did. I should get some sleep now. Tomorrow is another day.

P.S.  Today’s date is 11.12.13 :)

Parasites

This is harder than I thought it would be. There comes a time after you shift to a new place when the weight of everything that has changed suddenly hits you like a train. In the beginning I was excited. I was nervous but I was eager. Every hardship was a learning experience. Now, I ask myself what is it that I’m trying to do. What am I trying to achieve? I feel scared. I feel lonely. I want the comfort of home, of people who I can openly talk to. I want the food, I want my bed. I feel so drained out of energy now.

In the movie, The United Stated of Leland, Ryan Gosling’s character murders a disabled boy because he could not take how unhappy he was. I must admit that I somehow get that. Not that I support taking anybody’s life for whatever reasons, but I understand what he was trying to say. I see unhappiness around me all the time. How do I ignore the little girl who lives under a tarpaulin sheet with her family beside railway tracks? How do I ignore the blind old man, who stutters about rattling a plastic box full of coins, his grandchild holding his hand? How do I ignore the woman lying on the staircase at the entrance of the railway station, her eyes staring vacantly? How do I ignore the thousands of people scurrying about like ants every single day of their lives, struggling to survive, suffering to earn their daily bread? I can only grit my teeth and let the gut-wrenching guilt fade away. I can only swallow the lump that forms in my throat. It’s not fair. It’s not.

It saddens me that we spend half our time stuck in traffic jams, standing in crowded trains, waiting in long queues for everything. Sometimes it gets too much. Sometimes I need to shut my eyes and go somewhere far away.

And then there are your own monsters in your head. Your own insecurities, inadequacies, self-doubts and the everyday challenges you have to overcome. Little strips of paper make us run around, make us kill each other, make us turn into inhuman demons. We are like parasites, consuming all of the resources nature has given us, and polluting every place we go to, and then moving on to other areas, only to pollute them as well. We are selfish and greedy and malicious. We are these insignificant organisms living on a hot, overpopulated planet floating through a universe so big, we don’t even matter. We are mortal, delusional beings just completing our time in the world. Carl Sagan once said, “We are like butterflies, who live for a day, but think it is forever.” Is it worth it? Is anything worth it? 

In the city of dreams. And some nightmares.

Today I knew I just had to gather everything inside me and just write.I  turned twenty three on November 9. Almost a woman now(?) Had a nice dinner with friends. I don't really get excited about my birthday anymore. I feel nothing really. A tinge of shock and disappointment, at how I can't help getting older.

I've been listening to ‘Death is the road to awe’, the OST of The Fountain. It transports me into another realm of the universe. I just finished reading The Lowland, the latest book by Jhumpa Lahiri. What a beauty. The ending killed me. Reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami now. Enjoying it immensely.  

In other news, I’ve managed to cross off one of the things on my wish list. We all went to Goa after the exams! It was exactly what I needed. We loitered around the beaches, played with the sea waves, zipped zapped zoomed all over Goa on our hired scooters and drank and ate and danced and did everything possible in three days. What a holiday! We used to come back at 4 or 5 in the morning, crash on the beds like there’s no tomorrow, get up late, have a lazy, delicious breakfast and then just rush to the beaches. I love the sound of the beach. It’s one of the most joyful sounds in the world.

It has been two weeks since I came to Bombay and started my internship at The Indian Express. Honestly, I don’t even know how to describe the entire experience. I live in a 3BHK with 3 of my other friends and a couple of strangers (who are now kind of friends as well). I travel by the local trains every day, Andheri to Churchgate, which were so alien to me fifteen days back. Now I don’t even have to bat an eyelid before hopping on a train. I see the red stripes and the ‘ladies’ symbol and BAM! I’m on it in no time. It has become so routine, so normal, so …necessary. I sit at the window seat, plug in my earphones and tune myself out till I reach my destination. The office was overwhelming the first day. It is located at Nariman point, one of the most commercial and developed places in Bombay. The building overlooks the sea, and Marine drive is right outside. That place excites me, thrills me. Every time I have to go to CST or cross those iconic landmarks or look at the skyline, I can’t help smiling. This is one of the best cities in the country! I am in Bombay! I’m working here! I’m living here! It is really happening!

