The unremembered spanned an eon,

life drowned while faces blurred,

I was a God & I was alone,

I was mine the day I died

Music played,

words were a haze

the rhythm stayed

when I drowned the water moved with me

Did I cry?

Did I laugh?

Did I shout how I loved you?

Or did I let you down too?

Time sank with my heartbeat

the chill burnt through my veins

peace was so close

and then I was washed ashore

You've been tagged

Much before the networking sites took the world by storm and the digicams captured every moment ugly or beautiful, and we had our lives uploaded for the world to see... we tagged memories...in our treasure chests for only us to see, to cherish & to relive.

A slice of apple pie is a secluded beach, a movie on hbo a pre-dawn walk on dewy grass, a song from a movie is a full bollywood number during rol-call...it could be anything... a plate of double-anda bhurji shared... a song request obliged at the wicked hour... a table tennis match till 4 am...

if you are up here... i hope you know you are special. If not... I hope I can one day say to you - you've been tagged!

I want to write

I quit my job a few months back. The pointlessness of it all had become unbearable. After a long time - actually for the first time in my life I have nothing to do, nowhere to get to, no timelines, no deadlines…nothing. I like nothing.

Today I have spent most of my day sleeping … have seen 2 movies and then I wanted to write… you know one of those days when you have to HAVE TO write and are stumped coz there’s nothing to say – but as I have already said that I like nothing I am going to write away. Lets hope it makes sense!

I was wondering how I got here (in a good way)... you know stuff you think about when you have nothing else to think about... abt destiny... whether life chooses a path or the destination. How the little choices we make make who we are... how when a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and theres a storm someplace else(or a tornado...u know what i mean)...jab saabu ko gussa aata hai kahin jwalamukhi phatta hai (no...thats different).

I was born with a particular amount of, for the lack of a better word, intelligence – I am brighter than your average chap on the road – so I was meant to be first in class… I quite liked it too and it was rarely difficult. So after my X boards it was an obvious choice that I would take science… with Math & Bio… primarily coz I wanted to have the option of being a Doctor or an Engineer open for another 2 years (I am neither now).

While I waited for my engineering results (I did get into RECs… though not IIT – wonder what that would have been like) I enrolled in Miranda House… Economics (Economics sounded nice…had heard much about the subject) …quite liked Micro-eco… so gave up the engineering thing and stayed on in Delhi. Some one asked me what I wanted to be and I said “a Banker” (huh! Why? Cant remember!)

So a few years on I was a banker… having done an MBA… earning more than a few lakhs… living on my own in the maximum city… and then I quit.

It wasn’t what I wanted, wasn’t the life I wanted to lead, wasn’t anything at all. The most amusing was how people looked at me as if I was crazy for quitting without having another job in hand… to top it all I told them it’s because I was bored. It was fun messing with them but that lost its charm way too quickly – people & their reactions are predictable... very very predicatble.

I am back now… to the city of djinns (Delhi…for the ones who don’t read Dalrymple).

Kaun jaaye Zauq par Dilli ki galiyan chod kar J

He just wanted us to know his name

When I switched on the tv a few days back, the news channels were teeming with the footage of Varun Gandhi's Pilibhit speech. A number of things came to my mind when I saw that:

1. Ok... this is Varun GANDHI. 

2. What a wannabe speech and how much time had he spent learning it so there's no mistake. 

3. How happy he must feel with all the adulation (at that moment) that had so far been reserved for his cousins.

I don't think he meant what he said. For a number of reasons... the most important being his half-sikh descent. I do think he was stupid enough to be used as a pawn... now he is the poster-boy of hate... a mini-Modi. A silly preppie who went to a village and got carried away by the applause and the cheering which he had earlier only seen on TV when Rahul and Priyanka addressed rallies. He just wanted to be as famous as Didi and Bhaiyya. 

Splash!!!!!!!!!

Relax. Take a deep breath. Now dive.

My dad was trying to teach me how to dive. I was standing at the edge of the deep corner. Looking at the water. It was a mid-size pool...big enough to have a proper deep and shallow end. Dad had successfully taught me and my brother how to float and then swim. We had started doing breadths and now lengths. Now it was time to start diving.

The only glitch was - I had seen JAWS... 2 days back. 

Now, even in a pool as the water gets deeper it goes a deeper shade of blue. And as I stood at the edge of the pool ready to dive... I could almost see something move in the water. Even as a 8 yr old I knew a shark could not be in a pool - but you never know - freaky stuff like this happens all the time in the movies and you really don't want to take a chance especially when you literally have all your life ahead of you. So, the simplest thing would have been to tell my dad that I was scared and get out it.

Glitch no 2, phobia of admitting having a phobia.

So, I stood at the edge - took a deep deeeeep breath - thanked God for the lovely life I had lived till then... and dived. 

That was the fastest lap I ever did.

Seems like a good movie

I used to be a good listener... it was fascinating – the perspective – the world-view and the narrative.

On my way back from North campus (DU… for the uninitiated) – I traveled with a friend... and I happened to mention that I hadn’t seen Forrest Gump – so for the next hour and a half he narrated the story… frame by frame… while we considered our travel options – to hitch or not to hitch! We decided ‘not to’ … and took a bus on a circuitous route…we walked…changed buses…walked some more…while Tom Hanks fell in love…went to war…lost her…played ping-pong…found her… lost her…ran… ran some more… got a boat…made some money…invested in ‘an apple co.’ … found her… found his boy.. lost her & lived on…

It seemed like a good movie – and I thought I should try it… we even began to ‘analyse’ it – but had to drop it coz hostel lunch time ended at 3…and we were already at 2.55!

I reached by 3.05…and after almost breaking down the door of the kitchen got served food which I left untouched…one thought that did not leave me was that i wanted to watch this movie…since I hadn’t eaten – I went to Kutty’s (the TAFS canteen that has kept generations in my hostel alive… strange coz these were the same ppl who were incharge of the kitchen – but this isn’t time for conspiracy theories) Anyway, so I went to Kutty’s and placed the standard order of double anda bhurji with extra hari mirchi – was lectured by Dutt saab abt how so much chilli is not good for health… -- finally I sat down to eat and told another friend about how I was thinking about watching Forrest Gump – he corrected me “how you want to see FG again”… I corrected him “I want to see FG”… he looked at me with suspicion befitting a vamp in a K series soap… with an arched-eyebrow and said “you haven’t seen FG…even once”… “It’s the best!!! You know what happens….”

And he went on to tell me how Tom Hanks is… bt the house they threw stones at …she gets into drugs…he gets in the army… the capitol hill… the song by the byrds… his single-mindedness… the meetings with the president after the war and tt… how he runs… how he fishes…and believes in the capt… how he waits for the bus sitting on a bench…narrating his life simply (the only way he knows) to this lady…how he runs to find her… how he worries if the boy is like him… how he sits there when the bus goes by… how fantastic the movie is…

It seems like a good movie I think… it seems like a lot of things :)