*Sigh*

One of my very close friends passed away about 20 days ago. I have been wanting to blog about it. On some days, I haven't been in the right frame of mind and on others, I have begun to write but never found the right words.
A couple of days ago, Avanti would have turned 21. Her family decided to publish a book with messages from her friends. I finally got myself to contribute, after having lived in denial for way too long. Here's a bit of what I have to convey:

Dearest Avanti,
Yesterday was your birthday. You would have turned 21, and I can't begin to imagine how excited you'd have been with the whole deal of crossing the 20-threshold! I thought a lot about you yesterday and the only thoughts that filled me up were of us having a whale of a time together. I guess that's what you did with everyone around you. That's what you did with the world. You pumped in so much energy and life that no moment in your company would seem pensive. You always had so much to say, so much to listen, so much to contribute. I remember one instance when you told me about meeting one of your uncles, who was breathing his final moments. I can recollect how you were shaken up about the prospect of death -- about cessation of life. You couldn't fathom how somebody could just stop living. Today, I can't believe that someone as alive as you could stop living. As hard as I try to find logic and reason behind the way things went, I fail. But, I have come to terms with reality, because that's what you'd want me to do. I would be lying if I said that I miss you, because I miss you a lot. And always will. But it's your memories that live with me and always will.

Yours,
Mini

My Tattoo

The latest and probably the only excitement in my life right now is my new tattoo. After a lot of contemplation, opposition and persuasion, I finally got it done last month. Have been a little busy lately so haven't had the time to blog about it. But yeah following were the tiresome steps involved in getting my dear little tattoo etched on my lower tummy:
1. Being sure about the tattoo (took about a month)
2. Narrowing down on the design (2 minutes, i had a dream about the tattoo. So that made this aspect easier. I let my subconscious mind rule over my conscious)
3. Getting a nod from important friends (1 day)
4. Persuading my parents (never really happened)
5. Arranging for the money (1 month)
6. Getting the tattoo etched (1 hour)
7. Feeling good about the tattoo (Ever since)

Ah yes, I still feel proud of the tattoo and hope it remains so for the rest of my life. Now, a little about what the tattoo looks like and what it means.
The tattoo is an image of myself. It's me, through my eyes. It's a little girl sitting all alone on a rock. She's looking into the blue sea. She has two young, yet strong, wings. She is undecided about plunging into the water and exploring the world under water or taking a flight to catch a glimpse from above the rest of the world. She's been thinking forever. She is 'happy-sad' about being indecisive. Happy because she can just sit forever and cherish this moment before making a choice and sad about having to make the choice.

Cool na?

Discard

This is something I wrote for the anchor space in the Edit Page of DNA. That's the newspaper I work for. The piece had to be a funny life experience. Having had many such, I just picked the most recent and wrote all about it. The editor discarded it calling it too "risque". The piece had been feeling lonely, lying in the 'Sent items' folder of my gmail for over a month. And also my blog had been feeling a little lonely for some time. So I thought of helping two lonely subjects. Here you go...

Wilson College Nature Club trips have marked a major high in my college life. The tiring climbs, sore bodies, parched throats and obsessive environmentalism compensated by fresh breaths of air at mountaintops, blinding fog, greenness and much more…

I am not sure of having learnt the finer nuances of nature conservation, but if there’s one aspect of being in natural surroundings that I have mastered, it’s beckoning nature’s calls in the open. Yes, more often than not, when tents are pitched on remote green plateaus, one can only see trees and rocks as makeshift curtains while attending nature’s calls.

On one of these trips, I was in northeast India with a few friends, returning to Gangtok in a van after a failed attempt to reach Nathula pass on the Indo-Chinese border. One of the most common problems encountered at altitudes above 10,000 ft is high altitude sickness, something that could even turn fatal. To ward off the adverse effects of the illness, the best one can do is sip water at regular intervals. And that’s exactly what I had been doing after already having experienced some dizziness on the downhill trip.

I have always believed that I have been cursed with an extremely small and non-elastic bladder, which always lets me down. With my shortcoming, it is only natural that I had the urge to relieve myself at an interval of 20 minutes. After a couple of halts, the driver grew impatient with my demands and pretended as though he was short of hearing whenever I pleaded with him.