Talking about work. So they have put me in the Crime beat as of now. When I was told that, my mind went like, “Oh my god, I’m done for. How will I ever do this?” But my superiors/mentors/colleagues are so helpful and encouraging. I feel like laughing when I compare them to my previous internship superiors. They are patient with me, they tell me where to go and how to go and what to do. I call them for the silliest reasons and they guide me through it. In the past two weeks I’ve done 2 suicide stories, 2 accident stories, a murder story, a couple of press conferences, and several small 100-word reports. And it has been a ride. To think that I had never gone inside a police station before in my life, and now I visit senior inspectors and police officers almost every second day. I was petrified at first. Lost. Blank. Ignorant. But slowly, I started getting the hang of it. I would give myself a pep talk. “I’m a journalist! It is my right to ask for information, and they owe it to me. These are public records and they are bound to tell me what people need to know. Just go and talk to them. They can’t throw you out.”

Some days, however, they almost do throw you out. Not literally, but they may snap at you, ignore you or pretend they are not who you think they are. They have more important things to do, cases to solve instead of talking to some newbie reporter. And I understand that, which is exactly what makes this job so challenging. I have had police officers who have made me wait for hours only to tell me they have to go somewhere urgently. It is mind numbingly demotivating. But you've got to get your story, by hook or by crook. It makes me question my own capabilities. Am I good enough for this? 

I admire the energy of this place. Not only my office, but the entire city. Everyone is busy, and everyone walks with a purpose. No one stares at you, no one tires to touch you. No one even has the time to look at you. Which is why it is liberating to work here. It is not odd to come home at 12 in the night. I know girls who come later than that. This place is for people who are really just trying to work and make a living.

The stories done by the other people in my office are sometimes so good I wonder how I will ever be able to reach that level, but I know I can if I push myself hard enough. I’ve seen good days, and bad ones. Some days were so frustrating I almost cried in the toilet. It is physically painful when you travel and walk in the heat for hours and you don’t get any information for your story. I have often wondered what I’m doing. If I want to do this. If I’m meant to do this. But I can figure that out for myself later. Right now I’m just glad at how much I’m getting to learn every single day. I’ve travelled in buses where there has been no place to move and where passengers are somehow dangling at the door, their entire body hanging outside precariously. I’ve travelled in loud, noisy, hot, crowded trains where I have stood for so long my legs have lost all feeling. I’ve gone from one place to another looking for the scene of crime, only to be met with ignorant faces and disappointment. I've eaten at small roadside shops alone. I’ve gone hungry. I come home by 10:30 at night. I change, have my dinner, read a few pages of my book and I’m out in minutes. But I know that at the end of my internship, even if I don’t report groundbreaking stories, this will all be worth it because it would make me tougher. Stronger. Build my character. Every time my report gets edited, I get better at writing it. I learn every day. Maybe this is all to compensate for all those jobless, useless, idle days I have spent sleeping and watching reruns.

I’m out in the industry. Even if temporarily. I need to learn how to swim against the current, lest it takes me away with it. I’m aware of my own inadequacies, and I have to work against them. Against my own fears and shortcomings. This is really the time to figure myself out. To make something happen. To do something that matters. This is my time.

The one about obscure joys and sorrows

I’m listening to the Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. The song that plays when Ross and Rachel are in the planetarium on their first date. (If you don’t know who they are we can’t be friends) Mushy mushy mushy. I love his voice. This song is so romantic. It makes me melt. I’m just a sucker for this kind of stuff. Sigh.

Possum and I have been gorging on Friends and unhealthy mid-night Balaji chips and cookie binges. I’ve realized we have memorized almost all the episodes now.  There is not one reference or a joke related to the show that we won’t get. It is amazing how they maintained the quality and the humour for ten seasons. Brilliant. There are some scenes I have to pause to laugh at. And I feel the same amount of sadness when they all keep down their keys of the apartment in the finale episode.

I’ve been reading The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal. It’s quite intriguing. I stayed awake all night reading it. My head is full of the book right now. I like the way the convoluted emotions have been explained in the story. It seems like the narrator is unraveling them while he is writing all his revelations out. Since I was up all night, I went for an early breakfast. Ah, the mess was almost empty. Chattu and I sat outside the mess, sipped tea and looked at the misty view for quite some time. There were dew drops dangling on the green leaves and the small buildings looked like building blocks. I like it when all the assignments are done, and you can just sit back, deep breathe and relax. Ah, the campus is breathtaking then. If there is one thing I would crave once I leave this place is the silence. The sheer solitude and the peace. Now when I go to the city and I’m standing on a busy road I keep wondering where everyone is going. Why are there so many people? Why are they all in a rush? Where are they going? Why don’t they look happy? It puts me off. We have screwed up. We are way too many people. I’d rather prefer half the current population to just stop existing. It’s a transhumanist, almost evil thought, but seriously, either that or we have to bear the consequences of fornicating so much.

