The other day we were at Kaichu's place..... me, Dhruva, Kaichu and Rimi....... bloggers all. Rimi sat daintily on the sofa, her legs positioned in a suitably ladylike manner, raised her left eyebrow at a pointed forty-five degree arc and declared : "How can you sit like That!!"Puzzled, I looked down at my legs. There they were, spread at a dedicated posture of going nowhere, indicating my relaxed mode. I knew it offended her inbred convent-educated manners to sit like that, but when you have spent all your life around people who have made indifference an art, the remarks are remarkably easy to ignore, though the inbred sense of always having to explain your action forces this post on me.

And then we were lying down, and talking about "Stuff".... and I was in this haze.... [dare I call it purple??] the light from outside that came after all the lights were switched off and we were immersed in a twilight zone, and Dhruva as trying to tell us horror stories. After a while Kaichu sort of threw up her hands, looked and sounded adoringly like Mamie in Tom and Jerry and we knew we got to her.

Deep in the night we had met the Peep who had been asking us to gatecrash her party in the politest manner possible, and downing Black Dogs straight up. In the process, she left her cell phone in Kaichu's hand and later on had to be reminded of it over and over again.

And barely an hour before that, the Sandman, who was with us at Sharma's Dhaba, where we were downing Chicken Tangri Masala with Garlic Naan (Ah, a slice of heaven right down here...), was telling us his story, how he has lived alone for the last few years, and we were listening and as I was thinking........ Oh, to have that life back again, the days when I was twenty one, and as impressionable as him.

And even before, we were at Princeton, listening to a bad band play, and Pablo was sitting with me and we were discussing the times that bind us now.Another year is about to pass.

I grow old, I grow old.

Posting from a Place.....

As I write, I can see my time running out on me.... I have around 10 minutes to go before my break ends so I better finish fast.

I miss our old trainers... This room gives me the chills.... I miss Abhik, i miss Vivek and I miss Prateek. I met Prateek today... He looked strained. He identified me at the gate (because I had forgotten my own ID) and let me enter Wipro. I dont know why but I felt sorry for the poor guy.... Imagine, having to leave for Hyderabad on a few day's notice.... If I had a chance, I would hit on the decision maker's head and make him see sense.... That will teach him a lesson not to interfere in other people's business.
Driftwood. That sort of takes care of this post's issue. I miss home sometimes.... home is not home anymore. There are so many different things that I miss nowadays............. the crowd of JU, the people who used to be with me.... Andromeda and others.... and then I miss Sir, and Kaichu.
This sounds so desperately like a testimonial on the number of misses. But I do. I miss them, I miss them.... I really wish I could stop missing them.... but I cant. I cant believe that there was a time when I would spend hours in the end with people I loved, talking and laughing and having a gala time with them. Now I just go to sleep and remain thankful when I am not awake because some dumb idiot has called me in the middle of the night (which is basically three o'clock in the afternoon and therefore a godly hour for the rest of mankind )....
Anyway, there are things that I remember, when I go for breaks I do believe I wish sometimes I see Andromeda, from across here to the godawful place she works at..... But I wish her happiness. Because if this is what she wants, this is what she would have.
Momentary glimpses from a past life sometimes haunts me.... I feel paralyzed when I am suddenly attacked by a vision of Sandy quietly laughing as A Lal poked fun at Queen, and Bohemian Rhaphsody.... or ADG looking contemplatively at a copy of Antigone and just scratching his brow with the adorable "I dont know where my dog is, and I have no clue what the Anti Bitch's problem was.... And I think I am stuck at this terrible Miasma that is haunting me just as badly as the Choerephorai...." expression.
Ah, those Sophocles classes where Babel used to enter around fifteen minutes after the class had begun, and ADG smiling at her and giving her an indulgent "I know where you came from... and I really wish I did not but I do" smile and told her to sit with an imperial nod.... I felt like going "ZEUS! O Lord of Lords!!!" everytime he did that.... he had such an impact.... it was like a bolt of lightning. I might even compare him to Thor.
And Tintinda, dear Tintin da.
The name... the name...
I felt Loki.
Perfect. He is the ultimate mischief maker. I read Sandman the other day. I felt Tintinda in Loki. I felt Loki in Tintinda.
And sometimes I wonder what will I call myself. Delirium? Delirium is apt. I dont know where I am going and I dont know where I came from. This mind remains in a perpetual state of blankness, a state of numbness. I live in presence. Am I suffering from Permanent Cathartic Effect (PCE) ??
Dearly departed souls of this mortal cloth, I do feel for those who are lost, those who are gone to a different frame, and is lost in translation. I feel for you because the fallen IDOLS all turn to dust in the end... everything is lost, everyone is emptied of their own selves, and they follow the path... the path they think is shown but is actually something they have chosen on their own.
Everyone makes choices. All the choices are actually made for them, but they make them anyway. And with each choice they move forward, look forward, while living in their past, because every moment is a living history, a thing of the past the moment they are created. The illusion is perfect... we actually live in the past but look before. And we pine for what is not.
Maddy. My Maddalena, my Madeline, my Mado....
The other day I felt the warm tang of the morning breeze and I felt your smile with it. My sunshine, my glory, a love I love.... She believes in goodness. And she shatters just a little more as her belief is taken apart at the seams and torn. Like wings from a fragile moth. And she is as attracted to the hypnotic rays of light as the moth.
Which reminds me of someone who is better not named. Like Voldemort, he is to be left in the dark... Let him be the soul of this particular post. He colours the edges of the text... In spirit, he supplements the vermouth... caustic but succulent, leaving a bitter-sour-sweet aftertaste in the mouth and something that I really cannot define... A sense of denial? I hoped to become friends. I do not know now whether we are... foolish, thoughtless comments break the tender bonds we humans forge with threads of recognition of the pain that we all face and overcome, and face and face again.

I end here. It is a good time to end this particular post which brims with nostalgia, that beckons me towards the momentary need to forget oneself... we long to be in nothingness, and our longings often are realized.