To my delight, we got stuck in a traffic jam in the ghats with a few uninhabited shops in the vicinity. I took the opportunity, hopped out of the van and began scouting for a good shelter to do my business. I looked around. There my van was, last in the beeline of many vehicles. A few trees dotting the spot. Nah, too far away. I saw the rear tyre of my van. It seemed too alluring. I could just squat there, nobody would have an inkling of what I was up to. And, it wouldn’t even take me a minute. So I looked right, left, right again, and go.

I was enjoying the growing emptiness within me, and vroom. The damn traffic jam decided to clear. There I was, exposed to the world in front of me – mostly my friends who had got off to stretch a few muscles and a few strangers. A few moments of silence and shock prevailed before I zipped myself up with a job half done. And what followed through the trip and still does is insurmountable embarrassment.

Fruit Skins

Last night I was at Parel station with a colleague, MV heading home after an extremely boring day at work. Both of us were so bored that we had a headache owing to boredom and general absence of interesting events during the day.
So we stood there at the station. Staring at things. I stared at the peeled-oranges on sale, the mucky-looking ragada of the ragada-patties and men and women at the platform. Finally, I stared at the weighing machine on the platform. The typical ones that you and I step onto, while we are 3 or 5 or even older.
And MV and I looked at the four 60 watt bulbs and the hundreds of zero watt colourful bulbs. All of them flicker in harmony. One goes off, the other goes on. Another goes on and yet another goes off. They all make for a very psychedelic view. Look at them for a few minutes at a stretch and you'll transcend to another space and time! Fascinating without doubt.
But what's equally, if not more exciting, is the response each ticket carries along with your weight. MV said I should weigh my bag. Yeah, weird and silly, but what would cheap thrills do if we weren't around? So, we did weigh my bag. The card read 2.5 kg and carried a lame prediction, something to do with business interest. Business interest of my black and white striped bag with loads of crap in it. What got us rolling in laughter was a cautionary message at the top of the card, "DO NOT THROW FRUIT SKINS (yes, skins) AT RANDOM." Hilarious.
I was left speechless for a while and even when I write about it now, I am at a loss of words! I would love to meet the person thinking of these social messages and writing them with such great finesse! If anyone knows of any such person, do get back to me.

P.S.: Meanwhile, I will weigh my new bag tonight at the weighing machine and check what it's prospects at business are!

Busy and liking it

I have been a little busy for a few days watching inter school football games, reviewing them, finding new talent, chatting up with coaches trying to find who is the one player in their team who turned the match in their favour or against. Ah well, it has all been very exciting sitting in the "press box", something that least resembles a box. It is more like an enclosure for the poor and humble!
What I like about my job is that I have fun just going places and watching sports. And then being able to comment on it is just a privilege! I have for the first time in my life, begun liking my job. And that's a good sign, isn't it? I know it is. That's that then.

P.S.: After all that bragging about regular blogging, I have taken a hiatus from it because of busy-ness *hangs face in shame*

Alarming Regularity

It just struck me recently, about three-and-a-half minutes back, that I have been posting on my blog more often these days. I don't know whether it's because I have more time or because I have many more things to post about. Whatever it is, I like the feeling and shall continue for however long I keep the steam going.
There's one reason I like Sundays -- if I am lucky, I get to read really good features in newspapers. Some of them make me think hard, some make me rationalise my thoughts against the writers', some make me laugh, even out loud, and there are always a few that leave a dirty feeling in the gut. And I say to myself, "Why are people paid to do this?"
Today, my day was made by two really well-written features -- one by Jug Suraiya, one of my favourite columnists and another by a Pakistani journalist Moni Mohsin. Jug Suraiya spoke of the glory of the Beatles and Mohsin wrote of the usage of English in everyday Pakistani life.
Hmmm..so that's that.
I'll wait for the day when someone posts on their blog of me having made their day!
*dreams on*
*colleague asks to get back to work*
Good bye

Yet another wedding

Weddings are meant to be full of fun, frolic, dance, music, songs and a zestful circle of friends and relatives to make all of it possible.
Tomorrow is my uncle's wedding. But it lacks much of what goes into weddings. My grand pa's demise earlier this month has put a dampener of sorts on all preparations. The mood is still glum. Nobody is really keen on dressing up for the wedding, nobody's keen on looking good, nobody's even keen on setting up a great venue. By the looks of it, the wedding will just be a formality. Tie the knot, have meals and head home.
However, I really hope people cheer up by tomorrow. It's the only day of my uncle's life that would see him go through the wedding vows, the only day that will ensure that he enters another phase of his life, the only day when he publicly declares his married life.
I hope for the best. Hope for all the fun and frolic, song and dance. For, there's no way the day will return, once it's gone by.