Do you sometimes enter phases where you’re sitting and you zone out of a conversation and start staring at nothing in particular? You’re not even thinking about anything. It’s like you just stop functioning for a second. Yes? Well, I have been reading The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and I found the exact term for that phenomenon. Ambedo: a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life, a mood whose only known cure is the vuvuzela.

That website is excellent. They have words for the exact emotions which everyone feels but no names have been invented yet. There is one which I particularly relate with. And indulge in. Gnasche: the intense desire to bite deeply into the forearm of someone you love. See? I’m not insane. This happens to other people. Or I don’t mind being insane. Who cares?

Some other terms I was vehemently nodding my head in agreement were:

 Sonder: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Vellichor:  the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

Anecdoche: a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to say.

Flashover: the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.

Wonderful, right? So intricately and gorgeously expressed. Go ahead. Google them!

In other news, chances are I might end up in Bombay for my winter internship. Nothing is confirmed yet, but fingers crossed. I don’t know what is in store for me. The city intimidates me. It has this throbbing, pulsating, almost unnerving sort of a feel to it. It’s exciting, but you never know when it might just pounce on you. My feelings toward it are the kind you have for your physics teacher you kind of had a crush on. He scared you, even annoyed you, but you wanted to attend all his classes anyway.

The classes for the third semester are over. Every time I say this out loud to Possum or tell her how much time is left, she quivers her lips and then covers her ears up. How is it that time keeps slipping out of your hands and then makes you realize that there was so much that you had planned to do and just couldn’t do it due to some reason or the other? Here’s a quick list of the things I have to do before I leave:

1.       Go to Depression point again

2.       Go to a disc/pub with friends and stay out at night

3.       Walk all the way down the campus and climb one of the peaks and sit there

4.       Go on one more trip with friends with the epicness greater or equal to the epicness of the Kashid trip

5.       Stay awake all night and watch the sunrise with the others

6.       Go to a Karaoke pub and SING

7.       Buy the damn thermocol sheet and make a bulletin board lest Possum peals my skin off

These are the ones that come to mind as of now. Will add more later. Can you believe I will be 23 in another month? I always thought 23-year-olds are responsible, independent, strong, career-oriented, ready-for-marriage type of women. I wasn’t even over the shock of turning 22. I feel 16. Where is my life going?

Before I start hyperventilating, I will move to happier topics. I always had this mental image in my mind before I joined this college, that I will have a big group of girly friends who will be always there for me, and we would share everything. Well. That didn’t happen. Lots of things didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to be. I got a lot of rude shocks and unpleasant realizations about a lot of things. And that is how life is. The things you really want might not happen, but sooner or later you realize you did manage to squeeze out some precious memories and you do end up making friends. Because there will always be people who you can call your closest buddies. And life is just a little less dreary then.

And now, as Norah Jones is crooning in my ears, I’ll stop writing because this post is turning into a rather long disjointed flurry of scattered thoughts. So long!

P.S. Possum broke something that belonged to me a while back and so she got me an earthen wall hanging which is a half a sun and half a moon. Night and day. Yin and Yang. I love her! :)

P.P.S. I have a new possible pen name. The Radical Slug. How does it sound? Will explain the story behind it later :)

'Cause I've got a peaceful, easy feeling :)

A few days back a friend visited the campus and he made me look at my campus in awe all over again, through the eyes of an outsider. I live in the kind of place where people pay thousands of rupees to go vacationing to. I have been dabbling into a lot of new music and I’m addicted to two new bands, Broken Bells and Imagine Dragons. They go really well with the overall atmosphere of this place. A couple of days back Possum and I went up on our terrace, in a desperate attempt to do something ‘spontaneous’ because we suddenly realized how little time is left before our time here gets over. Third semester flew by. Literally. 'Not like a an aeroplane, but like a rocket.' When I think about it, it seems like a flurry of assignments, workshops and guest lectures. And funny one liners and insane laughter sessions at night.

