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?

KELANEY

Growing up in Cal, Bangla Rock was infra-dig. They were the bands para pujos invited and the para chyangra's danced to. They were the bands who sang of a somewhat western angst, in an anglicized Bengali accent. They stood for music the 'vernac types' in college would listen to. The one's who'd probably call me tyansh. But the songs were always catchy. Nothing could beat the instant way you could relate to the lines sung in your own tongue. It was the music I'd only dare to admit to liking if I was trying to subvert a stereotype.

Later some of those bands became the most approachable people I'd speak to while working on a story that required quotes from public figures. They were also the ones we'd laugh at for saying corny things like "tumi ki hobey amar jadur dewaal" (I kid you not. the lead vocalist was introducing Wonderwall on the radio)

Now those songs have become the songs of nostalgia. Just like Bittersweet Symphony and college (and Save Tonight. and Scientist. and Hand In My Pocket and many many more that deserve another post) , Ekla Ghar is now synonymous with the many fests in college. Prithibi and Telephone are the songs that the 'seniors' gave to me. Phiriye dao is the song that made my Freshers eve.

The other day Jitz and I found ourselves singing along to Hasnuhana at Calcutta Club, a Bengali food joint in Oshiwara. "Shunshan fanka bypass-e/ Ar hridoyer circus-e/ Smriti deye dhuyo aar hashe," we sang along as we grinned at each other and dug into our fish fry and rye.

Now I press replay on the token Bangla rock number that I have on my phone - Ekla Ghar (I'd put more if only I knew people who had the songs). I don't hear the language often enough. And I don't mind being vernac anymore.

P.S Looks like am not alone. Another recently migrated friend confesses. "I often listen to these totally kelane bangla songs. Especially now that am outta cal."

She eats alone these days. Stands at the kitchen counter and eats, staring unseeingly at the cupboards. Or the water filter. Or even the sink. It's the shortest distance from oven to plate, to mouth, to plate, to sink. Besides it's intolerable sitting in an empty room and staring into space and eating. Which reminds her of the women in Jhumpa Lahiri novels- most of them solitary housewives, who eat, standing at the sink, too numb to need the comfort of a sit down meal.

They will get a TV soon. And then she'll eat sprawled on the mattress, distracted by Star World. And move from one cliche to another.

And before I left a senior warned: "Remember the curse of the telegraph farewell -- you might just end up back at 6PS (6 prafulla sarkar street for the uninitiated) when you least expect it!". But the thing is.... I'd rather like to be back.

So I'm back from Goa, relaxed, de-stressed, and annoyingly chirpy...err ok so make that was annoyingly chirpy, since office always gets rid of the chirpy factor. Am back, from a holiday that I've been looking forward to for ages. And back with 39 pics and only three worth posting. The rest of the 36 are, well, bullshit. It looks like I have no sense of light, or composition and no control over my motor nerves.
Pictures taken by my friends of course, seem quite wonderful. Shuddho's in fact are really good, despite or perhaps because of the 15 minute wait that preceded almost each picture. Jitz went by instinct, not trying too hard but not as if she took no effort at all. Hers look like she took an actual interest, liked the person, and for a moment was detached enough to step out, take stock and take a picture with a discerning eye.
Even the waiters at Brittos fared better than I did with this (picture 2).

But oh me. Me... I was phenomenally bad. For evidence look to picture 1. That is one arm, one person, and another person's back. The person in the middle looking so unfortunately bad, is actually quite good looking. Why have my pictures been so disastrous?
Is it my cheap Polaroid camera? It can't be as picture 3 is taken on my camera by Shuddho. Is it really as simple as me not being creative enough (although someone else left the sentence at just 'creative'. But I refuse to believe that anyone can ever be described as not creative) .
I have since found an answer I can live with. I think my supreme ineptitude stemmed from being to conscious. Too conscious that this was the best time I've had in a long time. Too conscious that 7 mega pixels can perhaps capture the sight but not the sounds smells or just the comfort of belonging. That it can't record that giddy happy high. Or that slightly bittersweet feeling of not quite fitting in and yet knowing that it's just right. Maybe it came from a desperation, that I must take a picture so that I remember, but quickly, lest I miss out.