Lost, quite so

Is it dusk or dawn?
The Sun's on the horizon.
Is he raising his above to cheer the world,
Or dipping himself into the ocean to bring on gloom?

I hope to see light.
I hope to feel warm.
The cold is pricking.
Leaving me numb outside.
And inside.

The mist isn't clearing.
It's too tough to find the path.
There's baggage to carry along.
Baggage too dear to leave midway.
I'm afraid though that I may lose it.
I'm sure I will.

And when I would have parted with it,
I will miss its painful presence.
I will miss the habit of its searing pain.
I would be relieved, but at a cost.
A cost I am unwilling to pay.

I hope the mist clears.
Clears pretty soon.
For, I want to see.
See the world clearly.

Morning blues

The past few days have been hectic because of my schedule. I have to wake up early in the morning, six-ish and be off to work. Then after running around for a while, I reach office and begin work of another kind. I stay till late night and return home by eleven or twelve with time left only to eat a little, watch some TV and sleep. Before I realise I am asleep, the alarm rings and I can't believe the cycle will continue.
I hate waking up early in the morning. I hate waking up before my sleep is fulfilled. A perfect start to the day is when I wake up all by myself, without a silly alarm buzzing by my side. I hate putting the alarm on snooze mode a hundred times before I actually make the attempt to step out of bed. And the rains just make it even more difficult. It just seems apt to snuggle up in my quilt and sleep till I see the sun peeping out from the cloudy skies. I would love to sleep till I finish dreaming about the pleasant things in my life (not that there are many of those right now). But I wish to wake up and think about my dreams while I am brushing my teeth. Recount them, try and make sense of them and then have some great fruit juice and healthy breakfast to start off my day.
That would make me feel less cranky than what I am feeling right now sitting in office on Independence Day. Working my ass off on a day that is the beginning of a long weekend for the rest of the world. Forget the weekend, I am working seven days this week. I want to find where the labour union cell is in the office.
There are three people in office right now, including me. The other two are from the housekeeping, who will leave in an hour to go home. But I will have to stay here and hunt for some juicy stories and put them on page and wait endlessly till the page gets done. Who gives a fuck, I doubt anyone even reads the paper these days! (Had it been some other day, I would have attacked this stand, but not today)
I have begun to doubt whether I have a life at all. I want a long weekend too. I want to spend time at home watching the parade on DD1 like the rest of them or even sleep cosily till it's afternoon and wake up for lunch. Watch a movie, eat out, meet all the people I love meeting. Do all the things I love doing.
But, NO! I can't because I seriously don't have a life.

P.S.: I'm sorry about all the cribbing. Had to get it out. I don't want to curse my state aloud and sound like a retard in my work place where I am hardly a week old. The two janitors will surely freak out.

A tribute

It's been a couple of tough days for me and my family as we bereave the death of my grandfather. He passed away on August 8 at 10.28 am. I was allowed to see him on the hospital bed as he lay out of breath. I couldn't bear the sight of a motionless tatha (what I used to call him), after having seen him bouncing with life for the 22 years of my life. I took one deep breath, closed my eyes, memorised how his face looked and fled out of the ICU.
As I stepped out, everyone and everything around me seemed pensive. My folks were planning out the last rites. I decided to walk towards home, to my granny. As I entered home, the mood was grim. My mom and aunties were weeping. I tried consoling my mom, and then realised the futility of the activity. It's unacceptable to ask people not to express grief, while one is experiencing it. I went to the other room to my granny and the fact that she was putting up a brave front gave me a lot of strength.
It seemed as though all hell had broken lose when they brought tatha home. It was one of the most depressing sights of my life and will remain so. Clad in a white dhoti, cotton plugged in his nostrils, he arrived, lifeless. That's when everyone broke down into tears. And, I let them run down too. I mourned his death with scores present.
My tatha was a noble man. And everyone was aware of his kindness. He was genuinely worried about everybody he knew. He genuinely cared for his kids, their kids and even their kids. Age was no bar to make a conversation with tatha. I would find great company in him to watch cricket or tennis or F1. We had even watched many episodes of my favourite sitcom Friends together.
I haven't met another man more accommodating, adjusting and adapting than tatha. He would never complain about anything -- a head ache, a stomach ache, a bad fall, a bruised leg. Nothing bothered him but the wellness of the world around him. He didn't mind bearing the onus of the whole world around him as long as everyone he cared for was well.
There have been times when he has completely ignored his illnesses to take care of my granny. He would nurse her day in and day out. He would insist that she rested, while he chopped vegetables, cooked lunch and even served it. He would even help the domestic help with other daily chores.
He was extremely active for a septuagenarian. He would wake up at four every morning. Go for a walk by the lakeside and be back home to prepare breakfast. In the evening, he would be out in the market shopping for vegetables and other grocery. He would make a visit to the temple every now and then too. I am not sure whether he was thoroughly religious, though I believe that it was more out of habit that he offered his morning and evening prayer rituals.
He was immensely respected by his colleagues, neighbours, friends, children, grand children and even great grand children. He was looked up by one and all.
I pay my humble tribute to tatha, who bought me a little red umbrella when I was six. I have lost the umbrella, but its memory remains etched in my mind -- the patterns and prints on it, the yellow u-shaped handle. My grandpa will also remain etched in my memory, a large share of it. Forever.

