About Them

I'm a child of the seasons. The elements are my best friends.

The rain, and the rain alone, knows all my secrets. It gathers in my palm and slips out of my fingers, tinkling like a musical note. It runs playfully down my nose and bounces off my cheeks. It tickles the soles of my feet as I stomp recklessly, deliberately into puddles. It comes when it wants to, never mind the calendar - an unpredictability that I adore. It laughs and whispers and cleanses, keeps time as I dance in uncompromised freedom. It leaves me whole and alive.

The wind shares my wanderlust. It unravels memories and makes promises. It throws windows open and shut. It blows away the dust and brings stray petals and blades of grass in. The wind is chatty and communicative. It reads my mind and cackles in delight at foolish ideas, reprimands me when I'm stupid, sighs meditatively at profundity, and has made a ritual out of its goodbye hugs.

The sky is my canvas, my very own book, my own silver screen. It indulges my fancies and whims, allowing me to trace faces, trees and giant koalas among its clouds, to wink back cheekily at the stars that peer out every night. On stormy days, when enormous blue-grey and black clouds billow by, it hurries them along sometimes, so that the moon is visible to me. And it remains there, faithful to its promise as only a best buddy can be, blue and endless and full of love.

The sun knows its way around my moods. It gets ever so slightly warmer when I'm shivering; just a teeny bit milder when I am hot and bothered. It plays tricks on me and gets away with all of them, because it knows it is one of my weaknesses. Trust a best pal to be so affectionately annoying. I don't remember ever having wished for anything that the sun didn't grant. I don't know of anyone else who blends so much power with such gentleness.

And the earth...the earth grounds me, allows me to spread my roots even as it encourages me to explore. It is warm and loving and stable. It squishes between my toes when the rain comes visiting...the rain lingers on in that invigorating smell long after it has gone. It blows playfully into my hair when the breeze drops in. It takes inordinate delight in baking under the sun and making it impossible for me to move barefoot in my own garden. It allows me to nestle, to roam free.

And that is why this time of the year, when my best friends congregate as one season gives way to another, owns me completely. I belong to it, no questions asked. I belong to the musky mornings, the golden afternoons and the coffee-and-cinnamon-flavoured evenings. To the fresh green leaves making a tentative appearance on every branch, and as much to the golden-brown ones underfoot. To the sky, still choosing between baby-blue and slate. To spring, poking its head around the door, almost as if to ask, Is it time yet? And to winter, packing up after an especially fierce visit. To the summer that has probably begun to stir, the monsoon that isn't due for another four months, and the autumn that knows it can afford to rest the easiest.

If it were physically possible, I would give them all a gigantic bear hug.

Running Notes: Life 101

Morning's here. Either that, or my dream is suddenly a lot brighter and noisier. I half-open an eye and glance at my phone.

7 a.m. So it is morning.

I had better get out of bed, hadn't I? Even if it is wonderfully warm and cosy and snug and...no, really, I must. There's work to do. That application I began last week - should I finish it before I begin on the second chapter of my dissertation? Actually, given that I'm fresh and rested right now, getting some serious studying done is a very good idea. But I can't possibly do that unless I clear my table...and if I'm going to put away all the loose A4 sheets and reference books, hadn't I better finish that second chapter first...?

...Or I could burrow back under the quilt, turn over so I'm facing the sunlight filtering in through the blinds, and go back to sleep for another hour.

No contest, I think with a sleepy, dopey grin. It’s a rare privilege…let’s take it this one time.

Sometimes, the fact that we can choose to take it easy means a lot more than everything else put together.

It catches my eye as I'm sprinting down Bungalow Road to the department, late for yet another class. A pair of woolly, fuzzy, lime green-and-white socks. It's sticking out of a basket of gloves and socks and caps, guarded by a heavily-mufflered man holding a steaming glass of chai. Should I? Shouldn't I? Don't be silly, Pragmatism hisses in my ear. Aren't you late for class already? And lime green socks? Seriously, now? Grow up!

Torn between wanting to take a closer look and making it in time for attendance, I finally give in to temptation and stop by the basket. Pragmatism throws her hands up in disgust and walks into her room, slamming the door behind her. Ten minutes later, I am in proud possession of the fuzzy green and white socks. My feet are warm as toast, and I'm grinning for no apparent reason. Sometimes, I look away from whatever it is I am doing and glance at my socks and smile.

