Dream Diary #4

There is a lovely place where people live in spacious apartments with white curtains of Egyptian cotton and beautiful paintings and amidst jacaranda trees and the smell of lemon leaves and sunshine and general loveliness. And suddenly there's a TYRANNOSAURUS REX, okay, and it's stomping around the place and roaring and somehow my tattoo makes it think that I'm also a big-ass dinosaur in disguise so now I'm the only one it talks to. Except it's being all territorial so our conversation goes like this.

Me - Go away. You're frightening my cats.
TYRANNOSAURUS REX - FOOOOOOOD.
Me - One fat aunty and that's it.
TYRANNOSAURUS REX - EVERYONE.
Me - Nevah!!

We start fighting. The dinosaur, who I now think of as Jeremy, TRIES TO EAT ME. I run towards a balcony. Everybody screams.

I club Jeremy with a jagged steel rod from the balcony. His puny little knees start to buckle. I go a little berserk trying to stab his eyes out. Everybody has gone. Now the dream becomes terrifying because Jeremy's wounds must be self-healing or something, because he's in full predator form. I'm running frantically around in some kind of institution trying to find a room without windows. There are none. A janitor turns out to be Jeremy's friend. I run around a corner and there Jeremy is, looking smug. He is standing on a bed of roses, most of which he has crushed. I know how much time and effort it takes to rear tea-roses in Cal, and hence I am filled with righteous rage. Instead of trying to attack him I give him the most derisive and scathing speech about how disgusting his scant respect for life and property makes him, his horrible irresponsibility, how obnoxious he is, why his species and indeed genus became extinct, how the world has moved on since then, how he is unnecessary now. Incredibly, this works. Jeremy blubbers, moves off the roses, and tries to subtly repair the damage by using one large claw to pat down the savaged earth and pretend that nothing has happened. I add the final blow by telling him that despite being from the Jurassic era, he is the worst example of post-colonial patriarchal oppression I have ever come across. Jeremy then hunches his shoulders and goes away. I wake up feeling incredibly, overwhelmingly guilty about hurting this rampaging monster's feelings and suddenly I want to apologize and maybe hug him and give him a chicken to eat or something.

Dream Diary #3

I stop for a rum and chocolate cake somewhere in Jodhpur Park. I'm supposed to be meeting Piu because I'm leaving the next day. The Dripping play is going to be staged at Madhusudan Mancha in a couple of hours. I'm walking through Jodhpur Park, then I'm on a bus at Dhakuria and Kalua is telling me what everyone on the streets already knows - the zombies are coming for us. Bhaskar is not there but his voice projects through the bus, saying, "We have to run." Arijit misses the bus because he was rolling a joint and didn't see the bus. They ate him in front of our eyes. Kalua looks sad.

I suddenly remember that I left my bag and my cousin sister in the dressing room at the theatre. I get off the bus and run back. My shoes are slippery, but I can't take them off because there are dead leaves and dead limbs everywhere. I get lost almost immediately. Then I find my cousin, who is a child again. She makes a fuss, so I pick her up and run with her in my arms. She squeals in delight. Five minutes of running and she's adult again and fucking heavy. I put her down and pull her along by the hand. She is reluctant about running but caves when I tell her how important it is that I reach the theatre in time to perform.

Then she's gone, and the zombies are right behind us, running with geometrical precision up and down walls, climbing trees and eating crows. Now it's me, Trisha Barua and two elderly people who we have to keep slowing down for, but of course we can't leave them behind. Through a long tree-lined avenue we can see Somak, Soumashree and Kalpan, all dressed in bright purple, doing their scene. Our panic intensifies. Following is the conversation at this juncture.

Me - Fuuuuck.

Trisha B. - Run!

Me - Zombies! Sitting on a park bench, eating that dead person who looks like bald Thakurda!

Trisha B. - Oh the play's gonna be fucked.

Me - No, Dr.Lal will be praised by critics for staging it during and despite the zombie attack.