Poetic exile

I realised suddenly, how I have lost the lust for poetry. I hardly read any and write even lesser, these days. I wonder what the reason could be.
And then I think, it could be because I have no time, the universal excuse for all work that's undone. Also, the pace of life has differed -- it's faster than what it was in college days. I even had time to ponder while brushing my teeth lethargically. Now, I rush through it and schedule my next chore, while at it.
I reckon that most poetry I composed came, when there were intense emotions involved. I liked venting them out through this medium. Maybe I have found alternatives for that -- I talk to people, I listen to music, I read, distract myself with TV or food.
Another important aspect that elicited the urge to write poems within me was nature. And the fact that I haven't really been able to catch up with nature much these days is a valid reason for producing less poems.
And, now I realise I have settled in the world of prose so comfortably that any change will create unpleasant reactions. I am too cosy in my cushion of news and stories to get out and flex a few poetic muscles.
It's sad to have stifled a part of expression, which was close to me, which gave comfort. But maybe things have changed for the good, maybe not. Till I figure out the right equation, I will live in poetic exile.

Here I am

This is my first day at my new job. Ask me how it is? Well, like any other first day anywhere - uneventful. I have to while away time waiting for people to pass on some work. I have to keep asking my colleagues, what needs to be done. It's quite boring, these first days at places. I can't believe, I am actually making a blog entry. I have to get used to this waiting and begging for work for some more while, till I settle down and am fit enough to do all that's required. Till then.... *yawns*

Moving on

So, I quit my first job within a couple of months, owing to boredom. I didn't think the job gave me enough space to flex my muscles and do my own thing at it. Also, I found it a thankless job. Cleaning people's copies over night and facing the tirade for missing out an 'a' or a 'the' in the morning. Couldn't handle it. Chucked it.
So, you might think I would be happy for having got out of the hell that I just described. I am. I really am happy and look forward to what awaits me. But, changing places is always accompanied by some grief or other. Some people find it difficult to adjust to new chairs, other find it impossible to get used to the new pc, some others can't adapt to the new temperatures. I, like many others, find it difficult to leave old people, though I can adjust with the new clan. And in this place, where I hardly lasted a couple of months, I still managed to make a couple of good friends - NP and PR. There were many other characters who came along. My managing editor with her whip, my editor with his strange sense of humour, my colleagues, some who couldn't handle a single copy in an hour and others who couldn't handle this fact!
It was fun, especially in the last week of my work to look around and just laugh at all the characters. I knew I wasn't going to be an integral part of anything that had to with the team. I knew I wouldn't be there the next week on. I knew I had very little to do with them, then on. Logically, it should have helped me stay detached. However, what happened was the contrary. By the penultimate day of work, I was wondering whether I would find such people again, ever. They are a bunch of funny, nice-hearted people, with outrageous individual peculiarities. They initiated me into Journalism. They taught me what lies at the roots of it, doing away all the glitz and glamour. I learnt a lot of essential rules -- about people, about the profession. I will never forget those lessons. People never forget ABC... This, I think was my ABC. I thank all those who taught me what they did.
I will miss their company and direly hope they miss mine too.
P.S.: *Tries moving on with a heavy heart*