Go ahead. Do the goofy, unwarranted thing once in a while, just because you want to. Happiness sometimes comes in the strangest, most unconventional packages. Like a smile from a toddler on the street. Like chocolate for dessert. Or like lime green woollen socks.

She hasn't been herself for more than a week now...not since they had that huge fight. A minor disagreement that blew out of proportion because neither was willing to let it go. She thinks no-one knows. And he hates to think they won't talk to each other again - she isn't just the love of his life; she is also his best friend. It is killing him, but he won't say a word, and he thinks he'll get away with the charade...but he doesn't. Everybody in the gang notices. Everyone tries to convince each to talk to the other, and it is no good because each of them believes that the other doesn't care, that there is no chance of forgiveness.

One morning, several miserable days later, they bump into each other in the common room, where all of us are studying for a test. An uncomfortable silence fills the place, then he bravely steps forward and says, "I'm sorry." That simple. "I'm sorry, too", she responds. And, just like that, all the bitterness melts away.

Don't hesitate. Go on, say it. The attempt to make up may fail. On the other hand, it may not. But if you don't say it, there'll definitely be failure - of more than one sort.

Of Christmas, sandwich spread and solitude

Eleven days to Christmas! :)

It's that time of the year again - fairy lights, holly and mistletoe, cottonwool snow and tinsel. Tree ornaments glinting merrily in candlelight and warm, reassuringly sonorous brass bells. Candles that burn all night and faith that insists on re-asserting itself. Plum cake! A rotund, red-faced Santa who shakes his belly like a bowlful of jelly. Ho ho ho!

Christmas makes me think of chapels with choirs singing in perfect co-ordination. It makes me think of wreaths secured with ribbons, and of poinsettias in vases. Christmas is about carols at midnight, and the most vibrant shades of red and green the imagination can conjure. It is about believing, even at 23, that I will find something in my stocking on Christmas morning. :) It is about the beautiful message in Dickens' A Christmas Carol (I end up re-reading this book every Christmas, somehow). It is about decorated trees and lots of streamers in every store window. I have never really been sold on bling...but I can never have too much tinsel on Christmas. I can't get enough of the warm, spicy smell of pine cones. I can stare endlessly at a little church with light streaming out of its windows; and sit for hours inside cathedrals. Christmas is probably one of the coldest days of the year meteorologically - and the warmest in every other way imaginable. Why do I love Christmas so much? Because everything about it is about giving...and about belief. On Christmas, you believe.

Of course, the fact that it is just the beginning of a week of festivities and anticipation is the icing on the (plum) cake. :D

Talking of warmth and belonging, there's something incredibly wholesome about the friendships that spring up amongst an assortment of people thrown together by chance. Friendships that are cemented over late-night chats over everything under the sun; study sessions that, surprisingly, often work out as planned; meals had together - at conventional mealtimes and otherwise; heartbreak and tears that stand a very bleak chance against comforting by buddies; laughter and shared inside jokes and running gags that only the aforementioned assortment of people knows about; tiffs with and without rhyme and reason - and the way they melt away so soon, nobody knows or cares what they were about. Friendships that go beyond the ambit of the ordinary and become relationships. Bonds that, delved into, would reveal intuitive understanding, shared confidences, bars of chocolate and jars of sandwich spread, and the blessed security of the knowledge that things will definitely start looking up once you get back to the gang.

I have, on different occasions, celebrated Christmas alone, and with friends and family. This time, it will be with family. I'll miss the enormous wreath outside my school principal's residence, though, and the sight of lights twinkling within and outside the college chapel (and I can't ever forget Dr. Wilson's Christmas parties!). And I'll miss the impromptu Christmas bashes thrown in the hostel, when our supplies included five bottles of Coke, one big eggless cake, and multiple packs of Maggi. Ah well, we can't have it all.

Except that sometimes we do...and Christmas is one of those times when we should thank our lucky stars for it.

Merry Christmas, World...Happy Holidays! :) Ho ho ho!

P.S. This post is dedicated to all the people I have ever celebrated Christmas with.

