Things on Wardrobe Doors

LUST

(I think I love you. Who are you anyway?)

Here it is, the big "Wow," the big "Gee," the big "Yesyesyes" you've been waiting for. This is where you find something or someone and believe they are better, greater, cuter, wiser and more wonderful than anything you have ever known.
Lust isn't a sin, it's a necessity, for with lust as our guide we imagine our bodies moving the way our bodies were meant to move: We can do marathons with our feet, lift pounds with our arms, have stars in our eyes and do a nifty tango. And you think:
I have no need of food, I have no need of sleep, I have no needs other than occasionally chewing a breath mint. You are the best thing that's ever happened to me, probably because you haven't happened to me yet.

FEAR

(Also known as :Uh-oh)

This is where the doubt begins, where the mind comes back home from shopping, yells at the heart, binds and gags it to a nice lounge chair and allows guilt, failure, and remembrances of things past to sit in for a nice game of bridge. This is where you fear what you need most. If it's a person you love then you fear appearing foolish in front of them. if it's a sport, you fear being foolish in front of many, many people at the same time. And you begin to think:
Oh no. What if I am wrong? What if this stinks? What if my heart has blinders on, it's had blinders on before, in fact it had dark heavy patches taped all over it. I mean, I love myself, there are just parts between the top of my head and the bottom of my feet that could use some improvement. I am not demeaning myself, I have relatives who do that.

THE TRUTH

(Love is hard work. And, sometimes, hard work can really hurt.)

Love is a game. If they didn't tell you before, we will tell you now. Love is a game and if you play you either win, lose, or get ejected before the game is over.
There are no ties.
Maybe you'll lose and learn some great meaningful answer from it all (Like if it looks too good to be true, it is). It;s easy to love someone when you don't have to work at it. it's harder when it asks something of you, you just might be afraid to give.
Give it anyway.
The heart is the most resilient muscle. It is also the stupidest. So if this love you've found is good to you, hold it, keep it, shout about it. If it isn't, then maybe you should just become very good friends.


I had this written on my wardrobe doors from the time I was 16. And I am still learning from it.

I cannot write without a heart ache.

Beloved. Be my heart ache.

Of jelly balls and stupidity

Long journeys allow a lot of introspection. Especially when you are all alone. Flights are easy- a couple of hours just pass in the tiresome process of trying to get comfortable enough to sleep and then trying to get some sleep before the flight is ready to land. Why can I not be asleep when the flight lands? If my seat belt is tied then what may be the problem in my state of stupor? Or is it that if they crash they want you to be awake enough to face the pain and the terror full throttle. And then…every one wants to die in their sleep. So- a plane is not the best place for it. Try a train. And if that dratted train is 16 hours late- even better. All the people who may have out of all love and affection come to meet you have probably passed out or gone home out of sheer boredom. So, go ahead and die…no one will even know.
However such morbidity is not a part of this rambling. It is actually introspection. Someone very dear to me told me that I needed deep introspection so I headed home. On a 23 hour journey that turned into a 13 hour wait and a 28 hour train ordeal. Life is such.
I didn’t think much on the train. I slept half the journey and then spent the rest refusing food and playing Ages of Empire and watching one episode of House. I thought far more while standing on the station, while travelling in the fog, while facing the chilly winds to and from the station twice.
Clearly a journey home was not a requirement. But as long as I can…why not?
One person you cannot lie to is yourself- you can pretend to lie but it never really works. I can pretend to convince myself of so many completely absurd things but it does not work. Some part of my rather frequently dysfunctional thinking organ catches me and slaps me across the face every time I do. What we can do instead is – lie to others. By that rather sweeping statement I do not mean that we ‘lie’ to them literally about things that concern them- like whether you cheated them, on them, with them, whether you watched the movie you said you did not…and such. This lie that I talk of is a lie we become to others. What we really are never completely gets across to people. If it does then those people are frightfully boring. We all have some secret avatars hidden in the deep recesses of the Fight Club type caves- that never really see the light of day. I do not know about others. Mine surely never will.
I can’t even deal with my own dark self. How can I expect you to?
I had tried to explain this to another person I love and he didn’t understand. They don’t need to- you don’t need to. Can’t you be at peace by knowing that you may never completely understand some person?
Then I thought about confessions. Confession we selectively reveal- wanting every person hearing it to know that this was our glory and we would revel in it till we died. In our sleep. When that happens we never think while we hear our friends confessing their so called deepest darkest secrets- how calculated these moves really are. It’s not a crime. It is ok to not want the world to know you. Am I justifying it because I do it?
Yes.
They take out their vices, their defects and faults and roll it into a sticky ball and throw it at you when you aren’t even ready. And it smacks you on your cheek and all you can really do is try wiping some of it away. It reminds me of a sticky ball of jelly I had bought once from one of those prank shops. It left an oily mark on my dad’s newly painted wall. The mark is still there- what caused it has been lost somewhere and forgotten about. Dad does not remember it. I do. I had flung that ball at the wall just to see whether it stuck there.
These confessions are like that. You will brush it away because when honesty- even a partial one- hits you square between the eyes- we always look away. When someone is honest we forget, when they lie we remember. That is how it is. In days like these we value lies enough to memorize them. And the honesty- half baked or otherwise- is just a statement. It is that sticky ball that was thrown at you in jest and you laughed it away.
So, if you really want to hide- be honest. They won’t remember, and they will forget it like dad had forgotten the blue sticky jelly ball.
You will- for you threw yourself at them.