But miss out I didn't. Thank God. What I do is miss my friends.

When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

--

Abhilash Talkies, The God of Small Things

Of all things, this is one sentence that really scares me. It bothers me if people like me a little less. Even if it's people who I don't like too much. Isn't that weird? Why would I ever give anyone that power? And why do I?

So here's to a new endeavour. Here's to learning not to care.

and oh well, here's to lost causes...

Dear Boy-I-Was-Sort-Of-Hitting-On,

I really really like you. Like you in a 'love is' cartoons, line drawings of walking into sunsets hand-in-hand, make me go ridiculously girlie giggly mushy, moon over your Facebook picture, consider doodling your name at random times but not actually doing it since I am too grown up to, way. I like you and the only reason I find this so easy to say is because there is very little chance of you stumbling into this blog. Sigh. As someone very wise recently pointed out I apparently always fall for those who are outside the realm of immediate possibility.

But anyway, even if you'll never read this, I write this to just get this off my chest. And to serve as a warning to all other dimwits like me.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being so dense. I'm sorry for replying to you in a flurry of excited typos every one and half month you pinged to say hello. I'm sorry for doing all that natak of hitting on you and pretending I wasn't. And I'm sorry for not realising that the interest wasn't actually mutual. Which is where epiphany number two comes in. I think my arrogance stops me from registering that someone I am so obviously interested in, isn't interested back. So I keep pushing and pushing despite all sorts non-encouragement (not active discouragement, mind you) until the boy is forced to act like a jerk. Which is when I register "he's not that into me" and go crying to friends who rally around saying 'there there, he's a jerk'.

But you! You are so totally sweet. Thank you for not being a jerk. Thank you for asking me to what I now see wasn't a date but just an arrangement for us to be at the same place at the same time. Thanks for not getting sleazy. Thanks a thousand times for not taking advantage of my adolescent type crush and giving me your room number (yes, this has happened to me before). Thanks for hugging me goodbye and kissing my hair, in a way that made me close my eyes and feel a little squishy inside. I realise now of course that your oh-so-sweet gesture wasn't an exclusive move but an applicable to all girl friends thing. Am sorry for being a small-town type who didn't see a PR type move for what it was.

And what I'm really sorry for putting you in a spot where you couldn't say "back off!" This will teach me not to hit on professional contacts. Gah, what can I say, I'm really sorry for being a stupid cow.

Swooning still,

M

P.S. But you're still so cute!

P.P.S. Sniff. Here is my rebellion. Will not wear my heart on my sleeve any more. Or, for that matter, your favourite band on my caller tune. So there.

On hold

Sometimes it feels like my whole life is on whole hold. I don't know how many stories that I've filed are on hold. That's work. There are three blog posts which are still on hold cause what I have written on I have no clue how to finish. That is, or so I kid myself into believing, my writing. And all my plans of working outside the city, doing my own thing, making ends meet on a higher salary that is still far too little to survive on (God, why does that sound good?) will probably come to naught. That's life

Somebody hang up and let me go.

So there's Free Fallin' by Tom Petty and a beautiful beautiful cover of the song by John Mayer. I'm listening to the song on loop again and you know what really pisses me off about the song (other than the thought that listening to one song on loop over 20 hours is, well, a little nutty) ? It's when he says "And Im a bad boy cause I dont even miss her". I mean, really, is it just me or is it always, al-bleddy-ways that a boy gets to say this?
Please can a woman cover the song in a really kick ass manner and change that to And I'm a bad girl cause I dont even miss him ? I'd really prefer to sing along to that version.

Through The Filters

With him everything seemed to have that tinted glow. Not rose tinted. But as if viewed through muted yellow filters. The colours were richer, her laughter louder, her hair shinier and her skin glowed. Like the old Dove ad. There was something about that time made it seem as if everything was tinted with that slightly fuzzy happiness that made everything ok. It felt like a time shot in Vaseline shots.

And now the filters have changed. Everything now was a dull boring brown. Nothing was funny anymore. Not even her. How unfair that that glow went away with him. How unfair that he left and the brown came back.

