Her diary

“I don’t remember the last time, I have felt so strangled. I have only now felt the feeling of my efforts getting failed. I, now know, what failure looks like. It is the time, when whatever people say seem to hurt me. The time, when, all that I had taken for granted, all my life, seems to come at a price. I feel disconnected, like the lone star. I thought I was high up, somewhere, until now. Discontentment, suffocation, hopelessness.

The greatest mistakes I have committed so far are two things.

1. Not setting up realizable targets 

2. Having held on to slippery things

I still don’t think I am going to change. When I think beyond this, I end up wasting my time thinking of what I would want to do with my life, when I would never know what I want the next minute. Sometimes, I wish I weren’t too much of a thinker.

I have always pushed myself to belong to the crowd, when I have always known I didn’t belong there. I wish I know how to make a fuss about someone who is just-not-your-type, or just get together and giggle about something that is not worth a penny. I wish I never went out by my own since school, so that there will always be someone who would be arranged to drop/pick me up. I wish I had been a fussy eater. I wish I had known the different levels of make-up to be put on.

That was all gibberish. Now, I honestly wish I didn’t blabber.

I never wanted anybody to move away from me for no specific reason. I never wanted to move away from anybody else. But, yes, to all those of you who did, a big thank you. You gave me life’s lessons in small cups. 

I only hope that there should be nobody else who is going through, what is happening with me.

P.s: To the one who said – “Efforts may fail, but don’t fail to make any efforts” – SCREW YOU.”

Note: I can redefine randomness every time.

 

 

A Layman’s Tribute

I am a very pathetic company when you take me to watch a movie. I don’t even know what screenplay is. I cry during movies. Get entertained, and come back. I have never read a movie review in my life. When people talk of re-recording, background score, editing, screenplay, it all probably means the same to me , as what floccinauccinihilipilification means to you. I am an ardent rajini fan. I love the out and out entertainment and masala that his movies offer. “Kanna, naa oru thadave sonna, nooru thadave sonna madhiri..” – I have watched like a hundred times.

But if I were to pick a movie, that has influenced me in more than one way, it’s unarguably – Anbe Sivam. I fell in love with that movie the first time I watched it. Even more, the second time. Kamal Hasan, epitomized perfection. How many ever more times, I watch it, the movie leaves the same impression that it did, the first time. Portraying an ideology that is against what is prevalent, and what has been fed since very young age to all of us, questioning audacious beliefs – only legends can create such stuff.  Well-defined characters, and a strong storyline. An impeccable movie.

Michael madhana kamarajani, and PANCHATHANTHIRAM – I have lost count of the number of times I have watched these two movies. Everytime I watch these movies, I invariably find a dialogue that I would have missed out the previous time. I used to listen to Michael Mad in my music player on the way to college. It could be someone else’s script even. It doesn’t matter. Kamal’s deliveries at the right time. Sensible humour from an established actor can only be seen in Kamal’s movies. And I have oodles of respect for him, just for this. People say, Mumbai express is brilliant too, but I haven’t got to watch it yet.

I still regret not watching Hey Ram. Somehow, I have never been able to see more than first ten minutes of that movie.

I read that today is Kamal Hasan’s birthday. Three cheers to the man, who has been a revolutionary. To the man, who has taken tamil cinema places. To the man, who raised the intelligence level of his audience. To the man, who looks more young with every passing day.

I am sure, he will be an inspiration to a lot of people, just like how he enabled me to question things that weren’t supposed to be, and got me more confused.

p.s: I am sure there are loads of other movies of kamal, that I have missed. Drop in the list, in the comments space.

‘

The other end of a cigarette

It started, the first time, when she had left me. I was 22, and just out of college. Desperately wanting her  back and not knowing what was to be done, I was craving for a way out. I distinctly remember disliking it the first time I held. The cigarette. Sitting on abandoned train tracks, climbing up the hillock to be the closest that I could get to the clouds, over the docks dipping my toes in the water, fantasizing a world where I was the hero, and her, the princess, all through, the cigar was my only companion.