P.P.S. This, Blogger tells me, is my 99th post. I like the sound of that! Maybe my New Year post will be my 100th! That would be doubly nice. :) :)

A Question Paper Called Life

"If you've written all you can in an essay during your exam, and can't think of anything further", my favourite teacher in school, Mrs. Moss, used to say, "move on! Don't just sit there waiting for divine inspiration! There are other answers to be written!"

Advice that I took seriously. It was difficult not to, given how animated she became whenever she talked - whether it was about history, literature, life or just general examination advice. Her eyes would sparkle with enthusiasm and genuine love for what she did, her hands did some explaining of their own...and her smile was one of the loveliest I had ever known. It still is. When Mrs. Moss taught you, she played Cupid between you and the subject...and you fell for it for life.

Coming back to moving on instead of sitting around waiting for divine inspiration, well, that's a great approach to life. When you've done all you can about something and cannot think of anything further, no matter how hard you push your gray cells - who knows, it is time to move on. It made a lot of sense to me back then. The question would read, "What is your stand in the Nature v Nurture debate? Elaborate with special reference to Caliban in The Tempest." And even when you're as obsessed as I am with literature and its layers of meaning, there's only so much that you can think of when you are asked to pen your thoughts within, ideally, 20 minutes, for 12 marks. I could argue this all day with a friend...but put me in an exam hall, with a clock tick-tocking away at eye-level and three unattempted questions and forty remaining minutes staring me in the face...and you'd have a literature-loving, well-prepared twelfth-grader grappling with an impossible mix of surfeit and spacing-out.

It still makes sense, though, doesn't it? For every crisis, every decision and every situation that life hurls at us with its mercilessly regular playfulness, we fall back on what we know already; we rummage for past experience, wisdom, knowledge or plain facts and figures that can help us make a decision or find a solution. Sometimes, we have the luxury of thinking our decisions through. More often than not, we improvise and hope for the best. On other occasions, without a single clue about what we're writing, we fill seven pages. All the time, we're hoping we will fetch ourselves a 12/12. When we know the answer isn't so great, we hope for a 7 or an 8. And there are still three answers to write, and only 40 minutes to go.

But it always works out in the end. In fact, it works out better than you imagined. But for that, you've got to complete the paper. And to complete the paper, you've got to move on once you have written all that you can in an essay. No use sitting around waiting for divine inspiration, as Mrs. Moss put it. There are other answers to be written.

Full Circle - 2

The '2' in the title is because I remember writing a post titled this way earlier...some time in March, I think. I'm not sure if it's still here, though. Between my own whims and the even more whimsical Blogger, I never am sure what stays and what doesn't.

But life does have a way of coming full circle in the strangest ways. I have had my Airtel prepaid number for five and a half years now. I bought it when I first came to College...and it has seen me through graduation, M&A research, a million highs and lows, scores of emergencies and a thousand impulses. When I finish post-graduation next year, I will leave Delhi. Till then, 98*******8 will continue to define me to my family and friends as the girl who misses more calls than the rest of the world put together, and writes text messages that read like theses.

The reason why I'm talking about those five years and this number is that, if I choose, I can enable calling on my phone at one paisa a second to any number in India. That, people, is a big (albeit expected) leap from what things used to be, not just for me or for Airtel (in different ways, of course), but for telecom in India as a whole. There's a whole lot of economics and marketing and strategy there, but I'll think aloud about that some other time. I just happen to be in a phase where the most mundane things bring back associations, and Airtel and 1 paisa are doing exactly that.

Back when I first got to Delhi, a local call cost 2 bucks a minute, and a single message set you back by a rupee. STD calls (I made a lot of those to my folks my first year, before I went devious and started missed-calling them for every little thing ;) cost 2.65. Roaming charges were nothing short of daylight robbery. So when Airtel came up with their one-rupee-a-day-rental one paisa per message scheme, it was a relief godsend. Rezzies are perpetually broke, so it helped tremendously to have to recharge with, say, 50 bucks a month, and text away to glory for everything from sharing notes on tutes to planning a surprise birthday party.

But I don't remember how much I saved from my allowance with that scheme (whose expiry all Resident Airtel users mourned for weeks). What I do remember, and will always cherish, is the friendships those SMSes helped build and cement. My closest friendships to date are ones that began with random PJ forwards, moving on to banter and longish, typed conversations and growing deeper with exchanges on lectures and life and everything in between. That is not to say that there weren't conversations in person or time spent together or the other things that go into the making of the most wonderful relationships. What 1p/message helped me discover in myself and my friends, though, was the beauty of thoughts, questions, misgivings and smiles articulated as, and as soon as, they occur, without the inhibition that being face-to-face can sometimes bring. And that kind of sharing builds stronger bonds.