And oh, sleeping like this every day.

It rained gloriously today. With frighteningly loud thunder and purple lightning. It has been pouring since the past few days and it makes me enter this euphoric stupor where I suddenly fall in love with everything around me. It felt amazing to just sit back and observe the rain. The water gushed underneath our feet, down the sloping road as we made our way back to the hostel. We felt the spray of the water and we observed some juniors sailing some paper boats in the streams.

There was a stormy, torrential downpour at night again, and as I walked back towards the hostel under my umbrella I knew I had to get drenched. It was time. I ran back to the hostel, changed into my shorts and asked my crazy neighbor who I knew would be crazy enough to join me in my craziness and took her to the terrace. We stood there, giggling, scaring passersby on the road below and just sharing the beauty of the moment. I don’t know what it is about getting soaked to the bone. Maybe it’s the thrill, maybe it’s defying what you’re supposed to do. Maybe it’s the pleasure of letting go despite the risk of falling sick.

I went to Mumbai recently to shoot a documentary film we are working on. The reality shook me up a bit. The real world is not like my campus. It's not always rainbows and butterflies and sunsets and trees. It's sweat. It's hordes of people pushing you. It's homeless people. It's people who try to swindle you. It's hours of travelling that sucks all your energy out. It's dust. It's haggling with autowallas. It's not easy. And once I start working I will have to deal with this everyday of my life. I don't feel ready for this. And yet when I'm thrown out there, I feel like I'll live.

I cannot get over how much I have changed in the past one year. Earlier I saw, but never really observed. I heard, but never really listened. I felt, but never really thought. I feel like my senses have opened so much more to everything that happens. I enjoy silence more than loud noises now. I look for solitude instead of large crowds. I am...quieter. Well, relatively. I'm more cynical. I still romanticize mostly everything in life, but a lot of my unreasonable expectations have taken a backseat. I’m still a big bag of emotions, opening myself to those precious few, but deep underneath a lot of creases have smoothed over time. I feel like I needed to clear my head a bit. There is a little more clarity when it comes to setting my priorities straight. I still don’t know what exactly I want from life, but I don’t let it bother me as much. I’ll figure it out.

For now, I’m just happy to have a roommate with whom I can share anything with. I’m happy I came to terms with my past and I'm happy I did not lose the people I cared about. I still have that friend who will burn and send me CDs of my favourite TV shows. I am happy I have that one person to walk around with, the one who completely ‘indulges me’, the one who shakes trees to make water fall down on me and run away laughing like a child. I’m happy I have that one friend who has worse existential crises than me and complains how she doesn't want to do anything anymore. I'm happy I have that one friend who I can count on when I want to discuss anything with, the things that 'normal' people won't understand. And a mom who pings me on Whatsapp asking 'Mela baby homesick hai?' And a dad who is okay with me wanting to go backpacking to another country because he is okay with everything. And a sister who constantly asks me to intern in Singapore so that 'we can be crazy with each other.' I'm happy for all these people in my life, because each one has a different purpose, and each one has a different place in my life, and I’m a completely different person with all of them. It's like they are my horcruxes. Life has never seemed so comfortable, and so full of exciting possibilities :)

P.S. I bought a camera! Sharing my photostream here! Do give me feedback on the pictures :)
Click here.

Same story, different place

We have all read the news today, and are all experiencing the same feelings yet again: shock, revulsion, fury and déjà vu. A 23-year-old woman was raped at Shakti Mills compound in Mumbai. No, she was not wearing a short dress. It was not late at night. She was not alone. She was an intern working for a lifestyle magazine and was out doing an assignment with a male companion. And every girl is asking the same tiring, grueling, exasperated question: what does a woman have to do to feel secure in this country?

As an aspiring journalist, I am exhausted of feeling that it could have been me. It could have been any of us. The incident has dashed all the supposed notions of Mumbai being a safe city to the ground. Every woman working in the capital feels scared today. Going out, no matter what time of the day is an extremely strenuous task because we always have to look back over our shoulders. We have to carry pepper sprays, or learn self-defence or always be body-guarded by male companions, and yet we can never feel fully safe.