Trisha B. - (fearfully) - Oh we are dead.

Me - We could still make it.

Trisha B. - Sir will kill us, though.

Me - I wonder what scene they got to.

*Behind us, zombies jump on the elderly couple, tear their heads off and eat them*

Me - We should go around a different route, this one is filled with zombies.

Trisha B. - But Dr. Lal?

Me - I'd rather we were late than dead. (hehahah)

Trisha B. - But Dr. Lal.

Me - Ok, we'll run through the zombies. I hope the play is worth it.

*We run. I wake up shivering with terror. We arrived AFTER the interval, so the play was ruined.*

Dream Diary #2

I'm thirteen again, but this time I'm strangling people. Nice people, but they pointed and laughed when I came to school without my clothes. I got dressed and they weren't laughing when their faces went blue, oh no.

Bloop

Gtalk statuses, in the order that i saw them :

1. happy
2. just because
3. god bless you
4. I'll cry instead
5. berate jabo
6. is so evil
7. listening to ziggy marley


my status was Busy.

Dream Diary #1

Weird dream I. I kill two children. I decapitate them. Not clear if that's how I killed them or if that was incidental. Anyway, I then spend an hour of dreamtime running around trying to hide the heads, which are in a clear plastic bag. Hmm, I think harriedly, should I drop them from the roof, let them splatter on the street and confuse people into thinking they were vegetables? Do I roll them down the stairs of another building and hope no-one associates it with me? Do I just keep them in my room, take them out later and dump them somewhere? Decisions, decisions. Possibly inspired by Dexter, except I know the kids, they live near my house. Arr.

Day in July

Interesting twenty-four hours. Studying, check. Movie-with-popcorn, check. Teaching, check. Tattoo, fucking hell yeah check.

no worries

Hakuna fucking matata, okay? Now get me drunk already.

Stumble

Remind me why I even started to give a flying fuck?

Summer

Went to Someplace Else. Ekuil-i-brium played, they were good, it was fine. Hip-pockets started playing, I look around, everyone's turned twenty years older. Including the band.

Audition happened. Thank the Universe I picked a nonentity of a play, because I riffed around with the lines more than Bill Gates on Guitar Hero. Also, sang. Like a bullfrog with amusing forehead contortions.

Ran around during a transport strike. Private car drivers made an accumulated fortune today.

Holy shit, it's been six months already. And almost a year for the wife and spice.

So much has changed. I'm no longer allowed to impose bans on puns. I have to always sit with my legs crossed during international calls. And my adored spice totally respects me - the both of me.

To conclude. What did the vada pav say to the customer in the Star-Wars themed restaurant?

"Luke, I am your vada."

(copyright, trademark, mine mine I made this up mine)

Fiction. Sing you rain.

You ever had a friend you used to be tight with and then later you don't give a damn? They stop giving a damn too and then you're unreasonably pissed off, but what's up with that, you should've seen that coming from a mile away. And after all that's over, you meet, accidentally almost, and it's so weird and yet so fitting that you no longer even feel like hurting them. Like the bitterness is gone, like the like and the love and the heart are now just online emoticons you make to each other, like there is nothing beyond a forwarded text and a set of insider jokes lying rusty for lack of opportunity. There's that relief, that you don't have to put up with That Shit anymore. Forgive me Father for I have not hated but I have stopped caring and sometimes that is infinitely worse. No going back now, says the fortune cookie. She will be loved, but frankly my dear, I don't give a flying fuck. I will and am loved, but that is a whole different ball-game and all the seats are taken already. Confucius say, If you don't know life's a bitch, get the fuck out of town. Confucius was a wise, wise man.

There. Is. Nothing. Not even the desire to kill violently.

Love

Wish you were here.