One down...God knows how many more to go.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

-Got a stamp on my passport after having it for at least 5 useless years.
-Traveled more than I actually wanted to- none were pleasure trips.
-Sulked for a month solid.
-Fell really sick. At least that got me home.

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I make the same resolutions every year. Doesn't work. Will do it again.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Nope. Not that I know of.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes. Geographically yes.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

My birthday this year.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I cracked 3 interviews with no pushes from inside. Got a bit smarter at handling people (read meaner- if that is possible).

9. What was your biggest failure?

I lost my school of thought.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

A broken heart and then a horrible cold. Same thing almost.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Mom's. Period.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Some friends. Taught me something though.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Shopping. A complete no brainer!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

About the year ending. It sucked thoroughly.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

Not only 2009- but every year that comes - Vincent. I know its corny.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

SADDER.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Well...I suppose being a little more sincere in my emotions.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Felt less miserable I suppose.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?

No idea. Remind me to update this when I have a plan.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Love? No.

23. How many one night stands?

I am too much of a prude for this!

24. What was your favourite TV programme?

Currently House, but am always loyal to Roadies.

26. What was the best book you read?

I just read a whole lot of essays.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

That I just cannot sing. Not much of a discovery- I just remind myself every year!

28. What did you want and get?

I got nothing I wanted this year. :(

29. What did you want and not get?

Some thing to work out. Nothing worked out.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

I just watched a lot of mindless movies this year.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I cried all evening and I was 25.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Less heart ache. More intellectual hope. And money.

34. What kept you sane?

Mirrors. I find my face most endearing!

37. Who was the worst new person you met?

A particular Professor in a particular university somewhere.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

A handful of friends.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

Nothing lasts forever...and we both know hearts can change!

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Shut up and Drive!

Vanished.

A few days back my sister sent me a message – “Chordadu passed away today evening, sometime back. Just letting you know.”
I didn’t react to that message much, probably because I did not know how to. It is not like I was particularly close to him or anything of that sort. Often I thought he was vile and old and how he should just die. But then he died and I was not even sure that I really wanted it that way. For the 22 years I have lived there I had nothing to do with him, rarely interacted with him and it never mattered. So why now?
I remembered his wife telling us when we were small that he sat around all day like a barn owl. And now that barn owl was dead, his wife finally managed to coax him away.
He hated my dog. Every time my dog would decide to act like a complete stubborn mule and sit pert in front of the main door and bark like a rabid cretin- he would unleash the wave of choicest vernacular abuses. It made no difference to my dog. When I read the message it did hit me once that now the dog could bark to glory. But then I thought- did I really want her to bark like that?
Today I am feeling sad about things. Today I feel this vacuum. Not that some special memory came to mind but suddenly death seemed too real to pretend that it had not affected me this time.
I have just been to the cremation grounds once. That only time being when one of my friend’s fathers committed suicide. I remember crying after I got home not because I saw anything that scared me but rather for he suddenly came to mind. I had not even seen the dead body. I didn’t want to see it. He was this sarcastic and brilliant man who just jumped off the 7th floor one day after fighting with his family. When I came home – he suddenly came to mind.
But today- Chordadu just didn’t come to mind. He came to mind with a volley of feelings that I could not handle. The feeling that I could not lose anything that was mine, anything I knew, anything I know. For if I did, a part of history and just goes missing. In a story of everyday- some lines stop running. I am going to tell these stories to someone one day and I cannot have parts missing. How can you make do with characters that vanish? Does it not change everything even if he didn’t matter too much?
Chordadu just vanished, like Dadu, like didima, like Bodhi’s father...like Raman’s mom...and one day...like me.

Blah!