As I sit by the window, I see Mimi playing in the ground. She got herself bruised day before, and she is running around like nothing really mattered. Mimi, my daughter. The only time when I felt proud, was when her tiny feet touched the earth. I wanted to quit then.

They say, time heals everything. All those who say so, make a fool out of us. I haven’t forgotten a thing. Not one. I wish I did though. I wish I had forgotten the first time I kissed her, Kiran. I wish I had forgotten the way I got embarrassed in front of her father. I wish I forgot the way she walked back, clad in a chic brown sari. I wish I forgot the way she turned around and gave me that last look. I wish I forgot seeing her yesterday with her son, and her husband.

I used to be an angry b*****d before. I used to get ruffled up for all possible reasons. But that day, that which put me to shame in front of her father, denounced me of my self-respect. I had to start somewhere, and the cigarette was an answer.

 Mimi is my, our daughter, the only daughter of my late wife Priya. Priya, the woman whom I didn’t bother about until she was alive. I used to be an addictive smoker, threw tauntrums, beat her, and she would still keep my plate of breakfast ready. She would act like nothing had happened, and considered it her duty since the day she was pronounced my wife. I lived three years, not happy, not too sad either. The time of my life, when I took everything for granted. For sure, Priya must have been through hell. I didn’t give her a reason to be happy. When Priya got pregnant, I was smoking about 20 a day, which was too much compared to any average standard. The doctor warned me enough, that it might affect the baby. And I had to give up. Ten months, I had decided, anything for mimi. Priya was happy. I was getting to live a life. I was being the responsible dad already, until, Mimi was born, and priya dead.

I feel less guilty now, because I had kept priya happy for at least a few months before she left me. I would have been dead of guilt if it hadn’t happened.

It was the whole cycle again, depression, and now, with a kid who didn’t have anyone else but me. I had held on to my career. But the cigarette pulled me back. It wasn’t easy to get away. It has been nine long years.

Now as I sit here, I am at the other end of the cigarette. The last one.

Some type of cancer, they say.

I wished I hadn’t had the first. I wished I knew there would be mimi then.

“Mimi”, I call out to her, as I see the clouds getting dark.

Sorry, I wasn’t perfect,

Lover, husband, father.

I so wanted to be.

 

 

June goes off in a Jiffy

This has been the fastest month of the year so far

Bankruptcy declared in the very first week, with a 20K shortfall (All thanks to my Singapore trip), and yet, the rest of the days sped by. June marked the completion of one successful year at work, for me and a lot of my friends. FB pages seemed to be so full of these statuses.

Met my college mates, and yearned to get back to coll and start afresh. I had met them all, after 8 odd months. College used to be so much fun, and all the related cliche’s put together.

All my gym efforts came to a stand-still because I wanted to get up and study. Eventually the study also stopped

It was an all new experience to see your boss getting worked up because of his boss, and his boss getting worked up because of his boss, and his-his boss getting screwed up because of his-his-his boss. If you can make sense out of it, you are terribly caught up in the corporate cult – Beware.

Paatti comes to India, and no matter what state you are in, her “Abi, innikku leave poda mudiyuma” (Can you take leave today?) statements every morning, worked wonders for me.

“Inner Peace” kept me going. I seem to not get enough of the movie.

Went for a night show without telling my mom with office colleagues. Am so hoping she doesn’t read this page of mine

I didn’t realize it was July 1 yesterday. I simply lost track of time.

Fruit shop opposite office and the Mango shakes.

Went to office on a sunday.

Made a lot of plans for trips, and even with nothing materializing, I am still planning. I need to travel.

Bought a big bar of dark chocolates, and got literally addicted to them for a week.

I continue to miss Nive.

More chocolates from Singapore, Peanut butter toasts, amma’s “Vatha Kozhambu” continued to make my days, the best.

Hope July gets to be totally nice to me.

The last time I did something for the first time.

I had got up by about 5:30 in the morning. The last few days, I haven’t been able to sleep properly. May be I am thinking too much about getting old these days. Last week, I seemed to be so obsessed with the “God, I so feel like a grown-up” feeling. I don’t really know. So, this morning, when I got up, I felt so compelled to read the “Unposted Letter”.