For my Valentine

You know what I'd like? To have a few hours with you, when I could explain why I like you the way I do. I see us, sitting hand in hand on the beach on a stormy night. You'd be in your wheelchair, I'd be wearing something that flaps in the wind. I'd apologize for having to make you like this, for having to break your legs, break your teeth, cave in the back of your head. You'd look at me with that silly grin you have now, the one I love - it's so unconditional, so different from how you used to smile, the half-indifferent, half-contemptous smile. Your thin shoulders would twitch in the cold of the sea-mist - you don't like wind and water the way I do - and I'd talk to you, tell you the first time I saw you, sitting there with a cigarette and an attitude the size of Brazil. How I instantly wanted you because I knew you wouldn't want me. I may be sick, my darling, but you're the cripple. Don't look hurt, you know where we are. This is the sea, it is night, we are alone. Why wasn't I good enough for you then?

The thing is, I brought you down. I followed you home, I lured you away, and like a fool you followed. Then I took you apart, and I realized how you function. It was sad. I stopped loving you then.

But I'd already broken you, no? What else could you do but stay? What was I supposed to do with you? I didn't break your jaw out of anger, darling, I just wanted to shut you up for a while. Just for a little while. The screams had to stop, I couldn't hear myself think anymore.

You breathe harsher than you used to. Is it the cold, or are you afraid?

It's a beautiful night, eh, love? The kind that makes your heart pound with the longing of it.

Tide's coming up soon, they warned us to stay above the low line. We should go now.

Waves washing in. The rocks can bear it, but they will be sand beneath someone's feet one day. They will crumble and break and go out to sea and find their way to the bottom. They'll filter through the sea-bed and try to go to the centre of the earth. They'll be liquefied with the heat, but their particles will make it.

The moon's just hanging there, like some kind of ancient dim lantern. I see the black and purple haze of clouds swirling around the sky, I taste the coming storm in the strong, cold wind, and the fierce joy of it makes me want to weep.

I'm going to go back to the house now, love. I've had enough. I can't take this anymore.

Stay here. I know it's low, yes. Don't clutch at my shirt, you're embarrassing yourself now. Of course we're below the level of the tide. You're not that stupid yet.

Let go, I said. Concentrate on the waves coming in. They'll carry you out, hopefully, and if you're lucky, you'll miss those rocks. I'll take the wheelchair back now, thank you.

Don't cry. Be a man. There, there. I'm not an emotional kind of girl, you know. But it's Valentine's Day tomorrow, in a few minutes now actually. Look at me, getting all sentimental.

Oh well. Goodbye, sweetheart.

Us and Them

they told me a child of five could understand quantum credit theory. i said, fetch me a child of five and have her explain it to me.

they said god made humans in his own image. i said, look how that turned out.

they said that there's a line and limits that must not be crossed. i said, then i'll make my own bloody limits. if i feel like it.

they told you not to come near me. you walked towards me anyway.

they said it's not worth it. but no-one even knows what 'it' is.

i told you not to dream, not that much. you said, we are our own dreams.

what the hell does that mean?

that means me.

at least, that's what they said.

Two Thousand and Ten

Dear Universe,

In this new year I ask for only one thing, and that is the ability to keep myself from fucking something, anything up when I know I got it good. Please, sisters of fate. All I'm asking for is happiness and the freedom to screw up under my own steam. I realize that that's kind of a paradox but still. I'll be the best I can manage if you send a few chunks of luck my way.

love,

the-kid-you-never-saw

Wasting Time

Why am I writing this? Oh yes, because the times I need to study usually coincide with my periods of eager enthusiasm for anything and everything else. This is not surprising in itself, because I've been too busy, lazy or forgetful to get around to updating my blog lately. But then a couple of days ago I had to undergo a rather traumatic experience, and rather than repress it by studying and/or turning up the music in my head, I decided to do this. Y'know, because it's not like I take my exams seriously or anything..