Snail's faster

I'm one of the happiest persons in the world right now to experience the renewed fastness of my computer. I had even named her 'snail' owing to her very special characteristics of working at a horribly slow pace. But, now both of us have something to cheer about. She won't get whacked and I will have a more pleasant stay in the virtual world. She will finally stop hanging herself in what I believe are her dire attempts at suicides. And, how I would quash all those efforts with a simple Ctrl+Alt+Del. Now she is 256 MB faster, which is equivalent to getting a face-lift done at 50, considering her age and ways of life. I can already see her beaming with confidence.
She's even allowing me to listen to some great metal music without asking me to shut all operations by choosing 'End Program'. I like the experience and shall savour it till my snail comes back to what she was best known for - being slow!
I'm happy for snail. I'm sure she's happy for me!

Missing and all that

There are quite a lot of things happening with life as of now - new job, new people, newspaper (!), queer work times - which means a lot of adaptation. I don't know whether I completely like my job or not. It's not bad, so to say. But it doesn't give me the cheap thrills that college gave. I can't say what it was that college gave, that made it so special. Maybe it was the people, maybe the schedule, maybe the way I lead life. There was an awesome level of comfort, something I have never found elsewhere. So, this post is about that - how much I miss college, Wilson College, and how difficult it is becoming to get over it.
I miss the ancient Victorian structure, and the lovely beach that faces it.
I miss the walks on the beach whenever there was a free/off lecture.
I miss the experience of the last benches.
I miss my pretty, very pretty friends.
I miss my ugly enemies.
I miss my teachers, the ones who didn't know even one tenth of what I know (or so I'd like to believe!)
I miss Sudhakar Solomonraj or Suddhu as we like to call him, who knew everything there was to know.
I miss his hand-outs, the songs he played.
I miss the Nature Club.
I miss the Nature Club's annual exhibitions that meant a week's sleeplessness.
I miss the Nature Club treks, which I would like to believe are the best treks in the world.
I miss the festivals, which needed so much work to be done.
I miss the Principal's inane speeches.
I miss abusing the 'system'.
I miss going against the authorities.
I miss the canteen that served 'Wilson samosas', the only item on the menu that I liked.
I miss whiling away time in classrooms.
I miss staring out of the class window into nothingness.
I miss the running late for lectures (though there weren't many that I walked in late for).
I miss the hearty laughs over some stupid joke.
I miss the projects.
I miss the fights that they ensued.
I miss the films we made.
I miss 'The Clarion', our fortnightly newsletter which helped me make some friends for life.
I miss the class-drinking sessions.
I miss the class fights.
I miss the industrial visits.
I miss the hostel, Pandita Ramabai Hostel, and the people there.
That's a long list of things I miss.
Seems like I've been in love, and getting over this love is not only difficult for me but also seemingly impossible. I really wish I could turn back time and re-visit the three lovely years and keep playing it back and forth. Seriously.
Signing off with a heavy heart.

Return to the virtual world

Ah well! It's been almost a couple of months that I have been active in the blogosphere. (and when I have finally decided to, my niece here isn't too happy with me doing what I am doing. So she insists on reading every word, as I type. She's a fool! HA! She read that too! Anyway, I am trying really hard to ignore her.) It's getting difficult to make sense while there's a pesky little kid beside you trying to annoy the fuck out of you!
So, I shall put up something that makes some sense later in the day. Bye for now.
P.S.: What a return!

Me and My Terrace

Only a floor away from my home my terrace welcomes me every night with its half tattered door, darkness and some faint starlit chipped tiles. It's the place I love being in. It's the place where the most remarkable ideas have struck me. It's where I make all the important decisions of my life after consulting the Moon or the million stars. *Hides face partially in shame*
I can spend hours on my terrace, in the dark, just listening to some music - music that I carry on my phone - thinking - thinking about everything that makes me think, EVERYthing - or talking - talking over the phone or to myself. *Hides face in shame again*
I enjoy walking up and down the terrace seeing who's walking on the roads, what's happening in the buildings facing me, who's spending time solitary like me on their terraces. Then I walk some more and think about the day, think about all the jokes that were cracked, laugh stealthily making sure no one's watching me. Then I walk some more and think about all the things that went wrong, all the times I wished I could erase from every one's memories to whom it mattered. And, then I just wish, wish for all the things that should have happened but never did. Some of the wishes I know would never materialise. I'm sure my wallet won't be graced by some magical charm and have unlimited reserves of money in it, and a million more impractical wishes. *sigh*
My terrace is also the place where I go when I have no one to talk to. In all the solitude, I find company there. Company that doesn't talk, just listens. No, I'm not demented. I just find comfort in inanimate objects. What to do, I am like that only!
Anyway, I have been bullied into mentioning the one who inspired this post. So, here I go. Thanks Lyandra, for all the support and courage you always offer me in all ventures of my life, this one being no different.