I opened a random page, and read “When was the last time you did something for the first time”.  The only thing I can think of, is something that I cannot be disclosing in an open forum, but still, that’s not something that belongs to the “I-am-so-proud-I-did-it” feeling. The other day I meet a junior in a centre, and I couldn’t ask anything beyond “How are you doing”, despite having conversations that lasted for hours when I was in college. Things have sped up so fast, and I seem to be thinking too much

I just wish I could take sometime off, and start doing something from the beginning all over again.

But it’s quite strange – how things seem to change all of a sudden, how people change so abrupt, how you regret something that you did after such careful planning, how days go by without leaving a trail, how memories fade, how photographs get lost, how your computer screen goes slytherin-greenish.. There was a woman who asked me what book I read last – and I go blank. Happiness is a choice, they say.

Sorry for boring you guys. Carry on with work.

Adieu.

Singapore so far..

I don’t really know, why I suddenly felt like writing. I was just randomly facebook’ing. Wanted to tell sid to come online for checking something. Wasn’t able to reach him, as twitter hangs up in this comp, for some mysterious reason. CSK loses, and there is a Mumbai match happening. Everyone here, is glued to the tv. Its 11 pm, and I have no idea why am typing all this despite a really tiring day at Santosa.

By the way, am going for universal studios tomorrow, and am super excited about it

So, this is what I wanted to write about. Random 15 things that come into my mind when I think of this vacation

1. In the very orderly line waiting for the taxi, I was the only ‘alpe’ one silently praying, that a mercedes comes for our turn, and rubbed my hands in glee when it actually did. 7$ and that’s all that it took for an amazing ride.

2. It is not just only you, the locals also window shop

3. The chineese here seem to be eating all the time. (Now, if “I” say this, it should really mean something)

4. There is no “thrill” here. The government takes too many precautions for everything. I mean, it really is nothing when you go in a roller coaster and be too sure nothing is going to happen to you anyway.

5. I got to see five star hotels for pet animals. It was the WTF moment.

6. I have got to know 37 tables by heart. Every dollar is valued at 37 rupees.

7. You can’t swear with any of the words relating to ‘hair’. Anything related to hair costs you 90$ on an average for women.

8. All beggars you see here happen to be magicians.

9. I haven’t still figured out how to differentiate between a good-looking chinkey guy, and a sappa guy. All of them seem to just look the same.

10. Despite the place being full of pubs, and people drinking all the time, you dont see anyone drunk on the road. (Atleast until 2:00 pm).

11. 90% of the people have an iphone/ipad, and they play that building blocks game ALL THE TIME.

12. This thing seems to be universal – I happened to like a guy in the dis that I went to, and 2 mins after the spark, next to him came his girlfriend.

13. If there be even a 10 cent change that the taxiwalas have to give you, THEY GIVE IT.

13.There aren’t terraces anywhere. Very difficult for the agragaaram maami’s to vathal kayavachify. (I actually dont know how to translate agragaaram maami, or the vathal to English).

14. I heard from my cousin here, that between a boy friend-girl friend, the bills get shared equally. So, to all my Indian guy friends, next only to a politician’s daughter, I think you should hit on a chinky girl.

15. It is a pain, to wait and cross, to not be able to tell the conductor, “anna change ille”.

p.s: Ara must have found it even difficult to not stare at the legs of all the women here, with me around.

p.p.s: Those were random 15. There are loaads of other things I wanted to write about- the midnight beach, the night safari, duck tour etc.

Until later.

1

Tlut tlut.. There was a leak, just outside the window of her bed room. It was half past one in the night, and the sound kept her awake. She was not used to sleeping alone. Now, she didn’t have a choice. Hari had gone on a tour to India. They had been married for two years now. He was the ideal husband, who never drunk or smoked, who didn’t give second glances at women, well educated and very well employed. No kids for three years, they had decided. It was, her choice.

The sound again. She had to sleep. It was an important meeting at work place the next day. She popped up 2 sleeping pills and came back to bed. The more she tried to sleep, the more awake she felt. It was June 24. It was his birthday – Arun’s. Someone whom she wanted to live her life with, someone with whom she went around the trees. They fell in love during their third year of engineering. He surprised her often, and most importantly, charmed her. She was crazily in love. She remembered the last time he hugged her, before he went to U.S for his masters.