Am on the train. It is rather boring here- and after a really long time I am travelling alone- flights don’t count really for 2 hours just goes off in trying to get comfortable in the dratted seat with the seat belt and rather fat and sleepy co passengers.
It’s not like I prefer train journeys but hell these trying times without a job leaves very little to choose from. And since I am travelling alone my mother must give me the safest train she can afford. Even when you are old enough to become a parent yourself you can well expect to be molly coddled by your mother. Only by your mother. She makes me feel like I am 12 and I have an uncanny feeling that this feeling will stay till I am 42 perhaps.
Parents and their story are not of concern right now- that maybe ruminated on later. What is irking me now are my co passengers. This time it is a family and a quarter- a mom and a dad, two kids- one boy who is wearing a Che t shirt and obviously thinks he is cool, a girl who has really badly done mehendi on one of her hands and it is obvious that her mother didn’t let her get it on both hands, and the uncle- who thinks he is VERY cool because he has a lap top. The mother is like this fat anaconda- the thick, contented snake. She looks huge next to her husband and I can only imagine her feeding off the spectacled small husband of her for years- long enough to produce the two kids and now she is doing it just out of habit. She too has rather ugly mehendi done on her hands and gold nail polish on very ugly nails, dark lipstick with a darker lip liner and really tacky and gaudy jewellery on. Out of all respect for an ‘elderly’ lady I had politely asked her whether I could keep my luggage under her seat for her daughter was perched far too happily on mine. She says- “Hamara luggage rakh le ne dijiye phir jagah bacha to aap rakh dena.” So much for decency. I just shoved in my rather big bag under the seat even before she could say any more. Then she says- “Hamara luggage ke liye jagah nahin hoga...” so I turn around sweetly and say- “Aunty, aap ke paas to 5 ticket hai na? Aap us paanch seato ke neeche rakh lijiye...” and put on my ‘don’t fuck with me face’ and placed myself squarely on the seat.
It worked.
The husband, I suppose works for a catering company or has something to do with food. He kept saying things like- “Rajdhani pe catering karne ka contract aaya tha ek bar hum logo ko...” to which his daughter reacted with wonder and surprise (if they both do not mean the same thing and if it is possible to show both at once). I wondered then- do parents lie to their kids? Do they pretend to be far more important than they are? What if he was lying to his daughter? I do not know whether he was but this just crossed my mind. He was acting rather high and mighty with the train staff which irritated me to no end. He complained about the piece of fish he got for dinner, about the salad about well...everything. When I had initially just seen his wife I felt sorry for him- but now not. I hope that his wife drains him dry and one day gets on top and squashes him. And he, if I must add, has no clue about jumbled words in newspapers. This is how he works them out- he just chooses whatever letters he thinks can make up a word and the remaining letters can go to hell. Right now- he is singing rather dumb and sleazy songs while trying to make the bed. I hope he falls and breaks his neck.
The son and daughter seem to be rather happy doing very pointless things. The son helped me hoist my bag to the top berth- sometimes I feel like kicking myself for simply being incapable of packing light.
The uncle was talking in whispers on his phone to someone I can imagine is his girlfriend. He kept wearing his shades inside the train and thought it was rather cool. He bought loads of food and finished it in about half an hour with the rest of the family. The mother, who kept asking them to not buy any more chips and cake, ate half the loot herself. The anaconda going full throttle. I could draw her- in an ugly caricatured way.
They woke up at 6. Six in the bloody morning with the insipid father playing ‘Jana Gana Mana’ on his archaic cell phone. I wanted to get up and slap him. Like really slap him. What a joke they make of the national anthem. I don’t understand why they serve tea at 6 in the morning. Who in their right mind has tea that early? I have not seen this hour of the morning in decades. In normal circumstances I probably have gone to sleep an hour prior to this dratted time.
I suppose that is the sickness of our generation- we have our priorities all over the place. We don’t compromise on duties and promises, but on time. We can do what we want with our time because we push ourselves to keep up everything else. Like for example- I can do my academic work well in advance so as I do not have to pull endless all nighters but that I never do. I will do everything else but not study till the zero hour. The tragedy.
And I do not like travelling sleeper class. Period.
I am almost home. Well...in Bengal so as good as home. I love the green here. And the autumn clouds and the base mundane pictures of life before the reach the metropolitan. When I am not home I cannot place exactly what I miss. It is never one thing. Life does strange things to us. Things we can’t comprehend and in the process itself can’t accept. But it happens.
Like when do u know that a love is worth keeping? Worth going that extra mile for? Worth giving up something else for? In all honesty I don’t know if I have figured that out yet. With my tremendous capacity (or incapacity) for patience I don’t know what I have figured out in life.
I wonder why education makes us think that we can confuse and complicate theory. What we do is just read theory and agree to what great bored men have said in the past. If you don’t like the ramblings of one- you can critique it in an equally long discourse and pass it off as your thesis and choose another. And mind you if- if some gay or bald guy has not said something specific- then nothing else is profound or worthy or mortal concern.
What kind of questions can I answer? I need to figure that out- for they are the only kind of questions I am entitled to ask.
As a wise man once said- Literature is not a code with one message. There are only better or worse interpretations.
Amen.