Trips Galore

How I love the season when exams conclude. It spells a term of fun-filled, senselessly drunk, nobody-gives-a-fuck-about-anything parties. And more importantly, plans of trips and on 1/13th of an occasion, it materialises into a real trip. Again, this summer, as every year, people are making plans for after-exam trips like there's no tomorrow. I turn to my left, a trip plan; I turn to my right, another trip plan; I look above, its the same; I look below, things still haven't changed! Ha!
After planning a trip to Goa for millions of years, a bunch of us have finally taken it upon ourselves to make it really, really, really happen this year. Goa, I know, is as cliched as anyone can get. I'm sure when the most brainless creatures on earth meet and make plans for a vacation, even they think of Goa. It's a place visited by almost everyone once in a lifetime. (I'll kill the fuckers who give me statistics on this and prove me wrong in the comments section! I really don't think all the random things I claim are true.)
So, yeah, this will be my after graduation trip, with the bunch which has meant the most to me over the past three years. I'm sure there will be a lot of drunken talks there as usual like, "You know guys, we should have a trip every year, or once in six months or even one every couple of months, each month, every weekend" and more horse piss about how, "It's so great that we all love each other so much"! I'm waiting for all of that actually. And I'm sure I'll be running to the sea a couple of drinks down, wishing I was a mermaid and wanting to talk to all the merpeople! But the best part is, not anyone would remember it the next day! So, I'm safe!
There will also be some bike rides, or so I hope and wish. I love the lash of wind against my face on the bike when I'm riding it. The winds can be harsh as you gather speed. Hmmmm. *Gets lost in dreams of great bike rides*.
And, the beach and the sand and the Sun. We'll walk on the beach barefoot under the Sun. Under the Moon and maybe even under the plain dark or bright sky. We'll think of all the college days. All the stupid pranks, the shameless jokes, the senseless fights, the mega-bitching, the maha-boredom - all the times we've spent together. It's really the end of all of this. The end of an era!
*Lets gloom set over for a while*
*Gets bored of the glum, wants some fun*
*Publishes post*

Strings

There are so many things on my head. It's difficult to pick out one string of thought and separate it from the knotty mess. It's tough to straighten out the one string of thought even if I manage to pluck it out of the knotty mess. While I try consciously to straighten it out, the string of thought then thins and threatens to break. A broken string of thought in the head causes much tension. It's a loss of balance. It's a loss of a string of thought from the family of strings of thought.

Ok....that's enough on strings of thoughts!

Head Ache

I have no idea what the reason is for the splitting pain in my head since the past couple of days. It's something very very consistent and that's the most annoying part of it. I wake up in the morning, it's there. I have my breakfast, it's there. I take my lunch, it's still there. After the nap, still hanging around, yeah! Evening stroll, very much present. Dinner time, freaking me out. It's mid night and it's still lingering.

The pain isn't negligible either. It comes from within - as though it was your brain that was mourning. It hurts beneath the forehead, under the temples and even a part below my nose. Stroking the forehead forcefully helps. It eases the pain, but then the fingers start giving up - out of boredom of performing the same movement.

Then I think of popping in a pill. Something that will relieve the pain. Distract my attention to the more pleasant happenings around. Let me breathe with lesser stress. Let me live without wincing. Then I decide against it for some binding reason.

Then the prospect of relief passes out. It's by choice that I own my head ache. It's despite the option of a cure. Now, I lose the right to complain. It's time to live. Live with the head ache!