In My Place

Out of all things that she could have remembered from that book, what she did was a paragraph that didn't matter. A young truck driver drops everything to accompany a strange 60-year-old man who talks to cats. Another falls in love with a girl in a picture. World War II soldiers lost in a forest have remained the same ever since. But what she remembers are half forgotten lines about a girl the truck driver could have visited. The truck driver wonders why he is going along with a strange 60-year-old on a strange excursion. He could have visited that girl in Tokyo "who always made time for him whenever he wanted to meet her," he thinks. Which is when it hits her.

She is that girl, she realises. There is no mention of that girl in the book again. Just that one line. It's easy to identify with that protagonist in a book who conquers all kinds of odds to get to his goal. Easier still to identify with the best friend or the sidekick, and like Kate Winslet in Holiday, feel like a side character in your own life. But nothing... nothing quite puts you in your place like the realisation that you aren't the best friend. You aren't even the best friend's other option. Yours is not the situation that could have happened. You were never an option.

You are those twenty words that people won't even remember.

Unidentified Coloured Object


So my very obliging girlfriends gather at my place to welcome me back after my three week hiatus. One of them has suddenly developed something of a social life in my absence. And has had an obvious pedicure and is wearing nail polish. Her pedicures would always come sans nail polish before so I obviously take note. Toe flirting, I accuse. And well, if a girl is dating anything she does is attributed to the sudden appearance of guy. Hair serum? Aha date with boy huh? Eyebrows done? Oooh date night. Dieting? When is date? Shopping? Going anywhere fancy with boy? Of course all of these things are stuff we'd do irrespective of boys but it's generally fun to watch them squirm and blush and deny start a general banter. It's like small talk. But better than talking about the weather. I mean with the weather all you can say is "Oof it's so hot" and it ends there. This on the other hand offers us endless possibilities for a conversation.

So yes nail polish. She demurs. "Yeah I finally went for it, because they got me a white nail polish," she says.
Girlfriend 2: "That's not white. That's more peach."
Me: "Yeah, a very light diluted with white sort of peach."
The one with a social life: "Han? I thought it was white."
Girlfriend 3, arrives later and the topic comes up again. "That's white," she agrees.
Girlfriend 2: "No actually it's sort of coral."

A day later, we're walking down the street to grab a bite when it finally hits me. "Aha! I know. This is shell pink."
Her: " Han? I thought it was white"
Me: No... think sea-shells. It's that sort of pink.

(We are very good at that stating the obvious. What's OCD? It's this compulsive need to do something obsessively, she wrote. What's shell pink? It's the shade of pink often spotted in sea shells!)

So now the matter is resolved. Shell pink. So there.

[663 finds his apartment is flooded]
Cop663: Did I leave the tap running, or is the apartment getting more tearful? I always thought it would cope okay. Didn't expect it to cry so much. When people cry, they can dry their eyes with tissues. But when an apartment cries, it takes a lot to mop it up.

Chungking Express, 1994


My house thinks it's in this Wong Kar Wai movie. It figures it is allowed to act up now that mom's in Bombay. The AC refuses to work. Got it fixed by the maintenance people and it still switches off in the middle of the night and only starts working when I wake up suffocating and panicky. The floor of my box bed also just gave way. It sort of caved in the middle and the durries and stuff is poking outside. Like it's saying, "Dude I refuse to take all this load, without your mom around." And the AC remote walks about the house alone. Here it was on the bed... sometime later I will find it on the window sill. Wonder what kind of shenanigans it will get into once I leave as well. Spooky this.

Deliver me from well intentioned neighbours. please god please.

What is it about that sad sad song with its soaring violins and weeping melody, that gets to us so? Why do we persist in making our heartbreak worse with sad songs? Why must I listen to Damien Rice singing “And why'd ya sing Hallelujah/If it means nothing to you/Why'd you sing with me at all” when I already feel like shit? It’s not even as if the words are especially brilliant. It’s not like I enjoy this feeling of wanting to go on long bawling trip, curled up into a ball the windows closed. Especially not when stuck in office with the most inane cover story in the history of all cover stories. I don’t need to make my claustrophobia worse with that melody that chokes me even as it moves. Why do I do this? Why does my already low, friend listen to So Unsexy over and over again? Are we perverse or what?