And then there came along special rates and lower charges and reduced roaming and, over three years, we'd pretty much begun to take local and STD calling at one buck as the standard.

Till DoCoMo came along whistling. (Pretty interesting how TTSL's GSM service got its name...apparently, docomo is a Japanese compound word for 'everywhere', which suited NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest telecom company, just fine as an indication of its network quality. Also, 'docomo' is a portmanteau for 'do communications on the mobile network'...very Japanese English, but interesting nonetheless! :)

And suddenly, all the others were scrambling to provide 1p/sec calling to their subscribers.

For a brand that is new to India, bright and colourful and tiny DoCoMo exudes the endearing energy and confidence of a little child, and has created quite a stir.

And so I was thinking, as I walked past yet another Do the New hoarding this evening, that life has, indeed, come full circle here, too. Now, I can call people for a song if I choose to...but the people I want to call the most are too far away. There's less time, more worries, less candour, more uncertainty. I wonder what it would have been like to spend only a paise a second five years ago. I know what it is like now...but I wasn't looking for this answer :) Short of declaring outgoing calls free of charge (or actually paying subscribers to make calls or send text messages), there isn't much telecom companies can do now. They're on their way down to the bone here.

Maybe I should take a cue from DoCoMo and do the new instead of brooding so much over the past like I am wont to do sometimes. But before I put all this ruminating out of the way and get back to the mad merry-go-round...to all the friends I met, got to know and grew to love over those fifteen months and afterwards, I miss you.

This post is dedicated to 1-paisa-per-message friendships that have come to mean so, so much.

Memories in Melodies

Not that homesickness is confined to a particular season, but I end up missing home terribly at this time of the year. Among the countless things that bind me to where I will always belong, is music - old Hindi music and ghazals, in particular. Given that both my parents enjoy it immensely, and that music always had a place in the background when all of us were together when I was growing up, it is hardly surprising that I have an innate love of melody too. College and my time on my own added new genres and more variety to what I like...but there's nothing that can quite take the place of old Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohd. Rafi songs...or of the soulful ghazals by Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. I seem to have inherited my father's love of Gulzar's poetry, my mother's knack for remembering lyrics, and both my parents' flair for humming and singing softly as they go about their work. This evening, I suddenly found myself humming Katra Katra from Ijaazat, an old Hindi film. So I thought I'd share excerpts from some of my favourites :) Somehow, they end up saying a lot about life...happy songs! :)


Katra katra milti hai, katra katra jeene do
Zindagi hai, behne do,
Pyaasi hoon main pyaasi rehne do...
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Aane vaala pal jaane vaala hai
Ho sake to ismein zindagi bita do, pal jo yeh jaane vaala hai...
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Ae zindagi, galey laga le
Humne bhi tere har ek gham ko galey se lagaya hai, hai na?
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Diye jalte hain, phool khilte hain
Badi mushkil se magar duniya mein dost milte hain...
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Koi roko na deewaane ko
Mann machal raha kuch gaane ko...
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Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho
Kya gham hai jisko chhupa rahe ho...
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Tera mujhse hai pehle ka naata koi
Yunhi nahi dil lubhaata koi
Jaane tu, ya jaane na...
Maane tu, ya maane na...
[Yes, I know this one came back into the limelight recently :)]
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This one is from Marasim, an album that Gulzar and Jagjit Singh collaborated on. It released when I was in senior school, and I have very vivid memories of listening to the songs with Papa as he drove me to and from my Math tuitions (I am seriously mathematically challenged!). I would chatter nonstop, breaking off every now and then to ask him what a particularly difficult Urdu word appearing in the current song meant. He would explain the meaning if he knew it himself; otherwise, we sat and deconstructed the word and tried going into its etymology to arrive at its meaning. Pronunciation in Urdu is extremely nuanced, and my father insisted I pronounce words right, often having to say a word as many as eight times himself for me to get it straight! Now and then, I’d deliberately mispronounce a word, just to hear him say it again, perfectly and with endless patience.