She fell asleep. It continued to leak the whole night.

Life is like that

Once there was a pigeon, who flew all over, over and over to all her heart’s content. It must have been really been blessed to fly, or so I thought. She flew and flew, up above, round and round, until one day, the day she laid an egg in the small “tulsi maadam” of my house. She must have found the place really convenient both during the scorching heat or the occassional rains.

She was considered a pest by us for the fist two days. She used to just sit over the egg, all day, all night. She left me wondering what it was, to simply stay put in a place for days together.  The worst part, she used to scare us away to death, whenever we opened the door. Every elderly person, from my grand mom to the second aunt, gave us gyaan about the rage the mother pigeon has as soon as she lays an egg, and asked us to be really careful, or simply discard the egg.

It is inhuman to discard. To discard something, that is yet to open its eyes and see the world, and most importantly fly round and round, my mom and I found it ridiculous. We let it be there. Over the days however, we grew to be really fond of the pigeon. It did still cause difficulties while switching the washing machine on, or drying clothes or simply going to the balcony to take a phone call. I believe the pigeon also sensed we weren’t going to harm it, and sat comfortably without budging everytime we went out.

A week back, the egg hatched. It was a joyous occassion for all of us. Amma made calls from Trichy to singapore to tell everyone the news. The news of a new born at our place. For the next few days, the pigeon made my day. It indeed would be, when you wake up to see the mom and the kid cuddling up. The mom-pigeon’s movements completely curtailed. All its time was with the small one, protecting and pampering it. When I went to see it the other day, the pigeon looked at me, bent down, moved a bit, and touched the new one with its beak, almost telling me “look at him, isn’t he beautiful”. I went to sleep last night, thinking that the kid will fly the next day.

I found the baby pigeon, dead this morning. Dead, and in pieces. It was a horrific sight. Some evil crow had brutally killed it, and the mother pigeon is still sitting in the plant, not knowing what to do. It must be really painful for the mother. Is god that merciless? Or are things destined to be this way? Like how he created the pigeon, he created the crow as well right? I do not know. There were a few tear drops. I feel helpless. The only thing I tell to myself is – Life is like that.

Go Dada!!

Yay!! Sourav is going to be playing today. Despite wishing that he doesn’t get back after the amount of humiliation he had to go through, I suddenly feel super excited. It indeed is going to be great to see him batting on screen.

Adieu.

Of dogs, cats and cows.

I have just got to office, and soon enough, the wannabe writer in me has taken over

This morning, on the way to the gym I saw a rag-picker pampering two stray dogs, and it somehow made me feel good. If you have been fortunate enough to play the tommy cat application, in any of the high end mobile phones, the dogs reacted the same way the cat reacts when you slightly touch its belly. I was so in awe

My mom never let me own pets. No, not like I wanted to. But still, I have wondered lots of times what it will be like to own a pet, take it for long morning walks, (I always imagine a big black and brown bull dog), and see it sniff, stare at strangers, the look on their faces..) But am scared of dogs. I mean, I can’t imagine them licking my feet, that’s like ‘eww’ to me. But I still wonder what it is to be like to own a pet.

I want to pet brown cows. You know why? Because I want to wake up to the “moo-maaww” sound early in the morning.  Doesn’t that sound cute? I fancy grazing the cows also. No, I know you wouldn’t be interested. All the times my dad used to tell me, “ippdi padichaa nee maadu mekka thaan poganum” (If you study like this, you will have to graze buffalloes only), I so wish I knew it would be fun. More fun that what am doing, or what I will be doing in the future This is the gyaan to the next generation kids, to actually take it seriously.

I don’t really like goats much, nor hens. Goats because I hate their horns, and hens because I don’t like the conventional wake up tone. I could fancy rabbits, but I can’t run that fast. Lions, tigers, elephants are all scary. Squirrels, parrots and the sorts, a big no, because I can’t cage them. Cats – Grrr. So I think I will stick to cows, and give bull dogs a serious thought.

Until then,

Me