Dear Bombay

Dear Bombay,
It's been a year. This time today you were full of possibilities. You were my new life, my new career, you were my city of  dreams. This time tonight I had my first taste of a single girl's life...of mattresses on the floor, of a hurried Maggi for dinner before rushing out for a late night movie with the girls, of returning way way past my 'normal' deadline, the cackle of girls filling the night air, with a shiver in the dark and heady independence coating my tongue like last night's drinking. 
This time tomorrow I was looking forward to my new job, to my first train ride as a commuter, this time last year my three years of meagre savings were all I had to my name, and all I had to build a home, and get by before I got my salary. This time, today I was running on zero cash and full tank on dreams. 


This time today, right now, you're already my past. 
This time today you're my wan smile, my nostalgia, and my old pictures. This time today, you're no longer mine. 

Not Getting On

Certain people don't realise that they function as multipurpose units. One in particular is driver, strongman, escort, bodyguard, confidante, occasional cook, composer, entertainment provider, comfort provider, fixer of phones, occasional credit card, books and DVD library, music teacher, killer of boredom, jhamela sufferer and provider of many things that I cannot mention in public fora such as blogs. I'm told it's very difficult to find such multi dimensional MPUs. Most have very small processors and cannot carry out so many roles simultaneously.
I've mostly done without such an MPU until very recently. But the question is how does one get on without, now that I'm used to having one?

in the closet

My desk drawer is full of odds and ends. Press releases, CDs marked with illegible writings (used as on 27. 08, says one), a battery charger for one of the cameras, broken headphones and somewhere in the corner, a sachet of pot pourri. Somewhere under it the pack of ear-buds has burst. So along with the the crowd of antacids, paper, proofed printouts, and pens that don't write, the pink and white ear-buds have run all over my shelf like ants on spilt food. Every time I open it to hunt for something I need, they roll from one corner to the other as if scurrying away in fear. And the woody spicy smell of the pot pourri leaks out guiltily.

Let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now...

The thing about songs is that they live on. Sometimes not just live on but build lives of their own. Within their familiar notes, they entangle a little piece of our history, and in their beats that sweet smell of nostalgia. And foremost amongst those songs, none could spell college as obviously as Bittersweet Symphony. No song could be more us than this one. 

When Ashcroft wrote this melody he didn't imagine that a lone guitar wielding figure, in an inconsequential college in north Calcutta (even though professors would have us believe that we're everything but inconsequential), would pass on the bug to so many. He didn't imagine the song would be played, practiced, strummed, over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseam until it would take over our collective consciousness. It would become the song that a classmate would name her blog after, the song a senior would only have to hear the first two words of, to cringe "oh no, not that song again", the song that gets at least one replay during the many BYOB parties with ex classmates, the song that plays on my phone when anyone from that precious group calls, the song that has now found playtime in my earphones after eons, the only song that can transform this gloomy rain soaked morning into hope.

My father remembers a time during his third year in BHU IT, when his classmate played Staying Alive, continuously for an entire week. Much as he'd hate it, for me it's the song of his youth. Just like Bittersweet Symphony is mine. What's yours? 

Karaoke Happiness

We lay like broccoli, me scribbling meaningless nothings on my notepad, both on a new OST trip. There is a contentment in shared melodies. A space is of your own is so overrated. Wouldn't you rather sing along than sing alone?

Where Are The Words

Growing up there were a lot of words. School was when I'd finish reams of notebooks, with imagined love stories (always about a 13 year old girl and an 16 year old boy) bad poetry and a lot of adolescent angsty journal entries. Come college, the angst diminished somewhat and in its place came imagined heartbreaks, one sided love and stories and more bad poetry. And now as the days go by I find myself more and more short of words. There's heartbreak and anger, stare out of the window wistfulness even fuzzy contentment, but no words. Earlier I'd tell myself I can't write when I'm happy.  But there's more to it, I think. I've taught myself how to state facts, or make idle speculation in sentences, but have forgotten to write what I feel. What happens to those feelings, I wonder. The ones who'd once be expressed in words and now remain lost somewhere in the consciousness ? What happens?

These days I find myself checking every long distance train to see where it goes. There is that odd, brief pang when I see it's not going home. Which is odder still. Whatever would I do if it were? Hop on?