Haath chhoote bhi to rishtey nahi chhoda karte
Waqt ki shaakh se lamhe nahi toda karte...

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I remember, in particular, these lines delivered by Gulzar himself at the end of the song. An exquisite metaphor wrapped in beautiful, simple, poignant poetry, addressed to a weaver and rendered in the voice of a much-admired poet:

Mujhko bhi tarqeeb sikha koi, yaar julaahe
Aksar dekha hai tujhko taana buuntey
Jab koi dhaaga toot gaya, ya khatam hua
Phir se baandh ke aur sira koi jod ke usmein
Aage buun-ney lagte ho.

Tumhare iss taane-baane mein lekin ek bhi gaanth-girah
Dhoondkar bhi dekh nahi sakta hai koi.

Maine toh ek baar buna tha ek hi rishta, lekin
Uski saari girrhein saaf nazar aati hain mere yaar julaahe…

Mujhko bhi tarqeeb sikha koi, yaar julaahe…

Translated, it reads:

Teach me your method, friend weaver.
Often have I seen you weave your threads together…
Every time a thread breaks, or runs out
You knot the loose end or tie it to another
And continue with your weaving.

Nobody can spot any of those knots in your weaving, though -
even if they tried.

The only thing I have ever woven is a relationship
But all its knots and loose ends are so clearly visible, my friend.

Teach me your method, friend weaver.

I could go on and on...but there is hardly any point in listing about a hundred and fifty songs :) Old music is something I frequently turn to when I miss home, but it has the dual, rather paradoxical effect of making me feel better and more homesick at the same time! Which are your favourite songs? :)

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P.S. This post is dedicated to Ma and Papa. Aren't parents the most wonderful people in the world? :)

Wistfulness

In all these years away from home, I have learnt to handle practically everything on my own. Everything - bad food, homesickness, illness without having someone to fuss over me, devastating grades, heartbreak, loneliness, bhang-induced highs on Holi, packing and unpacking - and practically moving house - twice a year, doing my own laundry (and learning, the hard way, that whites and pastels are best not bought), living on a budget, cooking my own meals, fretting over my decisions or patting myself on the back for them. It hasn't all been uphill, though...I've celebrated my proficiency at changing light bulbs, my confirmation after six endless months of probation, danced in joy over an assignment that fetched a 23.5 on 25, dealt with the impact of vague crushes, grinned like a maniac at my phone when Citibank sent me their first text, informing me that my salary had been credited to my account, felt superhuman after having negotiated three peak traffic hours to get home, revelled in the bliss of travelling alone and being officially incommunicado, been trusted with responsibilities and (heh heh :) secrets, and learnt how to tie a saree, not to mention some micro, macro and development economics, and human resource management, all by myself.

And you know what, it's tough to deal with a rough patch alone...but it's tougher still to have something to celebrate and have the people you most want to share it with, not around. I've managed both - all said and done - with decent aplomb. Oh, give and take a few inexplicable-to-the-world blue moods or hyper-excited happy dances.

But the one thing I'm still not used to is having to be away from home and family on festivals. In six years now, I haven't celebrated Holi, Diwali, the Pujas or New Year's Eve with them. And much as I am capable of handling everything else, this one thing still leaves me a little wistful. A phone call - or several - is not much of a substitute. That is not to say I haven't had some very memorable celebrations with friends in College and at work. I'd be supremely ungrateful if I said I didn't have fun and stow away some beautiful memories. Yeah, now that those friends are far away, too, the memories just get more intense and the festivals just a tad more lonesome :) I was brought up in the sort of family where Friday evenings and Sunday mornings and afternoons were earmarked for something special. Simple, but special. Holidays meant time with the extended family. Dinner time was for conversation and laughter...and festivals meant celebration. Small rituals - spring cleaning, food particular to the occasion, having the gulal or crackers ready, planning the drive around the colony - went into the making of beautiful Holis, Diwalis and Dussehras. And if something like that has been part of your life for as long as you can remember, it's part of who you are.

Which is why I still give my room an especially thorough cleaning before a festival. Also why I make it a point to go shopping for garlands, diyas and sweets, and then spend a couple of hours doing up my room. It's why I stand in the balcony and watch families celebrating, and thank my lucky stars for having had the chance to know what that kind of celebration is like. It is also why, in spite of the nostalgia and the homesickness, I know I will enjoy the festival and be happy and thankful, because that is what festivals are all about.