In a recent CNN report RoseChasm, a student who shared her experience of studying in India, talks about how dangerous a place India is for women.  “There was no way to prepare for the eyes, the eyes that every day stared with such entitlement at my body, with no change of expression whether I met their gaze or not,” she writes. Women every day are letched at, groped, molested, masturbated at and raped. But probably the biggest problem is our own apathy.

Yes, we follow the drill. We read articles, we share them over Facebook, we express our disgust over Twitter, we even take part in protest marches. We shudder for our own safety, and at the most we write about it. Can we do anything more to bring about an actual change? And worse, will our collective efforts bring about a change at all? The answer is most likely a no, because even after rallies and protests and brutal acts of shame that recently took place in our country, yet another girl was raped in one of our purportedly safer cities.

Why can’t our leaders, our policemen, our thinkers, our decision makers take steps to curb this monster that is gnawing at our lives every day? Why can’t there be more police security on the roads instead of shadowing politicians? The most immediate action is laws so harsh that men dare not even stare at another girl on the streets again. It is sad that it takes inhuman incidents such as this one to shake us out of our reveries and make us think. And while all this is happening, people seem to be more concerned about the fact that Ben Affleck will play Batman in the next Man of Steel. Apathy one, humanity zero.

Our country has failed us yet again. Our men have failed us yet again. And while we hang our heads in shame, somewhere another gangrape is waiting to happen.

Possum :3

It is a typical rainy night in Lavale. The kind which depresses you, fuels your poetic side, or simply makes you want to curl up in bed with a book. But mostly it just makes you want to sleep. A lot. I have been listening to Amit Trivedi’s music, and it has a balming, dreamy effect which goes along perfectly with this weather. Sometimes I go to the city just because I get excited I will get to hear my music on the bus, and view the green hills and feel the wind and ponder about life.

I am writing after ages. It feels weird, now that so much time has passed, and so much has happened. My roommate, Possum, (as I would refer to her. Other names include: Thumbelina and Oompa Loompa) has gone to Mangalore to meet her grand mom and cousins. Not surprisingly, I am missing the small bump that her tiny body makes under her blanket, and the way her legs take up only half the bed. Shifting in with her is one of the best decisions I’ve made in this college so far. I thought I wanted someone sincere as a roommate so that I would be motivated to be like her. Or maybe someone serious and nerdy so that her ‘qualities’ would rub off on me. I was wrong. By the end of the second semester, I was ready to settle with absolutely anyone who would be willing to adjust to my random outbursts and idiosyncrasies, and that too I would have kept to a minimum. But I ended up living with someone just like me. Well, almost like me.

It’s awesome. Not only does she complement my insanity, she supplements it. When I make noises, she makes louder noises. When I make faces, she copies me with gusto. When I laugh at something, she laughs harder. She floods my Facebook wall with the silliest of posts. She has cookies running through her blood stream, and each time she opens an Oreo packet, she squeaks a loud and clear “Cookie?!” and when I say no, she looks at me incredulously as if she cannot believe a person can ever turn down a thing so divine. She’s not exactly the “Oh-share-your-woes-with-me-I’m-here-for-you” type, but she cares, in her own little retarded ways.

She gives me the most awkward pelvic hugs when I surprise her with a chicken shwarma roll from Casa Lolo. She starts jumping up and down like a mad woman when I play N Sync or Avril. She loves my South Indian version of “Baby Got back”. Our rendition of “Su kar mere mann ko” gets crazier and louder with each passing day. We laugh at each other and with each other every night, the reasons are not important (and should better remain untold). She cackles so loudly that she invites neighbours to knock on our doors asking what happened with genuine concern. Now they are quite used to it. She gives me death threats when I do something she hates, (God save you if she’s irritated) but then assaults me physically and later explains it was supposed to be a hug. She lets me put my earrings on her earring stand and lets me wear her tomatoes, while she wears my flowers. She gives me those asinine Cookie monster smiles when I offer to do something for her. 

She reads random quotes and jokes out to me and then says “duuuude”. The variation in the tone of our 'dude' is enough to understand the exact emotion. She never believes me when I tell her she’s smart, or pretty, which she is, and tells me that I fish for compliments. We finish each other’s sentences, and sometimes we read each other’s minds. I've hated her, and I've loved her. Considering everything I had gone through last year, she is the best roommate I could have ever hoped to have. Cheers to the Owl night longs possum :3