Three days ago, I'm told that I'm expected to turn up for the school annual function to collect my prize. What prize? Oh, the history toppers' prize, the one I got by default because the other twenty people who had history in school were studying economics instead. I didn't bother, because eco scares me. (And I passed healthily, so there.) Anyway, I wouldn't have shown up, except that I live in the same house as one of the faculty, so really, it wasn't worth the drama *not* going. Which I would have totally wanted to do, because of all the mind-numbing, soul-draining, ghastly, disgusting, completely and tragically boring experiences..........

So I went nervously to bed the previous night, bolstered in confidence by a brief chat with a devil-worshipper on #fb and an extra wax doll of Rekha Ma'am-at-the-burning-stake under my bed. I managed to get up in time, and ignoring the mater's frantic scurryings around my bedroom door, arrived nonchalantly late at the venue. The science city auditorium, of all places. Yes, kids. Our school has the best academic record of any CBSE school in the Eastern region, not to mention several media accolades and extra-curricular honours, but our own auditorium? Hell, no. If we had our own auditorium, the school might have to cut funding for, I don't know, another completely unnecessary and aesthetically puke-inducing building, thereby doing away with the last of the trees and making killer red ants the only remaining wildlife on campus.

Anyway, thankfully Ashutosh P. Shukla, one of my favoritest juniors and current Head Boy badge-holder was at the entrance. He gave me a rapid handshake and a huge cheesy grin in quick succession. At least someone was happy that day.

Inside, Titas, the-junior-whose-life-creepily-mirrors-my-own, and current head-girl of our godforsaken school, was doing the harried hyper hazed thing, bless 'er. And then I met some of my batchmates. Oh joy.

I strained my cheek-muscles, smiling cheerfully as tiny people I didn't recognize waved and called my name. Later I was told that I used to be on duty for their classroom. If I remember them correctly, time has not improved them at all. And then there were my batchmates, who chattered on about life after school as we all sat in the same row and craned our necks to see around each other. I thought the Joo had given me more social finesse by now, but no. A year ago they were pontificatingly boring, and college has only brought out their inner-school-kids. Their pasts now seem bedewed with rosy visions of favorite teachers, BFF's, favorite songs and messy tiffin boxes. I still vividly remember the double standards, the general inept idiocy and the outright bitching that went on, however. Incredibly, some of this was even outside the bounds of the staff-room.

The greatest joy that those three wasted hours of my life had to give me were the two times, in quick succession, that I was able to look RBT in the eye on stage and cut straight past her to the prize-table. Did I nod? No. Did I smile? Hell, no. I walked past her like she doesn't exist, and I wish I'd been in the position to do the same to the Political Mammoth, the Rekha, and maybe, just maybe, the Hazra. Would've done my seven-years-aggrieved-heart a world of good. Sigh.

The good side? I exorcised a couple of ghosts that day. I got over my fear of walking on stage in front of my school-peers, something I'd had to do so many times, no wonder I hated it. I realized the genuine fondness Titas, the sweet bitch, has for me, ushering me out and soothing me after an eye-popping confrontation with Arun Sir, leaping out of the woodwork to take official pictures. I missed my link to sanity , Ani, so so much it's not even funny! Yet I realized that I'm now strong and sure enough to face those ghosts on my own, even with all the inane, completely mindless drivel that swamps our school system. One rule for the favored ones, another for the 'good' ones, and none at all for those outside the charmed circle - that's the way it's always been; and thank the heavens I'm out.

Leaving, I realized how much I have to be thankful for. The Joo, finding Shy and Riddhi, discovering my true passions, learning to be kinder to myself, even learning how to love again. And for that, you, my hearts of hearts are responsible. Andie, my favorite violin prodigy and always-sister; RGD, my scholargipsy wife; the black man Kalua, my beloved first husband; Piu, my chocolate-darling-spice-girl; Bedo, my perennial partner-in-crime; Suki-Di, my surrogate and much-loved Mamma-Demona; Pal, the one person I know in real life who I'd have liked to be; Soham-the-gelato-man; my big brother Adi and my baby sister Brinda; Atin, my cross-country mirror-image; His Divine Awesomeness Aditya Bidikar, and of course my own stolen piece of sunshine :P. You all keep me sane and happy and alive!!