Diwali is around the corner, so it is time my room got that spring cleaning I was talking about. And there is something so eternally beautiful about a lit diya, it is hard to put into words. It's my favourite festival ritual - lighting diyas. So here's thanking all of you - family and friends - who have given me reasons to feel festive...and here's thanking you, God, for the aforementioned family and friends! Happy Diwali, everyone...and have a beautiful year ahead! :) :)

Nostalgia

L-7/3, the GAPD gang, GGN - I miss you.

April 2008 to June 2008 was probably the most beautiful eleven weeks of my life...I wish it would all come back, but it can't. And breezy summer evenings make it tougher to deal with that fact.

Wistfulness is all that remains. That, and some memories that mean the world.

Best left unnamed

I wonder, every now and then, if you knew all along,

I wonder if you felt the same;

if the laughter and the talking were part of something larger

or simply the culmination of a game

of hide and seek, or peekaboo,

or a tentative, hesitant enquiring

into reasons and effects, opinions and dreams...

taking apart of emotional wiring!

Sometimes I wonder if you had guessed

why things happened like they did.

If, like me, you sought silence

when you were contentedly amid

tens of faces, a multitude of voices,

looking, every minute, every hour

for something you didn't quite know how to name,

endearingly elusive, so far.

I wonder if there'll be a second time,

I wonder if it will be the same.

No.

Some things are best left untouched, untarnished;

some things are best left unnamed.

Let's talk

Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for truth.

Something that put the warmth back into a freezing January morning for me -

Teeth chattering, I found myself a seat on the train to Kashmere Gate. Wandering idly from the route map to an ad for cough syrup to the pane opposite - where I tried, for the hundredth time, to look for my reflection amid a myriad of blurred images - my gaze fell upon two passengers, right across the aisle from where I sat.

One was a tall, spare man, twenty five years old, thirty maybe. Tucking a pen into his lapel, he was drawing his beige jacket tightly about himself, pride written all over the gesture. Next to him sat an elderly gentleman with a turban and white whiskers, his head resting against the glass partition. Even as I sat there watching them, an animated conversation began.

"They kept asking me to hurry," the younger man was saying, proudly, "and I still managed to dress up! Look at this jacket! Let's have tea when we get there."

The older one smiled affectionately. "Tea can wait. Finish your paper first."

"But some tea would be nice! See how cold it is!" the younger man protested.

The turbaned gentleman pointed to his watch. "There's no time!'

"I'll drive us home!" the other was visibly excited.

His companion couldn't help another fatherly grin. "No, that's OK, I'll do the driving."

"I drive fast!!"

"No, I'll take care of the driving. Think about the paper. There will be lots to write."

The train stopped at Civil Lines. A neon-lit advertisement for a recent Bollywood release all but obscured the wall facing the duo.

"Look!" the younger one pointed eagerly, "This one? Shall we go for this one?"

"Write your paper first, let me drive you home, and you can go for as many movies as you please!"

The younger guy sat there, sulking. His companion patted his shoulder. Like magic, the smile was back.

"You will come with me, then? After the paper? Can I drive after the paper?"
"We'll see."

"Tea? Please? Five minutes for tea?"

The next station is Kashmere Gate. Change here for the Red Line. Doors will open on the right. Please mind the gap.

I cast the two a grateful glance and silently wished the younger guy luck with his paper, whatever it was. Cheerfulness, affection, patience, enthusiasm, understanding - things we could all do with a little more of - are independent of words, really.

This duo, for instance, seemed to be doing just fine with sign language.

Stepping back...and out.

This one's for people, places and things that I chose to walk away from because I loved them so much. I'm sure we can all think of someone or something - an ideal, an institution, a dream, a hope, anything - that we loved so much, it hurt.

It's strange, frightening and funny what that kind of passion can do to you. I have found myself alternately envying and feeling sorry for those who've never been what we casually refer to as "absolutely crazy" about something or someone. I envy them their equanimity, their peace of mind, and their (relatively) happy, uncomplicated lives. I'm still not sure if that's a disposition one is born with, or chooses to cultivate, or a bit of both. Whatever it is, it makes for a remarkably even, content existence. Loving so much that it hurts, on the other hand, can do just that - hurt.