Pacman

A rejuvenated interest in Pacman is something I have gained recently. And I should say, it's entertaining. Damn entertaining. And extra-addictive. So every time I get the Internet, the first thing, hmmm... probably the third thing, to be precise, I do is log on to http://www.freepacman.org/. What follows is then legendary!
I love myself wading through the aisles with the white, sweet bubbles that come my way. I know the only thing to do in 'Pac World' is to eat the bubbles/tablets/sweets/stars/planets (different connotations for all us different people) and run. Run from Pinky and Inkey and Blinkey and Clyde. I hate to see their sharp, disfigured teeth ready to chew me into themselves. What I yearn for, as does everyone playing this game, are the Four Pearls of Evil (that's what I imagine them to be). Pearls because they glow more than the rest of the non-shiny bubbles and Evil because they give you the license and the power to kill. To eat the Pinkys, Inkeys, Blinkeys and Clydes of the Pac World. But like real life, the period of staying in power is short term and the Evil again has the upper hand over you - the nice one!
What is coolest about the game is the music. I have hardly seen it advancing through the five years that I have been a fan of it. It still sounds like a trippy rhythm that can wake you up from the deepest sleep ever, if played loud enough!
Another spectacular thing about the game is it 2-D character. It helps my primitive brain function. Function with quite some adeptness!

Dogs

The soft paws, jagged claws, wet nose, razor-sharp canines, fur coat, the brown patch around the eye, the belly that bellows almost always, the ochre eyes. I miss each of them - I miss Oink, my dog.
It's been two long years that he's stayed away from me. Long enough to probably stop loving me. Long enough to probably forget me. Yet, when I met him today, he pounced and jumped and licked me all over. I must admit that I love the attention! I love all the adulation! And then comes my turn to pet him, to give him all the attention he needs, to pat his back, scratch his neck, to kiss his jaws and shake his hands a million times over! My turn at this never ends! For however long I stay with him, he owns me, owns my love!
Today is special because it's his birthday. I bought him a Merwan's mawa cake, which of course he shared with his siblings, quite unwillingly though. He probably knew there was something unusual about the day - the fact that I went to see him, to be with him and the cake might have definitely given it away.
I love him, still the same, well probably a little less. That could be because I miss him more. It's when I have those pensive patches that I wished he wagged his tail inciting me to inflict some violence on him (yes we did have some brawls, and tough ones at that!). Hmppphhhhhh.
Happy birthday Oinkieee

Wish List

How I wish the world thought the way I did. Things would be simpler, life much more meaningful.
I wish to climb the tallest peaks in the world to feel the thin air, to feel the coldness, to touch the snow, to feel the ache in the legs and feet below from the strenuous journey.
I wish to fly across oceans and dip into the waters whenever thirst beckons, drink the sweet water from the oceans and rush to the moon. The moon seems like a place that holds all the goodness, all the purity, all the good people. Maybe it's my fantasy, maybe it's true.
I also wish to buy all the sweets in the world and give them away to all the bitter people in an attempt to sweeten them. Don't know how it helps, don't whether it does at all.
I wish there were people who could walk on stilts all their lives, I would be one of them!
I wish I still had my pet - Oink. I would never have left home.
I wish all the stars could be counted.
I wish the sky was dark though the day and night.
I wish the elephants could run real fast.
I wish the world used pencils rather than pens.
I wish all the food in the world came for free.
I wish all the people I loved never got upset with me.
I wish I never cried.
I wish snakes were harmless.
I wish the nights were less scary.
I wish I could sleep on all nights.
I wish I kept travelling all through my life.
I wish I could just run away.
I wish I didn't have to answer anyone.
I wish I didn't have to miss anyone or anything.
How I wish.....

Longing

It's been really long that I've visited this space. Have been caught up with commitments, with work, with college, with life. I seem to have lost touch with myself, in many ways. I hardly have the time to think about My health, My body, My hobbies, My sleep, Myself. I have been lost in a world where there's only room for making sensible decisions, taking the right paths, no room to wander, discover or simply while away time. It's a mechanical way of living. It's been so long that I have sung a poem, since I have strolled the streets without a thing to worry or strain about. It has been so long since I have walked oblivious to everything around me. Walked just staring at the moon and the stars. Walked alone, hand in hand with myself! I long for solitude, long to stay away from the crowd. Eat my popcorn when I want to eat it, and not wait for the rest of the world to join me. Watch a movie without having to find company. Wander the whole night and not return home, and still have no compulsion of justifying my absence.
I want to be selfish, just think about myself and not the minutest life around me.