It's a beautiful night tonight, clear and quiet. A more than half moon, pitted beautifully against the purple-black-blue sky, and a single clear star to the south, and just the smallest taste of a breeze. I should be studying, but I wanted to tell you how much I love you. Good night, and good luck. <3


P.S- I saw bhole sitting alone in the middle-section, prize in one hand and a desperately bored expression on his face. Poor boy, I know exactly how he feels. One day if he reads this, I'd like to tell him that for life after school, it'll only ever get better. In the meantime, stay strong and try not to kill yourself during sports marching practice.

P.P.S - Debaditya got the prize for Best-behaved-boy. I believe the title includes the words 'Harmonious Conduct'. I mean, I'm very fond of him, he's a very promising karateka and has clearly picked up the debashish bug, but harmonious conduct? Tsk tsk.

Coded Gibberish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po9LwQ9X9_I&feature=related

You're not sure that you love me
But you're not sure enough to let me go
Baby it ain't fair you know
To just keep me hangin' 'round

You say you don't wanna hurt me
Don't want to see my tears
So why are you still standing here
Just watching me drown

[Chorus]
And it's alright, yeah I'll be fine
Don't worry 'bout this heart of mine
Just take your love and hit the road
There's nothing you can do or say
You're gonna break my heart anyway
So just leave the pieces when you go

You can drag out the heartache
Baby you can make it quick
Really get it over with
And just let me move on

Don't concern yourself
With this mess you've left for me
I can clean it up, you see
Just as long as you're gone

[Chorus]

You not making up your mind
Is killing me and wasting time
I need so much more than that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

[Chorus]

Leave the pieces when you go
Oh, yeah
Leave the pieces when you go
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Leave the pieces when you go

A Yummy Heart Pome

I love you, my darling, I love you everyday,
I love you even more than chocolate souffle,
And more than chicken soup on a rainy day,
I love you, I love you, and that's why I say,

That I love you more than the frosting on the flake,
I love you so much more than the last piece of cake,
I love you more than I love chocolate milkshake,
You're my cherry pie, sweet, my scrumptious heartbreak.

You're the chocolate chips in my pudding, the crust on my pie,
The utterly delicious chocolate fountain, built sky-high,
You're the flavour in my French toast, you're the 'ummmmm' sigh,
When the coffee's just right, with scones on the side.

You're the half-melted part of summer ice-cream,
And you're the yummy heart part of my every sweet dream,
And though you're far away, at times it seems,
I love you more everyday, to delicious extremes.


For you, RGD. Love you, if you didn't know already :D

We

Sometimes your family can say the damnedest things.


As in, I'm sitting on the roof today watching the sun set behind the clouds with my grandparents. My grandpa is humming 'Yeh chand ka roshan chehra'. My grandmother is giggling and trying to look like she isn't covertly watching the whole performance. I'm staring at the seven dahlias on the rooftop across the street and laughing like crazy inside, wishing I could get all this on video without freaking the two of them out. Then my grandma spots some long-lost relative on the adjoining roof, on the house that belongs to her sister's family - we're a huge family, and when that generation crossed the border from the old country, Bangladesh, back in the day, they decided to buy up the block and divide up the houses so that every brother, their wives' siblings, and their fourth-cousin-nineteen-times-removed gets a piece of the land. So then my grandma and grandpa have this shout-across-roofs discussion of you know who got married and pregnant and who else is busy on weekends visiting prospective brides (gah) for their three sons (!!!) and then my grandpa turns to me and goes, 'Will you try to get married before I die?'

My grandma tsks gently at him but I try to stare him down in outrage. He gives me the old-broken-man look. The light is bad and it doesn't work.