Yet, as someone who belongs to the latter category, I wouldn't trade my madness for anything...and I doubt that there's anyone who would. Because it hurts alright, it is elusive and frustrating and maddening and beautiful and destructive and blinding and wonderful, it is everything and nothing - but, more often than not, it is all one has. It is all I have, at any rate. I ought not to be presumptuous, so I will speak for myself.

So there's this one idea, one dream that I've nurtured since I was ten. There's this one institution I believe very firmly in, there's another that I'd give anything to be a part of. There are people that matter like nobody else does. And while some of these I must necessarily wait to reach, there are others I have deliberately chosen to step back from - not in spite of how much I love them, but because I love them so much.

I'm still trying to figure out if I do this in an attempt to keep relationships, impressions and memories untarnished, or because I couldn't possibly love them more. Truth be told, I think it is the former. The pragmatic part of me cynically wants to know if I'm so insecure about what I love as to skirt any risk to its perfection. Were I to be defensive, I'd respond to that with a "Bull***t!". Years have passed since I recognised and acknowledged the attachment, however, so there's a reasonable amount of (what I hope is) maturity, too. And I know why I chose to walk away: Because I had to, and because I will come back one day, but must leave it be for now.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, not to me either :)

In a warped, roundabout way, it is logical, though. I can't hang around. Ergo, I must leave. That doesn't mean that the passion is any lesser. It just means that even when I have every opportunity to visit, to claim a place as my own, I won't. Not any more, if I can help it. Because I love it. It means that I may have been waiting forever for one more glimpse, one opportunity - but will pass it up when it comes my way. Why? Because, if I must leave in spite of how much and how truly I loved, then I must indeed leave - for now, at least. More often than not, though, one leaves because one loves, even when there isn't the slightest hope that there will be a second time. It hurts like hell...and while those who wonder aloud why you're walking away don't matter, they don't help matters either. They don't understand - you're the only person who'll ever know that there was nothing to do, but this.

And then there are the ideals or that one dream that one would die for. I've met people who live seemingly perfect, hassle-free lives. Nothing is a must, so everything is a bonus. That's one approach to life, like I mentioned earlier. I once had a roommate who didn't understand why I was crazy about a particular something. She told me to take it easy - that life would be a lot happier that way, and that I would spend fewer nights reading feverishly, and subject her to fewer mood swings. I tried - not that there was any point even in trying, I realised later :) - and then took to counting up to ten before saying anything, and reading in the living room instead of in ours. Thankfully, it helped :)

But the single-minded obsession refuses to go. Not that I want it to. It keeps me going. When I have nobody and nothing else to fall back on, it is the one thing I can still count on to give me a much-needed push in the right direction. When everything else fades away and I'm alone, I know there's one reason. That there will always be one reason. And there will always be the love that hurts.

Roommates!

"Are you asleep?"
"Uh huh."
"I'm hungry."
.
.
.
"I'm hungry."
"Gfndsmfdltmslp."
"What?"
"Go find yourself some food. I want to sleep."
"Aww...I wanted some Maggi."
"Good. We haven't any. Go look for some. You can borrow my saucepan."
"Do you think he'll reply to my email?"
"Who will?"
"Priya! Please!"
"How am I to know? Ask him."
"I can't. We've had a fight."
"Hmm."
"What time do you plan to wake up tomorrow?"
"Six. Six-thirty, at the latest. If you let me sleep, that is."
"Wake me up too, please. I have a paper I need to finish."
Silence.
"I said, wake me up."
"Right."
"Why doesn't he call me back?"
"Tell you what, give me his number. I'll talk to him and tell you why."
"You're doing nothing of the sort!"
" 'night, then."
"Can I switch the light on?"
"You won't if I ask you not to?"
"Did I tell you what D did today? She..."
"No!"
"But I can't sleep!"
"Well, I want to."
"Maybe I should begin that paper now."
"Good idea."
"Do you have anything I can eat?"
"Do you think I do?"
"Will you cook Maggi if I find some? Please, please! I hate standing out there in the cold."
"G, I'm not even hungry."
"You're mean."
"You're annoying."
"I'm not."
"Oh yes you are."
"I said I'm not."
"Of course you are."
"Well, I'm off to sleep. Good night."

Huh?? Good night?
And insomnia changes places.