The need arises everyday to DO something. Every morning that I wake up I am swamped by the same irritating need. It is this need that haunts you till you go to bed and you are just going to bed for this need has totally exhausted you.
Always searching- always a thousand questions, always a thousand accuses and complaints.
I need to find a job, need to start liking my course, need to be happy, need to find a place of my own. They are all very categorical and selfish needs but they completely blindside me at any given time of the day.
And its is not just me- but everyone around me. This need is like a bad cold. A rash that creeps up your neck and covers your cheeks and you are most swamped with the need to cover it so as others cannot see it.
The need to think that you are better than the rest- when you just might not be. The need to not be hurt, not to feel disoriented, not to feel broken.

The need shall undo me one day.
And even then it will remain.

Bye Bye Alma Mater

I saw a picture of my school a few days back on some girl’s album on facebook. And for the life of me I could not recognize it. Could not recognize the corridors, the chart boards or the classrooms. And could not recognize the girls. Well obviously for I am ages senior to them- but I could not recognize the ‘essence’ that me and my friends and to a great extent my sister and her friends had while we still wore those uniforms. I left school in 2002, my sister left school a few years later and though there seems to be the yawning gap between how school was for me and my sister- both of us, sitting right there in front of the computer screen- could not recognize the school where we spent 12 years of our lives.

The girls were like those incredibly hot, pretty and mindless women who act in chick flicks in Hollywood. Their hair is styled immaculately, the skirts are shorter and sneakers replace the boring old keds we wore. If anyone had seen my skirt when I was in school they would not have imagined that skirts could be any shorter- but yet- impossible is nothing these days. When you see these girls you know that when out of uniform they would give even Paris Hilton competition when they dolled up and posed for such glamorous pictures. I don’t have any glamorous pictures if I may add. Their multiple piercings and manicured nails makes me think of the times when senior prefects would ask us to take off ear rings that were big and frowned at my nails for they were pink. My sister exclaimed that we were never allowed to do all this in school- and I realized that she meant both of us. A three and a half year age gap now reduced to nothing. She and I were now the outsiders who had long stored our badges and monogrammed shirts away in our cupboards and no longer recognized the alma mater- at least the way it was now.

I sometimes wonder- would I want to be remembered by my school- if I ever become famous would they call me in to give a speech at some function or some reunion? And would I go?

I had left my school rather unceremoniously, rather hurriedly and in a matter of anger and disdain. But 7 years have gone by- what do I remember? The words of certain teachers saying that I was not really a person who could study? Or the lessons of a lifetime that I know I still have in me and I could pass onto my daughter (when I have one).

So typical it is- to reminisce about school and talk about the wonderful values it has instilled in me. Perfect for that speech if they call me after I am famous. But it is true. And to think that maybe another 7 years later these Paris Hilton’s that my sister and I laughed at would be talking the same way as we are. We grew up and maybe they will too. It is just that the world we grew up in was different- I had my first boyfriend in class 11, my sister had it in class 8 and these girls- well they could have started in class 5. You never know. We flouted rules in different ways despite being captains and prefects. They have their own rules. We dated St. James guys and St. Xavier’s boys – they have LMB swooning all over them. People who have been there know what I am talking about.

7 years have gone by. 7 bloody, long years.

Reality Shot I

It is almost 2 in the night and I have not even started studying. I have to read three...three fucking HUGE essays and write summaries for those in a page each. Just a page. You cannot imagine what torture it is for a person like me to do concrete work- and the worst part- I can't even get myself to start. I am writing excuses down.
I will have to be in time for class tomorrow or I will have to not attend class for being late and leave the course.
Which is not a very bad proposition for ever since M.Phil has started in this dratted university- at least 20 times in a day I wonder why I am doing it. I wonder why I am here, wonder why I cleared the entrance without studying one bit, why i cracked the interview- WHY WHY WHY!!!
I am not even giving this a chance- this is the only shot I have at studying on so as all those who had ridiculed me when I was 16 would turn around and run away. I am doing this just for that and for the fact that English- is not an effort on my end.
But theory is and that is why I am doing it.
The last few months has been exhausting. I want to go home and I want to collapse in a desolate, dignity devoid crumble on the bed and stay there till 2011. I want unconditional love served to me with tea in the morning and peace.
I also want to cry.
I want to sit down and bawl my eyes out. For days I have felt tears prick my eyes but there has been no time to cry.
I want to cry. For I know I need to.