There's a boss-fight with kites going on in the meanwhile, string against string so high you can barely see the red and black tails of them. Neither one breaks loose. More people come out for the sunday evening rooftop adda - the roofs are all more or less the same level and I can now see people descended from my grandfather's maternal great-uncle on the south roof, people from my grandmother's aunt's sixteen-children brood on another, the whole five-brothers-and-their-descendants clan here to the front, and on a lonely northern roof, my grandfather's next-to-youngest brother on a prayer-mat, pretending to meditate but watching the kites go at it like everyone else. And everyone's lethargic - it's a cloudy and humid day, and Sunday lunch was classic, and the street is quiet, and all you can hear in the tiny overshadowed alleys of this ancient neighbourhood are the bells on the anklets of the little girl who goes door-to-door selling flowers for the evening pujo. And then it's seven, and the conches ring out, and seven different kinds of incense waft around the innermost courtyard that the whole family still shares. In the meantime, there's an extended football metaphor about semi-finals and finish lines and trophy cups that turns out to be related to some aunt's pregnancy. Then later people filter off to have their evening snacks - stuff like roasted muri and peyaji's and laddoo and jilipi, whole stacks of jilipi that someone just went and brought from that extremely famous two-hundred-year-old hole in the wall sweet-maker five streets away.
And then I come home, but home is there too, always has been. And on the bus on the way home, standing with my elbows bumping against the steel window-frame, I laugh inside all the way, and people wonder why I look a little strange tonight.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory

Item, bruise, one each on forearm, shoulder, and ankle,
Scar on throat, one, from that burn last week,
Headache from worrying about what-happens-next,
And really, the eyes are going far too weak.

Sunburn, extreme, from walking around outside all day
Dent to the ego - why, when I thought she was my friend?
Heartburn, slight, because I have to move on,
And scars are all you take with you, in the end.

Red slashes, from all the times I felt left out,
Even when I wasn't; perhaps it's just me,
Angry welts, three, on brain, body and soul,
Black hole where my laughter used to be.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fun is friends, is food, is money and a little booze.

What an exhausting weekend. Karate sessions at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning every Saturday and Sunday until mid-September means I get to kick off my weekend by going early to be on Friday night, start off Saturday getting beaten up by a man who tells us we are pathetic and useless and a passing turtle could kick our butts if we do push-ups any slower, and go home and moan a bit before doing other, weekend-y things like a little shopping, a lot of hanging out, and Trying New Things (comma, quote, quote, full-stop). Then we get to go back on Sunday at seven, which means getting out of bed at five a.m, incidentally, sleep-deprived and hating Sir with all our hearts but desperately wanting his approval all the same, because look at him, the man is a fucking ninja.

And then I get home and yesterday there was a kind of formal gathering of my father's umpteen colleagues and friends and people-he-used-to-know-once-upon-a-time, being a teacher and passing through several faculties and all. So there I was, crouched in front of a low table poring out drinks for almost two hundred people, and every now and then someone would come up and ask leading questions like, 'Do you remember me? You saw me when you were a tiny kid - you don't remember me, do you?' and I smile uncertainly up at them, and then when I uncurl myself and stand up I see the eyes widening as the uncurling keeps happening and then they look up at me and blink and say to whichever one of of my parents is nearby, 'But she's so tall! Ki hobe?' implying my lack of marriageability given that I apparently look like a brontosaurus even without heels. And then my parents mumble something, and I mumble something too and crouch down again quickly.

Anyway, the haul was good - lots of swag and G's, and the day before I'd comprehensively finished off my summer shopping list except for one thing which I intend to get today; and best of all, apparently everyone knows I love books so about ten gift-coupons for Starmark and Crossword are in my possession now, and yes, I can see you drooling, :P.

I'm very chipper when I'm blogging in the morning. Last night I blew a couple of things completely out of proportion and freaked out about feeling alone and was close to tears by the time I finally fell asleep. Funnily enough, all that seems relatively trivial today. Moving on feels particularly good this cloudy morning, by Loki! Good day to you.